Israel and Hamas have agreed a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal following 15 months of war, mediators Qatar and the US say.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani said the agreement would come into effect on Sunday so long as it was approved by the Israeli cabinet.

US President Joe Biden said it would “halt the fighting in Gaza, surge much needed-humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, and reunite the hostages with their families”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the deal’s final details were still being worked on, but he thanked Biden for “promoting” it. Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya said it was the result of Palestinian “resilience”.

Many Palestinians and Israeli hostages’ families celebrated the news, but there was no let up in the war on the ground in Gaza.

The Hamas-run Civil Defence agency reported Israeli air strikes killed more than 20 people following the Qatari announcement. They included 12 people who were living in a residential block in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza City, it said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas – which is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US and others – in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 46,700 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. Most of the 2.3 million population has also been displaced, there is widespread destruction, and there are severe shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter due to a struggle to get aid to those in need.

Israel says 94 of the hostages are still being held by Hamas, of whom 34 are presumed dead. In addition, there are four Israelis who were abducted before the war, two of whom are dead.

• Follow live updates on Gaza ceasefire deal
• Watch: Qatar PM announces Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal
• What we know about the Gaza ceasefire deal

Qatar’s prime minister called for “calm” on both sides before the start of the first six-week phase of the ceasefire deal, which he said would see 33 hostages – including women, children and elderly people – exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Israeli forces will also withdraw to the east away from densely populated areas of Gaza, displaced Palestinians will be allowed to begin returning to their homes and hundreds of aid lorries will be allowed into the territory each day.

Negotiations for the second phase – which should see the remaining hostages released, a full Israeli troop withdrawal and a return to “sustainable calm” – will start on the 16th day.

The third and final stage will involve the reconstruction of Gaza – something which could take years – and the return of any remaining hostages’ bodies.

Sheikh Mohammed said there was “a clear mechanism to negotiate phase two and three”, with the agreements set to be published “in the next couple of days, once the details are finalised”.

He also said Qatar, the US and Egypt, which also helped broker the deal, would work together to ensure Israel and Hamas fulfilled their obligations.

“We hope that this will be the last page of the war, and we hope that all parties will commit to implementing all the terms of this agreement,” he added.

President Biden said the plan, which he first outlined eight months ago, was “the result not only of the extreme pressure Hamas has been under and the changed regional equation after a ceasefire in Lebanon and the weakening of Iran – but also of dogged and painstaking American diplomacy”.

“Even as we welcome this news, we remember all the families whose loved ones were killed in Hamas’s 7 October attack, and the many innocent people killed in the war that followed,” a statement added. “It is long past time for the fighting to end and the work of building peace and security to begin.”

At a later news conference, Biden also acknowledged the assistance of President-elect Donald Trump, who put pressure on both parties by demanding hostages be released before his inauguration on Monday.

“In these past few days, we’ve been speaking as one team,” he said, noting that most of the implementation of the deal would happen after he left office.

Trump was first to confirm reports the agreement had been reached, beating the White House and Qatar to a formal announcement.

In a later post on social media, he attempted to take the credit for the “epic” agreement, saying it “could have only happened as a result of our historic victory in November”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office thanked Trump “for his help in promoting the release of the hostages, and for helping Israel end the suffering of dozens of hostages and their families”.

“The prime minister made it clear that he is committed to returning all the hostages by any means necessary,” it said, before adding that he had also thanked Biden.

Later, the office said an official statement from Netanyahu would “be issued only after the completion of the final details of the agreement, which are being worked on at present”.

Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, said the deal would bring with it “deeply painful” moments and “present significant challenges”, but that it was “the right move”.

The agreement is expected to be approved by the Israeli cabinet, possibly as soon as Thursday morning, despite opposition from Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners.

Then the names of all the Palestinian prisoners due for release will be made public by the Israeli government, and the families of any victims will be given 48 hours to appeal. Some of the prisoners are serving life sentences after being convicted of murder and terrorism.

Hamas’s chief negotiator and acting Gaza chief, Khalil al-Hayya, said the agreement represented “a milestone in the conflict with the enemy, on the path to achieving our people’s goals of liberation and return”.

The group, he added, would now seek to “rebuild Gaza again, alleviate the pain, heal the wounds”.

But he also warned “we will not forget, and we will not forgive” the suffering inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza.

As news of the agreement emerged, pictures showed people cheering and waving Palestinian flags in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah and southern city of Khan Younis.

Sanabel, a 17-year-old girl living to the north in Gaza City, told BBC OS: “All of us are delighted.”

“We have been waiting for this for a long time,” she said. “Finally, I will put my head on my pillow without worrying… It is time to heal.”

Nawara al-Najjar, whose husband was among more than 70 people killed when Israeli forces launched an operation to rescue two hostages, said: “After the ceasefire I want to give my children the best life.”

“I want them to get over the fear we lived. My children are really scared. The terror has settled in their hearts.”

Sharone Lifschitz is a British-Israeli woman whose 84-year-old father Oded is among the remaining hostages. Her mother, Yocheved, was also abducted in the 7 October attack but was released after several weeks in captivity.

She told the BBC in London as news of the deal came through that it felt “like a bit of sanity”, but she admitted: “I know that the chances for my dad are very slim.”

“He’s an elderly man, but miracles do happen. My mum did come back, and one way or another, we will know. We will know if he’s still with us, if we can look after him.”

She warned: “There are more graves to come and traumatised people to come back, but we will look after them and make them see light again… May this be the start of something better.”

Moshe Lavi, the brother in-law of Omri Miran, a 47-year-old father-of-two young children, told the BBC that it was “a very mixed day for most families of hostages”.

“We want to see our families come home from their mass captivity. But we also understand that this is a phase deal. Only the first phase was agreed upon,” he said.

“We’ll have to keep fighting, keep advocating as families with all leaders with our own government to understand they have to release all the hostages.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the “priority now must be to ease the tremendous suffering caused by this conflict”.

A senior Palestinian official told the BBC that Hamas would release three female soldiers on the first day of the ceasefire. Mediators in Doha are trying an earlier start to the ceasefire, Thursday evening instead of Sunday.

Until the ceasefire does come into effect, the war that started when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023 goes on. At least 12 Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes on northern Gaza around the time the ceasefire was announced.

In what has been at times even an hourly ritual over the last 15 months, video has come out of northern Gaza showing their bodies being carried out of ambulances in sheets and laid out in a line outside a hospital.

The ceasefire is a considerable diplomatic achievement. It’s long overdue. Versions of the deal have been on the table since it was announced by US President Joe Biden in May last year. Hamas and Israel have blamed each other for the delays.

In Khan Younis in Gaza, journalists working for the BBC filmed Palestinians dancing and chanting as it became clear that the ceasefire had been agreed.

Israel does not allow international journalists to enter Gaza to report freely, so the BBC and other news organisations rely on valiant Palestinian journalists to gather news for us. Reporting of the last 15 months of war would have been impossible without them. Israel has killed more than 200 Palestinian journalists in Gaza.

Umm Muhammad, an elderly Palestinian woman, told one of our journalists she felt happy and relieved.

“The pain has disappeared a bit, though it’s still there. Hopefully it will be overcome by joy. Let our prisoners get freed and the injured get treated. People are exhausted.”

Apart from survival there is not much to celebrate for Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has killed almost 50,000 people at least. More than two million people have been forced out of their homes by Israeli military action.

Israel’s response to the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023 that killed around 1200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, has left Gaza in ruins. According to the Hamas run health ministry, Israeli attacks have killed almost 50,000 people, both combatants and civilians. A recent study in the Lancet medical journal says that might be a major underestimate.

In Tel Aviv, it was also a bittersweet moment for the families and supporters of Israeli hostages, living and dead. In the first phase of the ceasefire, 33 women, older men and the sick and wounded are due for release in the next six weeks in return for hundreds of Palestinian detainees and prisoners – but the future of the rest of the hostages depends on more negotiations.

Negotiations on the second phase of the agreement, to free the remaining Israeli hostages in return for imprisoned Palestinians and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza are due to start sixteen days into the agreement.

The first big challenge is making sure that the ceasefire holds. Senior western diplomats fear that after the first phase of 42 days the war could resume.

The Gaza war has had immense consequences across the Middle East. It did not, as many feared, lead to a general war in the region – the Biden Administration has claimed credit for that – but it has led to geostrategic upheaval.

Hamas is still able to fight but it is a shadow of what it was. Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister have been accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court. The International Court of Justice is investigating a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of genocide.

After Hezbollah in Lebanon intervened in the war, it was, eventually, crushed by an Israeli offensive. That was a factor that led to the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria. Iran and Israel exchanged direct attacks – weakening Iran. Its network of allies and proxies that Tehran called the Axis of Resistance has been crippled.

The Houthis in Yemen have halted much of the shipping between Europe and Asia that passes the Red Sea. Now reports say that they have announced their own ceasefire. Since they started attacking shipping early in the war they have said that only a ceasefire in Gaza would stop them.

With luck, political will and hard diplomatic effort the ceasefire will hold despite inevitable violations. With luck, it can stop the killing and get Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees and prisoners back to their families.

But after 15 months of war in Gaza, the conflict which has lasted more than a century is as bitter and intractable as ever.

The ceasefire doesn’t end the conflict. The consequences of so much destruction and death will be felt for a generation, at least.

“We have been waiting for this for a long time,” 17-year-old Sanabel says. “Finally, I will put my head on my pillow without worrying.”

She is one of millions of Palestinians across Gaza celebrating the ceasefire deal that the US and mediators Qatar say was agreed by Israel and Hamas on Wednesday after 15 months of war.

Part of the first phase of the deal, which takes effect on 19 January, will see Israeli forces pull back from populated areas of Gaza, allowing displaced Palestinians to return to their homes. Hundreds of aid lorries will also be allowed into the territory each day.

Those in Gaza have spoken of their joy and relief, but also their sadness and worry as they mourn killed loved ones, and begin rebuilding the territory after more than a year of devastation.

• Follow live updates on Gaza ceasefire deal
• What we know about the Gaza ceasefire deal

Speaking to the BBC World Service after news of the ceasefire, Sanabel, who is in Gaza City, said: “Finally! We got what we wished for! All of us are delighted now!”

She said her family planned to return home “in the middle of the night” in her father’s newly repaired car.

Both Qatar and the US confirmed the ceasefire and hostage release deal after negotiations progressed in recent weeks, prompting celebrations both in Gaza and from Israeli hostages’ families.

A Hamas official said earlier it had approved the draft agreement from mediators. The Israeli prime minister’s office said there were “several unresolved clauses” but hoped details could be finalised on Wednesday night.

The deal will come into effect on Sunday providing it is approved by the Israeli cabinet.

“I feel great, I have never been this happy before,” Dima Shurrab, 19, told the BBC in a WhatsApp message from Khan Younis. “I can’t believe what’s happening around me now. Am I dreaming?”

“We are happy in Gaza, but we are afraid. The fear will disappear when the agreement enters into force.”

Just two months ago, Shurrab ended a call with the words “pray we stay alive”.

Her family was living in a partially-destroyed home after evacuating multiple times. They survived on bread, nuts, peas, beans and some very expensive vegetables. She walked up to two kilometres to get water and lit wood fires because she had no cooking gas.

She had a scholarship to study medicine in Algeria, but the war broke out two days after she submitted her passport to get a visa. She could not afford to pay a broker around $5,000 (£4,088) to leave through Rafah – her only option until May, when that crossing closed.

“I felt that my future, my dreams were being blocked,” she said.

Now though, a ceasefire brings her ambition to become a doctor closer.

The first phase of the agreement, lasting six weeks, will also see 33 of the almost 100 hostages held by Hamas exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Negotiations for the second phase would start on the 16th day of the ceasefire. It should see the remaining hostages released, a full Israeli troop withdrawal and a “sustainable calm”.

The third and final stage would involve the reconstruction of Gaza, which could take years, and the return of any remaining hostages’ bodies.

Farida, a teacher displaced from the north of Gaza, said she has not seen her mother, father and brothers for more than a year.

Speaking from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, she told BBC Arabic’s Gaza lifeline: “We currently experience a state of anticipation, fear and anxiety.

“We are also going through feelings of eagerness… We are trying to breathe freedom which we have been denied.

“No matter how much I talk, I will not be able to describe the mixed feelings overwhelming me and the happiness I feel now for returning to the north.”

Reem, a mother who was also displaced from the north where she lost her home, told the programme: “Thank God we are finally living this moment that we have never expected.

“The feeling I am going through now swings between joy and sadness.”

Hashim Adel Abu Eiala, speaking in Khan Younis, told the BBC he was experiencing “the greatest feeling in the world”.

“We have been waiting for more than a year and three months in this suffering, death, destruction, killing and hunger.

“We have been patient and showed steadfastness no other people in the world or the Arab region showed before.”

He has been living in a tent for 15 months and will “kneel down to thank God” when he returns home, he said, adding: “We wish this joy ends well.”

The Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 46,700 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Most of the 2.3 million population has also been displaced, there is widespread destruction, and there are severe shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter due to a struggle to get aid to those in need.

“I need to invent a new word to describe it – when joy and worry meet,” says Efrat Machikawa.

Her uncle, Gadi Moses, was taken hostage by Hamas fighters from his home in southern Israel on 7 October 2023.

But there is now very real hope for his release, after Israel and Hamas agreed a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal.

Despite the deal, which should see all the hostages held by Hamas released, families remain cautious.

“Controlled optimism” are the words Ms Machikawa used to explain how she was feeling after hearing the news.

She described the negotiations as a “rollercoaster”.

“We hardly breathe,” she said, adding she had no idea when her uncle would be released.

“I believe Gadi will be fine. It will take time but he will be hugged so warmly and slowly. Together we shall overcome.”

In Tel Aviv, a square that has often been packed with protestors demanding the release of the hostages was empty soon after the ceasefire and hostage release deal was announced.

The agreement is expected to be approved by the Israeli cabinet, after which the ceasefire is expected to happen in three stages.

The first phase would last six weeks and see 33 hostages – including women, children and elderly people – exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Negotiations for the second phase – which should see the remaining hostages released, a full Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza and a return to “sustainable calm” – would start on the 16th day.

The third and final stage would involve the reconstruction of Gaza and the return of any remaining hostages’ bodies.

“We actually don’t know anything. It’s scary,” said Yosi Schnaider, cousin of hostage Shiri Bibas, who was abducted with her two children and husband.

“We don’t know if they’re on the list, if they’re going to come back in the first phase. If they are alive, if not,” he added.

Yehuda Cohen, father of Nimrod Cohen, an Israeli soldier who was abducted by Hamas, said: “I don’t have time for emotion.”

“I can be the father of Nimrod once Nimrod is back here,” he said.

“I haven’t talked to him for 15 months, seen him, heard him…I’m fighting to get back to be Nimrod’s father.”

According to BBC Verify, 94 of the 251 hostages taken on 7 October 2023 are still held in Gaza – 60 are assumed to be living and 34 dead.

Some 109 hostages have already been released through negotiations, either on humanitarian grounds or during a temporary ceasefire in November 2023.

Eight hostages have been rescued by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

The remains of 40 hostages have been recovered from Gaza by the IDF. This includes three hostages accidentally killed by the IDF on 15 December 2023.

Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas – which is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US and others – in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 46,700 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Most of the 2.3 million population has also been displaced, there is widespread destruction, and there are severe shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter due to a struggle to get aid to those in need.

Israel and Hamas have agreed a deal which could halt the war in Gaza and see the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, the US and mediators Qatar have said.

It would be the most dramatic breakthrough in 15 months of war, which began when the armed Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023.

Details of the deal reportedly approved by both sides have not yet been announced.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there were still several unresolved clauses, which he hoped would be finalised on Wednesday evening.

A completed deal would see the war in Gaza stop and an exchange of hostages and prisoners.

Hamas seized 251 hostages when it attacked Israel in October 2023. It is still holding 94 captive, although Israel believes that only 60 are still alive.

Israel is expected to release about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, some jailed for years, in return for the hostages.

• Why is there a war in Gaza?
• Follow live updates on this story

This ceasefire is expected to happen in three stages, once the deal is announced.

And while both sides are now said to have agreed to it, Israel’s security cabinet and government will need to approve the deal before it can be implemented.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani said the agreement would come into effect on Sunday should it be approved.

Here is what could be in the deal.

First stage

The first stage would last six weeks and see “a full and complete ceasefire”, US President Joe Biden said as he confirmed a deal had been reached on Wednesday.

“A number of hostages” held by Hamas, including women, the elderly and the sick, would be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, Biden said.

He did not specify how many hostages would be released during this first stage – but Qatar’s Al Thani told a news conference earlier in the evening that it would be 33.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer previously said most but not all of the 33 hostages expected to be exchanged, also including children, were thought to still be alive.

Three hostages would be released straight away, a Palestinian official previously told the BBC, with the rest of the exchange taking place over the six weeks.

During this stage, Israeli troops would pull out of “all” populated areas of Gaza, Biden said, while “the Palestinians [could] also return to their neighbourhoods in all the areas of Gaza”.

Almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have had to leave their homes because of Israeli evacuation orders, Israeli strikes and fighting on the ground.

There would also be a surge in humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza, with hundreds of lorries allowed in each day.

The Palestinian official previously said detailed negotiations for the second and third stages would begin on the 16th day of the ceasefire.

Biden said the ceasefire would persist “as long as the negotiations continue”.

Second stage

Stage two would be “a permanent end to the war,” according to Biden.

The remaining living hostages, including men, would be released in return for more Palestinian prisoners.

Of the 1,000 Palestinian prisoners Israel is thought to have agreed to release overall, about 190 are serving sentences of 15 years or more.

An Israeli official previously told the BBC that those convicted of murder would not be released into the occupied West Bank.

There would also be a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Third stage

The third and final stage would involve the reconstruction of Gaza – something which could take years – and the return of any remaining hostages’ bodies.

Getting to this point has taken months of painstaking indirect negotiations, not least because Israel and Hamas completely distrust each other.

Hamas wanted a complete end to the war before it would release the hostages, something which was unacceptable to Israel.

The ceasefire will in effect pause the war while its terms are carried out.

However, it is unclear whether it will mean the war is over for good.

One of Israel’s key war aims has been to destroy Hamas’s military and governing capabilities. Although Israel has severely damaged it, Hamas still has some capacity to operate and regroup.

It is also unclear which hostages are alive or dead or whether Hamas knows the whereabouts of all those who remain unaccounted for.

For its part, Hamas has demanded the release of some prisoners which Israel says it will not free. This is believed to include those who were involved in the 7 October attacks.

It is also not known whether Israel will agree to pull out of the buffer zone by a certain date, or whether its presence there will be open-ended.

Any ceasefire is likely to be fragile.

Ceasefires between Israel and Hamas which have halted previous wars have been shaken by skirmishes and eventually broken down.

The timetable and complexity of this ceasefire means even a small incident could turn into a major threat.

Hundreds of Hamas-led gunmen launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel, bursting through the border fence and targeting communities, police stations and army bases.

About 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 hostages were taken back to Gaza. Hamas also fired thousands of rockets into Israel.

Israel responded with a massive military campaign, first by air and then a ground invasion. Since then, Israel has attacked targets across Gaza by land, sea and air, while Hamas has attacked Israel with rockets.

Israel’s offensive has devastated Gaza and led to severe food shortages, with aid struggling to reach those most in need. More than 46,700 people – the majority of them civilians – have been killed by Israel’s attacks, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Tears, dismayed cries and shocked faces: that was the reaction among the supporters of South Korea’s suspended president Yoon Suk Yeol outside his home on hearing that he had been arrested.

It was a moment that had been in the making for weeks – ever since the last attempt to arrest Yoon on 3 January had failed after a dramatic standoff.

Yet, when the news of his arrest on came on Wednesday morning, it only seemed to create more uncertainty – and highlight the divide in a country that has already been deeply polarised by Yoon’s short-lived martial law order and impeachment by parliament.

“This country is in crisis,” said one pro-Yoon woman, tears streaming down her face. “I’ve been praying since last night for a stable and peaceful South Korea.”

It’s what both sides say they want but they cannot agree on how to get there.

For the past month, a defiant 64-year-old Yoon was holed up inside his presidential compound in central Seoul, as his supporters and detractors rallied outside. They had turned Yongsan in central Seoul into an epicentre of protest, with tensions often running high.

Hundreds of them had camped out overnight on Tuesday, as the arrest appeared imminent, in temperatures that plummeted to -8C. The only thing they shared was the food trucks keeping them warm with steaming drinks and instant noodles.

Yoon’s supporters jostled with the police officers – numbering 3,000 – who assembled to take him into custody. “Don’t call us stupid far-rights,” one protester shouted, reflecting the frustration in the Yoon camp.

A starkly different scene unfolded on the other side of the street. Opponents of Yoon, who had long called for his arrest, celebrated with chants and cheers.

Their jubilation only made the pro-Yoon camp angrier, with some yelling: “Don’t taunt us – this is not funny.”

The gulf is not restricted to this corner of Yongsan. It has loomed over the whole country for more than a month.

Yoon’s shock announcement of martial law on 3 December almost instantly divided public opinion into two camps.

While some believed his claims the country was under threat, a larger group viewed the move as an opportunistic abuse of power. This sentiment was reflected even within Yoon’s own party, as several of its lawmakers voted to impeach him.

The growing opposition to Yoon’s actions has cast a pall over the nation.

The year-end season in South Korea is usually vibrant. But this year has been noticeably different. The political turmoil – along with the devastating Jeju Air crash on 29 December – has created a subdued and sombre atmosphere.

Yoon himself had largely avoided the public since he was impeached by parliament in mid-December.

He never stepped out of his residence to meet his supporters. On New Year’s Day, he sent them a note, saying he was “closely watching [them] via a YouTube livestream”. He skipped the first hearing of his impeachment trial on 14 January, delaying the proceedings.

Before that he had refused to comply with multiple summonses as part of the criminal investigation on insurrection charges, which led to the arrest warrant.

On Wednesday, he released a video statement saying he would co-operate with the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO) to avoid “bloodshed”, while claiming their arrest warrant was not legally valid.

It was a massive operation, which followed a warning from the CIO that the presidential security team could also be arrested if they tried to block Yoon’s arrest again. Unlike last time, the CIO and police were successful in detaining Yoon, although it still took hours to negotiate.

Once he left the presidential compound, the streets surrounding it began to empty. Protesters dispersed and the police barricades were removed.

Some of Yoon’s supporters moved to the CIO office where he is being questioned. They need another warrant to detain him for more than 48 hours.

While Yoon’s arrest has concluded the security standoff, it has not ended the rift that exists well beyond it in South Korea, which in recent decades has emerged as a leading global economy and beacon of democracy in Asia.

“Arresting the country’s leader does not even make sense,” declared one protester outside the presidential compound.

An opposing voice countered: “Executing the arrest warrant is a necessary step – Yoon attempted to undermine the country’s democracy.”

Yoon himself continues to question whether the CIO has the right to arrest him – his lawyers say no, because insurrection is not a charge of corruption. But the CIO says that the insurrection is a form of abuse of power – a charge that is within their remit to investigate.

What may appear to be a legal debate has veered deep into political territory, with both sides seeking to control the narrative.

The swift impeachment of Yoon’s immediate successor – Prime Minister Han Duck-soo – has already led to allegations that impeachment is being used as a political tool against Yoon’s allies. And Yoon’s impeachment trial getting under way this week has created more uncertainty.

Public attention will be on what statements, if any, Yoon makes while he is detained or under trial.

The fear is that the whatever comes next for Yoon, the polarisation that has come to define South Korean politics is here to stay.

US President-elect Donald Trump will be consulted on the UK’s deal to hand over the Chagos Islands – where there is a joint US-UK military base – to Mauritius.

The UK announced in October it would cede sovereignty of the archipelago in the Indian Ocean, but maintain control of the base on the largest island Diego Garcia under a 99-year lease.

There had been efforts to get the treaty signed before Trump’s inauguration on Monday, the BBC understands, and the Mauritian cabinet was expected to approve the deal on Wednesday.

But “overnight the British position changed”, a Mauritius source close to the negotiations told the BBC.

The deal had already been greenlit by the Biden administration but the UK prime minister’s office on Wednesday said the incoming Trump government would now “consider” the deal.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said it was “perfectly reasonable for the US administration to consider the detail” of any agreement.

But shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel said the latest development was “complete humiliation” for the prime minister because Labour had been “desperate to sign off the surrender of the Chagos Islands before President Trump returns to office”.

In October, President Biden had previously praised the “historic agreement” which he said secured the future of a base which “plays a vital role in national, regional, and global security.”

It is unclear if Trump’s administration would have any objection. The incoming president has not publicly commented on the deal.

But the incoming US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said it poses a “serious threat”, arguing it gives the islands to a country aligned with China. Mauritius has a trade agreement with China.

Reform UK leader and Trump ally Nigel Farage said he believed the agreement would damage Sir Keir’s relations with the US president-elect.

“When the Americans realise that… Diego Garcia, their most important military base in the world, may effectively be rendered pretty useless, I think the special relationship will be fractured in a way that will not be mended during the course of this government,” he told the BBC.

But on Wednesday at Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir defended the deal, pointing out the negotiations had started under the last Tory government. He insisted the deal was the best way to safeguard the military base.

Reports had suggested Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam would sign off an agreement on Wednesday as he attended a cabinet meeting, but it was later announced his attorney general was travelling to London to continue talks.

The UK took control of the Chagos Islands, or British Indian Ocean Territory, from its then colony, Mauritius, in 1965 and went on to evict its population of more than 1,000 people to make way for the Diego Garcia base.

Mauritius, which won independence from the UK in 1968, has maintained that the islands are its own, and the UN’s highest court has ruled, in an advisory opinion, that the UK’s administration of the territory is “unlawful”.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the prime minister was “negotiating a secret deal to surrender British territory and taxpayers in this country will pay for the humiliation”.

Badenoch said there was “no way we should be giving up British territory in Chagos”, claiming Sir Keir was “rushing a deal which will be disastrous” and it would cost British taxpayers billions of pounds.

The cost of the proposed deal to the UK has not been officially announced.

In response to Badenoch, Sir Keir told PMQs the planned agreement would ensure the military base on Diego Garcia can continue operating effectively.

• What I found on the secretive tropical island they don’t want you to see
• Hundreds protest against Chagos Islands deal
• On secret military island, a mother strives to raise her children normally
• Chagossians criticise lack of say in UK deal to hand over islands

A deal over the Chagos Islands was first announced in October following years of negotiations.

But weeks later, after his election, Mr Ramgoolam said he had reservations about the draft treaty and asked for an independent review.

In a joint statement in October, Mauritius and the UK said the deal would “address wrongs of the past and demonstrate the commitment of both parties to support the welfare of Chagossians”.

The Chagos islanders – some in Mauritius and the Seychelles, but others living in Crawley in Sussex – do not speak with one voice on the fate of their homeland.

Some have criticised the deal, saying they were not consulted in the negotiations.

Under the proposed deal, Mauritius will be able to begin a programme of resettlement on the Chagos Islands, but not on Diego Garcia.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy has previously played down the criticism, saying it is a “very good deal” for “our national security” because it secured the legal basis of the Diego Garcia military base.

On Wednesday, diplomats said the decision to put the deal on hold until it was considered by the Trump administration made sense as the UK would not want its first engagement to be a row over islands deep in the Indian Ocean.

The Biden administration and US military and intelligence agencies had agreed to the original deal, accepting it put the legal status of the Diego Garcia on a more stable footing.

But there were still questions within the US system about how much the new agreement might open the way for China to establish a strategic foothold in the islands.

It is unclear how incoming president Trump will act, what advice he might get in office and whether he would have time to consider an issue seen as second-order compared to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Former Georgian Prime Minister and opposition party leader Giorgia Gakharia has been treated in hospital after he came under attack at a hotel, reportedly by members of the ruling Georgian Dream party.

Gakharia is said to have suffered a broken nose in the incident in Batumi on the Black Sea coast. His party said it was “politically motivated” and aimed at intimidating the opposition.

The southern Caucasus state has seen political turmoil and repeated attacks on opposition figures and protesters in the months since Georgia’s contested elections in late October.

Protests have taken place every night since Georgian Dream’s leaders announced a month later they were freezing the issue of opening talks on joining the European Union.

Hundreds of businesses took part in a three-hour strike on Wednesday on the 49th day of protests in a row.

Video of the incident late on Tuesday night in the Sheraton hotel lobby in Batumi was unclear, although Gakharia could be seen being forced to the floor by a group of men. Images showed him later with blood on his shirt.

Giorgia Gakharia posted on social media on Wednesday morning that “healthwise I’m doing fine”, but the doctor who treated him said he had fractured a bone in his nose and had concussion.

European Commission spokeswoman Anitta Hipper said the “reported involvement of Georgian Dream politicians in the brutal attack” was shocking, and there was no place for violence or impunity in any democracy.

However, Georgian Dream figures have accused Gakharia of initiating the clash himself. MP Levan Machavariani told reporters everything was clear from the footage, while Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze said the opposition’s agenda was based on lies and deceit.

An MP with Georgian Dream and other members of the party have been linked to the assault, which took place shortly after Zviad Koridze, a journalist and regional head of anti-corruption organisation Transparency International, also came under attack.

Koridze had been visiting Batumi to cover the trial of a leading media figure, Mzia Amaghlobeli, the founder of independent online outlets Netgazeti and Batumelebi.

She was ordered into pre-trial detention in the Black Sea coastal city on Tuesday two days after her arrest during a heated argument with a policeman in which she is accused of slapping the officer. A cameraman was also arrested.

The UK’s ambassador to Georgia, Gareth Ward, said developments in the political crisis in recent days had been “extremely worrying”. “Renewed violence against opposition politicians and arbitrary detention of journalists and protesters is unacceptable,” he said.

Gakharia is not the first opposition leader to face violence in recent weeks. Nika Gvaramia, who heads Coalition for Change, was knocked to the ground unconscious when he was detained in the capital, Tbilisi, last month.

Dozens of Georgian journalists and protesters have also been attacked and injured by pro-government thugs during the nightly protests.

Georgian Dream has been accused by the EU and US of democratic backsliding, and opposition groups accuse the party and its billionaire founder Bidzina Ivanishvili of pursuing Russia’s interests, while the vast majority of Georgians want to join the EU.

Giorgi Gakharia was formerly a leading member of Georgian Dream until 2021 serving as interior minister and then as prime minister, before setting up his own For Georgia opposition party.

In a statement, Georgia’s ombudsman Levan Ioseliani condemned the attacks on both Gakharia and Zviad Koridze. He called for an immediate response “so that attacks on politicians and journalists are not incited”.

Gakharia’s party was one of four opposition groups that secured seats in the October elections, but they all refused to take up their seats, accusing the ruling party of rigging the vote.

The European Parliament has called for a re-run of the election, describing it as neither free nor fair, and the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has accused the government of using repression against the opposition.

Winds that have fanned wildfires in the US city of Los Angeles are again expected to kick up on Wednesday – after a 25th death from the huge, week-long outbreak was confirmed.

Forecasters have again identified an area of “extreme fire danger”, emphasising the risk level in a region to the north-west of the city centre.

In some mountainous areas, it is possible for winds to reach speeds of 70mph (113km/h), which would be nearly hurricane-force if they are sustained.

The anticipated increase in speeds threatens to spread the remaining four blazes, which firefighters have made further progress in tackling during a few days of calmer conditions.

Wind speeds began a slow and steady climb on Wednesday morning in parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties. They are expected to peak during the day on Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

Compared with last week’s conditions, winds are “weaker but still strong”, the NWS cautions.

There are hopes of another drop over the subsequent days – but officials have highlighted the need for rain that would help fire crews in their battle.

“The anticipated winds combined with low humidities and low fuel moistures will keep the fire threat in the LA region critical,” Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said during a news conference on Tuesday.

Areas to the north-west of Los Angeles – including Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks – have been deemed to be particularly dangerous.

• ‘We sing to them’: LA stables turn Noah’s Ark for fire rescue animals
• What’s the latest on the fires, and how did they start?
• What we know about the fire victims

An improvement in conditions is forecast later on Thursday and into Friday, says BBC Weather forecaster Sarah Keith-Lucas.

But no rainfall is forecast for at least the next week – and the Santa Ana winds that have been blamed for stoking the blazes could again develop from Sunday.

The fire chief for the city of Pasadena echoed the need for precipitation.

There had been no “real rain in southern California” for more than 250 days, Chad Augustin told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

His firefighters would spent Wednesday on “standing guard ready to ensure that we hold our containment lines and we don’t burn up any more structures”, Mr Augustin added.

An extreme weather attribution study from climate scientists at ‘Climameter‘ has concluded that the Californian wildfires have been fuelled by meteorological conditions strengthened by human-induced climate change.

The study found that current conditions have been warmer, drier and windier compared with the past, in the areas affected by the fires.

• What’s the link between climate change and the fires?

• Maps and images reveal scale of wildfire devastation
• What are the Santa Ana winds fanning the fires?

The 25th death from the fires was confirmed by the LA County Medical Examiner’s Office. Thirteen other people remain missing.

Most of the victims have died in the Eaton Fire, which has burned more than 14,000 acres to the city’s north, but has now been 35% contained by firefighters.

Further west, the larger Palisades Fire has torched more than 23,000 acres, and is now at 18% containment. Two smaller fires also continue to burn.

Some of the victims of the Eaton Fire have now been allowed to return to their homes, although officials say they have no firm date for repopulation of the Palisades area, an upmarket area ravaged by the fire to which it lent its name.

Tens of thousands of people are therefore still under evacuation orders – where night-time curfews also apply – and thousands of homes have been destroyed in one of the costliest natural disasters in American history.

On Tuesday, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass described the scenes as “unimaginable”, vowing to exercise her executive powers to trigger rapid rebuilding efforts.

Setting out other measures to help locals, another official, the LA County supervisor, said an emergency proclamation would be issued to prevent alleged price-gouging by LA landlords amid the crisis.

Outgoing US President Joe Biden warned of a “dangerous” oligarchy taking shape in America, as he delivered his farewell address and brought a decades-long career in politics to an end.

“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that really threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedom,” he said on Wednesday.

Biden, 82, took aim at an ultra-wealthy “tech-industrial complex” which he said could wield unchecked power over Americans.

He also used his final televised speech from the White House to issue warnings about climate change and social media disinformation.

Speaking from the Oval Office where his family had gathered to watch, he touted his single-term administration’s record, referencing job creation, infrastructure spending, healthcare, leading the country out of the pandemic, and making the US a safer country.

He added, however, that “it will take time to feel the full impact of all we’ve done together, but the seeds are planted, and they’ll grow and they’ll bloom for decades to come”.

Biden wished Donald Trump’s incoming administration success, but then issued a series of pointed warnings, with the president stating “so much is at stake right now”.

On climate change, he said “powerful forces want to wield their unchecked influence to eliminate the steps we’ve taken to tackle the climate crisis to serve their own interests for power and profit”.

On misinformation, Biden warned that “Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power”.

He also took a swipe at social media companies such as Meta, which has recently announced it will get rid of independent fact checkers. “Social media is giving up on fact checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit,” Biden said.

And his attack on an ultra-wealthy “tech-industrial complex” was a veiled reference at Silicon Valley executives such as Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who is close to Trump and provided huge financial backing to his campaign.

Other tech bosses such as Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg have made efforts to improve relations with Trump ahead of his return to the White House.

Closing his speech, Biden called on Americans to “stand guard” of their country: “May you all be the keeper of the flame.”

His farewell address came on the same day he announced a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which he referenced in his opening remarks.

Biden said the negotiations had been some of the toughest of his career, and took credit for helping get the deal over the line.

The deal will see a ceasefire take effect on 19 January, a day before Trump is due to take office. The incoming president has also taken credit for the agreement, saying it was only possible because he won the election in November.

“Please come to my city!”

A familiar cry from music lovers all over the world hoping their favourite artists come to their hometown.

Fans in India, though, have often seen that plea fall on deaf ears.

Artists including Sabrina Carpenter, Gracie Abrams and Arctic Monkeys appear on the country’s weekly Spotify album chart, where Ed Sheeran’s ÷ (Divide) has spent 217 consecutive weeks.

Many world-famous musicians have tended to skip the country.

But that now appears to be changing.

Dua Lipa’s recent performance in Mumbai went viral and Coldplay will soon kick off their tour – nine years after their last visit to India.

Their dates include two shows in Ahmedabad where more than 100,000 people are expected to attend each night.

“To have that experience in our own country, it’s really cool to see that it’s happening more and more,” music fan and aspiring artist Anoushka Maskey tells BBC Newsbeat.

Demand for live music appears to be increasing in India, with ticketing platform BookMyShow reporting 18% growth in 2024.

Ed Sheeran is due to play his biggest-ever tour of the country, and artists including Shawn Mendes and Louis Tomlinson will appear at Lollapalooza festival in March.

Marketing professor Dr Sourindra Banerjee, from Leeds University Business School, says India’s 1.4 billion population – and their age – is a big draw for artists.

“You have a large portion of the world, of youth, living in India,” Dr Banerjee tells Newsbeat.

“So if I were in the music business that would be the place I would target, to reap the benefits of the demographic.”

According to the global market research company Statista, the value of the Indian music industry in 2021 was 19 billion rupees (£178 million).

By 2026, it is estimated to have grown to 37 billion rupees (£346 million).

Dr Banerjee says the rise of K-pop in India has shown Western artists the potential of the country for finding new fans.

“Major music labels have research teams who would have seen that someone else [can] take over a large market,” he says.

More broadly, he feels India’s growing wealth and links with the wider world makes it an important place for artists to get a foothold and “collaborate”.

“Not only to access the Indian market, but also access the large Indian [population] which lives outside the country.”

For local Indian artists, there is hope that big names could bring big opportunities for them.

Pop/folk singer Anoushka has been making music since 2020 and feels Western artists offer a chance for homegrown acts to find greater visibility.

She has experience herself after opening for Brit Award winner Ben Howard.

“That’s an opportunity that I never thought I would have within the country,” she says.

Independent singer-songwriter Anumita Nadesan says the chance to collaborate with bigger-artists “puts you on the map”.

“It’s very inspiring as well, because before when a mega artist came to India, we had to travel to another country to see their concerts.

“And you get to learn a lot as an artist by going to these concerts,” the Hindi artist says.

Pop artist Frizzell D’Souza, from Bangalore says seeing acts from abroad who started from humble beginnings can send a strong message to Indian audiences that homegrown talent can achieve global fame.

She describes Ed Sheeran as her “songwriting hero” and says his background of busking and playing in grassroots venues is relatable.

“It’s very reassuring to know that someone like him can actually do it,” says Frizzell.

“Even though he’s such a big superstar right now, he did start kind of at the same place that I did.”

Frizzell also sees an opportunity for cultural exchange, with western music figures being exposed to Indian sounds.

She points to rapper Hanumankind, who has charted globally with Big Dawgs and teamed up with A$AP Rocky.

“And that is proof that having international acts come to India is also helping Indian artists [globally] break through,” she says.

But, the artists point out some possible drawbacks to the influx of global stars coming to India.

The biggest risk Frizzell sees is around money – and audiences budgeting mainly for bigger artists.

“I hope I’m wrong about this, but maybe [they] would prefer the bigger international acts and not want to risk it on younger or upcoming acts.”

Anumita adds there is also a chance of artists overshadowing the attention smaller artists get.

“But then it also challenges smaller artists to maybe raise the bar.”

According to Peony Hirwani, music journalist at Rolling Stone India, the risk of being overshadowed is low as companies involved with events often ensure local artists are the main support acts.

She gives G-Eazy’s 2024 tour as an example, which had only Indian support artists – helping to boost their careers.

Instead, she tells Newsbeat, the focus should be on improving infrastructure to attract the biggest of names such as Taylor Swift and Beyonce – both of whom did not bring their tours to India.

Fans have often complained about facilities, concerts often held in sports stadiums used during India’s lengthy cricket season and not always available year-round.

“So we need more, bigger venues, and a better system in place for music,” Peony says.

Lollapalooza Festival takes place at a horse racing track in Mumbai – the only venue with enough space to safely host it.

“Even some of the [notable] stadiums we have right now… there definitely needs to be conversations about what everyone needs to make our infrastructure and venues better,” says Peony.

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.

Donald Trump’s nominee to be attorney general, Pam Bondi, said she would not use the US justice department to target people based on their politics during her confirmation hearing on Wednesday.

“There will never be an enemies list within the Department of Justice,” she told senators as she was repeatedly pressed on her loyalty to Trump. “I will not politicise that office.”

But Bondi, who would become the nation’s top law enforcement official if confirmed to the role by a Senate vote, did not directly rule out launching investigations into those the president-elect has clashed with.

“It would be irresponsible of me to make a commitment regarding anything,” she said when asked whether she would investigate Jack Smith, who led two criminal cases against Trump.

Trump repeatedly threatened to investigate and potentially prosecute his political enemies during the election campaign.

Bondi, who is likely to be confirmed as the 87th US attorney general given the Republican majority in the chamber, stressed throughout the hearing that she would remain independent.

But she echoed Trump’s view that federal prosecutions against him were political persecution, saying the department “had been weaponised for years and years and years”.

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican, said the department had become “infected with political decision-making” and said it has been “weaponised” under the Biden administration, particularly against Trump.

These descriptions were repeated by other Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Bondi agreed with their assessment.

Questions from Democratic senators, meanwhile, focused on whether Bondi would say no to the president-elect.

“The concern is that weaponisation of the justice department may well occur under your tenure,” Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse told Bondi. “We want to make sure that’s not the case, that you remain independent.”

They also focused a portion of their questioning on FBI director nominee Kash Patel who, if confirmed, would report to Bondi.

The FBI nominee has said he has an “enemies list” of people he will pursue if confirmed. Multiple senators asked Bondi about those comments, but she said she had not heard them and the justice department would not have such a list.

Bondi also told the committee that she would look at potential pardons of Capitol rioters on a “case by case basis” but added that she condemned “any violence on a law enforcement officer in this country”.

The attorney general serves as the head of the Department of Justice, which enforces federal laws. If confirmed to the role, Bondi would give legal advice and opinions to the president and heads of executive departments.

Her confirmation vote has not yet been scheduled, but is expected in the coming days.

On Wednesday, Senators also quizzed Marco Rubio who is expected to be confirmed as Trump’s secretary of state.

He warned that Washington must change course to avoid becoming more reliant on China and promised to overhaul US foreign policy to focus on American interests.

Yoon Suk Yeol has become South Korea’s first sitting president to be arrested after investigators scaled barricades and cut through barbed wire to take him into custody.

Yoon, 64, is being investigated on charges of insurrection for a failed martial law order on 3 December that plunged the country into turmoil.

He has also been impeached by parliament and suspended – but will only be removed from office if the Constitutional Court upholds the impeachment.

However, Yoon’s dramatic arrest on Wednesday brings to an end a weeks-long standoff between investigators and his presidential security team.

Investigators from the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) failed to arrest him on 3 January after being locked in a six-hour stand-off with his security detail.

But just before dawn on Wednesday, a much larger team of investigators and police arrived at his residence in central Seoul, armed with ladders to climb over buses blocking its entrance and bolt cutters to remove barbed wire.

Other officers in the arrest team, which numbered around 1,000, scaled walls and hiked up nearby trails to reach the presidential residence.

After several hours, authorities announced that Yoon had been arrested.

In a three-minute video released just before his arrest, the 64-year-old leader said he would co-operate with the investigators, while repeating previous claims that the warrant was not legally valid.

“I decided to appear before the CIO, even though it is an illegal investigation, in order to prevent any unsavoury bloodshed,” he said, adding that he witnessed officials “invade” his home’s security perimeter with fire equipment.

On Wednesday afternoon, investigators said Yoon had remained silent throughout questioning.

Yoon’s lawyers have said his arrest was “illegal” because the CIO, as an anti-corruption agency, has no power to investigate the insurrection allegations against Yoon. They also claim the warrant was issued by the wrong jurisdiction.

The same court later dismissed an injunction filed by President Yoon to invalidate the arrest warrant, which the authorities maintain is lawful.

The opposition Democratic Party’s floor leader, Park Chan-dae, said Wednesday’s arrest showed that “justice in South Korea is alive”.

This arrest “is the first step toward restoring constitutional order, democracy and the rule of law”, he said during a party meeting.

The country is currently being led by Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok as acting president. He was thrust into power after the first acting president, Han Duck-soo, was also impeached by parliament, where the opposition has a sizeable majority.

The clock has started ticking for investigators.

Under the current warrant, they can hold Yoon for up to 48 hours from the point of arrest, after which they need a new warrant to detain him while he continues to be investigated.

If that warrant is granted, they can detain him for up to 20 days before he is brought to trial. Without a new warrant, Yoon must be released.

Late on Wednesday, local media reported Yoon was questioned in the CIO’s office until 21:40 before being taken to Seoul Detention Centre, approximately 5km (3 miles) away in Uiwang, Gyeonggi Province.

Pro-Yoon supporters continued to protest against the arrest outside the CIO’s office.

They had gathered outside his house since before dawn on Wednesday, along with those opposing him.

The anti-Yoon crowd blasted out a “congratulations and celebrations” song when his arrest was announced, cheering and clapping at what they see as a success for law enforcement.

Yoon’s supporters, however, were dismayed. “We are very upset and angry. The rule of law has broken down,” one of them told the BBC.

Meanwhile, reports emerged that a man set himself on fire near the CIO’s office – although it is not known whether the incident is related to Yoon’s arrest.

The contrasting scenes between these two camps on Wednesday reflect deepening polarisation within the country, which has long been marked by stark divisions between conservatives and progressives.

The political saga has also pit two branches of executive power against each other: law enforcement officers armed with a legal arrest warrant and presidential security staff, who say they are duty bound to protect the suspended president.

As Yoon faces questioning over the charges, the nation remains gripped by uncertainty, with no clear resolution to the widening political divide.

South Korea has been gripped by political turmoil since Yoon’s stunning but short-lived martial law declaration on 3 December, which saw many MPs climb fences and break barricades to enter the National Assembly to vote down the order.

The president said he was protecting the country from “anti-state” forces that sympathised with North Korea, but it soon became clear that he was spurred by his own political troubles.

Yoon has been a lame duck president since the opposition won the general election last April by a landslide – his government has been reduced to vetoing bills proposed by the opposition.

An unprecedented few weeks followed, with parliament voting to impeach Yoon, his subsequent suspension and authorities launching a criminal investigation over the attempt.

Several of the country’s top leaders – including former defence minister Kim Yong-hyun, who reportedly suggested the martial law declaration – and Yoon’s political aides have since also resigned.

Tens of thousands of South Koreans have also braved freezing temperatures and taken to the streets in recent weeks, with some showing their support for Yoon and others calling for him to be removed from office.

All this while Yoon has remained holed up in his residence, refusing to comply with multiple summonses to appear for questioning, a defiant stance that led the authorities to arrest him.

Separately, the Constitutional Court has begun a trial to decide if he should be permanently removed from office, with observers saying it could deliver a ruling as early as February. Its next hearing is due to take place on Thursday.

A French woman who was conned out of €830,000 (£700,000; $850,000) by scammers posing as actor Brad Pitt has faced a huge wave of mockery, leading French broadcaster TF1 to withdraw a programme about her.

The primetime programme, which aired on Sunday, attracted national attention on interior designer Anne, 53, who thought she was in a relationship with Pitt for a year and a half.

She has since told a popular French YouTube show that she was not “crazy or a moron”: “I just got played, I admit it, and that’s why I came forward, because I am not the only one.”

A representative for Pitt told US outlet Entertainment Weekly that it was “awful that scammers take advantage of fans’ strong connection with celebrities” and that people shouldn’t respond to unsolicited online outreach “especially from actors who have no social media presence.”

Hundreds of social media users mocked Anne, who the programme said had lost her life’s savings and tried to take her own life three times since the scam came to light.

Netflix France put out a post on X advertising “four films with Brad Pitt (for real)”, while, in a now-deleted post, Toulouse FC said: “Hi Anne, Brad told us he would be at the stadium on Wednesday… and you?”

The club has since apologised for the post.

On Tuesday, TF1 said it had pulled the segment on Anne after her testimony had sparked “a wave of harassment” – although the programme can still be found online.

In the report, Anne said her ordeal began when she downloaded Instagram in February 2023, when she was still married to a wealthy entrepreneur.

She was immediately contacted by someone who said they were Pitt’s mother, Jane Etta, who told Anne her son “needed a woman just like her”.

Somebody purporting to be Pitt got in touch the next day, which set off alarm bells for Anne. “But as someone who isn’t very used to social media, I didn’t really know what was happening to me,” she said.

At one point, “Brad Pitt” said he tried to send her luxury gifts but that he was unable to pay customs on them as his bank accounts were frozen due to his divorce proceedings with actor Angelina Jolie, prompting Anne to transfer €9000 to the scammers.

“Like a fool, I paid… Every time I doubted him, he managed to dissipate my doubts,” she said.

The requests for money ramped up when the fake Pitt told Anne he needed cash to pay for kidney cancer treatment, sending her multiple AI-generated photos of Brad Pitt in a hospital bed. “I looked those photos up on the internet but couldn’t find them so I thought that meant he had taken those selfies just for me,” she said.

Meanwhile, Anne and her husband divorced, and she was awarded €775,000 – all of which went to the scammers.

“I told myself I was maybe saving a man’s life,” Anne said, who is in cancer remission herself.

Anne’s daughter, now 22, told TF1 she tried to “get her mother to see reason” for over a year but that her mother was too excited. “It hurt to see how naive she was being,” she said.

When images appeared in gossip magazines showing the real Brad Pitt with his new girlfriend Ines de Ramon, awakening suspicions in Anne, the scammers sent her an fake news report in which the AI-generated anchor talked about Pitt’s “exclusive relationship with one special individual… who goes by the name of Anne.”

The video comforted Anne for a short time, but when the real Brad Pitt and Ines de Ramon made their relationship official in June 2024, Anne decided to end things.

After scammers tried to get more money out of her under the guise of “Special FBI Agent John Smith,” Anne contacted the police. An investigation is now under way.

The TF1 programme said the events left Anne broke, and that she has tried to end her life three times.

“Why was I chosen to be hurt this way?,” a tearful Anne said. “These people deserve hell. We need to find those scammers, I beg you – please help me find them.”

But in the YouTube interview on Tuesday Anne hit back at TF1, saying it had left out details on her repeated doubts over whether she was talking to the real Brad Pitt, and added that anyone could’ve fallen for the scam if they were told “words that you never heard from your own husband.”

Anne said she was now living with a friend: “My whole life is a small room with some boxes. That’s all I have left.”

While many online users overwhelmingly mocked Anne, several took her side.

“I understand the comic effect but we’re talking about a woman in her 50s who got conned by deepfakes and AI which your parents and grandparents would be incapable to spot,” one popular post on X read.

An op-ed in newspaper Libération said Anne was a “whistleblower”: “Life today is paved with cybertraps… and AI progress will only worsen this scenario.”

Canadian political leaders say “nothing is off the table” when it comes to responding to potential 25% tariffs from the US, days before they could come into force.

But strains are showing in “Team Canada” when it comes to whether energy supply should be a tool in a possible tariff war with the US.

President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Monday, has threatened to immediately impose levies on Canadian goods in an effort to force the country to crack down on illegal immigration and drug smuggling into the US.

On Wednesday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met provincial and territorial premiers to discuss the country’s coordinated response.

“Nothing is off the table,” Trudeau said at a news conference with the premiers after the day-long meeting.

“What we’ve agreed on is we have to respond to the challenge we’re facing and that the burden is shared across the country.”

“We will stand up for Canada, we will protect Canadians,” he added.

The prime minister also said there would “absolutely” be support for sectors affected should the tariffs materialise.

Roughly 75% of Canadian exports go to the US, and economists say the levies would be devastating for the country.

Canada is preparing a number of counter measures should the Trump administration move forward either with a blanket 25% levy on all goods or with a more targeted approach.

Canadian legislators have been lobbying US counterparts in recent weeks in a bid to avoid the tariffs, including personal visits to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Ottawa also promised to implement C$1.3bn ($900m; £700m) in sweeping new security measures along the country’s nearly 9,000km-long (6,000 mile) border with the US to allay some of Trump’s concerns.

But there has been a growing worry that the tariffs – at least in some form – are inevitable.

Trump has long been a proponent of trade tariffs, calling them the “greatest thing ever invented”.

They are a central part of his economic vision. He sees them as a way of growing the US economy, protecting jobs and raising tax revenue.

Canadian officials argue they would undermine the US economy, increase inflation for American consumers – including raising prices at the petrol pump – and hamper investment.

They also warn tariffs could undermine national security, given Canada, a US ally, is a key source of energy and critical minerals.

• Would Donald Trump’s tariffs hurt US consumers?
• Canada’s oil patch rattled by Trump’s tariff threat
• Trump tariff threat puts a strain on Canada-Mexico ties

While there has been a push for a unified approach to the threat, cracks in the coalition were apparent on Wednesday.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith did not sign the joint statement released after the meeting, which she attended virtually.

On social media, she said the oil-rich province will not agree to export tariffs on energy or other products, or a ban on their exports.

“We will take whatever actions are needed to protect the livelihoods of Albertans from such destructive federal policies,” she said.

Trudeau and the premiers of Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland are among those open to either imposing counter tariffs on energy or cutting off energy exports to the US.

“I see energy as Canada’s queen in this game of chess,” said Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey prior to the meeting.

“We don’t need to expose our queen too early. The opposition does need to know the queen exists but they don’t need to know what we do with the queen.”

Around 40% of the crude that runs through US oil refineries is imported, and the vast majority of it comes from Canada.

It also supplies the US with natural gas and electricity.

“We’re all united in that we have to act in the robust way,” said Trudeau when asked about Smith’s response.

According to various analyses, Canada’s GDP could take a hit of between 1.8% and 3.38% and 2.6% to 5.6% if 25% blanket tariffs are imposed on Canadian goods, depending on how, and whether, Canada retaliates.

The US GDP would be pinched by between 0.9% to 1.6%, according to those reports.

Knowing the pain of responding is not proportional “means that we have to be smarter in how we [Canada] respond – and that’s tricky,” said Drew Fagan, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

“It’s hard to be strategic with an administration like this whose thinking is often a little bit more off the cuff.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has suggested up to 500,000 jobs could be lost in his province – which forms core part of the country’s auto sector – under the current proposed tariffs.

Alberta could see 50,000 jobs lost, according to financial forecasts.

The expected tariff fight comes as Canada is facing domestic political challenges.

Trudeau will step down as prime minister once his governing Liberal Party selects a new leader in March.

He said on Wednesday he would not run in the next election.

An election will be held this year in Canada, possibly as early as this spring.

Germany’s cabinet has decided to authorise the army to shoot down suspicious drones seen near military sites or other critical infrastructure.

A statement from Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said that, “especially since [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine, we have seen that drones are being used more and more frequently, which poses an increasing challenge for the police and their current technology”.

Russia is suspected of launching a “shadow war” against Western countries supporting Ukraine – a charge it denies.

This has included alleged attempts to blow up international airliners, attack infrastructure – or interfere with democratic elections.

“I can only confirm that Russia planned acts of air terror, not just against Poland but against airlines across the globe,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Wednesday.

He did not give any details, but his statement appeared to be confirmation of a New York Times report that US President Joe Biden had warned Putin over the alleged plans.

In November, Polish prosecutors said a series of parcel fires targeting courier companies in Europe were dry runs by groups aiming to sabotaging flights to the US and Canada.

Tusk was hosting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Warsaw, a day after Nato announced a new mission to increase the surveillance of ships in the Baltic Sea after critical undersea cables were damaged or severed last year.

Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

There have been several instances of unidentified drones flying over military bases recently.

At least 10 such drones had been seen flying above Manching Air Base near the city of Ingolstadt on Sunday evening, German police said.

Last month, there were sightings at Manching and nearby Neuburg an der Donau.

Drones were also spotted at the US air base at Ramstein and at an industrial zone near it in the North Sea.

In her statement, Interior Minister Faeser said “espionage or sabotage are regularly considered as a possible reason”.

Under the current rules, the German Army can only help police to force drones to move away or to land – but also to fire warning shots to make this happen.

Under the new proposals – which still need parliamentary approval – soldiers may shoot a drone down if they think that is the only way to deal with the danger it poses “against the lives of people or against a critical facility”.

In November, Polish prosecutors said that a series of parcel fires targeting courier companies in Poland, Germany and the UK were dry runs aimed at sabotaging flights to the US and Canada.

Western security officials believe that they were part of an orchestrated campaign by Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU.

Russia denies being behind acts of sabotage.

But it is suspected to have been behind other attacks on warehouses and railway networks in EU member states this year, including in Sweden and in the Czech Republic.

After 60 years, Match of the Day is abandoning its sole presenter format and taking on three people who will, in turn, host the show. It is a departure, but it is far from a new strategy in TV.

Match of the Day has, extraordinarily, had just five main presenters in its history – with Gary Lineker being in the hot seat for the past 26 years.

His replacements, who will take over the BBC One football highlights show next season, are all broadcasters rather than sports stars who have taken up broadcasting as a second career.

Lineker and, before him in the 70s and 80s, Jimmy Hill, were examples of former players who were comfortable taking the lead in the studio, but they were more an exception than a rule when it comes to hosting sports programmes.

• New Match of the Day presenters announced

There was speculation that footballer-turned-broadcaster Alex Scott would take over the show – but in the end, the names in the press release are all stalwarts of decades of live broadcasting.

The person who might be less familiar to the BBC TV audience is Kelly Cates. But the daughter of Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish has 26 years’ experience of live TV and radio on Sky and 5 Live. She knows football and she knows television.

Likewise, Gabby Logan has been presenting for 30 years. And Mark Chapman has 29 years under his belt and is already the face of Match of the Day 2 on Sundays.

By choosing three new hosts, the BBC is following a pattern in TV where a brand or format becomes less associated with a single name.

When Richard Osman decided to leave Pointless, six people were named as his replacements for the daily show (and another eight for the series after that).

Angus Deayton’s presenting role on Have I Got News For You became an ever-changing roster of weekly visitors to the presenting chair.

The One Show may have a core of four main presenters, but the list of people who have over the years done a stint on the green sofa is a long one.

Match of the Day has now been handed over to some very safe hands.

And based on their track records, none of them look likely to attract the sorts of headlines that Lineker has had in recent years.

There is good reason to be careful. At a time when TV ratings have been falling year after year, Match of the Day has been holding steady.

In an era when every Premier League match is televised somewhere and social media is awash with clips of goals as soon as they happen, there was always a question about whether anyone would still want to watch a highlights show.

However, over the past five years, Match of the Day’s audience of just under 3.5 million has remained almost unchanged. Over a season, the BBC says 33 million people will tune in at some time to one of the Match of the Day programmes.

The resilience of Match of the Day has not gone unnoticed, and with the current rights deal due to continue until the 2028/29 season, this is a brand the BBC hopes to grow.

There have been reports that the corporation will use the shake-up as an opportunity to use the MOTD name more widely on its online platforms.

Given that the BBC has struggled to compete in an era of rapidly escalating costs for sports rights, it dearly wants to hang on to an audience that may not consume at lot of the rest of the BBC’s output.

There is also a good reason the Premier League wants the highlights programme to succeed – about half of the league’s domestic TV audience see their football only on the BBC.

It is a shop window that helps keep top flight football central to the national conversation.

Conclave, a film about a gossipy and scheming group of cardinals who gather in Rome to elect a new Pope, leads this year’s Bafta film award nominations with 12 nods.

It is followed closely by Netflix’s Spanish-language musical Emilia Pérez, which tells the story of a Mexican cartel leader who leaves the world of crime to live a new life as a transgender woman.

The frontrunners in the Bafta acting categories include Cynthia Erivo and Demi Moore for lead actress and Adrien Brody and Timothee Chalamet for lead actor.

But Denzel Washington and Daniel Craig failed to make the shortlist for Gladiator II and Queer respectively.

Hugh Grant’s nomination in the lead actor category for horror film Heretic, and Saoirse Ronan as leading actress for The Outrun, are among some of the surprises.

Jamie Lee Curtis is nominated in the supporting actress category for The Last Showgirl, but the film’s main actress Pamela Anderson, who plays an ageing Las Vegas performer, missed out on a nomination.

The leading films in the Bafta nominations

12 nominations – Conclave

11 – Emilia Pérez

9 – The Brutalist

7 – Anora, Dune: Part Two and Wicked

6 – A Complete Unknown and Kneecap

5 – Nosferatu and The Substance

• Follow live reaction to the Bafta nominations
• See the full list of nominees
• How to watch the Bafta-nominated films

Another film tipped for success in the current awards season is Anora, which has seven Bafta nominations including best film.

It follows the whirlwind romance between a New York sex worker and the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch.

Mikey Madison is nominated as leading actress and is also up for the rising star award, which is voted for by the public.

Her co-star Yura Borisov is nominated for best supporting actor, and director Sean Baker has his first Bafta best director nomination.

Half of those nominated in the best director category are first-time nominees and also include The Brutalist’s Brady Corbet, who won the same award at the Golden Globes.

The film, about a Hungarian architect who is hired by a wealthy American after World War Two, has nine nods in total and is also tipped to be a big contender at the Oscars.

The Substance director Coralie Fargeat is another first-time directing nominee and is the only female nominated in the category.

Demi Moore is nominated for best actress for the film, weeks after winning at the Golden Globes – putting her in a strong position for the Oscars.

Conclave’s Edward Berger is also nominated for best director, and thanked the “wonderful crew” who helped the film earn 12 nominations.

He had found “a team of like-minded people who bond together to strive for the unattainable goal – perfection”, he said.

British actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s nomination in the same category for playing an irritable woman struggling with depression in Hard Truths has boosted momentum for her to receive an Oscar nomination.

The Bafta shortlist is often a strong indicator for the Oscars, and last year the winners of the top six categories matched perfectly at the two ceremonies.

Another Oscar-tipped film is A Complete Unknown, which follows Bob Dylan’s rise to fame in the 1960s.

It has six Bafta nominations including best film, with Timothee Chalamet and Edward Norton nominated in acting categories.

Kneepcap, which tells the story of an Irish-speaking hip-hop trio, has also received six nominations including outstanding British film and film not in the English language.

Blockbuster films have faired relatively well in the nominations, with Dune: Part Two and Wicked each receiving seven nods.

Gladiator II has three nominations – but none are in the acting categories, with Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal and Washington all missing out. Director Sir Ridley Scott was also overlooked.

Erivo and Wicked co-star Ariana Grande have their first Bafta nominations – but Wicked missed out on a nomination for best film.

Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña and Karla Sofía Gascón have all also received their first Bafta nominations, for Emilia Pérez.

For the first time, children’s and family films have their own dedicated category at the awards.

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl and The Wild Robot are nominated alongside the adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s Kensuke’s Kingdom, and Flow, about animals who must work together to survive following a flood.

The dialogue-free film was a surprise winner at the Golden Globes in the animated feature category.

The Bafta Film Awards, hosted by David Tennant, will take place on 16 February at London’s Royal Festival Hall.

Read more about this year’s nominated films:

• A Complete Unknown: Critics praise Chalamet’s portrayal of Bob Dylan
• A Real Pain: Succession star praised for emotional film role
• Anora: Mikey Madison praised for breakout role as New York stripper
• The Apprentice: Sebastian Stan says Trump ‘should be grateful’ for controversial film
• Conclave: Critics praise ‘skin-prickling suspense’
• Dune: Part Two: ‘Like no other blockbuster’, say impressed critics
• Emilia Pérez: Selena Gomez ‘shines’ in Oscar-tipped musical
• Gladiator II: Mescal was cast in Gladiator II after ’30-minute Zoom call’
• Hard Truths: Marianne Jean-Baptiste on Oscars buzz for playing ‘difficult’ woman
• Kneecap: West Belfast premiere for ‘fun and serious’ film
• Nosferatu: ‘We’re all considering death all the time’: Willem Dafoe on new vampire film
• The Substance: Demi Moore is over being perfect in new ‘risky and juicy’ horror role
• Wicked: Ariana Grande channelled her loss into Wicked role

Just before dawn on Wednesday, 3,000 police officers arrived at the heavily-fortified residence of South Korea’s suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol.

Their mission: to arrest him.

Investigators used ladders to scale over buses and bolt cutters to get through barbed wire as they broke through multiple blockades designed to stop them. Others hiked up nearby trails to reach the presidential residence.

Hours later, they took him into custody for questioning over an alleged act of insurrection.

This was their second attempt. Their first, which took place earlier this month, had seen some 150 officers face a six-hour deadlock with the president’s security detail.

They were helplessly outnumbered, first by the large number of pro-Yoon supporters who had gathered outside his residence to stop the police, and then by a human wall of security officers inside the property.

Eventually, investigators concluded that it was “practically impossible” to arrest him – and left.

Many now see Yoon as a disgraced leader – impeached and suspended from his presidential duties for trying to impose martial law, while he awaits the decision of the Constitutional Court, which can remove him from office.

So why has it been so difficult to arrest him?

It has been an unprecedented few weeks for South Korea since Yoon’s shocking yet short-lived martial law order on 3 December.

Lawmakers voted to impeach him, then came a criminal investigation and his refusal to appear for questioning, which was what sparked the arrest warrant.

One key roadblock for the arresting officers had been Yoon’s presidential security team, which on 3 January had formed a human wall and used vehicles to block the officers’ path.

Analysts said they could have acted out of loyalty to Yoon, pointing to the fact that Yoon himself had appointed several leaders of the Presidential Security Service (PSS).

“It may well be the case that Yoon has seeded the organisation with hardline loyalists in preparation for precisely this eventuality,” says US-based lawyer and Korea expert Christopher Jumin Lee.

It is unclear why they reportedly put up less resistance this time, though Mr Lee believes the team may have been partly deterred by the “overwhelming show of force by the police”.

“At the end of the day I think they were simply unwilling to engage in the sort of large-scale violence against law enforcement officers that a full-throated defence of Yoon would have demanded,” he said.

Earlier this week, the Corruption Investigation Office (CIO) had warned the PSS that they risked losing their pensions and their civil servant status for obstructing the arrest.

In contrast, it reassured those who “defy illegal orders” to block the arrest that they “will not face disadvantages”.

On Wednesday, Yonhap news agency reported that a number of PSS members were either on leave or had chosen to stay inside the residence.

The right-wing leader also has a strong support base. Some of Yoon’s supporters had earlier told the BBC that they were prepared to die to protect him and repeated unfounded allegations that Yoon himself has floated, including that the country had been infiltrated by pro-North Korea forces.

On 3 January, thousands of them, undeterred by freezing temperatures, had camped outside his home to stop the arrest team from moving in. They had cried with joy when they found out that the team had given up.

It was a similar story on Wednesday, with a large crowd of pro-Yoon supporters showing up and some aggressively confronting the police to stop the arrest.

On hearing that Yoon had been arrested, some of them cried.

But the organisation that has really come under the spotlight is the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, to give it its full name, which is jointly leading the investigation with the police.

There have been questions raised about how the CIO failed to arrest Yoon on its first try, with critics accusing it of being unprepared and lacking co-ordination.

The agency was created four years ago by the previous administration, in response to public anger over former president Park Geun-hye who was impeached, removed from office and later jailed over a corruption scandal.

This month’s failed attempt was a “further black eye” for the CIO, which already “does not have a great reputation, for both political and capability reasons”, says Mason Richey, an associate professor at Seoul’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.

The CIO may book today’s successful arrest as a win, but it remains to be seen how they will handle the investigation going forward, says Prof Richey.

“Many people do not trust their messaging about the investigation,” he adds.

“We’ve entered this mess after various organisations scrambled to spearhead the probe for their own gain,” says lawyer Lee Chang-min, a member of the activist organisation Lawyers for a Democratic Society.

“Even if the joint investigative body is retained, the case should be handed over to the police, which should assert its authority,” he adds.

The CIO has no power to bring charges and is expected to hand over the case to state prosecutors after its investigation.

Despite its name, the CIO has a wider remit than corruption. Its duties extend to investigating high-level officials more generally – for abuse of power. The CIO has argued that Yoon abused his power to conduct an insurrection.

But Yoon’s lawyers argue the CIO is an anti-corruption agency and its powers do not extend to investigating insurrections. They are reported to be considering filing an appeal in the Supreme Court to test this, according to Yonhap news agency.

South Korea is now in uncharted territory, with Yoon being the first sitting president to be arrested.

And the investigations into him have also “mobilised the far-right, populist elements” within the conservative coalition, who may “exert an outsize influence over” the country’s conservative politics going forward, Mr Lee says.

As light snow fell outside, worshippers gathered at Lincoln United Methodist Church in Chicago to pray and plan for what will happen when Donald Trump takes office next week, when the president-elect has promised to begin the largest expulsion of undocumented immigrants in US history.

“The 20th [of January] is going to be here before we know it,” Reverend Tanya Lozano-Washington told the congregation, after passing out steaming cups of Mexican hot chocolate and coffee to warm the crowd of about 60.

Located in Pilsen, a mostly Latino neighbourhood, the church has been a long-time hub for pro-immigration activists in the city’s large Hispanic community. But Sunday services are now English-only, since in-person Spanish-language services were cancelled.

The decision to move them online was made over fears that those gatherings might be targeted by anti-immigration activists or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The incoming president has said he will deport millions of illegal immigrants, threatened workplace raids, and reports suggest that he could do away with a longstanding policy that has made churches off-limits for ICE arrests.

According to one parishioner, American-born David Cruseno, “the threat is very real. It’s very alive”.

Cruseno said his mother entered the country illegally from Mexico but has been working and paying taxes in the US for 30 years.

“With the new administration coming in, it’s almost like a persecution,” he told the BBC. “I feel like we’re being singled out and targeted in a fashion that’s unjust, even though we co-operate [with] this country endlessly.”

• Are 300,000 migrant children missing in the US?
• Undocumented migrants hope Trump mass deportations only ‘for criminals’
• How would Trump’s promise of mass deportations of migrants work?

But across the country, over 1,400 miles (2,253km) to the south in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, another mostly immigrant community has a very different take on the impending inauguration – a sign of how Latino communities have become starkly divided on illegal immigration and Donald Trump’s approach to the US-Mexico border.

“Immigration is essential… but the right way,” said resident David Porras – a rancher, farmer and botanist.

“But with Trump, we’re going to do it correctly.”

The region is separated from Mexico only by the dark, shallow, narrow waters of the river and patches of dense vegetation and mesquite – locals say that the day-to-day realities of living on the border have increasingly opened their eyes to what many see as the dangers of illegal immigration.

“I’ve had families [of migrants] come knocking on my backdoor, asking for water, for shelter,” said Amanda Garcia, a resident of Starr County, where nearly 97% of residents identify as Latino, making it the most Latino county in the US outside of Puerto Rico.

“We had once incident where a young lady was by herself with two men, and you could tell she was tired – and being abused.”

Over dozens of interviews in two of the Rio Grande Valley’s constituent counties – Starr and neighbouring Hidalgo – residents described a litany of other border-related incidents, ranging from waking up to migrants on their property to witnessing busts of cartel stash houses used for drugs, or dangerous high-speed chases between authorities and smugglers.

Many in the overwhelmingly Latino part of Texas are themselves immigrants, or the children or grandchildren of immigrants. Once a reliable Democratic stronghold in otherwise “Red” Texas, Starr County swung in Trump’s favour in the 2024 election – the first time the county was won by Republicans in over 130 years.

Nationally, Trump garnered about 45% of the Latino vote – a mammoth 14 percentage-point bump compared to the 2020 election.

• ‘It’s simple, really’ – why Latinos flocked to Trump’s working-class coalition
• Here’s what to know about Donald Trump’s inauguration

The victory in Starr County, locals say, was in no small part due to Trump’s stance on the border.

“We live in a country of order and laws,” said Demesio Guerrero, a naturalized US citizen originally from Mexico who lives in the town of Hidalgo, across the international bridge from the cartel-plagued Mexican city of Reynosa.

“We have to be able [to say] who comes in and out,” added Mr Guerrero, speaking in Spanish just metres from a brown, tall metal barrier that represents the end of the US. “Otherwise, this country is lost.”

Like other Trump supporters in the Rio Grande Valley, Mr Guerrero said – repeatedly – that he “is not against immigration”.

“But they should do it the right way,” he said. “Like others have.”

Trump “is not anti-immigrant, or racist at all,” agreed Marisa Garcia, a resident of Rio Grande City in Starr County.

“We’re just tired of them [undocumented immigrants] coming and thinking they can do whatever they want on our property or land, and taking advantage of the system,” she added. “It’s not racist to say that things need to change, and we need to benefit from it also.”

Support for deportations is so strong that the Texas State Government offered Donald Trump 1,400-acres (567 hectares) of land just outside Rio Grande City to build detention facilities for undocumented migrants – a controversial move the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas described as “mass caging” that will “fuel civil rights violations”.

While the patch of land – nestled between a peaceful farm-to-market road and the Rio Grande – is currently quiet, officials in town believe it could ultimately be a boon for the area.

“If you look at it from a developmental way, it’s great for the economics of the city,” Rio Grande City manager Gilberto Millan told the BBC.

“It’s got some negative connotations to it, obviously, being a detention area,” he said. “You can see it that way, but obviously you need a place to house these people.”

The number of migrants coming in through Mexico has been trending sharply downwards – with last month’s crossings at the lowest they’ve been since January 2020

But the issue is still very much alive on the streets of cities like Chicago, far from the southern border.

It is one of several Democrat-run cities which have enacted so-called “sanctuary city” laws that limit local police co-operation with federal immigration authorities.

In response, since 2022, Republican governors in southern states like Texas and Florida have sent thousands of immigrants northward in buses and planes.

Tom Homan, who was chosen by Trump to lead border policy, told a gathering of Republicans in Chicago last month that the midwestern city would be “ground zero” for mass deportations.

“January 21st, you’re going to look for a lot of ICE agents in your city looking for criminals and gang members,” Homan said. “Count on it. It will happen.”

Many local politicians, including Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and the state’s governor, JB Pritzker, have continued to back sanctuary city laws, dubbed the “Welcoming City” ordinance here.

But the policy is not universally loved. In November, Trump made gains in many Latino neighbourhoods.

Recently, two Democratic Hispanic lawmakers attempted to change the ordinance and allow some co-operation by Chicago police with federal authorities. Their measure was blocked Wednesday by Johnson and his progressive allies.

For now, the worshipers at Lincoln United Methodist are making plans and watching carefully as they see how Trump’s plans play out.

“I’m scared, but I can’t imagine what people without papers are feeling,” said D Camacho, a 21-year-old legal immigrant from Mexico who was among the congregation at the church on Sunday.

Mexican consular officials in Chicago and elsewhere in the US have also said they are working on a mobile app that will allow Mexican migrants to warn relatives and consular officials if they are being detained and could be deported.

Officials in Mexico have described the system as a “panic button”.

Organisers at Lincoln United are also reaching out to legal experts, advising locals on how to take care of their finances or arrange childcare in case of deportation and helping to create identification cards with details of an immigrant’s family members and other information in English.

And several second-generation immigrants here said they were working to improve their Spanish, in order to be able to pass along legal information or translate for migrants being interviewed by authorities.

“If someone with five children gets taken, who will take the children in? Will they go to social services? Will the family be divided?” said Rev Emma Lozano – Reverend Tanya Lozano-Washington’s mother and a long-time community activist and church elder.

“Those are the kinds of questions people have,” she said. “‘How can we defend our families – what is the plan?'”

The area in Gaza which Israel’s military has told people to go to “for their safety” has been hit by 97 strikes since May, BBC Verify analysis has revealed.

The findings come as negotiations for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas appear to be nearing a breakthrough. Mediators in Qatar say talks are in their final stages, raising hopes that an agreement could be reached soon.

The “humanitarian zone” was first established by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in October 2023 to protect civilians and keep them out of harms way.

On 6 May 2024, the IDF significantly expanded the zone to include the cities of Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.

The area – much of which is a strip of land along the Mediterranean sea – is densely populated and is estimated to have over a million people living there according to international humanitarian organisations. Many people are living in tents, with limited infrastructure and limited access to aid.

Local media reports indicate more than 550 people have been killed in the 97 strikes mapped by BBC Verify.

In a statement to BBC Verify, the IDF said it was targeting Hamas fighters operating in the “humanitarian zone” and accused the group of violating international law while “exploiting” civilians as human shields and launching rockets from the area.

Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s 7 October 2023 attack, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

The conflict has caused widespread damage to infrastructure across Gaza, with satellite images showing areas flattened by Israeli strikes. The Hamas-run health ministry also says more than 46,600 people have been killed within the enclave since the start of the war.

BBC Verify analysis suggests that attacks within the “humanitarian zone” have intensified since May 2024, with at least 22 strikes already recorded so far this month.

We also cannot confirm that all incidents are the result of IDF attacks. Locations of strikes documented by BBC Verify were provided to the IDF but they did not confirm or deny their involvement. Israeli military officials have only publicly acknowledged 28 attacks since 6 May.

Israel historically has not publicly acknowledged every strike it has carried out in Gaza.

Gavin Kelleher, an access manager in Gaza for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said there were “near daily” strikes within the zone, including from Israeli ships and quadcopters, or small drones.

He added that “heavy fire is recurrent in this area despite its [Israel’s] unilateral ‘humanitarian’ designation.”

“The Israeli military appears keen to maintain the illusion of a Humanitarian Zone that remains a certain size, yet that zone can be subject to ‘evacuation orders’ at any time and be targeted,” Mr Kelleher said.

One resident who lives within the zone, Khaled Abdel Rahman, told the BBC that residents were being subjected to daily bombardments, frequently resulting in injuries and casualties.

“We were displaced to Khan Younis because it was designated as a safe zone, but in fact we find nothing here but insecurity,” Mr Rahman said. “We have been denied the true sense of security, with fear dominating our lives.”

As Israel does not allow foreign reporters access to Gaza – apart from highly controlled, escorted trips with its military – international media, including the BBC, is reliant on imagery gathered by Palestinian journalists and Gaza residents.

To track attacks within the IDF’s “humanitarian area”, BBC Verify monitored Palestinian social media channels and official IDF channels on Instagram, Telegram and X. Reports of strikes that included verified imagery from within the boundaries of the zone were then cross-referenced with local media reports to determine a reported death toll.

It’s important to note that death tolls cannot be verified based solely on videos and social media reports. BBC Verify analysis excluded reports of fatalities where there wasn’t verifiable imagery which confirmed the incident happened within the IDF-defined boundaries of the “humanitarian area”.

BBC Verify reviewed more than 300 videos and photos posted since May in the “humanitarian zone”. While it is not always possible to distinguish between fighters and civilians, the footage shows scores of people, including women and children, being pulled from rubble. Some appeared lifeless, while others were severely burned or had significant limb injuries, alongside collapsed buildings, destroyed tents and burnt-out cars.

Seven of the documented strikes are reported to have killed 20 or more people each, with the most deadly on 13 July resulting in more than 90 deaths, according to the Gaza health ministry, first responders and medics.

The IDF later said Hamas military chief, Mohammed Deif, was among the dead. Deif is accused of being one of the figures responsible for planning the 7 October attacks.

Nine strikes occurred within 100m of buildings belonging to Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, and four within 150m of the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis.

The IDF told BBC Verify the strikes were conducted “against terrorists and terror infrastructures including rocket launchers, weapons warehouse and manufacturing sites, operational apartments, underground infrastructure, operational headquarters, and terrorists hideout.”

They also included links to six of their previously published statements about Hamas fighters operating in the “humanitarian zone”.

Residents in the zone also live under constant uncertainty. Including evacuation notices, the boundary of the “humanitarian area” has changed 20 times – and it has varied in size from around 7 km sq (2.7 sq miles) when it was first introduced to 72 km sq (27.8 sq miles) at its largest.

The IDF said evacuation notices “do not constitute as a reduction of the humanitarian zone. Once the danger has passed, the residents return”. But it’s unclear how residents know it’s safe to return, and the IDF has only twice posted to social media to explicitly say so. BBC Verify did not include strikes inside areas where evacuation notices were issued in our tally.

While Israel’s military has avoided using the term “safe zone”, its statements have led civilians to interpret the “humanitarian zone” as such. IDF evacuation notices include language that tells civilians – like this one which was issued in mid-December – “for your own safety, move immediately west to the humanitarian area”.

It has also described the zone as being “designated for humanitarian aid and shelters as part of the IDF’s consistent efforts to protect the uninvolved population.”

But the UN and international humanitarian organisations operating in Gaza have said there’s no such thing as a “safe zone” that is unilaterally enforced.

Juliette Touma of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, said: “We have said it so so many times. There is no safe zone in Gaza. No place is safe. No-one is safe. No place is spared.”

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

TikTok users in the US are migrating to a Chinese app called RedNote with the threat of a ban just days away.

The move by users who call themselves “TikTok refugees” has made RedNote the most downloaded app on Apple’s US App Store on Monday.

RedNote is a TikTok competitor popular with young people in China, Taiwan and other Mandarin-speaking populations.

It has about 300 million monthly users and looks like a combination of TikTok and Instagram. It allows users, mostly young urban women, to exchange lifestyle tips from dating to fashion.

Supreme Court justices are due to rule on a law that set a 19 January deadline for TikTok to either sell its US operations or face a ban in the country.

TikTok has repeatedly said that it will not sell its US business and its lawyers have warned that a ban will violate free speech protections for the platform’s 170 million users in the US.

Meanwhile, RedNote has welcomed its new users with open arms. There are 63,000 posts on the topic “TikTok refugee”, where new users are taught how to navigate the app and how to use basic Chinese phrases.

“To our Chinese hosts, thanks for having us – sorry in advance for the chaos,” a new US user wrote.

But like TikTok, there have also been reports of censorship on RedNote when it comes to criticism of the Chinese government.

In Taiwan, public officials are restricted from using RedNote due to alleged security risks of Chinese software.

As more US users joined RedNote, some Chinese users have also jokingly referred to themselves as “Chinese spies”, a reference to US officials’ concerns that TikTok could be used by China as a tool for spying and political manipulation.

RedNote’s Chinese name, Xiaohongshu, translates to Little Red Book, but the app says it is not a reference to Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong’s book of quotations with the same name.

But security concerns have not deterred users from flocking to RedNote.

Sarah Fotheringham, a 37-year-old school canteen worker in Utah, says the move to RedNote is a way to “snub” the government.

“I’m just a simple person living a simple life,” Ms Fotheringham told the BBC in a RedNote message.

“I don’t have anything that China doesn’t, and if they want my data that bad they can have it.”

Marcus Robinson, a fashion designer in Virginia, said he created his RedNote account over the weekend to share his clothing brand and “be ahead of the curve”.

Mr Robinson told the BBC he was was only “slightly hesitant” about accepting the terms and conditions of using the app, which were written in Mandarin.

“I wasn’t able to actually read them so that was a little concerning to me,” he said, “but I took my chance.”

While a ban will not make TikTok disappear immediately, it will require app stores to stop offering it – which could kill it over time.

But even if TikTok dodges a ban, it may prove helpless against users moving to alternative platforms.

Some social media users tell the BBC that they find themselves scrolling on RedNote more than TikTok.

“Even if TikTok does stay I will continue to use my platform I’ve created on RedNote,” Tennessee tech worker Sydney Crawley told the BBC.

Ms Crawley said she got over 6,000 followers within 24 hours of creating her RedNote account.

“I will continue to try to build a following there and see what new connections, friendships, or opportunities it brings me.”

Ms Fotheringham, the canteen worker, said RedNote “opened my world up to China and its people”.

“I am now able to see things I never would have seen,” she said. “Regular Chinese people, finding out about their culture, life, school, everything, it has been so much fun.”

The community so far has been “super welcoming”, said Mr Robinson, the designer.

“I love RedNote so far … I just need to learn how to speak Mandarin!”

Gabriel Hoces repeats a word seven times when he discusses what it’s like to work in Denmark – “trust”.

“No one is trying to micromanage you, or look over your shoulder,” says Mr Hoces, who works for a tech firm in Copenhagen. “Bosses aren’t coming in to check if you put in eight or nine hours a day, as they mainly only care if you completed your projects.

“There’s a lot of trust in Denmark in that way, and I don’t feel a hierarchy at my job. It’s all very democratic.”

It is no surprise to Mr Hoces, a married father of two young daughters, that Denmark is consistently among the top-five countries in the world for work-life balance rankings.

Only 1.1% of Danes have to work 50 or more hours a week, according to the most recent global figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). That’s a significantly lower proportion than the world average of 10.2%.

By contrast, the figure for the UK is 10.8% and the US is 10.4%.

Meik Wiking, author of the book The Art of Danish Living, has long regarded his home country as a shining example of what other countries should aspire to mimic with their workplace policies.

“Danes are actually happy at work,” he tells the BBC. “Almost 60% of Danes say they would continue to work if they won the lottery and became financially independent.”

Mr Wiking, who is also the boss of Danish think tank The Happiness Research Institute, shares several policies that help generate a strong work-life balance in Denmark.

These include the right to a minimum five weeks of paid vacation per year, in addition to public holidays. In the UK most workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid leave, but in the US it can be as low as just 11 days.

Denmark also offers a very generous six months of paid maternity and paternity leave. In the UK the father, or non-birthing partner, typically gets one to two weeks of paid leave.

In the US there is only a federal guarantee of unpaid parental leave, although some states, such as California, now offer paid time away from work after the birth of a child.

Mr Wiking is another Dane who cites the concept of bosses trusting their employees to do the right thing. He uses the example of staff at the Tivoli Gardens amusement park in Copenhagen, where they follow the three-metre rule.

The idea is that you are CEO of everything within a radius of three metres. “If you see garbage within your three-metre radius you pick it up, and if you see a guest looking for something, you stop and ask them if you can help,” says Mr Wiking.

He adds that when staff take ownership of their own space it can help them feel empowered and appreciated, which goes a long way to contributing to a healthy sentiment about their workplace.

Janine Leschke, a professor in the department of management, society and communication at the Copenhagen Business School, says Denmark is definitely “not a work culture where you have to show up and be available all day, all evening, to show that you’re working hard all the time”.

Instead, she says flexibility during the workday gives employees the time they need to, say, pick up their children from school or day care. “The day doesn’t have to officially end at five or six, and that’s appealing to a lot of Danes with kids.”

Mr Hoces has noticed how some employers in the US may expect their staff to be available over weekends, to answer the odd email or message. That kind of overtime doesn’t fit with his outlook on a positive work-life balance.

“If I was expected to take calls on the weekend, that would be a huge red flag to me, and I would likely change jobs,” he says. “But so far that hasn’t happened to me or anyone I know.”

Casper Rouchmann, a Copenhagen-based CEO and founder of tech firm SparkForce, says his relaxed leadership policy would be familiar to most Danes. “You don’t need to ask me to leave early,” he says. “No one takes advantage of my kindness.”

Mr Rouchmann adds that the element of trust is so ingrained in Danish culture, visitors to Denmark are often aghast at how far it can go. He also highlights Denmark’s generous welfare state, and the fact that firms have to give financial compensation to staff who are made redundant.

“If you lose your job, the government is there to help,” adds Mr Rouchmann.

As much as other countries can learn from Denmark’s work-life balance, he says it has some downsides. “Some people can rely too much on that safety net, and it might say to them that they don’t have to take real risks, which is why we can be less entrepreneurial compared to the US.”

Samantha Saxby, an American human resources expert, says Denmark has such a good work-life balance because the country “prioritises collective well-being”.

By contrast, she says the US “has long emphasised individual achievement and ambition, which has driven tremendous innovation, but often at the cost of work-life balance”.

Yet Ms Saxby, who is director of marketing for the US National Human Resources Association, says that companies in the US and elsewhere around the world may be finally following the lead of Denmark and the other equally happy Nordic nations.

“Progressive organisations are introducing benefits like unlimited paid time off, mental health days, and wellness programs, to encourage employees to prioritise self-care,” she says. “These measures not only alleviate pressure, but also demonstrate that employers value their workforce’s overall well-being.

“More companies are recognising that well-rested and balanced employees bring fresh ideas, better problem-solving skills, and greater engagement. Employees are beginning to feel empowered to take the time they need without sacrificing career growth.”

Many people in Somaliland are convinced that the United States, under the incoming presidency of Donald Trump, is poised to become the world’s first country to recognise the self-declared republic.

The territory declared independence 33 years ago after Somalia descended into civil war – and in many ways has functioned as a de facto nation-state ever since.

“Donald is our saviour. He is a wise and practical man. God bless America,” says university student Aisha Ismail, whose voice trembles with delight at the prospect.

She is speaking to me from Hargeisa, Somaliland’s capital – a city 850km (530 miles) north of Mogadishu, the seat of the Somali government.

For those in Mogadishu, Somaliland is an indivisible part of Somalia.

“I doubt Donald Trump knows what Somaliland is, never mind where it is,” says Abdi Mohamud, a data analyst in Mogadishu, whose voice starts to shake.

“I am spitting fire.”

He is so angry because Ms Ismail’s great expectation is not necessarily a pipe dream, at least in the long term.

Powerful and influential Republicans are pushing for the same thing, including Congressman Scott Perry who last month introduced a bill proposing formal US recognition for Somaliland.

It followed the publication in April 2023 of Project 2025, a roadmap for the second Trump presidency compiled by the prominent right-wing Heritage Foundation and more than 100 other conservative organisations

The document mentions only two African territories in its sub-Saharan Africa section – Somaliland and Djibouti – and proposes “the recognition of Somaliland statehood as a hedge against the US’s deteriorating position in Djibouti”.

However, the fact that sub-Saharan Africa takes up less than two pages in the 900-plus page plan suggests the continent is very low on the priority list.

Also, there is no guarantee the incoming administration will follow the blueprint, some of which Trump has already disavowed.

But one thing is clear. The US has already started to change its stance on Somaliland, moving away from its Mogadishu-focused approach, known as the “one-track” Somalia policy.

Somalia has cost the US dearly in financial, resource and human terms since the early 1990s when the bodies of 18 American servicemen were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu after US helicopters were shot down by Somali clan fighters.

The battle, known as “Black Hawk Down”, was America’s worst in terms of casualties since the Vietnam War.

“Any move towards recognising Somaliland’s independence would not only contravene Somalia’s sovereignty but also destabilise the region by setting a dangerous precedent,” says Somali State Minister for Foreign Affairs Ali Mohamed Omar.

The African Union and other global powers believe territorial integrity is paramount. Recognising Somaliland could set off a chain reaction with separatists across the world demanding recognition for the territories they claim.

Omar also highlighted concerns about a possible repeat of the first Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from Somalia most American troops who have been fighting al-Shabab, regularly described as al-Qaeda’s most successful affiliate.

Under Joe Biden’s presidency about 500 US troops have been stationed in Somalia – carrying out special operations and training an elite Somali force, Danab, which means “Lightning” and has proved more effective than the regular Somali army at rooting out al-Shabab.

The Americans have an airbase at Baledogle, north-west of Mogadishu, and conduct regular airstrikes against Islamist insurgents.

“A withdrawal would create a significant security vacuum, emboldening terrorist groups and threatening the stability of not only Somalia but the broader Horn of Africa,” Omar warned.

The minister’s remarks are in a similar vein but more measured than Somalia’s response to a deal between Somaliland and Ethiopia whereby recognition would reportedly be granted in exchange for sea access.

I received late-night calls from Somalis who said they were unable to sleep over the controversial proposal.

Somalia’s then-Environment Minister Aden Ibrahim Aw Hirsi told me at the time: “You are always going on about ‘political bombshells’ in your reporting.

“People here are talking about a political earthquake. This is far more serious. It is a tsunami.”

Turkey has since mediated an end to the feud but the fact that Somalia recently signed a $600,000 (£492,000) a year deal with top Washington lobbying firm, the BGR Group, suggests it is worried about relations with the incoming Trump administration.

The US last month abstained from voting on a UN Security Council resolution to fund the latest incarnation of the African Union intervention force in Somalia.

A key architect of Republican Africa thinking, especially when it comes to Somali issues, is Joshua Meservey, who recently moved from the Heritage Foundation to the right-leaning Hudson Institute.

“The case for Somaliland in US terms is very compelling,” he argues. “I think the question of recognition will definitely be discussed, although the guiding north star is what is best for US national interests in practical terms.”

Senior Africa officials under Trump mark one, including the former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Tibor Nagy, and Africa envoy, Peter Pham, are energetic supporters of Somaliland’s independence.

Like many American Republicans, Somaliland’s Foreign Minister Abdirahman Dahir Adan sees the relationship in transactional terms.

“If the deal is good for us, we will take it. If the US wants a military base here we will give it to them.”

Recognition sympathisers argue that Somaliland is located at the site of several converging US interests – economic, military and strategic.

Mr Meservey adds that the territory should be “rewarded” for adhering to democratic principles, not relying on foreign aid and having a small government.

Its long coastline runs along one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels may have replaced Somali pirates as the main disruptor of traffic in the area but the attacks remain a major threat to global trade and draw the region closer to the war in the Middle East.

The scramble for foreign bases along the Horn of Africa’s coast is of concern to the US, which established its largest military facility on the continent in Djibouti in 2002.

Russia has its eyes on Port Sudan; the United Arab Emirates (UAE) used Eritrea’s Assab to fight the Houthis and Djibouti is chock-a-block with foreign forces, including the Chinese, who not only have a well-placed military facility but also run the huge port.

Turkey’s largest base on foreign soil stretches along Somalia’s coastline just south of Mogadishu.

Dealing with a rising China is a top Trump priority.

The US has accused the Chinese of interfering with its activities in Djibouti by shining lasers into the eyes of its air force pilots and is keen to move elsewhere.

It also wants to disrupt China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which is taking over much of Africa.

The Red Sea port of Berbera, whether you see it as part of Somaliland or Somalia, has much to offer as an alternative.

China is not there; indeed it is outraged that Taiwan in 2020 established diplomatic relations with the breakaway republic.

The UAE, a key US ally, runs the recently expanded port and hopes it will rival Djibouti.

During the Biden administration, top American officials, including the chief of US Africa Command (Africom), conducted site visits of Berbera, which has a 4km runway ironically constructed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

This was later identified by the US as an emergency landing site for space shuttles – interesting given Trump’s ally Elon Musk’s obsession with space.

In 2022, the US National Defence Authorisation Act was amended to include Somaliland, enhancing security co-operation and potentially paving the way for stronger diplomatic and economic ties.

Pro-recognition Republicans have presented Somaliland as a good business case, hoping to appeal to Trump’s deal-making approach. Project 2025 used the term “hedge”.

A US-based Somaliland diplomat said: “It depends how they sell it to him. They have to make it attractive; they have to seduce him.”

Whether he means it or not, bringing up the explosive issue of recognition would likely suit Trump the disruptor.

It would certainly bring him attention and he could boast about being first.

It would also enrage Somalia, a country he included in his reported 2018 list of “shithole” nations and a place to which he wants to deport undocumented Somalis, failed asylum seekers and criminals.

There is already talk in Somaliland that the territory will be used as a “dumping ground” for such people in exchange for US recognition.

US academic Ken Menkhaus, who has followed Somali issues for decades, brings much-needed balance to the debate.

“It is very likely we will see significant shifts in US policy towards Somaliland and Somalia,” he says.

“Mr Trump has a deep suspicion of foreign aid, is sceptical about state-building and is a neo-isolationist.”

The Horn of Africa needs to be braced for change.

• What does Trump’s win mean for Africa?
• How a small African territory has upset China
• Somalia’s Christmas birthdays and lost memories
• A quick guide to Somaliland

When JD Vance, a military veteran with a hardscrabble working-class background and a case of imposter syndrome, entered Yale Law School, he may not have seemed like someone destined to land a heartbeat from the US presidency.

Many of those who know him credit his remarkable success story to the influence of his wife, Usha Vance, whom he met on the Ivy League campus.

By any measure, JD Vance, 40, has had a meteoric rise. In a matter of three years, he has gone from a longshot run for the Senate, to becoming the third youngest vice-president in American history.

At his side every step of the way has been his “spirit guide”, as he calls her – wife, Usha.

At Yale Law School the pair were friends at first. Though they shared a reading group and social circle, their backgrounds could not have been more different.

Usha Vance, the 39-year-old daughter of Indian immigrants, grew up in the San Diego suburbs before attending Yale for both her undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Her husband was raised in Middleton, Ohio, born to a family with roots in the impoverished Appalachians of eastern Kentucky.

Their contrasting upbringings is what attracted them to each other, Charles Tyler, a Yale classmate and friend of the couple, told the BBC.

“They were always this match of very dissimilar people,” he said.

In his bestselling 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, JD Vance recounted how his wife helped him adjust to life at the top law college.

“I have never felt out of place in my entire life,” he wrote. “But I did at Yale.”

The vice-president-elect described one instance in the book where his wife taught him which cutlery to use for which part of a formal meal, to pick the silverware from the outside in.

“Usha was teaching JD about the subtler aspects about being at an elite institution,” Tyler recalls. “Usha was his guide throughout the process.”

Hillbilly Elegy explores Vance’s firsthand experience of the poverty and addiction of a rural underclass, while offering a glimpse into the Vances’ relationship.

When JD Vance was unveiled as Trump’s running-mate in July, he had limited name recognition.

He was the junior senator from Ohio, elected to public office for the first time just two years earlier, after spells as a Marine, lawyer and venture capitalist.

What is more, he was known for making anti-Trump statements – once privately comparing him to Hitler.

His wife, too, appears to have been on a political journey – having once been “appalled” by the role Trump played in the 6 January 2021 riot at the US Capitol, according to a friend who spoke to the Washington Post.

She was a registered member of the rival Democratic Party until about a decade ago. And she counts among her legal roles a job as a corporate litigator at prestigious firm Munger, Tolles & Olson in San Francisco – a firm that describes itself as “radically progressive”.

During her legal career, Usha Vance also worked for conservative judges Chief Justice John Roberts at the Supreme Court and for appeals court judge Brett Kavanaugh, before he was appointed by Trump to the highest court in the land.

“When he goes out and makes a great speech, she advises him, and gives him her opinion, and it’s taken seriously,” according to Jai Chabria, a family friend and a political consultant who spoke to USA Today.

Since her husband became Trump’s running mate, the mother-of-three has adopted a behind-the-scenes role.

Friends say she shuns the limelight in part because of her desire to shield their young children, age seven, four and three.

During the campaign cycle, Usha gave public remarks a handful of times, including when she sat for a Fox News interview and to introduce her husband at the party conference.

That speech offered the public perhaps the clearest insight to their marriage.

To millions watching across the US, she described the man she met at law school as “a working-class guy who overcame childhood trauma I could barely fathom”.

According to Vance’s book, she played a huge role in helping him process that trauma, which caused him to sometimes explode in anger.

“It’s not just that I’ve learned to control myself but that Usha has learned how to manage me,” he wrote.

In that Republican National Convention address by Usha Vance, Tyler said, she was most like the friend he still speaks to weekly.

“It feels extremely congruent with the person she is in life,” Tyler said.

From her speech, Americans discovered that JD Vance learned how to cook Indian dishes that accommodate his wife’s vegetarian diet, among other things.

And when the time came to defend her husband, she was ready to do that, too.

Last July, previous comments by JD Vance in which he called some Democratic politicians “childless cat ladies” resurfaced on social media, and it was his wife whose damage control seemed to do most to quell the ensuing uproar.

She described his remarks as a “quip”, reframing them as a reflection on the challenges facing working families in America, and expressing a wish that critics would look at the larger context of what her husband had said.

She acknowledged in the Fox interview that she does not agree with her husband on all political issues, though she said she has never doubted his intention.

“Usha has never been an overly political person,” JJ Snidow, a former Yale Law School classmate of the pair, told the BBC. “What America has come to see of her being a very impressive, reserved person is real – that is who she is.”

But things have not been entirely smooth for the couple since Vance joined the presidential ticket. In August, he hit out at those aiming racist barbs at his wife, telling them: “She’s out of your league.”

Charles Tyler says Usha Vance does not fit tidily into any political box – a description that appears to acknowledge her past affiliations which seem opposed to Trump.

“The reason so many people have difficulty characterising her politics is not because she keeps her cards close to the vest,” he says, “it’s because she doesn’t conform to the kind of ideological tribes that most of us have identified with.”

That will probably serve her well as US second lady, a role that has historically been removed from the cut-and-thrust of Washington’s partisan politics.

But with JD Vance’s star firmly in the ascent, few who know the couple doubt that Usha Vance will continue to serve as his “spirit guide” in the White House and beyond.

Mozambique’s new President Daniel Chapo has been sworn in at a low-key ceremony in the capital, Maputo, that was marred by an opposition boycott following heavily disputed elections.

In his first presidential address, Chapo, 47, pledged to “devote all my energies” to promoting unity and human rights in a nation scarred by post-election violence.

A local civil society group says that more than 300 people have been killed in clashes with security forces since elections in October.

Eight people were killed by police on Wednesday as they protested against the inauguration, Dr Wilker Dias, head of election observer group Plataforma Decide told the BBC.

Most of the victims were supporters of defeated presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, who had called for a national strike in defiance of Chapo taking office.

In light of Mondlane’s appeal, most businesses in Maputo were shut on Wednesday and the streets were largely deserted.

Chapo had won the election with 65% of the vote, extending the 49-year-rule of the Frelimo party.

Mondlane – who contested the election as an independent – came second with 24% of the vote. He rejected the result, saying it was rigged and called for a strike on inauguration day “against the thieves of the people”.

Addressing about 2,500 guests at the heavily guarded ceremony, Chapo said that “together, we will restore patriotism and pride in being Mozambican”.

“Mozambique cannot remain a hostage to corruption, nepotism, and incompetence,” he added.

Police fired shots to disperse crowds outside Independence Square, where the ceremony was held, as Chapo’s motorcade left afterwards.

The crowds were mostly of Mondlane’s supporters, but they included some who backed Chapo. Both groups had earlier tried to enter the venue but were barred from doing so.

“Is this a wedding with private invitations? We want to see the president being sworn in but we have been told we can’t,” Maputo resident Paulu Hamuze told the BBC.

Mondlane’s electoral campaign was backed by a small opposition party, which heeded his call for a boycott of the inauguration.

Both of Mozambique’s leading opposition parties – Renamo and MDM – also boycotted the swearing-in because they also do not recognise Chapo as the rightful winner.

Chapo succeeds Filipe Nyusi, who has stepped down at the end of his two terms.

Even those in Mozambique who wish Chapo well openly question his legitimacy, or whether he will be able to tackle the problems he has identified.

“Chapo is someone I admire greatly,” civil society activist Mirna Chitsungo tells the BBC.

“I worked with him for four years – I am familiar with his willingness to act, his openness to dialogue, and his readiness to follow recommendations from civil society on the ground.”

“However, he is assuming an illegitimate power. This stems from a fraudulent electoral process… He is taking power in a context where the people do not accept him.”

In addition to winning over a hostile public, Chapo will also have to deliver the economic turnaround and halt to corruption that he promised on the campaign trail.

“Chapo will face many enemies because it looks like Mozambique is run by cartels, including cartels of books, cartel of medicines, cartel of sugar, cartel of drugs, cartel of kidnappings, mafia groups,” says analyst and investigative journalist Luis Nhanchote.

“He needs to have a strong team of experts, willing to join him in this crusade of dismantling the groups meticulously,” he adds.

“But first, he has to calm down Mozambicans and do all in his power to restore peace in the country.”

Daniel Francisco Chapo was born on 6 January 1977 in Inhaminga, a town in Sofala province, the sixth of 10 siblings. This was during Mozambique’s civil war, and the armed conflict forced his family to move to another nearby district.

His secondary schooling in the coastal city of Beira was followed by a law degree from Eduardo Mondlane University then a master’s degree in development management from the Catholic University of Mozambique.

Now married to Gueta Sulemane Chapo, with whom he has three children, Chapo is also said to be a church-going Christian and fan of basketball and football.

Many current and former colleagues describe Chapo as humble, hard-working and a patient leader.

Ahead of becoming the ruling Frelimo party’s presidential candidate, he had been a radio and television host, a legal notary, university lecturer and provincial governor before rising to the post of Frelimo general secretary.

Speaking at his recent birthday celebrations, Chapo himself acknowledged the daunting challenge awaiting him as president.

“We must recover our country economically… it’s easy to destroy, but building is not an easy task.”

National reconciliation, creating more jobs, reforming electoral law and decentralising power are top of his agenda, he said.

But how successful can he be without much of the country behind him?

At the very least he will mark a change from outgoing President Felipe Nyusi, whom Ms Chitsungo says many Mozambicans will be happy to see the back of.

“Chapo is a figure of dialogue and consensus, not one to perpetuate Nyusi’s violent governance style. He has the potential to negotiate with Mondlane.

“While Chapo may not fully satisfy all of Mondlane’s demands, I believe he could meet at least 50% of them,” adds Ms Chitsungo.

Mondlane – a part-time pastor who insists he was the true winner of the polls – is reported to be sheltering in one of Maputo’s hotels after returning from self-imposed exile.

It is not known what security protection he has there, nor who is paying for it.

He alleges that last week, while touring a market in Maputo, a vendor in his vicinity was shot, echoing the murder of two of his close aides in October.

As the mastermind of nationwide protests against the disputed election result, he has come to be seen by many as a voice for the voiceless. Yet, at present, the president-elect’s camp is not engaging him publicly.

Nonetheless, listening to the public’s grievances and demands, and sometimes ignoring the commands of his ruling Frelimo party, will be key to Chapo’s success, analysts have told the BBC.

Finding some way of engaging constructively with Mondlane would undoubtedly provide a boost, they say.

Winning the public over may also require Chapo to say no to “fat salaries for the elite and fringe benefits, some of which are 10 times higher than Mozambique’s minimum wage”, argues Mr Nhachote.

Plus, if Chapo is to have any chance of bringing an end to the broader political crisis, he will require support from others to make lasting, structural change, argues prominent clergymen Rev Anastacio Chembeze.

“Perhaps we should remain sceptical of one single person to solve the challenges of Mozambique – change must start within the system itself.

“We should strive for a separation of powers within the state apparatus, the international monopolies have huge interests in the country, and we have serious ethical issues within the political elites to address it.”

Once in office, Chapo should sack the country’s Police Chief Bernadino Rafael, analysts have told the BBC. He denies any wrongdoing but is regarded by some as the mastermind behind the brutal response to the post-election protests.

They say they want him replaced with a successor who “respects human rights” and follows legal and international standards. Another suggestion analysts have touted is for a new attorney-general to be brought in.

Chapo will be the first president of Mozambique who did not fight in the independence war.

“He is part of the new generation. Part of his background is completely different from his predecessors – he was born in a country liberated by them,” says Mr Nhachote.

“If he wants to make a real mark on history, he has to challenge those past icons. If he can’t [manage that], I am sure that he will only run for one term.”

• Children shot dead after joining pot-banging protests in Mozambique
• Why Africa’s governing parties are having a tough time in elections
• Fresh faces in Mozambique’s poll as independence-era leaders bow out
• The poet who caught the eye of Mozambique’s freedom fighters

No more illegal miners are believed to be trapped underground at a gold mine in South Africa, volunteers working with rescue teams have said.

At least 78 bodies and more than 200 survivors have been pulled out since Monday after a court ordered the government to facilitate rescue operations at the mine, the site of one of the most extraordinary tragedies to hit the industry.

Police said they would check that no-one was left on Thursday, when a rescue cage would be sent down the mine.

The stand-off began in November when the government ordered police to arrest any miner who surfaced, saying it was determined to end illegal mining.

During a visit on Tuesday, the police and mines ministers were insulted and told to leave by an angry crowd that blamed the government for the deaths.

Police said that more than 1,500 miners had come to the surface before the rescue operation began, Reuters news agency reports.

However, others remained underground, either because they feared arrest or were forced to stay there by gangs that control the mine.

A South African Police Service spokesman said of the volunteers’ statement that no-one was now still underground: “We will rely on the Mine Rescue Service to confirm this with their state-of-the-art equipment that will hopefully be able to give us a picture of what is happening underground.

“The Mine Rescue Service have confirmed that they will send the cage underground in the morning to see if any illegal miners surface with the cage. We cannot say for sure that the operation has been called off at this stage.”

• Inside South Africa’s ‘ruthless’ gang-controlled gold mines

Many mines in South Africa have been abandoned over the last three decades by companies that did not find them economically viable.

The mines have been taken over by gangs, often former employees, that sell minerals they find on the black market.

This includes the mine in Stilfontein, some 145km (90 miles) south-west of the country’s biggest city, Johannesburg, which has been the focus of government efforts to clamp down on the illegal industry.

A rescue cage has been making trips down a shaft to reach scores of miners thought to be at least 2km (1.2 miles) underground.

Many of the survivors had been without food and water since November, leaving them emaciated. They are now receiving medical care.

The authorities say they will be charged with illegal mining, trespassing and contravention of immigration laws, as the majority of the miners are undocumented migrants from neighbouring countries.

“It’s a crime against the economy, it’s an attack on the economy,” Mines Minister Gwede Mantashe said on Wednesday as he defended the hard line taken against the miners.

South Africa relied heavily on miners from countries such as Lesotho and Mozambique before the industry went into decline.

Unemployment in South Africa is currently more than 30% and many former miners say they have little alternative source of income.

• WATCH: The dangerous world of illegal mining in South Africa
• Illegal trade booms in South Africa’s ‘super-strange looking’ plants
• Gen Z’s ‘love-hate’ relationship with Mandela

The US will remove Cuba from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, Joe Biden has said in one of his final official acts as president.

In return, Cuba announced it would release 553 prisoners.

The deal, which was brokered by the Catholic Church, comes just days before President-elect Donald Trump is due to be sworn in.

During his first presidential term, Trump reinstated Cuba to the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, and it is not clear if he will reverse Biden’s move once back in power.

Trump’s choice for national security adviser, Mike Waltz, said on Fox News that “anything they [the Biden Administration] are doing right now we can do back, an no one should be under any illusion in terms of a change in Cuba policy”.

An official from the Biden administration said that in return for its removal, Cuba would “gradually” release 553 prisoners “who have been detained unjustly”.

Cuba’s ministry of foreign affairs said that the deal “puts an end to specific coercive measures” that it said damaged the country’s economy.

Havana did not release any details as to whom it may free but relatives of people imprisoned following anti-government protests in 2021 said they hoped their loved ones would be among them.

Liset Fonseca, whose 41-year-old son was sentenced to 10 years in jail after taking part in the 2021 protests said that “all the mothers of prisoners want our children to be free and out of that suffering, out of that hell that is the prisons in Cuba”.

“They should never have been in prison,” she told AFP news agency.

Cuba currently sits alongside North Korea, Syria and Iran on the US State Sponsors of Terrorism list.

This means they are deemed by the US to have “repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism”.

Adding Cuba back to the list after its removal in 2015 by President Barack Obama, Trump citied the communist country’s backing of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

At the time Cuba called the move “cynical,” “hypocritical” and an act of “political opportunism”.

Alongside prompting the prisoner release, this decision is also significant because it can be seen as a step towards normalising relations between Cuba and the US.

This could pave the way for dialogue on other contentious issues.

It could also help Cuba’s dire economic situation, as some major banks and foreign investors have struggled to operate there legally.

Biden is to notify Congress of his plans, which also include reversing Trump-era financial restrictions on some Cubans, a White House statement said.

He will also suspend the ability of individuals to make claims to confiscated property in Cuba, the statement read.

For years people have tried – and failed – to uncover details about Bristol’s most famous, yet anonymous, graffiti artist Banksy.

Photos of him and stories of people who have met him are incredibly rare. But now a man who got the secretive artist to work with children at a youth club in the late 1990s has given the BBC an exclusive insight into the man behind the murals, just as he was about to become famous.

Banksy is one of the world’s most famous graffiti artists. His work has sold for millions of pounds and his exhibitions seen by hundreds of thousands of people.

But behind layers of paint, lost in time at a Bristol youth club, there’s a Banksy very few people know about.

On the cusp of international fame, the artist was leaving his mark – not only on the streets of his city, but on young people in Lawrence Weston.

Here, Banksy helped groups of teens in art classes, just as he was about to paint his famous Mild, Mild West mural.

“If you look at the photos, you can see the way he was working with the young people,” said Peter de Boer, the man responsible for getting Banksy in the building.

“They were engaged, having fun and sharing ideas. It was a true collaboration.”

Now all that remains of these unique murals are photographs, capturing the colourful, abstract and lively pieces that stretched across the walls of the youth club. The BBC has been given permission to use these photos on the condition that Banksy remains anonymous.

The artist would return to the club several times to create new works, with a revolving door of excitable 11 to 16 year olds – oblivious to who the artist would eventually become.

It was the late 1990s when Peter, a senior youth worker for the area, was looking for local artists to inspire a generation of children in this part of west Bristol.

His friend had a suggestion – someone who went out ‘tagging’ the city with his brother and was starting to make a name for himself. That person was Banksy.

“I got his phone number, so I used to call him up and ask if he’d come and do some art projects. He was really keen,” Peter said.

This was the same year Banksy did his first large stencil mural in Stokes Croft – Mild Mild West – depicting a teddy bear throwing a Molotov cocktail at three riot police.

Each time Banksy arrived at the youth club, he was greeted by dozens of eager kids.

The purpose-built youth centre from the 1970s had become a real community hub.

“There would literally be hundreds of young people that would come here over a week,” said Peter, who is passionate about the need for youth clubs in society.

“It was always very vibrant.”

Peter recalled the hype building around Banksy’s work in Bristol, but that “nobody thought twice about who he was” when he was running sessions in Lawrence Weston.

He was just another artist sharing his skills with the community, he said.

“The thing that struck me back then was he didn’t really have an ego. He was doing art with them, rather than doing art for them,” he said.

“In the morning, he sat around a table with the children, talking about their ideas.

“Then they would all just muck in and spray these things that were invented.

“It wasn’t more Banksy than the young people, it was definitely a kind of 50/50 thing.”

And how much did it cost to bring in Banksy?

“For the first one [workshop], I think we paid him £50. Probably only covered the cost of the spray paints back then,” Peter said.

“I don’t think he’s ever been in it for the money. It shows what a deep, kind and caring person he is.”

The murals Banksy created with the children were fun and vivid in colour – but with meaning.

Cows looking up as bombs are dropped above them, which Peter believes was a nod to climate anxiety, while another was more obscure – a circus overrun by robots.

But what happened to these murals? They were painted over. Again and again.

“I personally painted over a Banksy. I threw a Banksy stencil away when I was clearing up,” Peter said.

But he is not one to get sentimental about preserving street art.

“I have no regrets at all [covering them up]. Back then, it was much more about working with and engaging young people.

“And it was just another art project back then.”

For Peter, the value of Banky’s time at the club is not monetary, but based on what these murals did for the community.

He wonders if the children remember creating pieces with a man who is now one of the most famous artists in the world.

“I’m very proud he came here,” he said.

“There will be [those who were] young people in the local community who are parents now who worked with Banksy, and they may not know that.”

Calling people obese is medically “flawed” – and the definition should be split into two, a report from global experts says.

The term “clinical obesity” should be used for patients with a medical condition caused by their weight, while “pre-clinically obese” should be applied to those remaining fat but fit, although at risk of disease.

This is better for patients than relying only on body mass index (BMI) – which measures whether they are a healthy weight for their height – to determine obesity.

More than a billion people are estimated to be living with obesity worldwide and prescription weight-loss drugs are in high demand.

The report, published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal, is supported by more than 50 medical experts around the world.

“Some individuals with obesity can maintain normal organ function and overall health, even long term, whereas others display signs and symptoms of severe illness here and now,” Prof Francesco Rubino, from King’s College London, who chaired the expert group, said.

“Obesity is a spectrum,” he added.

The current, blanket definition means too many people are being diagnosed as obese but not receiving the most appropriate care, the report says.

Natalie, from Crewe, goes to the gym four times a week and has a healthy diet, but is still overweight.

“I would consider myself on the larger side, but I’m fit,” she told the BBC 5 Live phone-in with Nicky Campbell.

“If you look at my BMI I’m obese, but if I speak to my doctor they say that I’m fit, healthy and there’s nothing wrong with me.

“I’m doing everything I can to stay fit and have a long healthy life,” she said.

Richard, from Falmouth, said there is a lot of confusion around BMI.

“When they did my test, it took me to a level of borderline obesity, but my body fat was only 4.9% – the problem is I had a lot of muscle mass,” he says.

In Mike’s opinion, you cannot be fat and fit – he says it is all down to diet.

“All these skinny jabs make me laugh, if you want to lose weight stop eating – it’s easy.”

Currently, in many countries, obesity is defined as having a BMI over 30 – a measurement that estimates body fat based on height and weight.

It is calculated by dividing an adult’s weight in kilograms by their height in metres squared.

For example, if they are 70kg (about 11 stone) and 1.70m (about 5ft 7in):

• square their height in metres: 1.70 x 1.70 = 2.89
• divide their weight in kilograms by this amount: 70 ÷ 2.89 = 24.22
• display the result to one decimal place: 24.2

Find out what your body mass index (BMI) means on the NHS website

But BMI has limitations.

It measures whether someone is carrying too much weight – but not too much fat.

So very muscular people, such as athletes, tend to have a high BMI but not much fat.

The report says BMI is useful on a large scale, to work out the proportion of a population who are a healthy weight, overweight or obese.

But it reveals nothing about an individual patient’s overall health, whether they have heart problems or other illnesses, for example, and fails to distinguish between different types of body fat or measure the more dangerous fat around the waist and organs.

Measuring a patient’s waist or the amount of fat in their body, along with a detailed medical history, can give a much clearer picture than BMI, the report says.

“Obesity is a health risk – the difference is it’s also an illness for some,” Prof Rubino said.

Clinically obese

When obesity is a disease, there will be signs of it affecting organs in the body – through heart disease, breathlessness, type 2 diabetes or joint pain – and a person’s day-to-day activities. Treatment with drugs or surgery is likely.

Pre-clinically obese

When obesity is a risk to health – but not yet causing any illnesses, people should be offered weight-loss advice, counselling and monitoring, to reduce the chances of health problems developing.

Doctors should also pay close attention to a patient’s family history to see if they are at risk of particular diseases.

At a time when drugs that reduce body weight by up to 20% are being prescribed on a large scale, the report says redefining obesity “is all the more relevant” because it “improves the accuracy of diagnosis”.

Access to weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro is often restricted to patients with a BMI over 30 and a weight-related health condition.

Children’s obesity expert Prof Louise Baur, from the University of Sydney, who contributed to the report, said the new approach would allow adults and children with obesity “to receive more appropriate care”, while reducing the numbers being over-diagnosed and given unnecessary treatment.

The Royal College of Physicians said the report laid a strong foundation “for treating obesity with the same medical rigour and compassion as other chronic illnesses”.

But others worry pressure on health budgets could mean less money for patients in the “pre-obesity” category.

Rap superstar Drake is suing Universal Music Group (UMG) for defamation and harassment, over its release of the Kendrick Lamar diss track Not Like Us last year.

The song, which formed part of a furious back and forth between the two stars, accused Drake and his entourage of being “certified paedophiles” who should “be registered and placed on neighbourhood watch”.

In papers filed in New York, Drake’s lawyers accused the record label of launching “a campaign to create a viral hit” out of a song that made the “false factual allegation that Drake is a criminal paedophile, and to suggest that the public should resort to vigilante justice in response”.

Universal has yet to respond to the allegations.

The move comes just 24 hours after Drake withdrew a separate legal action against UMG and Spotify, in which he accused the two companies of conspiring to artificially boost streams of Not Like Us, at the expense of his own music.

In that case, he argued that Universal had licensed the song “at drastically reduced rates to Spotify” and used bots to generate extra plays, generating “the false impression that the song was more popular than it was in reality”.

In a statement at the time, Universal told the BBC: “The suggestion that [the company] would do anything to undermine any of its artists is offensive and untrue.”

It added that “no amount of contrived and absurd legal arguments… can mask the fact that fans choose the music they want to hear.”

Spotify also responded that there was “no economic incentive for users to stream Not Like Us over any of Drake’s tracks”.

The Swedish streaming company later filed an opposition brief to Drake’s petition, stating that it “should be denied”.

His lawyers withdrew the case on Tuesday, after meeting with representatives from both companies, according to court papers.

That appeared to draw a line under the legal action – until the story took a dramatic twist on Wednesday morning.

In a lawsuit filed at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Drake accused Universal – which distributes both his music and Lamar’s – of prioritising “corporate greed over the safety and well-being of its artists”.

His lawyers noted that the artwork for Not Like Us was based on an aerial photograph of Drake’s $100m Toronto mansion, dotted with red markers that are often used to represent the presence of registered sex offenders.

The court documents link that artwork to a shooting at the property shortly after the release of Kendrick’s song, calling it “the 2024 equivalent of ‘Pizzagate'”.

The comment referenced a conspiracy theory about a US child sex ring operating out of a Washington pizza restaurant, which led to a gunman opening fire on the eaterie in 2016.

Not Like Us was widely regarded as the decisive blow in a long-running feud between Drake and Lamar, which dates back to the early 2010s.

In the lyrics, Lamar alleges that Drake “likes ’em young” and accuses him of using other, more credible rappers, to boost his profile.

Drake responded with a track called The Heart Part 6, where he rejected the allegations, saying, “I never been with no one under age”. He also claimed to have fed Lamar “false” information through a double agent.

However, his retort failed to attract the same attention as Not Like Us, which debuted at number one in the US chart and attracted more than 1 billion streams on Spotify.

The song is nominated for five prizes, including record and song of the year, at the Grammy Awards on 3 February. A week later, Lamar will headline the Super Bowl halftime show.

However, the new lawsuit is not aimed at Lamar himself, according to Drake’s lawyers.

“This lawsuit is not about the artist who created Not Like Us,” the court documents says.

“It is, instead, entirely about UMG, the music company that decided to publish, promote, exploit, and monetize allegations that it understood were not only false, but dangerous.”

Outgoing US President Joe Biden warned of a “dangerous” oligarchy taking shape in America, as he delivered his farewell address and brought a decades-long career in politics to an end.

“Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that really threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedom,” he said on Wednesday.

Biden, 82, took aim at an ultra-wealthy “tech-industrial complex” which he said could wield unchecked power over Americans.

He also used his final televised speech from the White House to issue warnings about climate change and social media disinformation.

Speaking from the Oval Office where his family had gathered to watch, he touted his single-term administration’s record, referencing job creation, infrastructure spending, healthcare, leading the country out of the pandemic, and making the US a safer country.

He added, however, that “it will take time to feel the full impact of all we’ve done together, but the seeds are planted, and they’ll grow and they’ll bloom for decades to come”.

Biden wished Donald Trump’s incoming administration success, but then issued a series of pointed warnings, with the president stating “so much is at stake right now”.

On climate change, he said “powerful forces want to wield their unchecked influence to eliminate the steps we’ve taken to tackle the climate crisis to serve their own interests for power and profit”.

On misinformation, Biden warned that “Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power”.

He also took a swipe at social media companies such as Meta, which has recently announced it will get rid of independent fact checkers. “Social media is giving up on fact checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit,” Biden said.

And his attack on an ultra-wealthy “tech-industrial complex” was a veiled reference at Silicon Valley executives such as Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who is close to Trump and provided huge financial backing to his campaign.

Other tech bosses such as Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg have made efforts to improve relations with Trump ahead of his return to the White House.

Closing his speech, Biden called on Americans to “stand guard” of their country: “May you all be the keeper of the flame.”

His farewell address came on the same day he announced a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which he referenced in his opening remarks.

Biden said the negotiations had been some of the toughest of his career, and took credit for helping get the deal over the line.

The deal will see a ceasefire take effect on 19 January, a day before Trump is due to take office. The incoming president has also taken credit for the agreement, saying it was only possible because he won the election in November.

Israel and Hamas have agreed a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal following 15 months of war, mediators Qatar and the US say.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani said the agreement would come into effect on Sunday so long as it was approved by the Israeli cabinet.

US President Joe Biden said it would “halt the fighting in Gaza, surge much needed-humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, and reunite the hostages with their families”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the deal’s final details were still being worked on, but he thanked Biden for “promoting” it. Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya said it was the result of Palestinian “resilience”.

Many Palestinians and Israeli hostages’ families celebrated the news, but there was no let up in the war on the ground in Gaza.

The Hamas-run Civil Defence agency reported Israeli air strikes killed more than 20 people following the Qatari announcement. They included 12 people who were living in a residential block in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood of Gaza City, it said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas – which is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US and others – in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 46,700 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. Most of the 2.3 million population has also been displaced, there is widespread destruction, and there are severe shortages of food, fuel, medicine and shelter due to a struggle to get aid to those in need.

Israel says 94 of the hostages are still being held by Hamas, of whom 34 are presumed dead. In addition, there are four Israelis who were abducted before the war, two of whom are dead.

• Follow live updates on Gaza ceasefire deal
• Watch: Qatar PM announces Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal
• What we know about the Gaza ceasefire deal

Qatar’s prime minister called for “calm” on both sides before the start of the first six-week phase of the ceasefire deal, which he said would see 33 hostages – including women, children and elderly people – exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Israeli forces will also withdraw to the east away from densely populated areas of Gaza, displaced Palestinians will be allowed to begin returning to their homes and hundreds of aid lorries will be allowed into the territory each day.

Negotiations for the second phase – which should see the remaining hostages released, a full Israeli troop withdrawal and a return to “sustainable calm” – will start on the 16th day.

The third and final stage will involve the reconstruction of Gaza – something which could take years – and the return of any remaining hostages’ bodies.

Sheikh Mohammed said there was “a clear mechanism to negotiate phase two and three”, with the agreements set to be published “in the next couple of days, once the details are finalised”.

He also said Qatar, the US and Egypt, which also helped broker the deal, would work together to ensure Israel and Hamas fulfilled their obligations.

“We hope that this will be the last page of the war, and we hope that all parties will commit to implementing all the terms of this agreement,” he added.

President Biden said the plan, which he first outlined eight months ago, was “the result not only of the extreme pressure Hamas has been under and the changed regional equation after a ceasefire in Lebanon and the weakening of Iran – but also of dogged and painstaking American diplomacy”.

“Even as we welcome this news, we remember all the families whose loved ones were killed in Hamas’s 7 October attack, and the many innocent people killed in the war that followed,” a statement added. “It is long past time for the fighting to end and the work of building peace and security to begin.”

At a later news conference, Biden also acknowledged the assistance of President-elect Donald Trump, who put pressure on both parties by demanding hostages be released before his inauguration on Monday.

“In these past few days, we’ve been speaking as one team,” he said, noting that most of the implementation of the deal would happen after he left office.

Trump was first to confirm reports the agreement had been reached, beating the White House and Qatar to a formal announcement.

In a later post on social media, he attempted to take the credit for the “epic” agreement, saying it “could have only happened as a result of our historic victory in November”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office thanked Trump “for his help in promoting the release of the hostages, and for helping Israel end the suffering of dozens of hostages and their families”.

“The prime minister made it clear that he is committed to returning all the hostages by any means necessary,” it said, before adding that he had also thanked Biden.

Later, the office said an official statement from Netanyahu would “be issued only after the completion of the final details of the agreement, which are being worked on at present”.

Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, said the deal would bring with it “deeply painful” moments and “present significant challenges”, but that it was “the right move”.

The agreement is expected to be approved by the Israeli cabinet, possibly as soon as Thursday morning, despite opposition from Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners.

Then the names of all the Palestinian prisoners due for release will be made public by the Israeli government, and the families of any victims will be given 48 hours to appeal. Some of the prisoners are serving life sentences after being convicted of murder and terrorism.

Hamas’s chief negotiator and acting Gaza chief, Khalil al-Hayya, said the agreement represented “a milestone in the conflict with the enemy, on the path to achieving our people’s goals of liberation and return”.

The group, he added, would now seek to “rebuild Gaza again, alleviate the pain, heal the wounds”.

But he also warned “we will not forget, and we will not forgive” the suffering inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza.

As news of the agreement emerged, pictures showed people cheering and waving Palestinian flags in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah and southern city of Khan Younis.

Sanabel, a 17-year-old girl living to the north in Gaza City, told BBC OS: “All of us are delighted.”

“We have been waiting for this for a long time,” she said. “Finally, I will put my head on my pillow without worrying… It is time to heal.”

Nawara al-Najjar, whose husband was among more than 70 people killed when Israeli forces launched an operation to rescue two hostages, said: “After the ceasefire I want to give my children the best life.”

“I want them to get over the fear we lived. My children are really scared. The terror has settled in their hearts.”

Sharone Lifschitz is a British-Israeli woman whose 84-year-old father Oded is among the remaining hostages. Her mother, Yocheved, was also abducted in the 7 October attack but was released after several weeks in captivity.

She told the BBC in London as news of the deal came through that it felt “like a bit of sanity”, but she admitted: “I know that the chances for my dad are very slim.”

“He’s an elderly man, but miracles do happen. My mum did come back, and one way or another, we will know. We will know if he’s still with us, if we can look after him.”

She warned: “There are more graves to come and traumatised people to come back, but we will look after them and make them see light again… May this be the start of something better.”

Moshe Lavi, the brother in-law of Omri Miran, a 47-year-old father-of-two young children, told the BBC that it was “a very mixed day for most families of hostages”.

“We want to see our families come home from their mass captivity. But we also understand that this is a phase deal. Only the first phase was agreed upon,” he said.

“We’ll have to keep fighting, keep advocating as families with all leaders with our own government to understand they have to release all the hostages.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the “priority now must be to ease the tremendous suffering caused by this conflict”.

Israel and Hamas have agreed a deal which could halt the war in Gaza and see the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, the US and mediators Qatar have said.

It would be the most dramatic breakthrough in 15 months of war, which began when the armed Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023.

Details of the deal reportedly approved by both sides have not yet been announced.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there were still several unresolved clauses, which he hoped would be finalised on Wednesday evening.

A completed deal would see the war in Gaza stop and an exchange of hostages and prisoners.

Hamas seized 251 hostages when it attacked Israel in October 2023. It is still holding 94 captive, although Israel believes that only 60 are still alive.

Israel is expected to release about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, some jailed for years, in return for the hostages.

• Why is there a war in Gaza?
• Follow live updates on this story

This ceasefire is expected to happen in three stages, once the deal is announced.

And while both sides are now said to have agreed to it, Israel’s security cabinet and government will need to approve the deal before it can be implemented.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani said the agreement would come into effect on Sunday should it be approved.

Here is what could be in the deal.

First stage

The first stage would last six weeks and see “a full and complete ceasefire”, US President Joe Biden said as he confirmed a deal had been reached on Wednesday.

“A number of hostages” held by Hamas, including women, the elderly and the sick, would be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, Biden said.

He did not specify how many hostages would be released during this first stage – but Qatar’s Al Thani told a news conference earlier in the evening that it would be 33.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer previously said most but not all of the 33 hostages expected to be exchanged, also including children, were thought to still be alive.

Three hostages would be released straight away, a Palestinian official previously told the BBC, with the rest of the exchange taking place over the six weeks.

During this stage, Israeli troops would pull out of “all” populated areas of Gaza, Biden said, while “the Palestinians [could] also return to their neighbourhoods in all the areas of Gaza”.

Almost all of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have had to leave their homes because of Israeli evacuation orders, Israeli strikes and fighting on the ground.

There would also be a surge in humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza, with hundreds of lorries allowed in each day.

The Palestinian official previously said detailed negotiations for the second and third stages would begin on the 16th day of the ceasefire.

Biden said the ceasefire would persist “as long as the negotiations continue”.

Second stage

Stage two would be “a permanent end to the war,” according to Biden.

The remaining living hostages, including men, would be released in return for more Palestinian prisoners.

Of the 1,000 Palestinian prisoners Israel is thought to have agreed to release overall, about 190 are serving sentences of 15 years or more.

An Israeli official previously told the BBC that those convicted of murder would not be released into the occupied West Bank.

There would also be a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.

Third stage

The third and final stage would involve the reconstruction of Gaza – something which could take years – and the return of any remaining hostages’ bodies.

Getting to this point has taken months of painstaking indirect negotiations, not least because Israel and Hamas completely distrust each other.

Hamas wanted a complete end to the war before it would release the hostages, something which was unacceptable to Israel.

The ceasefire will in effect pause the war while its terms are carried out.

However, it is unclear whether it will mean the war is over for good.

One of Israel’s key war aims has been to destroy Hamas’s military and governing capabilities. Although Israel has severely damaged it, Hamas still has some capacity to operate and regroup.

It is also unclear which hostages are alive or dead or whether Hamas knows the whereabouts of all those who remain unaccounted for.

For its part, Hamas has demanded the release of some prisoners which Israel says it will not free. This is believed to include those who were involved in the 7 October attacks.

It is also not known whether Israel will agree to pull out of the buffer zone by a certain date, or whether its presence there will be open-ended.

Any ceasefire is likely to be fragile.

Ceasefires between Israel and Hamas which have halted previous wars have been shaken by skirmishes and eventually broken down.

The timetable and complexity of this ceasefire means even a small incident could turn into a major threat.

Hundreds of Hamas-led gunmen launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel, bursting through the border fence and targeting communities, police stations and army bases.

About 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 hostages were taken back to Gaza. Hamas also fired thousands of rockets into Israel.

Israel responded with a massive military campaign, first by air and then a ground invasion. Since then, Israel has attacked targets across Gaza by land, sea and air, while Hamas has attacked Israel with rockets.

Israel’s offensive has devastated Gaza and led to severe food shortages, with aid struggling to reach those most in need. More than 46,700 people – the majority of them civilians – have been killed by Israel’s attacks, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

A French woman who was conned out of €830,000 (£700,000; $850,000) by scammers posing as actor Brad Pitt has faced a huge wave of mockery, leading French broadcaster TF1 to withdraw a programme about her.

The primetime programme, which aired on Sunday, attracted national attention on interior designer Anne, 53, who thought she was in a relationship with Pitt for a year and a half.

She has since told a popular French YouTube show that she was not “crazy or a moron”: “I just got played, I admit it, and that’s why I came forward, because I am not the only one.”

A representative for Pitt told US outlet Entertainment Weekly that it was “awful that scammers take advantage of fans’ strong connection with celebrities” and that people shouldn’t respond to unsolicited online outreach “especially from actors who have no social media presence.”

Hundreds of social media users mocked Anne, who the programme said had lost her life’s savings and tried to take her own life three times since the scam came to light.

Netflix France put out a post on X advertising “four films with Brad Pitt (for real)”, while, in a now-deleted post, Toulouse FC said: “Hi Anne, Brad told us he would be at the stadium on Wednesday… and you?”

The club has since apologised for the post.

On Tuesday, TF1 said it had pulled the segment on Anne after her testimony had sparked “a wave of harassment” – although the programme can still be found online.

In the report, Anne said her ordeal began when she downloaded Instagram in February 2023, when she was still married to a wealthy entrepreneur.

She was immediately contacted by someone who said they were Pitt’s mother, Jane Etta, who told Anne her son “needed a woman just like her”.

Somebody purporting to be Pitt got in touch the next day, which set off alarm bells for Anne. “But as someone who isn’t very used to social media, I didn’t really know what was happening to me,” she said.

At one point, “Brad Pitt” said he tried to send her luxury gifts but that he was unable to pay customs on them as his bank accounts were frozen due to his divorce proceedings with actor Angelina Jolie, prompting Anne to transfer €9000 to the scammers.

“Like a fool, I paid… Every time I doubted him, he managed to dissipate my doubts,” she said.

The requests for money ramped up when the fake Pitt told Anne he needed cash to pay for kidney cancer treatment, sending her multiple AI-generated photos of Brad Pitt in a hospital bed. “I looked those photos up on the internet but couldn’t find them so I thought that meant he had taken those selfies just for me,” she said.

Meanwhile, Anne and her husband divorced, and she was awarded €775,000 – all of which went to the scammers.

“I told myself I was maybe saving a man’s life,” Anne said, who is in cancer remission herself.

Anne’s daughter, now 22, told TF1 she tried to “get her mother to see reason” for over a year but that her mother was too excited. “It hurt to see how naive she was being,” she said.

When images appeared in gossip magazines showing the real Brad Pitt with his new girlfriend Ines de Ramon, awakening suspicions in Anne, the scammers sent her an fake news report in which the AI-generated anchor talked about Pitt’s “exclusive relationship with one special individual… who goes by the name of Anne.”

The video comforted Anne for a short time, but when the real Brad Pitt and Ines de Ramon made their relationship official in June 2024, Anne decided to end things.

After scammers tried to get more money out of her under the guise of “Special FBI Agent John Smith,” Anne contacted the police. An investigation is now under way.

The TF1 programme said the events left Anne broke, and that she has tried to end her life three times.

“Why was I chosen to be hurt this way?,” a tearful Anne said. “These people deserve hell. We need to find those scammers, I beg you – please help me find them.”

But in the YouTube interview on Tuesday Anne hit back at TF1, saying it had left out details on her repeated doubts over whether she was talking to the real Brad Pitt, and added that anyone could’ve fallen for the scam if they were told “words that you never heard from your own husband.”

Anne said she was now living with a friend: “My whole life is a small room with some boxes. That’s all I have left.”

While many online users overwhelmingly mocked Anne, several took her side.

“I understand the comic effect but we’re talking about a woman in her 50s who got conned by deepfakes and AI which your parents and grandparents would be incapable to spot,” one popular post on X read.

An op-ed in newspaper Libération said Anne was a “whistleblower”: “Life today is paved with cybertraps… and AI progress will only worsen this scenario.”

US President-elect Donald Trump will be consulted on the UK’s deal to hand over the Chagos Islands – where there is a joint US-UK military base – to Mauritius.

The UK announced in October it would cede sovereignty of the archipelago in the Indian Ocean, but maintain control of the base on the largest island Diego Garcia under a 99-year lease.

There had been efforts to get the treaty signed before Trump’s inauguration on Monday, the BBC understands, and the Mauritian cabinet was expected to approve the deal on Wednesday.

But “overnight the British position changed”, a Mauritius source close to the negotiations told the BBC.

The deal had already been greenlit by the Biden administration but the UK prime minister’s office on Wednesday said the incoming Trump government would now “consider” the deal.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said it was “perfectly reasonable for the US administration to consider the detail” of any agreement.

But shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel said the latest development was “complete humiliation” for the prime minister because Labour had been “desperate to sign off the surrender of the Chagos Islands before President Trump returns to office”.

In October, President Biden had previously praised the “historic agreement” which he said secured the future of a base which “plays a vital role in national, regional, and global security.”

It is unclear if Trump’s administration would have any objection. The incoming president has not publicly commented on the deal.

But the incoming US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said it poses a “serious threat”, arguing it gives the islands to a country aligned with China. Mauritius has a trade agreement with China.

Reform UK leader and Trump ally Nigel Farage said he believed the agreement would damage Sir Keir’s relations with the US president-elect.

“When the Americans realise that… Diego Garcia, their most important military base in the world, may effectively be rendered pretty useless, I think the special relationship will be fractured in a way that will not be mended during the course of this government,” he told the BBC.

But on Wednesday at Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir defended the deal, pointing out the negotiations had started under the last Tory government. He insisted the deal was the best way to safeguard the military base.

Reports had suggested Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam would sign off an agreement on Wednesday as he attended a cabinet meeting, but it was later announced his attorney general was travelling to London to continue talks.

The UK took control of the Chagos Islands, or British Indian Ocean Territory, from its then colony, Mauritius, in 1965 and went on to evict its population of more than 1,000 people to make way for the Diego Garcia base.

Mauritius, which won independence from the UK in 1968, has maintained that the islands are its own, and the UN’s highest court has ruled, in an advisory opinion, that the UK’s administration of the territory is “unlawful”.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the prime minister was “negotiating a secret deal to surrender British territory and taxpayers in this country will pay for the humiliation”.

Badenoch said there was “no way we should be giving up British territory in Chagos”, claiming Sir Keir was “rushing a deal which will be disastrous” and it would cost British taxpayers billions of pounds.

The cost of the proposed deal to the UK has not been officially announced.

In response to Badenoch, Sir Keir told PMQs the planned agreement would ensure the military base on Diego Garcia can continue operating effectively.

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• Hundreds protest against Chagos Islands deal
• On secret military island, a mother strives to raise her children normally
• Chagossians criticise lack of say in UK deal to hand over islands

A deal over the Chagos Islands was first announced in October following years of negotiations.

But weeks later, after his election, Mr Ramgoolam said he had reservations about the draft treaty and asked for an independent review.

In a joint statement in October, Mauritius and the UK said the deal would “address wrongs of the past and demonstrate the commitment of both parties to support the welfare of Chagossians”.

The Chagos islanders – some in Mauritius and the Seychelles, but others living in Crawley in Sussex – do not speak with one voice on the fate of their homeland.

Some have criticised the deal, saying they were not consulted in the negotiations.

Under the proposed deal, Mauritius will be able to begin a programme of resettlement on the Chagos Islands, but not on Diego Garcia.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy has previously played down the criticism, saying it is a “very good deal” for “our national security” because it secured the legal basis of the Diego Garcia military base.

On Wednesday, diplomats said the decision to put the deal on hold until it was considered by the Trump administration made sense as the UK would not want its first engagement to be a row over islands deep in the Indian Ocean.

The Biden administration and US military and intelligence agencies had agreed to the original deal, accepting it put the legal status of the Diego Garcia on a more stable footing.

But there were still questions within the US system about how much the new agreement might open the way for China to establish a strategic foothold in the islands.

It is unclear how incoming president Trump will act, what advice he might get in office and whether he would have time to consider an issue seen as second-order compared to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Gabriel Hoces repeats a word seven times when he discusses what it’s like to work in Denmark – “trust”.

“No one is trying to micromanage you, or look over your shoulder,” says Mr Hoces, who works for a tech firm in Copenhagen. “Bosses aren’t coming in to check if you put in eight or nine hours a day, as they mainly only care if you completed your projects.

“There’s a lot of trust in Denmark in that way, and I don’t feel a hierarchy at my job. It’s all very democratic.”

It is no surprise to Mr Hoces, a married father of two young daughters, that Denmark is consistently among the top-five countries in the world for work-life balance rankings.

Only 1.1% of Danes have to work 50 or more hours a week, according to the most recent global figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). That’s a significantly lower proportion than the world average of 10.2%.

By contrast, the figure for the UK is 10.8% and the US is 10.4%.

Meik Wiking, author of the book The Art of Danish Living, has long regarded his home country as a shining example of what other countries should aspire to mimic with their workplace policies.

“Danes are actually happy at work,” he tells the BBC. “Almost 60% of Danes say they would continue to work if they won the lottery and became financially independent.”

Mr Wiking, who is also the boss of Danish think tank The Happiness Research Institute, shares several policies that help generate a strong work-life balance in Denmark.

These include the right to a minimum five weeks of paid vacation per year, in addition to public holidays. In the UK most workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid leave, but in the US it can be as low as just 11 days.

Denmark also offers a very generous six months of paid maternity and paternity leave. In the UK the father, or non-birthing partner, typically gets one to two weeks of paid leave.

In the US there is only a federal guarantee of unpaid parental leave, although some states, such as California, now offer paid time away from work after the birth of a child.

Mr Wiking is another Dane who cites the concept of bosses trusting their employees to do the right thing. He uses the example of staff at the Tivoli Gardens amusement park in Copenhagen, where they follow the three-metre rule.

The idea is that you are CEO of everything within a radius of three metres. “If you see garbage within your three-metre radius you pick it up, and if you see a guest looking for something, you stop and ask them if you can help,” says Mr Wiking.

He adds that when staff take ownership of their own space it can help them feel empowered and appreciated, which goes a long way to contributing to a healthy sentiment about their workplace.

Janine Leschke, a professor in the department of management, society and communication at the Copenhagen Business School, says Denmark is definitely “not a work culture where you have to show up and be available all day, all evening, to show that you’re working hard all the time”.

Instead, she says flexibility during the workday gives employees the time they need to, say, pick up their children from school or day care. “The day doesn’t have to officially end at five or six, and that’s appealing to a lot of Danes with kids.”

Mr Hoces has noticed how some employers in the US may expect their staff to be available over weekends, to answer the odd email or message. That kind of overtime doesn’t fit with his outlook on a positive work-life balance.

“If I was expected to take calls on the weekend, that would be a huge red flag to me, and I would likely change jobs,” he says. “But so far that hasn’t happened to me or anyone I know.”

Casper Rouchmann, a Copenhagen-based CEO and founder of tech firm SparkForce, says his relaxed leadership policy would be familiar to most Danes. “You don’t need to ask me to leave early,” he says. “No one takes advantage of my kindness.”

Mr Rouchmann adds that the element of trust is so ingrained in Danish culture, visitors to Denmark are often aghast at how far it can go. He also highlights Denmark’s generous welfare state, and the fact that firms have to give financial compensation to staff who are made redundant.

“If you lose your job, the government is there to help,” adds Mr Rouchmann.

As much as other countries can learn from Denmark’s work-life balance, he says it has some downsides. “Some people can rely too much on that safety net, and it might say to them that they don’t have to take real risks, which is why we can be less entrepreneurial compared to the US.”

Samantha Saxby, an American human resources expert, says Denmark has such a good work-life balance because the country “prioritises collective well-being”.

By contrast, she says the US “has long emphasised individual achievement and ambition, which has driven tremendous innovation, but often at the cost of work-life balance”.

Yet Ms Saxby, who is director of marketing for the US National Human Resources Association, says that companies in the US and elsewhere around the world may be finally following the lead of Denmark and the other equally happy Nordic nations.

“Progressive organisations are introducing benefits like unlimited paid time off, mental health days, and wellness programs, to encourage employees to prioritise self-care,” she says. “These measures not only alleviate pressure, but also demonstrate that employers value their workforce’s overall well-being.

“More companies are recognising that well-rested and balanced employees bring fresh ideas, better problem-solving skills, and greater engagement. Employees are beginning to feel empowered to take the time they need without sacrificing career growth.”

India’s latest diplomatic outreach to Afghanistan’s Taliban government signals a marked shift in how it sees the geopolitical reality in the region.

This comes more than three years after India suffered a major strategic and diplomatic blow when Kabul fell to the Taliban.

Two decades of investment in Afghanistan’s democracy – through military training, scholarships and landmark projects like building its new parliament – were swiftly undone. The collapse also paved the way for greater influence from regional rivals, particularly Pakistan and China, eroding India’s strategic foothold and raising new security concerns.

Yet, last week signalled a shift. India’s top diplomat Vikram Misri met Taliban acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai – the highest level of engagement since Kabul’s fall. The Taliban government expressed interest in strengthening political and economic ties with India, calling it a “significant regional and economic power”.

Talks reportedly focused on expanding trade and leveraging Iran’s Chabahar port, which India has been developing to bypass Pakistan’s Karachi and Gwadar ports.

How significant is this meeting? Delhi has now given the Taliban leadership the de facto legitimacy it has sought from the international community since its return to power, Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center, an American think-tank, told me.

“The fact that this treatment is coming from India – a nation that never previously had friendly relations with the Taliban, makes this all the more significant, and also a diplomatic triumph for the Taliban,” he says.

Since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, countries have adopted varied approaches toward the regime, balancing diplomatic engagement with concerns over human rights and security. China, for example, has gone far: it has actively engaged with the Taliban government, focusing on security and economic interests, and even has an ambassador in the country.

• Taliban welcomes first new Chinese ambassador since takeover

No country has formally recognised the Taliban government, but up to 40 countries maintain some form of diplomatic or informal relations with it.

That’s why experts like Jayant Prasad, a former Indian ambassador to Afghanistan, are more circumspect about India’s outreach.

For the past three years, he says, India has maintained contact with the Taliban through a foreign service diplomat. India had closed its consulates in Afghanistan during the civil war in the 1990s and reopened them in 2002 after the war ended. “We didn’t want this hiatus to develop [again], so we wanted to engage. It is very simply a step up in relations,” he says.

India has “historical and civilisational ties” with Afghanistan, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar told parliament in 2023. India has invested more than $3bn (£2.46bn) in over 500 projects across Afghanistan, including roads, power lines, dams, hospitals and clinics. It has trained Afghan officers, awarded thousands of scholarships to students and built a new parliament building.

This reflects a lasting geopolitical reality. “Irrespective of the nature of the regime in Kabul – monarchical, communist, or Islamist – there has been a natural warmth between Delhi and Kabul,” The Indian Express newspaper noted.

Mr Kugelman echoes the sentiment. “India has an important legacy as a development and humanitarian aid donor in Afghanistan, which has translated into public goodwill from the Afghan public that Delhi is keen not to lose,” he says.

Interestingly, relations with Delhi appear to be easing amid rising tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan claims the hardline Pakistani Taliban (TTP) operates from sanctuaries in Afghanistan.

Last July, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told the BBC that Pakistan would continue attacks on Afghanistan as part of an operation aimed at countering terrorism. Days before talks between India and the Taliban government, Pakistani airstrikes killed dozens in eastern Afghanistan, according to the Afghan government. The Taliban government condemned the strikes as violations of its sovereignty.

This marks a sharp decline in relations since the fall of Kabul in 2021, when a top Pakistani intelligence official was among the first foreign guests to meet the Taliban regime. At the time, many saw Kabul’s fall as a strategic setback for India.

“While Pakistan isn’t the only factor driving India’s intensifying outreach to the Taliban, it’s true that Delhi does get a big win in its evergreen competition with Pakistan by moving closer to a critical long-time Pakistani asset that has now turned on its former patron,” says Mr Kugelman.

There are other reasons driving the outreach. India aims to strengthen connectivity and access Central Asia, which it can’t reach directly by land due to Pakistan’s refusal of transit rights. Experts say Afghanistan is key to this goal. One strategy is collaborating with Iran on the Chabahar port development to improve access to Central Asia via Afghanistan.

“It is easier for Delhi to focus on the Afghanistan component of this plan by engaging more closely with the Taliban leadership, which is fully behind India’s plans as they would help enhance Afghanistan’s own trade and connectivity links,” says Mr Kugelman.

Clearly, India’s recent outreach helps advance its core interests in Taliban-led Afghanistan: preventing terrorism threats to India, deepening connectivity with Iran and Central Asia, maintaining public goodwill through aid, and countering a struggling Pakistan.

What about the downsides?

“The main risk of strengthening ties with the Taliban is the Taliban itself. We’re talking about a violent and brutal actor with close ties to international – including Pakistani – terror groups that has done little to reform itself from what it was in the 1990s,” says Mr Kugelman.

“India may hope that if it keeps the Taliban on side, so to speak, the Taliban will be less likely to undermine India or its interests. And that may be true. But at the end of the day, can you really trust an actor like the Taliban? That will be the unsettling question hovering over India as it continues to cautiously pursue this complex relationship.”

Mr Prasad sees no downsides to India’s current engagement with Afghanistan, despite concerns over the Taliban’s treatment of women. “The Taliban is fully in control. Letting the Taliban stew in its own juice won’t help Afghan people. Some engagement with the international community might pressurise the government to improve its behaviour.”

“Remember, the Taliban is craving for recognition,” says Mr Prasad. “They know that will only happen after internal reforms.” Like bringing women back into public life and restoring their rights to education, work and political participation.

The Malaysian prime minister has formally launched the UK’s largest brownfield development, which includes a huge arena and thousands of homes.

The Brabazon new town, built by the Malaysian-owned YTL Group, will be based on the former Filton Airfield on the Bristol and South Gloucestershire border.

It will include 6,500 new homes, a 15-acre park, a 19,000-capacity carbon-neutral arena, three schools, and more.

Speaking in London during a launch event on Wednesday, PM Anwar Bin Ibrahim said a new trade deal between the UK and Malaysia represents a “golden opportunity”.

The UK formally joined the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) in December 2024, enabling closer working between YTL in the UK and Malaysia.

Developers hope the new town, which is costing about £2bn to build, will be the most sustainable in the UK.

The Copenhagen-inspired project is being designed to allow people to access essential services – workplaces, schools, shops, public transport and healthcare – within a 15-minute radius of their home.

Baroness Gustafsson OBE, minister for investment, was at the launch event and said “YTL’s commitment is a huge vote of confidence in the UK”.

“Seeing global investors put billions in the UK economy shows we are an investment destination of choice,” she said.

Francis Yeoh Sock Ping, executive chairman of YTL Group, said the company’s takeover of Wessex Water in 2002 is a “shining example” of the benefits of collaboration.

“Investments by Malaysian businesses into the UK are not just about economic growth,” he said.

“They reflect our commitment to nurturing partnerships that drive innovation, foster prosperity, and contribute to a better world for all.”

About 300 homes have already been built at the Brabazon site, with a further 240 under construction.

Plans for the new development have been in the pipeline for about seven years.

As light snow fell outside, worshippers gathered at Lincoln United Methodist Church in Chicago to pray and plan for what will happen when Donald Trump takes office next week, when the president-elect has promised to begin the largest expulsion of undocumented immigrants in US history.

“The 20th [of January] is going to be here before we know it,” Reverend Tanya Lozano-Washington told the congregation, after passing out steaming cups of Mexican hot chocolate and coffee to warm the crowd of about 60.

Located in Pilsen, a mostly Latino neighbourhood, the church has been a long-time hub for pro-immigration activists in the city’s large Hispanic community. But Sunday services are now English-only, since in-person Spanish-language services were cancelled.

The decision to move them online was made over fears that those gatherings might be targeted by anti-immigration activists or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The incoming president has said he will deport millions of illegal immigrants, threatened workplace raids, and reports suggest that he could do away with a longstanding policy that has made churches off-limits for ICE arrests.

According to one parishioner, American-born David Cruseno, “the threat is very real. It’s very alive”.

Cruseno said his mother entered the country illegally from Mexico but has been working and paying taxes in the US for 30 years.

“With the new administration coming in, it’s almost like a persecution,” he told the BBC. “I feel like we’re being singled out and targeted in a fashion that’s unjust, even though we co-operate [with] this country endlessly.”

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But across the country, over 1,400 miles (2,253km) to the south in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, another mostly immigrant community has a very different take on the impending inauguration – a sign of how Latino communities have become starkly divided on illegal immigration and Donald Trump’s approach to the US-Mexico border.

“Immigration is essential… but the right way,” said resident David Porras – a rancher, farmer and botanist.

“But with Trump, we’re going to do it correctly.”

The region is separated from Mexico only by the dark, shallow, narrow waters of the river and patches of dense vegetation and mesquite – locals say that the day-to-day realities of living on the border have increasingly opened their eyes to what many see as the dangers of illegal immigration.

“I’ve had families [of migrants] come knocking on my backdoor, asking for water, for shelter,” said Amanda Garcia, a resident of Starr County, where nearly 97% of residents identify as Latino, making it the most Latino county in the US outside of Puerto Rico.

“We had once incident where a young lady was by herself with two men, and you could tell she was tired – and being abused.”

Over dozens of interviews in two of the Rio Grande Valley’s constituent counties – Starr and neighbouring Hidalgo – residents described a litany of other border-related incidents, ranging from waking up to migrants on their property to witnessing busts of cartel stash houses used for drugs, or dangerous high-speed chases between authorities and smugglers.

Many in the overwhelmingly Latino part of Texas are themselves immigrants, or the children or grandchildren of immigrants. Once a reliable Democratic stronghold in otherwise “Red” Texas, Starr County swung in Trump’s favour in the 2024 election – the first time the county was won by Republicans in over 130 years.

Nationally, Trump garnered about 45% of the Latino vote – a mammoth 14 percentage-point bump compared to the 2020 election.

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The victory in Starr County, locals say, was in no small part due to Trump’s stance on the border.

“We live in a country of order and laws,” said Demesio Guerrero, a naturalized US citizen originally from Mexico who lives in the town of Hidalgo, across the international bridge from the cartel-plagued Mexican city of Reynosa.

“We have to be able [to say] who comes in and out,” added Mr Guerrero, speaking in Spanish just metres from a brown, tall metal barrier that represents the end of the US. “Otherwise, this country is lost.”

Like other Trump supporters in the Rio Grande Valley, Mr Guerrero said – repeatedly – that he “is not against immigration”.

“But they should do it the right way,” he said. “Like others have.”

Trump “is not anti-immigrant, or racist at all,” agreed Marisa Garcia, a resident of Rio Grande City in Starr County.

“We’re just tired of them [undocumented immigrants] coming and thinking they can do whatever they want on our property or land, and taking advantage of the system,” she added. “It’s not racist to say that things need to change, and we need to benefit from it also.”

Support for deportations is so strong that the Texas State Government offered Donald Trump 1,400-acres (567 hectares) of land just outside Rio Grande City to build detention facilities for undocumented migrants – a controversial move the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas described as “mass caging” that will “fuel civil rights violations”.

While the patch of land – nestled between a peaceful farm-to-market road and the Rio Grande – is currently quiet, officials in town believe it could ultimately be a boon for the area.

“If you look at it from a developmental way, it’s great for the economics of the city,” Rio Grande City manager Gilberto Millan told the BBC.

“It’s got some negative connotations to it, obviously, being a detention area,” he said. “You can see it that way, but obviously you need a place to house these people.”

The number of migrants coming in through Mexico has been trending sharply downwards – with last month’s crossings at the lowest they’ve been since January 2020

But the issue is still very much alive on the streets of cities like Chicago, far from the southern border.

It is one of several Democrat-run cities which have enacted so-called “sanctuary city” laws that limit local police co-operation with federal immigration authorities.

In response, since 2022, Republican governors in southern states like Texas and Florida have sent thousands of immigrants northward in buses and planes.

Tom Homan, who was chosen by Trump to lead border policy, told a gathering of Republicans in Chicago last month that the midwestern city would be “ground zero” for mass deportations.

“January 21st, you’re going to look for a lot of ICE agents in your city looking for criminals and gang members,” Homan said. “Count on it. It will happen.”

Many local politicians, including Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and the state’s governor, JB Pritzker, have continued to back sanctuary city laws, dubbed the “Welcoming City” ordinance here.

But the policy is not universally loved. In November, Trump made gains in many Latino neighbourhoods.

Recently, two Democratic Hispanic lawmakers attempted to change the ordinance and allow some co-operation by Chicago police with federal authorities. Their measure was blocked Wednesday by Johnson and his progressive allies.

For now, the worshipers at Lincoln United Methodist are making plans and watching carefully as they see how Trump’s plans play out.

“I’m scared, but I can’t imagine what people without papers are feeling,” said D Camacho, a 21-year-old legal immigrant from Mexico who was among the congregation at the church on Sunday.

Mexican consular officials in Chicago and elsewhere in the US have also said they are working on a mobile app that will allow Mexican migrants to warn relatives and consular officials if they are being detained and could be deported.

Officials in Mexico have described the system as a “panic button”.

Organisers at Lincoln United are also reaching out to legal experts, advising locals on how to take care of their finances or arrange childcare in case of deportation and helping to create identification cards with details of an immigrant’s family members and other information in English.

And several second-generation immigrants here said they were working to improve their Spanish, in order to be able to pass along legal information or translate for migrants being interviewed by authorities.

“If someone with five children gets taken, who will take the children in? Will they go to social services? Will the family be divided?” said Rev Emma Lozano – Reverend Tanya Lozano-Washington’s mother and a long-time community activist and church elder.

“Those are the kinds of questions people have,” she said. “‘How can we defend our families – what is the plan?'”

“Please come to my city!”

A familiar cry from music lovers all over the world hoping their favourite artists come to their hometown.

Fans in India, though, have often seen that plea fall on deaf ears.

Artists including Sabrina Carpenter, Gracie Abrams and Arctic Monkeys appear on the country’s weekly Spotify album chart, where Ed Sheeran’s ÷ (Divide) has spent 217 consecutive weeks.

Many world-famous musicians have tended to skip the country.

But that now appears to be changing.

Dua Lipa’s recent performance in Mumbai went viral and Coldplay will soon kick off their tour – nine years after their last visit to India.

Their dates include two shows in Ahmedabad where more than 100,000 people are expected to attend each night.

“To have that experience in our own country, it’s really cool to see that it’s happening more and more,” music fan and aspiring artist Anoushka Maskey tells BBC Newsbeat.

Demand for live music appears to be increasing in India, with ticketing platform BookMyShow reporting 18% growth in 2024.

Ed Sheeran is due to play his biggest-ever tour of the country, and artists including Shawn Mendes and Louis Tomlinson will appear at Lollapalooza festival in March.

Marketing professor Dr Sourindra Banerjee, from Leeds University Business School, says India’s 1.4 billion population – and their age – is a big draw for artists.

“You have a large portion of the world, of youth, living in India,” Dr Banerjee tells Newsbeat.

“So if I were in the music business that would be the place I would target, to reap the benefits of the demographic.”

According to the global market research company Statista, the value of the Indian music industry in 2021 was 19 billion rupees (£178 million).

By 2026, it is estimated to have grown to 37 billion rupees (£346 million).

Dr Banerjee says the rise of K-pop in India has shown Western artists the potential of the country for finding new fans.

“Major music labels have research teams who would have seen that someone else [can] take over a large market,” he says.

More broadly, he feels India’s growing wealth and links with the wider world makes it an important place for artists to get a foothold and “collaborate”.

“Not only to access the Indian market, but also access the large Indian [population] which lives outside the country.”

For local Indian artists, there is hope that big names could bring big opportunities for them.

Pop/folk singer Anoushka has been making music since 2020 and feels Western artists offer a chance for homegrown acts to find greater visibility.

She has experience herself after opening for Brit Award winner Ben Howard.

“That’s an opportunity that I never thought I would have within the country,” she says.

Independent singer-songwriter Anumita Nadesan says the chance to collaborate with bigger-artists “puts you on the map”.

“It’s very inspiring as well, because before when a mega artist came to India, we had to travel to another country to see their concerts.

“And you get to learn a lot as an artist by going to these concerts,” the Hindi artist says.

Pop artist Frizzell D’Souza, from Bangalore says seeing acts from abroad who started from humble beginnings can send a strong message to Indian audiences that homegrown talent can achieve global fame.

She describes Ed Sheeran as her “songwriting hero” and says his background of busking and playing in grassroots venues is relatable.

“It’s very reassuring to know that someone like him can actually do it,” says Frizzell.

“Even though he’s such a big superstar right now, he did start kind of at the same place that I did.”

Frizzell also sees an opportunity for cultural exchange, with western music figures being exposed to Indian sounds.

She points to rapper Hanumankind, who has charted globally with Big Dawgs and teamed up with A$AP Rocky.

“And that is proof that having international acts come to India is also helping Indian artists [globally] break through,” she says.

But, the artists point out some possible drawbacks to the influx of global stars coming to India.

The biggest risk Frizzell sees is around money – and audiences budgeting mainly for bigger artists.

“I hope I’m wrong about this, but maybe [they] would prefer the bigger international acts and not want to risk it on younger or upcoming acts.”

Anumita adds there is also a chance of artists overshadowing the attention smaller artists get.

“But then it also challenges smaller artists to maybe raise the bar.”

According to Peony Hirwani, music journalist at Rolling Stone India, the risk of being overshadowed is low as companies involved with events often ensure local artists are the main support acts.

She gives G-Eazy’s 2024 tour as an example, which had only Indian support artists – helping to boost their careers.

Instead, she tells Newsbeat, the focus should be on improving infrastructure to attract the biggest of names such as Taylor Swift and Beyonce – both of whom did not bring their tours to India.

Fans have often complained about facilities, concerts often held in sports stadiums used during India’s lengthy cricket season and not always available year-round.

“So we need more, bigger venues, and a better system in place for music,” Peony says.

Lollapalooza Festival takes place at a horse racing track in Mumbai – the only venue with enough space to safely host it.

“Even some of the [notable] stadiums we have right now… there definitely needs to be conversations about what everyone needs to make our infrastructure and venues better,” says Peony.

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.