A young woman described as “at her happiest when she dances” is thought to be among the three Israeli women released after 471 days held hostage by Hamas.

Romi Gonen, 24, was captured as she tried to escape the Nova music festival when it was targeted by the militant group as part of the 7 October 2023 attack.

She is believed to have been freed alongside Doron Steinbrecher, 31, a veterinary nurse, and Emily Damari, 28, who holds dual British-Israeli nationality.

It was confirmed on Sunday afternoon that three hostages had been handed over to the Red Cross by Hamas in Gaza.

Their release forms part of the first phase of the ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas, which began on Sunday. A total of 33 hostages are to be released over the next six weeks.

A delay in Israel getting all the names, which Hamas blamed on “technical field reasons”, pushed the ceasefire back by nearly three hours.

• Follow the latest updates here

Romi had travelled from her home in Kfar Veradim, northern Israel, to the Nova festival, which took place in the Negev Desert in the south.

More than 360 people were killed at the festival when Hamas fighters crossed over the border, 2km (1.3 miles) to the west. The desert landscape offered partygoers limited cover and exit routes were blocked by gunmen.

When sirens sounded as the attack unfolded, Romi called her family. Her mother, Meirav, recalled hearing shots and shouting in Arabic in the final call with her daughter.

Romi was ambushed by Hamas militants as she tried to flee.

In June, her mother addressed the UN Human Rights council to appeal for international help to release the hostages.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said she had gone to the festival “to do what she loved, to dance” – something she had studied for 12 years, starring in solo performances and becoming an “amazing choreographer”.

A video posted by the families’ forum last November described her as “the girl with the biggest smile, the brightest light, the greatest friend”.

The forum also said that Romi’s bedroom at her home “remains exactly as it was when she left”, awaiting her return.

Doron, a 31-year-old veterinary nurse, was abducted from her apartment in Kibbutz Kfar Aza – near Gaza’s north-western border – when Hamas attacked.

The community, one of many Israeli villages along the border, was heavily targeted by armed militants during the 7 October attacks.

Israeli officials said Hamas burned homes and killed civilians, including whole families, as well as taking hostages.

When the assault began, Doron contacted her family and friends via WhatsApp to say she was hiding under the bed as militants advanced, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said.

In her last voice message, she was heard screaming “they’ve caught me” as shouting and gunfire sounded in the background.

Doron’s family received no information about her whereabouts for nearly four months.

In May last year, her sister, Yamit Ashkenazi, wrote an emotional letter through the missing families forum, calling her “my sunshine”.

“I wish you could feel the energy we send to you,” it read.

And in an earlier post, Doron was described as “the glue that connects all her friends, sensitive and funny, always smiling and the first to offer help”.

She studied theatre and film in school, and developed a love for animals that led to her becoming a veterinary nurse.

Speaking to the BBC in November 2023, Doron’s sister Yamit spoke of a new tattoo. It read: “As the sun we will rise again”, but had some of the sun’s rays missing.

“They will be added when she is home,” she added.

Emily, a 28-year-old British-Israeli national, was also taken hostage from Kibbutz Kfar Aza on 7 October 2023.

She was shot in the hand and taken into Gaza from her home during the attack, and also saw her dog shot and killed.

Her mother, Mandy Damari, was also in the kibbutz in her separate home on 7 October. Mrs Damari hid in the safe room and was saved by a bullet hitting the door handle, making it impossible for attackers to get in.

As the assault unfolded, Emily sent her mother a text message containing a single heart emoji – that was the last contact they had.

In December, Mrs Damari told the BBC how concerned she was about the conditions her daughter was facing. Sunday was the first time they received information about Emily since March.

As news of her release came, a source close to her family said that it had been a “torturous 471 days but a particularly torturous 24 hours”.

“All Emily’s mum Mandy wants to do is hug Emily. But she won’t believe it until she sees it,” the source said.

• ‘I just want to hug her’: Family of British-Israeli hostage on news she will be released

Mrs Damari was born and raised in the UK, and met her husband on a holiday in Israel aged 20.

Emily, the youngest of four children, has strong connections with the UK – she is a Tottenham Hotspur fan and would often visit to see relatives, attend concerts, go shopping and visit the pub here.

Mrs Damari previously told the BBC that Emily is “the core of our family and the core is missing”.

“I love her to the moon and back, she is a special person,” she added.

The Israeli and Hamas negotiators never came face to face – but by the end, just one floor separated them.

Ceasefire talks via middlemen from Qatar, Egypt and the US dragged on for several months, at times without hope. Now the key players were all inside one building in Doha and the pace was frantic.

A deal was close but things had gone wrong before: one source described a last-minute push to stop the agreement breaking down while a podium was being set up so the Qatari prime minister could announce it.

“Literally, negotiations were up until 10 minutes before the press conference. So that’s how things were stitched up at the last minute,” the source familiar with the talks said.

The BBC has spoken to a number of officials on all sides of the negotiations to piece together how the final fraught days of the secretive process unfolded.

The deal did not come out of the blue.

The overall framework of the agreement reached on 15 January was broadly the same as the proposal set out by President Joe Biden during a White House address last May. It uses the same three-phase approach and will see a ceasefire, Israeli hostages released in return for Palestinian prisoners, and the Israeli military’s gradual withdrawal from Gaza.

But sources familiar with the discussions agreed the dynamics of the talks shifted decisively in mid-December and the pace changed.

Hamas, already reeling from Israel’s killing of its leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza two months earlier, had become increasingly isolated. Its Lebanon-based ally Hezbollah had been decimated and had agreed to a truce with Israel. Bashar al-Assad’s Iran-backed government in Syria had also been swept away.

The view in Washington is that Hamas was forced to abandon the idea that “the cavalry was coming to save it”, as one US official put it.

“It is hard to overstate how fundamentally the equation changed and what that [did] for Hamas’s calculus,” says a senior Biden administration official familiar with the talks.

An Israeli official who wished to remain anonymous said Hamas was “not in a rush” to strike a deal and had been “dictating” rather than negotiating. They said that changed after the death of Sinwar and Israeli operations against Hamas’s allies in the region.

On top of that, the official said, there was “momentum created by both US administrations” – the Biden White House and the incoming Trump team.

“We could not achieve a deal like this until conditions had changed,” the official added.

On 12 December, Biden’s negotiating team visited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Middle East envoy Brett McGurk and CIA director Bill Burns were all in attendance.

A US official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the meeting lasted “multiple hours” and focused on the “new regional equation” and “how we catapult from the Lebanon ceasefire into another round of intensive discussions” on Gaza.

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There was also another piece on the chessboard by this stage: Donald Trump.

On 16 December, weeks after Trump’s victory, the BBC spoke to a Hamas official who was unusually optimistic about the ceasefire efforts, suggesting they seemed to be more serious.

The official – who had taken part in every set of talks since November 2023 – appeared reassured by the fact that an adviser to the incoming US president had sent a message to mediators indicating Trump wanted an agreement before his inauguration.

Trump had also warned of “all hell to pay” if Hamas did not agree to release the hostages – but the Palestinian official was bullish.

“This time, the pressure will not be limited to Hamas, as was customary under the Biden administration,” the official said. “There will also be pressure on Netanyahu. He is the one obstructing the deal, and Trump seems to understand that very well.”

However, that same official’s prediction that a deal could be done by Christmas proved to be optimistic.

During December, the process remained beset by problems. Israel publicly ruled out releasing certain high-profile prisoners, while the White House accused Hamas of throwing up roadblocks over the hostage releases.

A Biden administration official said: “Hamas [was] refusing to agree – and this was a breakdown at that point – to the list of hostages that would be released in phase one of the deal.

“That’s just so fundamental. This is a hostage release deal. Unless you agree to the list of hostages who will come out, there’s not going to be a deal.”

The same official said Hamas made “completely untrue” claims about not knowing the location of the hostages, and added: “We held the line and basically left the table until Hamas agreed to the hostage list.”

An anonymous Israeli official said Hamas had sought to conceal the number of living hostages and “tried to dictate that they would send us only dead bodies”.

For its part, Hamas claimed Israel unexpectedly added 11 names to the list of hostages it wanted to be released in the first phase. Hamas considered them reserve soldiers, and therefore not eligible to be released alongside the women, injured and elderly hostages due to be released in phase one.

The door was left open to Qatari and Egyptian mediators to continue their efforts and on 3 January, there was an apparent breakthrough when Hamas proposed the release of 110 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences in return.

There were by now well-established terms of reference for such trades. For each hostage Hamas was to release, Israel would have to provide what had become known in the nomenclature of the draft deal as a “key” – meaning an agreed number or even specific identities of Palestinian prisoners.

A US official said: “There’s an equation for how many Palestinian prisoners come out. So for female soldiers, for example, there’s a key. And for elderly males, there’s a key. And for women civilians, there’s a key. And this has all been worked out and the prisoners have been named, hundreds and hundreds of prisoners on the list.”

The exchange file in the negotiations – Palestinian prisoners for hostages held by Hamas – became known as “the keys”.

During this phase of the talks, Hamas also relented on two long-standing demands: the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza in the first phase and a formal Israeli commitment to a total ceasefire.

Sensing a breakthrough, the Egyptian mediator urgently dispatched Major General Ahmed Abdel Khaleq – who oversees the Palestinian portfolio in Egyptian intelligence – to Doha. After meeting with Hamas representatives, he secured confirmation the group would make what a senior Hamas official described as “painful concessions.”

But on 6 January, according to a Palestinian official, Israel rejected the offer put forward by Hamas on the 11 hostages. Hamas responded by sending the BBC and other media outlets a list featuring the names and ages of 34 Israeli hostages. Two days later, the body of one of those on that list – Yosef AlZayadni – was found inside Gaza.

The list included reserve soldiers, which indicated Hamas was willing to release them in the first phase.

This appeared to be an attempt to embarrass Netanyahu and rally hostage families in Israel and around the world to pressure him into accepting the deal.

It was also an indication Hamas had not walked away.

Meetings stretching into the small hours of Doha’s hot evenings became common during the final stretch of the negotiations.

In the last month, they had developed into so-called “proximity talks”, with both sides in the same two-storey building, according to multiple accounts from officials familiar with the details.

A senior US official said Hamas’s delegation was on the first floor and Israel’s on the floor above. Mediators ran pieces of paper between them. Maps of Israeli troop withdrawal proposals and details about hostages or prisoners drafted for release were shuttled back and forth.

“That takes an enormous amount of work and, I have to say, all of that was not fully nailed down, really, until just the [final] hours,” said the official.

Inside the building, the delegations met separately with senior figures from Qatar and Egypt. Among those closely involved in the details was Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.

Two crucial areas were worked on in the final phases of the talks: the lists for release of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and the positions for Israeli troop withdrawals from populated areas in Gaza during phase one.

By 9 January, the pressure had escalated. Trump’s envoy, Biden’s envoy, and the Egyptian intelligence chief convened in Doha for a serious eight-hour negotiation session.

A senior Egyptian official told the BBC: “We are at the closest point to reaching an agreement.”

Agreement had been reached on 90% of the outstanding issues, but further talks were required.

Steve Witkoff, Trump’s recently appointed Middle East envoy, was dispatched to Tel Aviv to meet Netanyahu. Though not yet officially in post, the New York property tycoon had become more and more involved in the talks, which Trump was taking a keen interest in.

He was about to be sent on an assignment that proved to be pivotal.

When Trump’s man in the Middle East arrived in Israel on 11 January, it was the sabbath.

Witkoff was asked to wait until the sabbath had ended before he met Netanyahu but, in a breach of custom, the envoy refused and demanded to meet the prime minister immediately.

Netanyahu appears to have come under serious strong-arming during the meeting and the intervention from the Trump camp to get the Israeli government to set aside its final reservations seems to have been critical.

The meeting was reportedly fractious and the message to Netanyahu from the incoming president was clear: Trump wants a deal – now get it done.

Commenting on those talks, an Israeli official who asked to remain anonymous said it was a “very important meeting”.

When Witkoff returned to Doha, he remained in the room with the talks, spending time with Biden’s envoy Mr McGurk, in what two US officials called a “near unprecedented” transition effort in American diplomacy.

This week, Hamas official Bassem Naim told Al Arabiya he “couldn’t imagine that [the deal] could be possible without the pressure of the incoming administration led by President Trump” – and specifically cited Witkoff’s presence at the talks.

By now, the fact a deal could be imminent was out in the open and public expectation was building – not least among the families of those being held hostage and Palestinians displaced inside Gaza.

The final 72 hours of talks involved a constant back and forth over the finer points of how the deal would be implemented, according to one account.

One source close to the negotiations described the hammering out of “arrangements and logistics” for how the hostages would be released in Gaza and for the withdrawal movements of Israeli troops.

On 12 January, a senior Palestinian official familiar with the negotiations said “all the officials are here in the same building”, adding: “Tonight is decisive. We are only a few steps away from an agreement.”

That meeting lasted six hours – but, like so many times before, an impasse was reached.

This time the disagreement that arose was over the mechanism for the return of displaced individuals from southern Gaza to the north.

Israel wanted to search returnees and their vehicles to ensure no militants or military equipment were being transported – which Hamas refused to accept.

Mediators proposed that Qatari and Egyptian technical teams conduct the searches instead. Both sides agreed and one of the final remaining stalemates was resolved.

On 15 January shortly after 18:00, a Hamas negotiator wrote in a message to the BBC: “Everything is finished.”

The podium was being readied.

A deal which once looked impossible had taken shape.

A new US law banning TikTok has come into effect, hours after the popular app stopped working across the country.

Late on Saturday a message appearing on the TikTok for US users said a law banning TikTok had been enacted, meaning “you can’t use TikTok for now”.

The video-sharing app was banned over concerns about its links to the Chinese government. It was given until 19 January to be sold to an approved US buyer to avert the ban.

President Joe Biden had said he would leave the issue to his successor, Donald Trump. The president-elect has said he will “most likely” give TikTok a 90-day reprieve from a ban once he takes office on Monday.

“The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate,” Trump told NBC News on Saturday.

“If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday.”

Users reported the app had also been removed from both Apple and Google’s US app stores and TikTok.com was not showing videos, in line with the terms of the ban.

“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office,” a message displayed by the app read.

• Could TikTok ever be banned in the UK too?

It is the first time the US has banned a major social media platform.

On Friday, the US Supreme Court upheld the law, passed in April last year, banning the app in the US unless its China-based parent company, ByteDance, sold the platform by Sunday, which it has not done.

TikTok has argued that the law violates free speech protections for its 170 million users in the country.

After the ruling, TikTok’s chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, appealed to Trump, thanking him for his “commitment to work with us to find a solution”.

Mr Chew is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday.

In the hours leading up to the social media platform going offline, content creators had been posting videos to say goodbye to their followers.

Creator Nicole Bloomgarden told the BBC that not being on TikTok would result in a significant salary cut.

Another user, Erika Thompson, said educational content on the platform would be the “biggest loss” for the community.

TikTok users were met with a message earlier on Saturday that said the law would “force us to make our services temporarily unavailable. We’re working to restore our service in the U.S. as soon as possible.”

Meanwhile, a government minister told the BBC on Sunday that the UK had no plans to ban TikTok.

“We won’t be following the same path as the Americans unless or until… there is a threat that we are concerned about in the British interest, and then of course we will keep it under review,” Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones said.

The app was banned from the UK Parliament and government devices in 2023 over security concerns.

But Jones told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that “for consumers who want to post videos of their cats dancing, that doesn’t seem like a security threat to me”.

US President-elect Donald Trump has launched his own cryptocurrency, which quickly soared in market capitalisation to several billion dollars.

His release of the meme coin, $Trump, comes as he prepares to take office on Monday as 47th president of the US.

The venture was co-ordinated by CIC Digital LLC – an affiliate of the Trump Organization – which has previously sold Trump-branded shoes and fragrances.

Meme coins are used to build popularity for a viral internet trend or movement, but they lack intrinsic value and are extremely volatile investments.

By Saturday afternoon, hours after its launch, the market capitalisation for $Trump reached nearly $5.5bn (£4.5bn), according to CoinMarketCap.com.

CIC Digital LLC and Fight Fight Fight LLC, a company formed in Delaware earlier this month, own 80% of the tokens. It is unclear how much money Trump might make from the venture.

“My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social as he announced the meme coin on Friday night.

Some 200m of the digital tokens have been issued and another 800m will be released in the next three years, the coin’s website said.

“This Trump Meme celebrates a leader who doesn’t back down, no matter the odds,” the website said.

• Thousands protest in Washington against Trump

It included a disclaimer noting the coin is “not intended to be, or the subject of” an investment opportunity or a security and was “not political and has nothing to do with” any political campaign, political office or government agency.

Critics accused Trump of cashing in on the presidency.

“Trump owning 80 percent and timing launch hours before inauguration is predatory and many will likely get hurt by it,” Nick Tomaino, a crypto venture capitalist, said in a social media post.

Such digital tokens are notorious for speculators using hype to pump up the value before selling at the top of the market, leaving latecomers to count their losses as the price crashes.

Cryptocurrency investors are hoping the Trump administration will boost the industry.

President Joe Biden’s regulators cited concerns about fraud and money laundering as they cracked down on crypto companies by suing exchanges.

Trump was previously skittish about cryptocurrency, but at a Bitcoin conference in Nashville last year he said America would be “the crypto capital of the planet” once he returned to Washington.

His sons Erik and Donald Jr announced their own crypto venture last year.

A court in Seoul has extended the time South Korea’s impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol will be detained over his botched attempt to impose martial law in the country last month.

Citing concerns Yoon could destroy evidence if released, on Sunday a judge issued a warrant allowing investigators to keep the suspended president in custody for up to 20 days.

The 64-year-old was arrested on Wednesday after a weeks-long standoff between investigators and his presidential security team.

Supporters of the president broke into the court after his detention was extended, reportedly smashing windows and doors in an incident condemned by Yoon and the country’s acting president.

The warrant – and Yoon’s subsequent refusal to comply with investigators – is the latest development in a saga that has left South Korea reeling from a political crisis.

The warrant was issued at around 03:00 local time (18:00 GMT on Saturday).

The suspended president is being investigated by the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) on charges of insurrection over a failed martial law order on 3 December that plunged the country into turmoil.

He has been impeached by parliament and suspended – but will only be removed from office if a constitutional court upholds the impeachment.

Investigators now have 20 days – including the four days Yoon has already spent in custody following his arrest – to bring the president to trial.

After his detention was extended, Yoon’s lawyer, Yun Gap-geun, told the Yonhap News Agency that the president would refuse to be questioned by the CIO.

Pro-Yoon supporters rallied outside the court house in the lead up to the decision, with many entering the building after judges issued the extension.

Journalists at the scene reported seeing dozens of people arrested by police following the incident.

Acting President Choi Sang-mok expressed his “strong regret” over the violence, “which is unimaginable in a democratic society”, adding that authorities would increase security around future appearances.

Choi only recently stepped into the top job after the South Korean parliament voted to impeach the previous acting president, Han Duck-soo, over claims of frustrating Yoon’s impeachment process.

Yoon was “shocked” by the scenes in court, his lawyer said, and called on his supporters to express themselves peacefully, according to local media.

The incident is the latest episode in a series of attempts by Yoon’s supporters to frustrate legal proceedings against the president.

The night before his arrest, hundreds of pro-Yoon protesters camped outside the president’s home and jostled with the police officers attempting to take him into custody.

Similar scenes occurred during an earlier arrest attempt on January 3, where angry pro-Yoon supporters hoping to stop the arrest rallied outside the president’s house.

South Korean police were forced to call off their first arrest attempt after the president’s security team blocked entry to Yoon’s compound.

Public opinion has been divided after Yoon’s shock announcement of martial law last month, which he claimed was due to “anti-state forces” in the South Korean parliament, while mentioning North Korea.

But others have viewed the move as an extreme reaction to the political stalemate that arose after his party’s main opposition won a landslide in April, as well as Yoon’s unpopularity in the wake of a scandal surrounding the First Lady.

Thousands have taken to the streets to demonstrate against the suspended president in the weeks since his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law.

Irawati Karve led a life that stood apart from those around her.

Born in British-ruled India, and at a time when women didn’t have many rights or freedoms, Karve did the unthinkable: she pursued higher studies in a foreign country, became a college professor and India’s first female anthropologist.

She also married a man of her choosing, swam in a bathing suit, drove a scooter and even dared to defy a racist hypothesis of her doctorate supervisor – a famous German anthropologist named Eugen Fischer.

Her writings about Indian culture and civilisation and its caste system are ground-breaking, and are a part of the curriculum in Indian colleges. Yet she remains an obscure figure in history and a lot about her life remains unknown.

A new book titled Iru: The Remarkable Life of Irawati Karve, written by her granddaughter Urmilla Deshpande and academic Thiago Pinto Barbosa, sheds light on her fascinating life, and the many odds she braved to blaze an inspiring trail for the women, and men, who came after her.

Born in 1905 in Burma (now Myanmar), Irawati was named after the Irrawaddy river. The only girl among six siblings, she was doted on by her family and brought up in comfort.

But the young girl’s life took unexpected turns, resulting in experiences that would shape her as a person. Apart from strong women, Irawati’s life also crossed paths with empathetic, progressive men who paved the way for her to break barriers and cheered her on as she did so.

At seven, Irawati was sent to boarding school in Pune – a rare opportunity from her father when most girls were pushed into marriage. In Pune, she met RP Paranjpye, a prominent educationist whose family unofficially adopted Irawati and raised her as their own.

In the Paranjpye household, Irawati was exposed to a way of life that celebrated critical thinking and righteous living, even if that meant going against the grain of Indian society. Paranjpye, who Irawati fondly called “appa” or her “second father”, was a man far ahead of his times.

A college principal and staunch supporter of women’s education, he was also an atheist. Through him, Irawati discovered the fascinating world of social sciences and its impact on society.

When Irawati decided to pursue a doctorate in anthropology in Berlin, despite her biological father’s objections, she found support in Paranjpye and her husband, Dinkar Karve, a professor of science.

She arrived in the German city in 1927, after a days-long journey by ship, and began pursuing her degree under the mentorship of Fischer, a celebrated professor of anthropology and eugenics.

At the time, Germany was still reeling from the impact of World War One and Hitler had not yet risen to power. But the spectre of anti-Semitism had begun raising its ugly head. Irawati bore witness to this hate when she found out one day that a Jewish student in her building had been murdered.

In the book, the authors describe the fear, shock and disgust Irawati felt when she saw the man’s body lying on the footpath outside her building, blood oozing across the concrete.

Irawati wrestled with these emotions while working on the thesis assigned by Fischer: to prove that white Europeans were more logical and reasonable – and therefore racially superior to non-white Europeans. This involved meticulously studying and measuring 149 human skulls.

Fischer hypothesised that white Europeans had asymmetrical skulls to accommodate larger right frontal lobes, supposedly a marker of higher intelligence. However, Irawati’s research found no correlation between race and skull asymmetry.

“She had contradicted Fischer’s hypothesis, of course, but also the theories of that institute and the mainstream theories of the time,” the authors write in the book.

She boldly presented her findings, risking her mentor’s ire and her degree. Fischer gave her the lowest grade, but her research critically and scientifically rejected the use of human differences to justify discrimination. (Later, the Nazis would use Fischer’s theories of racial superiority to further their agenda and Fischer would join the Nazi party.)

Throughout her life, Irawati would display this streak of gumption combined with endless empathy, especially for the women she encountered.

At a time when it was unthinkable for a woman to travel too far away from home, Irawati went on field trips to remote villages in India after returning to the country, sometimes with her male colleagues, at other times with her students and even her children, to study the lives of various tribespeople.

She joined archaeological expeditions to recover 15,000-year-old bones, bridging the past and present. These gruelling trips took her deep into forests and rugged terrain for weeks or months, with the book describing her sleeping in barns or truck beds and often going days with little food.

Irawati also bravely confronted societal and personal prejudices as she interacted with people from all walks of life.

The authors describe how Irawati, a Chitpavan Brahmin from a traditionally vegetarian upper-caste Hindu community, bravely ate partially raw meat offered by a tribal leader she wished to study. She recognised it as a gesture of friendship and a test of loyalty, responding with openness and curiosity.

Her studies fostered deep empathy for humanity, leading her to later criticise fundamentalism across religions, including Hinduism. She believed India belonged to everyone who called it home.

The book recounts a moment when, reflecting on the horrors inflicted by the Nazis on the Jews, Irawati’s mind wandered to a startling realisation that would forever alter her view of humanity.

“In these reflections, Irawati learned the most difficult of lessons from Hindu philosophy: all that is you, too,” the authors write.

Irawati died in 1970, but her legacy endures through her work and the people it continues to inspire.

A court in India has convicted a man of the rape and murder of a trainee doctor – a crime that sparked nationwide outrage.

Sanjay Roy, a hospital volunteer worker, was found guilty over the attack, which happened in August last year at a hospital in Kolkata city in West Bengal state.

The incident caused shockwaves across the country, leading to widespread protests and concerns over the safety of healthcare workers in India, especially women.

Judge Anirban Das said the sentence, which will be announced on Monday, would range from life in prison to the death penalty. Roy has maintained his innocence and said previously that he was being framed.

The victim’s mother told the AFP news agency that people would lose faith in India’s legal system if Roy was not handed the death penalty.

The body of the 31-year-old doctor, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was found on 9 August 2024 at at the busy, state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata.

After a gruelling 36-hour shift, she had gone to sleep in the hospital’s seminar hall. Her half-naked, severely injured, body was later discovered near a podium by a colleague.

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The post-mortem examination found the victim had been strangled and had injuries showing she fought back.

According to the charge sheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which the BBC has seen, Roy went to the hospital in a drunken state and found the female doctor sleeping alone.

He was arrested a day after the crime.

The case was initially being investigated by the Kolkata police but later the court handed over the probe to the CBI after state officials were accused of mishandling it.

For weeks after the incident, doctors and medical students across India held protests and rallies demanding justice and better security for doctors.

One such protest, the “Reclaim the Night” march, saw tens of thousands of women walk through the streets at night in Kolkata and other cities on 14 August, the eve of India’s Independence Day.

In December, the victim’s parents petitioned the Calcutta High Court for a fresh investigation, expressing a lack of faith in the CBI’s investigation.

They argued that Roy alone could not have committed the crime and stated they would be satisfied only when all those involved were brought to justice. The high court has said it will consider the plea only if the Supreme Court – which is monitoring the case – directs it to do so.

The incident raised concerns about rising cases of violence against health workers in India – many of whom face physical abuse by angry patients or their relatives.

A 2017 survey by the Indian Medical Association found that over 75% of doctors in India have experienced some form of violence. The survey also revealed that nearly 63% of doctors fear potential violence while treating patients.

Meanwhile, sexual violence against women remains a widespread problem in India. More than 31,000 rapes were reported in India in 2022, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

Many rape cases in India go unreported, mostly due to social stigma around sexual violence and a lack of trust in the police and judicial system. Activists say this often results in the victim being shamed instead of the perpetrator, especially in rural areas.

In 2012, the rape and murder of a medical student by a group of men in India’s capital Delhi drew global attention and triggered similar, wider protests.

The public anger prompted authorities to amend rape laws in 2013. The changes broadened the definition of the crime, set strict punishments for sexual assault and lowered the age at which a person can be tried from 18 to 16.

A hidden cross-border tunnel used to smuggle migrants and contraband between the US and Mexico will be sealed, Mexican border officials have said.

Running between Ciudad Juarez in Mexico and El Paso in Texas, which sit next to each other on either side of the border, the 300m tunnel was concealed in a storm sewer system and only discovered last week – despite official estimates it took at least a year to build.

Investigators are now looking into whether local officials knew of its construction.

Security has been ramped up on both sides of the border ahead of the inauguration of Donald Trump, who has vowed to launch mass deportations of illegal immigrants once in office.

The tunnel had been reinforced with wooden beams to prevent collapses and was equipped with lighting and ventilation.

Such a structure could have taken at least a year to build, army officials said.

The Mexican Attorney General’s Office has been tasked with investigating whether local officials had been complicit in the construction of the tunnel, General Jose Lemus, commander of Ciudad Juarez’s military garrison, told Mexican media.

The tunnel was discovered on 10 January, after US border patrol agents removed a metal plate covering the entry hole to the tunnel and then alerted their Mexican counterparts to its existence.

The flow of migrants from Mexico in the US has long overshadowed relations between the two neighbours and became a defining issue of the 2024 US presidential election race that culminated in Trump’s victory last year.

Raids to detain and deport migrants living in the US without permission could begin as early as Tuesday – the day after Trump officially returns to the White House – according to US media reports.

Under US diplomatic pressure, Mexico has been conducting its largest ever migrant crackdown, bussing and flying non-Mexican migrants to the country’s south, far from the US border.

But Trump campaigned on a promise to seal the US-Mexico border and his threat to impose 25% tariffs was seen as an attempt to force Mexico into doing more to stop undocumented migrants from reaching the southern border of the US.

In response, the recently-elected Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has said she will ask the US take action to stop the flow of weapons being smuggled from the US into Mexico.

Dr Mustafa Ali Abdulrahman Ibo and his colleagues bravely perform surgery under increasing bombardment in the last remaining hospital in el-Fasher, a city that has been under siege for the last nine months in Sudan’s western Darfur region.

Over the last month the hospital has recorded 28 deaths and more than 50 injuries among its staff and patients because of intense shelling. This is the highest number of casualties recorded in a month since the siege began.

“Recent continuous attacks targeting Saudi Hospital have intensified dramatically, it has become part of our daily lives,” Dr Ibo, a Darfuri who has lived in el-Fasher since 2011, told the BBC.

He said the most frightening day had been when a team of medics were performing an emergency caesarean as the shelling began – a near-death experience for them all.

”The first one hit the hospital’s perimeter wall… [then] another shell hit the maternity operating room, the debris damaged the electrical generator, cutting off the power and plunging us into complete darkness,” he said.

The surgical team had no option but to use the torches on their phones to finish the two-hour operation.

Part of the building had collapsed and the room was full of dust with shrapnel scattered all over the place.

Dr Khatab Mohammed, who had been leading the surgery, described the dangers.

“The situation was dire, the environment was no longer sterile,” the 29-year-old medic told the BBC.

“After ensuring our safety and the patient’s safety from shrapnel, we cleaned her and changed our surgical gowns since our clothes were full of dust and we continued the surgery,” he said, adding that the patient could have died from complications.

After successfully delivering the baby, the doctors moved mother and new-born to another room to recover and then gathered to take a group photo.

It was a testament to their survival, but Dr Mohammed added: “I thought it might be our last photo, believing that another shell would hit the same spot and we would all die.”

They went on to perform two more life-saving emergency operations that day.

These doctors – most of whom are graduates of the University of el-Fasher – have stayed put since Sudan’s civil war erupted in April 2023.

The conflict has pitted the army against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and has caused the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, forcing more than 12 million people from their homes.

The two rivals had been allies – coming to power together in a coup – but fell out over an internationally backed plan to move towards civilian rule.

A year into the conflict, the siege of el-Fasher began. It is the only city still under army control in Darfur, where the RSF has been accused of carrying out ethnic cleansing against non-Arab communities.

The RSF began attacking el-Fasher from three sides and cut off supply routes. In a report issued last month, the UN Human Rights Office said the fighting had left more that 780 civilians dead and more than 1,140 injured – many of them casualties of crossfire.

The fighting has forced all other hospitals in el-Fasher to shut.

• A simple guide to Sudan’s war
• BBC hears of horror and hunger in rare visit to Darfur massacre town

South Hospital, which was supported by medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), was the main health facility in the city dealing with war casualties.

It was near the frontline and was stormed in June by RSF fighters, who also looted medicine and equipment and assaulted staff.

Saudi Hospital, which is run by the Ministry of Health and funded by non-governmental organisations, the UN and MSF, specialises in obstetrics and gynaecology but is now providing all medical services – it is the only place in North Darfur state with surgical capacity.

Amid shortages of medical supplies, equipment and personnel, Saudi Hospital is facing ”a heart-breaking situation that violates all humanitarian and international laws and values”, its medical director, 28-year-old Mudathir Ibrahim Suleiman, told the BBC.

He recalled how terrifying it was during recent bombings: “Pregnant women, children and staff were in shock and paralysis, some people were injured and had to be pulled out the rubble.

“All the current conditions push us to consider stopping our work, but women and children have no other place to save their lives except this hospital,” he said.

“The staff at the hospital are doing the impossible to save lives.”

All normal aspects of life have completely disappeared from el-Fasher, especially in the northern and eastern parts. The university, for example, operates via online learning, with exam centres established in safer cities like Kassala in eastern Sudan.

With widespread hunger and insecurity, the city has also emptied. About half the population have sought refuge in the nearby Zamzam camp, where an estimated 500,000 people now live in famine conditions.

Saudi Hospital also serves the camp, with MSF running ambulances to bring in emergency cases.

But these have also recently started coming under attack, including an incident earlier this month when a gunman shot at a “clearly marked ambulance with the MSF logo and flag”.

“We are horrified by this deadly attack on a humanitarian crew carrying out life-saving medical work where it’s desperately needed,” MSF’s Michel Olivier Lacharité said in a statement.

Dr Ibo admitted it was his colleagues – there are 35 doctors and 60 nurses at Saudi Hospital – who kept him going.

”We lose people every day, and offices and rooms are destroyed, but thanks to the determination of the young staff, we continue to persevere.

”We draw our resilience from the people of el-Fasher – we are its children and graduates of the University of el-Fasher.”

Aid agencies are warning that one of the worst maternal and child health emergencies is unfolding in Darfur, where some areas are also being targeted in air strikes by the military.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for a halt to attacks on health facilities and adherence to international humanitarian laws.

“The sanctity of health must be respected even in war,” WHO Sudan communications officer Loza Mesfin Tesfaye told the BBC.

Dr Mohammed, who is originally from Sudan’s White Nile State but came to el-Fasher to study medicine in 2014, also pays homage to his team, who have ignored many opportunities to flee.

“Our souls refused to abandon the people of this city – especially given the catastrophic conditions we witness daily.”

All the medics, who communicated via chats and voice notes on WhatsApp, sounded focused.

”We are determined to continue saving lives, from wherever we can, even underground or under the shade of a tree, we pray for the war to end and for peace to prevail,” said Dr Ibo.

• US sanctions Sudan army chief Burhan over civilian deaths
• Sudan’s ‘invisible crisis’ – where more children are fleeing war than anywhere else
• I couldn’t bury my brother because of Sudan bombing
• BBC hears of horror and hunger in rare visit to Darfur massacre town

A looming TikTok ban has connected Chinese and American citizens like never before, as they swap jokes and memes in what one user described as a “historic moment”.

It’s all unfolding on a popular Chinese social media app called RedNote, or Xiaohongshu (literally translates as Little Red Book), which doesn’t have the usual internet firewall that separates China from the rest of the world.

It has been drawing self-professed US “TikTok refugees” seeking a new home on the internet – despite the fact that their own government is seeking a TikTok ban because of national security concerns.

Americans now find themselves in direct contact with 300 million Mandarin speakers in China and elsewhere – while in the real world, Beijing is bracing for a tumultuous Trump presidency that could strain its fragile ties with Washington.

At the heart of the US ban is the fear that China is using TikTok to spy on Americans.

The app has faced accusations that user data is ending up in the hands of the Chinese government – because of a Beijing law that requires local companies to “support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work”. TikTok denies this has ever happened, or that it would happen.

But the possibility doesn’t seem to worry some US users – 700,000 new users have signed on to RedNote in the last two days, making it the most downloaded free app in the US App store.

“The reason that our government is telling us that they are banning TikTok is because they’re insisting that it’s owned by you guys, the Chinese people, government, whatever,” said one new RedNote user, Definitelynotchippy.

She goes on to explain why she is on RedNote: “A lot of us are smarter than that though so we decided to piss off our government and download an actual Chinese app. We call that trolling, so in short we’re here to spite our government and to learn about China and hang out with you guys.”

TikTok, although owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is headquartered in Singapore and says it is run independently. In fact, China’s version of TikTok is another app called Douyin. RedNote, on the other hand, is a Chinese company based in Shanghai and among the few social media apps available both in China and outside.

So Washington’s fears over TikTok would extend to RedNote as well.

That’s why American users on RedNote are referring to themselves as “Chinese spies” – continuing a TikTok trend where people have been bidding farewell to their “personal Chinese spy” who has allegedly been surveilling them over the years.

RedNote is now full of posts where ex-TikTok users are in search of a replacement. One post says: “I’m looking for my Chinese spy. I miss you. Please help me find him.”

And Chinese users have answered: “I’m here!”

The honest, funny conversations on RedNote may not be what Chinese President Xi Jinping had in mind when he spoke about “strengthening people-to-people cultural exchanges” between China and the US.

But that is certainly what is happening as excited Chinese users welcome curious Americans to the app.

“You don’t even need to travel abroad, you can just talk to foreigners here,” said one Chinese RedNote user in a video that has received more than 6,000 likes.

“But it’s honestly insane, no-one would have expected that we could meet like this one day, openly communicate like this.”

Food, streaming shows and jobs have been the most popular topics: “Is life in America similar to how it looks on [the US TV show] Friends?”

Other Chinese users demanded a “tax” for using the platform – cat photos.

“Cat tax from California,” reads one post in response. “Here’s my offering – the shorthair is a boy named Bob and the calico is a girl named Marley.”

Still others are using the platform to ask Americans for help with their English homework.

One post reads: “Dear TikTok refugees, could you please tell me the answer to question 53? Is the answer T (true) or F (false)?”

Help came quickly: some 500 people have since answered.

The flood of new American users appears to have caught RedNote off guard – reports say the company is hiring English moderators.

And others are trying to cash in on RedNote’s new-found US stardom as well: language-learning app Duolingo put out a graph showing a 216% jump in its user base, compared to this time last year.

RedNote’s rising popularity is not guaranteed to last though.

There is no reason to assume it won’t face blowback for the same reasons as TikTok: concerns that it could be used by China to spy on Americans.

It’s unclear how long Beijing would be open to such unfettered exchanges – control of the internet is key to its repressive regime.

The irony of the situation was flagged by one Chinese user, who posted: “Don’t we have a (fire)wall? How come so many foreigners can enter, when clearly I can’t leave?”

Typically, Chinese internet users have been unable to directly interact with foreigners. Global platforms like Twitter and Instagram and search engines like Google are blocked in China, though people use VPNs to circumvent these restrictions. Sensitive topics – from history to dissent – or anything seen as critical of China’s government and ruling Communist party is swiftly censored.

It’s unclear how much RedNote is censored – it’s largely used by younger and middle-aged women in China, where they share images and videos. It’s not like Weibo, another Chinese app, where discussions and airing of grievances is far more common, leading to posts often being taken down.

But a handful of new RedNote users say they have already received reports that their posts have violated guidelines, including one who asked in a post if the app was “LGBT friendly”.

Another said they had asked “What [sic] Chinese think about gay people?” and received a similar notification, that they had violated “public moral order” guidelines.

And Chinese users keep reminding Americans on the app “not to mention sensitive topics, such as politics, religion and drugs”.

One Chinese user also advised them to stick to the “One China policy”, the diplomatic pillar of the US-China relationship – according to which the US recognises and has formal ties with China rather than Taiwan, the self-governed island Beijing claims as its own.

The US government has not commented on RedNote so far, and neither has Beijing.

But Chinese state media seems upbeat about it, with Global Times even interviewing a US user who said she would “love to interact with Chinese users”.

RedNote’s American fate is anyone’s guess – but for now, at least online, the US-China rivalry is taking a break. Thanks to cat pictures.

The death toll from attacks by a rebel group in Colombia’s Catatumbo region has risen to 60, the country’s human rights office has said.

Rival factions have been vying for control of the cocaine trade in the region – which sits near the border with Venezuela – for years.

The Ombudsman’s Office said the latest violence involved the National Liberation Army (ELN) – the largest armed group still active in Colombia – and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), which signed a peace treaty with the state in 2016.

The attacks broke an uneasy truce between the guerrilla groups, which had been in peace negotiations with the government.

• Who are the Farc?

The Ombudsman’s Office, a government agency that oversees the protection of citizens’ human and civil rights, previously reported that 40 had died in the violence.

It said that many people, including community leaders and their families, were facing a “special risk” of being kidnapped or killed at the hands of the ELN. It noted that 20 people had recently been kidnapped, half of whom were women.

The office said that among those killed were seven peace treaty signatories and Carmelo Guerrero, the leader of the Association for Peasant Unity in Catatumbo (Asuncat), a local advocacy group.

Asuncat wrote on social media on Friday that Roger Quintero and Freiman Velasquez, members of its board of directors, had not been seen since the previous day, and that it suspected armed groups had taken them.

“In some communities in the region, food shortages are beginning to be reported, affecting local communities,” the Ombudsman’s Office wrote in a statement on Saturday, adding that thousands of people are believed to have been displaced by the violence.

“Elderly people, children, adolescents, pregnant women and people with disabilities are suffering the consequences of these events.”

“Catatumbo is once again stained with blood,” the Association of Mothers of Catatumbo for Peace wrote on Friday.

“The bullets exchanged not only hurt those who hold the weapons, but also tear apart the dreams of our communities, break up families and sow terror in the hears of our children.”

The Ombudsman’s Office appeared to lay the blame for the latest violence on the ELN, which had been in peace talks with the Colombian government until they were suspended on Friday due to the violence in Catatumbo.

President Gustavo Petro – who since his election in 2022 has sought to end violence between armed groups in the country – accused the ELN of “war crimes” and said the group “shows no willingness to make peace”.

The ELN accused Farc of having initiated the conflict by killing civilians in a statement on Saturday, according to Reuters news agency. Farc has not publicly responded to the allegation.

On Saturday, the Colombian army announced it was sending additional troops to the region in an effort to restore peace.

A new portrait of the Duchess of Edinburgh has been released to celebrate her 60th birthday.

In the picture, taken by London-based fashion photographer Christina Ebenezer earlier this month, Sophie looks relaxed and happy as she perches in a window seat at her Surrey home.

Buckingham Palace said Sophie was interested in Ebenezer’s style of photography and wanted to support a rising female photographer.

She will mark her birthday on Monday privately at home with the Duke of Edinburgh.

The photo, taken at Bagshot Park, shows the duchess wearing a black turtleneck jumper and a pleated cream skirt.

Sophie’s public profile has grown in recent years, having been hailed as a dependable figure in a slimmed-down working monarchy following the departures of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Prince Andrew, as well as the King and Princess of Wales’s health troubles.

She became the first member of the royal family to visit Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion, travelling to Kyiv to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky and First Lady Olena Zelenska last April.

They discussed how to support survivors of conflict-related sexual violence.

The Palace said that as the duchess turns 60, she has a renewed sense of commitment to her gender equality work and looked forward to further championing the issue in the future.

Ebenezer, born in Lagos, Nigeria, before moving to London at the age of four, has previously been recognised as a Forbes 30 Under 30 arts and culture leader and a British Fashion Council New Wave Creative.

Two of her portraits – of British actresses Michaela Coel and Letitia Wright – were unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery last year.

• Get insider stories and expert analysis every week from our royal correspondent Sean Coughlan, emailed directly to you. Sign up here to get the Royal Watch newsletter.

Until recently, Jane would have described her family as normal, law-abiding citizens. But that changed last summer, when the full-time mum started illegally buying cannabis oil online for her daughter, Annie.

The 10-year-old has a severe, rare type of epilepsy, resistant to conventional treatments.

At her worst, Annie was admitted to hospital 22 times in 22 months. Doctors warned Jane there was a very real prospect of her daughter dying from a seizure.

Jane says she doesn’t want to break the law – but the severity of Annie’s condition is such that she doesn’t care. We have changed their names to protect their identities.

“[Annie] deserves to be happy. She deserves to have this quality of life,” Jane explains. “And if I’m breaking the law by giving her this quality of life, am I wrong or is the law wrong?”

The family cannot afford a private prescription, which costs approximately £2,000 each month from one of the many clinics that have been established since the legalisation of so-called full-spectrum medical cannabis – which includes the psychoactive ingredient THC.

File on 4 Investigates has spoken to several parents, including Jane, who are going to extreme lengths to obtain these medicinal cannabis oils to treat their severely epileptic children.

As well as sourcing the drugs illegally online, some are regularly smuggling it into the UK from the Netherlands. It can be bought there legally, but it is illegal to bring it back into the UK without a licence.

Medicinal cannabis was legalised in the UK in November 2018 following a high-profile campaign – but full-spectrum medicines, which the parents we spoke to are sourcing, have not been officially licensed.

Both the NHS and private clinics can prescribe medicine that hasn’t been licensed – but in the NHS’s case, it is rare. In the past six years, fewer than five patients have been prescribed full-spectrum cannabis oil on the NHS.

One cannabis-based oil has been licensed for NHS treatment for epilepsy, but this is based on just the plant’s CBD compound – often found in products sold in health food shops. Many families say this drug does not contain all the compounds they believe play a crucial role in preventing seizures – including the psychoactive ingredient THC.

Jane spent two years fighting for an NHS prescription for the unlicensed full-spectrum medicine. Eventually a review body turned her daughter down.

Unable to get it on the NHS, she now gives Annie 0.4 milligrams of illicit full-spectrum cannabis oil twice a day.

It costs her £55 a bottle and is posted by an online supplier – significantly cheaper than a private legal prescription. Both Jane and the supplier are breaking the law.

Since taking the oil, Jane says Annie’s seizures have “dramatically reduced”. “They are a lot less severe and they don’t last as long.”

But this approach is not without risks. “Sarah” from Dorset, who bought cannabis oil for her severely epileptic four-year-old daughter, says parents are “potentially playing with fire”.

After deciding to try it on herself first, Sarah says it made her feel really unwell. “I thought I was going to pass out.”

Sarah has since raised enough money to pay for a legal private prescription for full-spectrum unlicensed cannabis medicine and says she has seen a big improvement in her daughter’s epileptic seizures.

Parent support charity MedCan, which campaigns for wider access to medical cannabis, has attempted to quantify how many UK parents are accessing the medicines illegally online.

After conducting a review of three online forums and interviewing parents, it has counted 382 families involved – which campaigners suggest is the tip of the iceberg.

Elaine Gennard, from Hertfordshire, flew to Amsterdam six times last year to buy full-spectrum cannabis oil for her daughter Fallon. She has a legal prescription with a doctor in the Netherlands, but bringing it back to the UK without a licence is illegal.

Elaine says it is worth the risk as, even after her travel expenses, the cost of the oil is half the price she would pay in the UK.

She says the medication has saved the life of Fallon, 30, who is also living with treatment-resistant epilepsy, reducing her seizures from 200 per month to about eight.

“Anyone who has a child like my daughter – that could potentially die from these seizures – as a mother you go to any length for her,” says Elaine.

Smuggling the medicines into the UK amounts to international drug trafficking, says solicitor Robert Jappie, one of the country’s leading legal experts in the medical cannabis sector. Importation of a Class B drug has “fairly hefty” prison sentences, he says.

“In practice, it seems very, very, unlikely anyone would be prosecuted – but it’s not a risk that these families should be taking,” he adds. “They should be able to access this medication safely here in the UK.”

The BBC is not aware of any families who have been prosecuted.

People like Jane are turning to unlicensed cannabis dealers because they can be much cheaper than going to private UK clinics.

One dealer, who we are calling Steve, told us he replicates pharmaceutically-manufactured drugs and gives the oils to parents for free or a donation – in what he calls a compassion programme.

When we challenged him on the potential dangers of supplying these illegal oils as medicines, Steve told us each one was tested in his laboratory.

”We have the ability to know what every single molecule, every single compound in every single bottle is in there,” he said. “We’re not reckless in what we’re doing.”

He didn’t appear concerned about the prospect of being prosecuted.

“If you want to send me to prison for stopping children having seizures, go ahead, good luck with that.”

In 2019, a year after medicinal cannabis was legalised, the government’s Health and Social Care select committee investigated the issue of access to the drugs. Its report said: “We are deeply sympathetic towards the struggle of patients and their families who see others being treated with cannabis-based products for medicinal use, whilst not being able to obtain it themselves.”

The responsibility for the current situation lies firmly with the lack of government action, believes Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran, now chair of the committee.

“We predicted that unless the government put money into research, actively tried to push on this, it probably wouldn’t happen. And that’s exactly where we found ourselves.”

Licensing of new medicines requires lengthy clinical trials that usually focus on one or two compounds. Researchers at Great Ormond Street Hospital and University College London are planning trials that will examine the cannabis compounds CBD and THC. This is expected to start in 18 months.

The Department of Health and Social Care told the BBC licensed cannabis-based medicines were routinely funded by the NHS where there was clear evidence of their quality, safety, and effectiveness.

“The NHS is taking an evidence-based approach to unlicensed cannabis-based treatments to ensure they are proved safe and effective before they can be considered for roll-out more widely,” it said in a statement.

A spokesperson for NHS England said licensed treatment had been approved by the regulator and recommended by NICE – the body that advises the NHS on best treatments – as being cost-effective.

“Many doctors and professional bodies rightly remain concerned about unlicensed products as there is more limited evidence available on their safety and efficacy,” they added.

“Manufacturers are encouraged to engage with the UK medicines regulatory process in order to seek a licence and provide doctors with the confidence to use their products.”

A statue of the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro has been reinstalled in the centre of Lima, the capital of Peru, more than 20 years after it had been removed.

The sculpture was unveiled during a ceremony marking the 490th anniversary of the city’s founding.

Pizarro founded Lima in 1535 after defeating the Inca Empire and claiming their lands for the Spanish crown.

Indigenous leaders say he was a mass murderer who destroyed their culture, while those who supported the statue’s return said Peru should not erase its history.

The monument, which shows Pizarro on horseback with his sword drawn, was created by the American sculptor Charles Rumsey and offered by his widow to commemorate the city’s fourth centenary in 1935.

In 2003, it was moved to a park next to train tracks outside the city centre following calls for its removal.

Luis Bogdanovich, who was in charge of restoring the historic centre, told local media the statue had become damaged by the constant passing of trains, which caused it to crack.

Rafael López Aliaga, Lima’s mayor, and Isabel Díaz Ayuso, president of the Community of Madrid, presented the bronze statue on Saturday alongside Mr Bogdanovich and several descendants of Pizarro in Lima’s main square, Plaza de Armas.

Díaz Ayuso said the ceremony was commemorating “not only the birth of a city, but also the beginning of a historic encounter that forever transformed the world”, the Spanish daily El Pais reported.

Dozens of Peruvians held a demonstration nearby opposing its return, according to the AFP news agency.

“This is an offence, an offence to all the indigenous peoples of Peru, Latin America and the world,” one person said.

Emily, 21, spends around £20 a month at Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein, turning to it whenever she needs a new party or holiday outfit.

“You can almost always find what you’re looking for, even if the quality is bad”, she says.

Like millions in the UK and the US, she buys from the online shop mostly because of how affordable it is.

The firm has faced scrutiny over how it treats workers, with a BBC investigation highlighting 75-hour weeks for workers in contravention of Chinese labour laws, but it is unlikely shoppers will be put off buying their clothes there.

Emily has considered stopping buying from Shein due to its labour practices, but says everywhere else “is way too expensive”.

“I’m happy to talk about the fact I shop at Shein because I know I’m not the only one,” she adds.

The numbers show she’s right, with Shein transforming from a little-known company just a few years ago into one of the world’s biggest clothing firms.

Global sales are estimated to have reached $36.9bn (£30.2bn) last year, according to GlobalData.

Shein is a private company and does not report its global results.

But profits in the UK doubled in 2023 to more than £24m, according to a Companies House filing.

Shein stocks thousands of different clothing lines, dwarfing rival fast fashion brands such as H&M and Zara.

It sells many clothes for below £10, and turns around new designs quickly.

The firm has been gearing up for for a stock market flotation in the UK, putting it under scrutiny over both its working practices and its environmental impact.

Last year, Shein itself found child labour in its supply chain after tightening scrutiny of suppliers.

It has also faced allegations that it uses cotton produced using forced labour, and last week declined to tell MPs whether it used such cotton.

Shein was contacted for comment.

In response to the BBC investigation into worker conditions it said it is “committed to ensuring the fair and dignified treatment of all workers within our supply chain” and is investing tens of millions of dollars in strengthening governance and compliance.

“We strive to set the highest standards for pay and we require that all supply chain partners adhere to our code of conduct,” it said.

Workers get paid about one to two yuan for making a tee-shirt – which is the equivalent of between 11p and 22p.

Sarah Johnson, the founder of consultancy Flourish Retail, a former head of buying and merchandising for Asos China, said the firm could pay suppliers more, which would give them more leeway to pay workers.

The supplier “doesn’t get paid an awful lot of the final price” of the garment.

When it comes to workers, “you could raise their pay and it would make a minimal amount of difference to the garment price,” she said.

An alternative would be for the firm to make less profit, she added.

Sophie Wills, from Birmingham, said she had previously bought clothes from the retailer due to their affordability.

“Times are hard,” Sophie says, adding she probably couldn’t afford higher-end clothes at the moment.

However, she says saving up and “making investments in stuff that is probably higher quality would be a good way to go”.

Thando Sibenke says she regularly shops at Shein.

“My whole outfit’s from Shein right now,” she says, adding she likes the price, convenience, and variety.

However, Thando says she plans to do more research in the future on how the clothes she buys are made.

Georgina, 24, from London, says she is “embarrassed” that she has shopped at Shein – and has now stopped.

“Since reading up on it, the negatives massively outweigh the positives and even when seeing Shein clothing in charity shops, I don’t feel comfortable buying it.”

Fashion designer and academic Shazia Saleem said that people in Generation Z – those born between about 1995 to 2010 – often say in surveys that sustainability and ethics are important to them, but that doesn’t necessarily come through in their buying choices.

Young people can feel pressure to buy new outfits to keep up appearances on social media, and they don’t have much disposable cash, so will probably continue to buy fast fashion, she said.

She added that although people should make informed buying decisions, it should be down to the government to strengthen existing UK trading standards rules to make sure companies are selling sustainable and ethically sound products.

Louise Deglise-Favre, senior apparel analyst at GlobalData, also said she expected affordability to continue to outweigh ethical concerns for Shein shoppers.

Younger customers tend to not have much disposable income due to being in school or low paying jobs, she said.

Shein releases thousands of new products daily, which can encourage shoppers to buy too much – but it’s also a response to “the desire from consumers to constantly update their wardrobes with the latest trends”, she adds.

Analysts have suggested it is “just matter of time” until the US ban on TikTok spreads to allied countries and beyond – if the Trump administration decides to keep it offline.

The app has been switched off in America after US lawmakers ruled it was a national security risk because of owner ByteDance’s ties to the Chinese government – ties it denies.

Incoming President Trump has indicated though that he is opposed to the ban and will find a way to reverse it.

If the US ban goes ahead, experts point to the previous ousting of Chinese and Russian tech companies on national security grounds as a potential blueprint for how the TikTok ban might spread around the world.

“There are big parallels between TikTok and what happened with China’s Huawei and Russia’s Kaspersky that indicates it’s just a matter of time until a creeping ban takes affect,” says Emily Taylor, Editor of the Cyber Policy Journal.

In both cases these companies were accused by the US of being a threat to national security – but no smoking gun was ever revealed by cyber security authorities.

The same has happened with TikTok.

Under President Trump, Kaspersky’s flagship antivirus software product was banned from civil and military computers in the US after accusations arose in 2017 that it was used by the Kremlin in a hacking incident that was never proven.

The UK followed almost immediately and one by one other allies fell into line with restrictions, warnings or bans.

It took years but eventually a countrywide ban took effect last year in the US but it was all but redundant by then. Kaspersky closed its US operations followed by its UK offices saying there is no viable business there.

The company has always argued that the US government based its decision on the “geopolitical climate and theoretical concerns” rather than independently verifying risk.

According to research from Bitsight Kaspersky’s decline in usage after the ban was pronounced, not just in the US but in at least 25 other countries too, even those with no overt public policy to ban the software.

Almost the exact same thing happened with Chinese telecoms giant Huawei.

The US accused Huawei and other Chinese tech firms of being too close to the Chinese government. It argued that the company’s popular 5G kit should not be used to build telecoms in case it could be used to spy on or degrade communications.

A former Huawei UK member of staff said that once the US decided to ban, block or restrict Huawei it became almost inevitable that allies would follow.

“The UK and others spoke about independently coming to their own conclusions over security but the US was unrelenting in its lobbying behind closed doors. They warned about the national security risks which were never backed up by evidence,” said the former insider, who didn’t want to be named.

Intense US lobbying of allies on security issues is something often seen in many aspects of cyber policy.

It usually starts with countries in the Five Eyes Alliance.

The close-knit intelligence sharing arrangement is between five English-speaking democracies: the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

So far, all members have banned TikTok from government devices and some have issued public warnings too. Canada has ordered an end to TikTok’s Canadian operations citing national security concerns.

The Five Eyes knock-on effect can be considerable and restrictions have already spread with the app banned on devices of government employees, civil servants or military personnel in countries including Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, The Netherlands, Norway and Taiwan.

Ciaran Martin, who was head of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre during the bans on Huawei and Kaspersky, agrees that generally when the US makes a national security or strategic decision about a company, the UK and allies eventually follow suit.

However, as with everything else to do with TikTok, he says there is a huge caveat in the form of the incoming Trump administration.

“What we don’t yet know is whether TikTok will be the exception as Trump has said he is opposed to the ban so will he order allies to replicate a ban? We don’t yet know.”

Trump’s position on TikTok has changed dramatically since his first presidency when he tried to get it banned. Since then he has become a supporter after his re-election campaign gained support through TikTok videos.

Emily Taylor agrees that this unknown factor might make TikTok different to Huawei and Kaspersky.

“It depends on how much pressure the administration is willing to exert”, she told the BBC.

“If their foreign policy agenda is packed then forcing other allies to follow the ban might fall down the list and allow countries to wait it out”.

At the moment, there are “no plans” for a TikTok ban in the UK, a government spokesperson said on Saturday. “We engage with all major social media companies to understand their plans for ensuring the security of UK data and to ensure they meet the high data protection and cyber security standards we expect.”

Meanwhile, UK government minister Darren Jones told the BBC on Sunday: “We won’t be following the same path as the Americans unless or until… there is a threat that we are concerned about in the British interest, and then of course we will keep it under review.”

The app was banned from the UK Parliament in 2023 over security concerns.

But Jones, the chief secretary to the Treasury, told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that “for consumers who want to post videos of their cats dancing, that doesn’t seem like a security threat to me”.

Another aspect to consider about TikTok’s future post-US ban is whether or not the app can continue to thrive without a US customer base.

Any app that loses 170m users would suffer but US users in particular are valuable for creators, advertisers and direct spending in TikTok Shop.

If the rest of the West follows it will reduce the money flowing into the company and curtail development of new features, further entrenching the dominance of US platforms like Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and Snapchat.

TikTok is already banned in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India too – a massive market. It has no presence in China because of its sister app Douyin.

Kaspersky and Huawei both managed to weather their storms by relying on home-grown customer bases and by pivoting to regions like Africa and the Middle East.

So it might be possible for TikTok to build its user bases here. But if the US ban creeps around the world then the app will likely never be as big as it currently is and may well wither and die a slow death.

Civilians in Gaza are waiting anxiously for a pause in 15 relentless months of war, after Israel’s cabinet approved a temporary ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas.

Israel has pounded the strip with air strikes, killing at least 113 people since the deal was first agreed in principle on Wednesday night, according to the Hamas-run civil defence agency in Gaza.

The deal, finalised on Friday afternoon, is due to come into effect on Sunday, leaving a little over 24 hours more for the people of Gaza to hang on for respite.

“Time is moving slower than ever,” said Dr Abdallah Shabir, 27, an emergency doctor at the Baptist Hospital in Gaza City. “Any moment you can lose your life,” he said. “Sitting at home, walking in the street – there is no warning.”

Dr Shabir was on shift at the hospital on Wednesday night when the news of the ceasefire agreement came through. There was a brief moment of joy, he said, but less than an hour separated the announcement from the beginning of a wave of air strikes that sent a flood of dead and wounded to the Baptist.

Every member of staff was summoned. “It was as bad as we have ever seen,” Dr Shabir said, in a phone call from the hospital. “Severe injuries, severe burns. Many dead, of course.”

Among the dead brought in on Thursday was a colleague, Hala Abu Ahmed, a 27-year-old specialist in internal medicine who two colleagues at the Baptist described as a devoted and promising young doctor and a kind person.

She had worked tirelessly and under extreme pressure for 15 months, since the war began, said Dr Ahmad Eliwah, the chief of the emergency department, and been killed after the ceasefire was agreed.

Among the millions of displaced in the strip, many were waiting on Friday for the moment they could return home for the first time since the war began. Many will find a bombed out wasteland in place of their home.

“My house is completely destroyed, the building is gone,” said Sabreen Doshan, 45, who owned a street kiosk and lived in a residential block in Gaza City.

• Follow live updates on this story
• What we know about the agreement
• Analysis: Long-overdue deal may end killings but not the conflict
• History of the Israel-Gaza war explained

Doshan had lost 17 members of her wider family since the war began, she said. She was poised to set out from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where she has been living in a tent, for the ruins of her home.

“Even if I have to put my tent on rubble it will be OK, because I will be home,” she said. “Nowhere can satisfy me now apart from home.”

The destruction of the Gaza Strip is immense. According to a recent analysis by the United Nations Satellite Centre, 69% of all structures and 68% of roads have been destroyed or damaged, as of December. About 46,700 people have been killed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Israel set out to destroy Hamas in Gaza in October 2023, after the group attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.

For Gazans, the joy of the long-awaited ceasefire has been tempered by the scale of the death and destruction. “By God, it is a mixed feeling,” said Wael Muhammad, a freelance journalist living in a refugee camp in central Gaza.

“From one moment to another, from joy to pain,” he said. “I am happy that the torrent of blood will stop, but we are living in misery.”

On Friday afternoon, the ceasefire deal was making its way through the Israeli political system for final approval. It paves the way for an initial group of three hostages to come out as early as Sunday, in exchange for some 95 Palestinian prisoners.

But the exchange, which will play out over the next six weeks, is fraught with the possibility of collapse.

“The biggest challenge is whether the ceasefire is going to be successfully implemented,” said Juliette Touma, communications director for the UN refugee agency UNRWA.

“If it is, the challenge ahead remains absolutely huge. The vast majority of shelters are overcrowded. Many are simply living out in the open, or in makeshift structures. They lack basic needs like warm clothes. I would not call these living conditions, they are not conditions fit for human beings.”

In Gaza on Friday, some were focused on Sunday, and whether they would make it to that respite without the deal falling apart.

“We are afraid of any change, any movement,” said Khalil Nateel, 30, whose house in Jabalia in the very north of the Gaza Strip was destroyed early on in the war.

“The news is on,” Nateel said, from a shelter in central Gaza. “We are watching and waiting.”

China is sending Vice-President Han Zheng to US President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday – the first time a senior Chinese leader will witness a US president being sworn in.

Trump had invited Chinese President Xi Jinping, among other leaders – a break with tradition given foreign leaders traditionally do not attend US presidential inaugurations.

China has said it wants to work with the new US government to “find the right way for the two countries to get along with each other in the new era”.

But Beijing is also preparing for a Trump presidency that is expected to include new tariffs on Chinese-made imports and more combative rhetoric – Marco Rubio, the nominee for Secretary of State, has described China as “the largest, most advanced adversary America has ever faced”.

As president, Xi has never attended an inauguration or coronation ceremony, choosing instead to send a representative on his behalf. The Chinese ambassador to the US attended the last two presidential inaugurations, in 2017 and 2021.

Beijing has sent vice-presidents to such ceremonies elsewhere, though – Han attended Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s inauguration in October 2023. And his predecessor, Wang Qishan, was present for the inauguration of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr in 2022 and Brazil’s President Lula da Silva in 2023.

Xi’s decision to send Han to the US is a sign that he “wants to get Trump into deal-making mode, but [he] does not want to be a supporting actor in the Trump show on January 20,” says Neil Thomas, a fellow in Chinese politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

Other foreign leaders that have been invited to the inauguration include Argentinian President Javier Milei and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Trump’s spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told US media that the invitation to Xi was an “example of Trump creating an open dialogue with leaders of countries that are not just our allies but our adversaries and our competitors”.

It also could be an attempt by Trump to show the world “he has the ability to influence Xi’s decision-making and they have a special relationship”, says Yun Sun, the director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington.

Earlier reports suggested that some Trump advisers wanted Cai Qi to attend. Widely seen as Xi’s right-hand man, 66-year-old Cai sits on the Communist Party’s seven-man Politburo Standing Committee, China’s equivalent of a cabinet.

The Financial Times quoted an unnamed insider saying that Trump would be “unhappy” if the Chinese envoy in attendance was “only at the level of Han or [Foreign Minister] Wang Yi”. The BBC has been unable to verify these claims.

But as vice-president, 70-year-old Han occupies a “very senior role in the Chinese state system” and the decision to send him “accords courtesy to Trump”, says Chong Ja-Ian, a non-resident scholar at Carnegie China.

Han, who was appointed vice-president in March 2023, is known as “number eight” – the most senior leader after the seven men in the Politburo Standing Committee.

Han too had been a member until October 2022, when Xi began a historic third term in power and appointed his most trusted deputies to the top jobs.

Prior to that Han spent most of his political career in Shanghai, where he was born. In 2007, he served as Xi’s aide when the latter was the party secretary in Shanghai, before later assuming the post himself in 2012.

Foreign affairs has been a key focus for him in his stint as vice-president. He led a group to promote the Belt and Road initiative – a key Chinese trade and infrastructure project – and headed a steering committee on the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

But the fact that Han no longer sits on the Politburo Standing Committee may have been a key consideration in Beijing’s decision to send him.

“Should US-China relations take a turn for the worse from the party’s perspective, Xi and the party will be able to show that they maintained some distance from Trump,” Prof Chong said.

And it also helps that Han is not considered a part of Xi’s inner circle, according to Mr Thomas.

“Xi trusts Han enough to undertake this mission but Han is not a key ally and could be safely blamed if it goes embarrassingly wrong.”

It’s 1000 CE – the heart of the Middle Ages.

Europe is in flux. The powerful nations we know today – like Norman-ruled England and the fragmented territories that will go on to become France – do not yet exist. Towering Gothic cathedrals have yet to rise. Aside from the distant and prosperous city of Constantinople, few great urban centres dominate the landscape.

Yet that year, on the other side of the globe, an emperor from southern India was preparing to build the world’s most colossal temple.

Completed just 10 years later, it was 216ft (66m) tall, assembled from 130,000 tonnes of granite: second only to Egypt’s pyramids in height. At its heart was a 12ft tall emblem of the Hindu god Shiva, sheathed in gold encrusted with rubies and pearls.

In its lamplit hall were 60 bronze sculptures, adorned with thousands of pearls gathered from the conquered island of Lanka. In its treasuries were several tonnes of gold and silver coins, as well as necklaces, jewels, trumpets and drums torn from defeated kings across India’s southern peninsula, making the emperor the richest man of the era.

He was called Raja-Raja, King of Kings, and he belonged to one of the most astonishing dynasties of the medieval world: the Cholas.

His family transformed how the medieval world worked – yet they are largely unknown outside India.

Prior to the 11th Century, the Cholas had been one of the many squabbling powers that dotted the Kaveri floodplain, the great body of silt that flows through India’s present-day state of Tamil Nadu.

But what set the Cholas apart was their endless capacity for innovation. By the standards of the medieval world, Chola queens were also remarkably prominent, serving as the dynasty’s public face.

Travelling to Tamil villages and rebuilding small, old mud-brick shrines in gleaming stone, the Chola dowager Sembiyan Mahadevi – Rajaraja’s great-aunt – effectively “rebranded” the family as the foremost devotees of Shiva, winning them a popular following.

Sembiyan prayed to Nataraja, a hitherto little-known form of Hindu god Shiva as the King of Dance, and all her temples featured him prominently.

The trend caught on. Today, Nataraja is one of the most recognisable symbols of Hinduism. But to the medieval Indian mind, Nataraja was really a symbol of the Cholas.

The emperor, Rajaraja Chola, shared his great-aunt’s taste for public relations and devotion – with one significant difference.

Rajaraja was also a conqueror. In the 990s, he led his armies over the Western Ghats, the range of hills that shelter India’s west coast, and burned the ships of his enemies while they were at port.

Next, exploiting internal turmoil on the island of Lanka, he established a Chola outpost there, becoming the first mainland Indian king to set up a lasting presence on the island. At last, he broke into the rugged Deccan Plateau – the Germany to the Tamil coast’s Italy – and seized a portion of it for himself.

The loot of conquest was lavished on his great imperial temple, known today as the Brihadishvara.

In addition to its precious treasures, the great temple received 5,000 tonnes of rice annually, from conquered territory across southern India (you’d need a fleet of twelve Airbus A380s to carry that much rice today).

This allowed the Brihadishvara to function as a mega-ministry of public works and welfare, an instrument of the Chola state, intended to channel Rajaraja’s vast fortunes into new irrigation systems, expanding cultivation, and vast new herds of sheep and buffalo. Few states in the world could have conceived of economic control at such scale and depth.

The Cholas were as important to the Indian Ocean as the Mongols were to inner Eurasia.

Rajaraja Chola’s successor, Rajendra, built alliances with Tamil merchant corporations: a partnership between traders and government power that foreshadowed the East India Company – a powerful British trading corporation that later ruled large parts of India – that was to come more than 700 years later.

In 1026, Rajendra put his troops on merchants’ ships and sacked Kedah, a Malay city that dominated the global trade in precious woods and spices.

While some Indian nationalists have proclaimed this to be a Chola “conquest” or “colonisation” in Southeast Asia, archaeology suggests a stranger picture: the Cholas didn’t seem to have a navy of their own, but under them, a wave of Tamil diaspora merchants spread across the Bay of Bengal.

By the late 11th Century, these merchants ran independent ports in northern Sumatra. A century later, they were deep in present-day Myanmar and Thailand, and worked as tax collectors in Java.

In the 13th Century, in Mongol-ruled China under the descendants of Kublai Khan, Tamil merchants ran successful businesses in the port of Quanzhou, and even erected a temple to Shiva on the coast of the East China Sea. It was no coincidence that, under the British Raj in the 19th Century, Tamils made up the largest chunk of Indian administrators and workers in Southeast Asia.

Conquests and global connections made Chola-ruled south India a cultural and economic behemoth, the nexus of planetary trade networks.

Chola aristocrats invested war-loot into a wave of new temples, which sourced fine goods from a truly global economy linking the farthest shores of Europe and Asia. Copper and tin for their bronzes came from Egypt, perhaps even Spain. Camphor and sandalwood for the gods were sourced from Sumatra and Borneo.

Tamil temples grew into vast complexes and public spaces, surrounded by markets and endowed with rice estates. In the Chola capital region on the Kaveri, corresponding to the present-day city of Kumbakonam, a constellation of a dozen temple-towns supported populations of tens of thousands, possibly outclassing most cities in Europe at the time.

These Chola cities were astonishingly multicultural and multireligious: Chinese Buddhists rubbed shoulders with Tunisian Jews, Bengali tantric masters traded with Lankan Muslims.

Today, the state of Tamil Nadu is one of India’s most urbanised. Many of the state’s towns grew around Chola-period shrines and markets.

These developments in urbanism and architecture were paralleled in art and literature.

Medieval Tamil metalwork, produced for Chola-period temples, is perhaps the finest ever made by human hand, the artists rivalling Michelangelo or Donatello for their appreciation of the human figure. To praise Chola kings and adore the gods, Tamil poets developed notions of sainthood, history and even magical realism. The Chola period was what you’d get if the Renaissance had happened in south India 300 years before its time.

It is not a coincidence that Chola bronzes – especially Nataraja bronzes – can be found in most major Western museum collections. Scattered across the world, they are the remnants of a period of brilliant political innovations, of maritime expeditions that connected the globe; of titanic shrines and fabulous wealth; of merchants, rulers and artists who shaped the planet we live in today.

Anirudh Kanisetti is an Indian writer and author, most recently of

Unless there is a sudden and staggering plot twist, Prince Harry’s legal battle against British tabloids for allegedly unlawfully intruding into his life reaches its most important moment on Tuesday when his claims against The Sun and the long-closed News of the World, come to trial.

The plot twist would be a settlement of his mammoth case against their parent, News Group Newspapers [NGN], the British press arm of the media empire founded by Rupert Murdoch.

Is it likely? You would get better odds on Harry and Meghan announcing a weekly lifestyle column for The Sun on Sunday.

This will be the first time that News Group Newspapers has had to defend itself against allegations that its journalists and executives across the whole organisation were involved in or knew about unlawful newsgathering techniques.

If it were to lose, and lose badly, a finding from the court of corporate-level wrongdoing would be in stark contrast to a longstanding defence that phone hacking was limited to bad apples in one now-closed title.

The prince’s allegations of tabloid wrongdoing date back to 1996. Harry and his brother Prince William first became aware they may have been targeted in 2006.

Back then, texting was still in its infancy and everybody left voicemails – and some tabloid journalists realised it was rather easy to listen in.

Clive Goodman, a News of the World journalist, and Glenn Mulcaire, a private investigator, were arrested, and later jailed, for intercepting voicemails on phones belonging to the princes’ aides.

Prince Harry says as the scandal deepened, he held on for NGN to settle Royal Family claims under a “secret agreement” to avoid embarrassment in court. NGN’s lawyers have said this is “Alice in Wonderland stuff” – and the court has ruled it hasn’t seen evidence of such a backroom deal.

All these years on, the Duke of Sussex seems in no mood to give up on what has become a crusade against tabloid journalism. And so his case is going ahead – and what happens over the next two months may define both the prince’s legacy and the future of a British journalism institution.

NGN long ago apologised for unlawful practices at the News of the World and closed it down in 2011. It denies similar claims against The Sun – and the duke’s wider allegation of a corporate-wide cover-up.

It has settled cases brought by some 1,300 claimants, to the tune of around £1bn including legal costs.

That means it has seen off potential trials from people who say the newspapers ran stories that could have only been written with access to private or confidential sources of information that could not have been publicly known.

Those settlements left just two claimants – one of them Prince Harry.

When he launched his claim, he alleged that more than 200 articles published by NGN between 1996 and 2011 contained information gathered by illegal means. The trial will look at a sample of around 30 stories in detail.

Some of those will cover ground trodden in his successful Mirror Group case in 2023 and, just like in that case, he will give evidence in person.

There will be hours of analysis of how the Sun got scoops such as “Emotional Harry rang Chelsy at midnight” – a story it ran almost twenty years ago to the day about his then girlfriend, Chelsy Davy.

There will be further separate allegations from the second claimant, Lord (Tom) Watson. The former Labour MP says his phone was targeted around the time he was investigating the Murdoch newspapers at the height of the scandal almost 15 years ago.

Mr Justice Fancourt will decide if any of the NGN articles were the product of unlawful information gathering, such as information tricked or “blagged” out of phone companies by private investigators.

In Prince Harry’s case, he will not rule on whether there was any phone hacking because Prince Harry ran out of legal time to bring those allegations to trial.

None of this is going to be simple in court.

The judge had repeatedly expressed his frustration, referring to the two sides as entrenched well-resourced armies refusing to give any ground to each other.

And at no stage has Prince Harry looked like he was going to settle, despite the enormous financial hit he faces by not doing so.

If a claimant turns down an offer of settlement and is later awarded less in damages by a judge, they have to pay the legal costs of both sides.

Prince Harry has been very open about the hit he will take and why he was pressing ahead.

“The goal is accountability. It’s really that simple,” he told an audience at a New York Times event in December.

News Group has, in simple terms, three lines of defence. It will firstly argue that Harry has run out of time to bring allegations of unlawful information gathering.

This saw off his mobile phone hacking claim.

Secondly, its lawyers will test, article-by-article, the duke’s claims that the information in them came from dodgy sources.

Thirdly, News Group has lined up witnesses to rebut Prince Harry and Lord Watson’s broader allegation that the top brass knew what was going on and were party to the mass destruction of purportedly incriminating records in 2011.

While the celebrity focus will inevitably be on the prince when he goes into the witness box, that third allegation of a cover up is the most important element of this trial.

While the hit to Prince Harry’s wallet will be big, the damage to NGN’s reputation – and that of its executives – would be greater still if the court finds they were involved.

The executives the claimants will accuse of wrongdoing include the current CEO, Rebekah Brooks. She was found not guilty of conspiracy to hack voicemails in the seismic 2014 trial that ended with the jailing of Andy Coulson, her former colleague, News of the World editor and David Cameron’s communications chief.

Another is Will Lewis. He played a key role in managing the hacking crisis in 2011. He is now the CEO of the Washington Post – an appointment that has been opposed by many at the newspaper because of this association.

They and others deny wrongdoing.

Will they be giving evidence? A spokesperson for NGN said: “Both claimants allege unlawful destruction of emails by News International between 2010-2011. This allegation is wrong, unsustainable, and is strongly denied. NGN will be calling a number of witnesses including technologists, lawyers and senior staff to defeat the claim.”

Exactly what evidence Prince Harry brings to prove this claim – and what NGN says in defence – may define the entire battle.

Tuesday really is the beginning of the end. And someone is going to lose – and lose big.

It is 40 years since the bloodied bodies of three soldiers were found in a heap next to a reservoir in Scotland’s Pentland Hills.

A farmer came across the scene on 17 January 1985, after following a trail of blood in the snow from a crashed Land Rover he discovered with the engine still running.

With the IRA bombings at their height, the soldiers from Midlothian’s Glencorse Barracks were initially thought to be the victims of a terrorist attack.

But Tom Wood, then a police inspector who was one of the first on the scene, said the evidence quickly led them to a fellow soldier.

He has spoken to BBC Scotland News about his memories of the triple murder on the 40th anniversary of the so-called Glencorse Massacre.

The men were discovered beside a small derelict house at Loganlea reservoir, about 10 miles south of Edinburgh.

Staff Sgt Terrance Hosker, 39, and Pte John Thomson, 25, were in uniform. They were found alongside retired Major David Cunningham, 56.

“When I got there at the back of the house and at the bottom of the stairs were three dead bodies all lying on top of each other in a crumpled heap,” Mr Wood told BBC Scotland News.

“There was blood and cartridge cases lying around on the snow at the bottom of the stairs.”

He said they were shocked as it looked like a terrorist attack, which would have been the first of its kind in Scotland.

But very quickly the evidence pointed to Andrew Walker, a long-serving corporal instructor from The Royal Scots, who was 30 at the time.

Walker had been desperate for money. He knew that Thursday was pay day for the junior soldiers training at Glencorse Barracks, and they got paid in cash.

Every Thursday “regular as clockwork” a Land Rover and a crew of three soldiers would make the trip to the bank in nearby Penicuik.

No special security arrangements were made and the escort was unarmed.

Walker took a Sterling sub machine gun from the armoury and loaded it with ammunition he kept as spare.

Then, concealing the short barrelled weapon under his army coat, he flagged down the payroll Land Rover and asked for a lift back to the barracks.

Being known to the payroll crew, they allowed him to jump into the back of the vehicle.

He had planned to shoot all three of them deep in the Pentland Hills but as he hijacked them at gunpoint there was a scuffle in the back of the vehicle and Staff Sgt Hosker was shot.

Walker then also killed Maj Cunningham.

Next he forced Pte Thomson to take a detour into the Pentland Hills at Flotterstone and up to Loganlea reservoir.

There he made the young soldier help him drag the bodies to the back of the cottage.

However, if Pte Thomson thought his help would earn him mercy he was wrong.

Walker would leave no witnesses – Pte Thomson was executed, with a bullet in the head.

“This is a soldier shooting his brothers in arms. It’s diabolical, it really is,” said Mr Wood.

And all for just £19,000 – enough to buy two cars at the time.

Walker had been deep in debt and he had thought he could make it look like an IRA terrorist attack and robbery.

But his plan went wrong when his getaway vehicle skidded on the slippery path on his way out of the Pentland Hills to the main road – getting stuck in an icy ditch.

“He had probably planned to dump the Land Rover, clean the gun and quickly return to barracks before he was missed,” Mr Wood said.

“As it was, his plan and timescales were in tatters. He was now on foot with a bloodied uniform, an inconvenient gun he had to return, and a bag of cash he had to hide.

“Being skilled in the art of concealment he probably hid out for a while before making off across the snowy landscape.”

When it was safe he made his way back to barracks but by that time his movements were under scrutiny.

Shootings were uncommon in the east of Scotland, multiple shootings rarer still.

This was no ordinary crime, Mr Wood said.

“On the face of it, the crimes bore some of the hallmarks of a terrorist attack.

“The Provisional IRA were active on the mainland of Britain, they favoured military targets, and were always looking for funds.

“They weren’t averse to a bit of robbery in pursuit of their cause.”

However, there were problems with the terrorist theory.

“First the Provisional IRA had never carried out an attack in Scotland – seeing the Scots as Gaelic cousins they had privately declared Scotland ‘out of bounds’.

“Secondly, it was the habit of the IRA to claim responsibility for their attacks, so as to enhance their reputations as well as spreading terror.”

No-one had claimed responsibility.

Col Clive Fairweather, the commanding officer at Glencorse Barracks, worked with police officers investigating the murders.

An experienced military man, he had been second in command of the SAS operation that stormed the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980.

“No-one knew the Army or its soldiers better than Col Fairweather, and he quickly spotted the bullet cases in the back of the bloodied Land Rover,” Mr Wood said.

“He knew the type well, they were all 9mm parabellum cases, a calibre not usually favoured by terrorists but in common usage by the British Army for all its small arms, pistols and Sterling sub machine guns.”

The Det Ch Supt and Col Fairweather were beginning to suspect the robbery was an “inside job”.

A witness had also come forward to say they had seen four men in the Land Rover outside the bank – and three had been in uniform.

“It was a significant piece of information,” said Mr Wood.

There was also one gun that had been taken out of the armoury and replaced by Walker in the logs that day which matched with a bullet lodged in Staff Sgt Hosker’s shoulder.

“Each rifle barrel is different in minute detail and leaves distinct striation marks on the soft lead of a bullet head as it passes down the barrel,” Mr Wood said.

“The firing pins of individual weapons also leave distinctive marks on the detonator caps of bullet casings.

“It was best and conclusive evidence.”

Walker returned the gun before going absent without leave for three days.

He eventually returned to the barracks and attempted to bluster it out, denying all knowledge, and suggesting it had been the IRA that had been responsible but he was detained.

Shortly afterwards he was arrested when ballistic results arrived back from the lab.

Walker denied his crimes but a jury in the High Court in Edinburgh found him guilty of the murders.

Judge Lord Grieve recommended he serve at least 30 years in prison because of his “callous disregard for human life”. This was reduced to 27 years on appeal.

In 2011 Walker was released from prison on compassionate grounds, two years after a stroke left him severely disabled.

He died from a respiratory infection and suspected cancer in a care home in Wishaw, North Lanarkshire, in 2021 at the age of 67.

“Andrew Walker was a cold-hearted killer who set out to rob in the certain knowledge that to escape he would have to kill his three comrades in arms,” said Mr Wood.

“I suspect he was involved in some pretty brutal stuff in Northern Ireland because what he did was a cold-hearted execution.”

He doesn’t think Walker was mentally ill, he was “just a wicked guy”.

“He had absolutely no empathy for human suffering and that’s what makes me wonder what he had been exposed to early in his Army service.”

His planning of the crime was simple and audacious but poorly thought through, he added.

Mr Wood said, like many criminals, his plan of attack was much better planned than his plan of escape.

“As a military man he should have known that no plan survives contact with reality, yet when the first thing went wrong he had no back up plan,” he said.

“The simple act of skidding on an icy road derailed his brutal enterprise.”

“John Adams? Good luck!”

That’s the line spoken by King George in the record-breaking musical Hamilton after Adams becomes the second US president in 1797, beating his eventual successor Thomas Jefferson.

His place in American history is an important one, as one of the Founding Fathers, the first White House resident, an early campaigner against slavery and the first vice-president.

But did you know he has a direct link to a small village in Somerset?

Barton St David is about five miles south of Glastonbury and 12 miles north of Yeovil.

It has a population of about 600 people and a church which dates back to the 12th Century.

And it was here, in 1583, where Henry Adams was born – the great, great, great grandfather of John Adams, and the great, great, great, great grandfather of John Quincy Adams – the sixth president of the US.

“Henry Adams was born in Barton St David, although there is a bit of a dispute about where he basically was,” said Rob Butt, a member of the village’s history club.

“He was a tenant farmer and farmed lands both here and in Charlton Mackrell. There would have been more important people than him in Barton.”

Mr Butt told BBC Radio Somerset how an early historical record showed Adams was once taken to court by a landowner for failure to pay a debt of animals upon his father’s death in Barton St David.

He later emigrated to the US, along with other puritan pilgrims, perhaps as a result of the catholic practices being reintroduced by King Charles I, Mr Butt said.

Adams settled in Braintree, Massachusetts, which was named after the town in Essex where he had also lived during his time in England.

Mr Butt said: “There is a plaque [in the church], and the most interesting thing is that we get various requests from America for people who are related to the Adams family.

“We’ve got the visitor book with various people with the surname Adams which have signed in… to come and look at the plaque which celebrates these two men.”

But the links to Barton St David do not stop with John Adams and John Quincy Adams.

“Henry Adams married someone called Edith Squire,” Mr Butt explained, adding: “She was the daughter of Henry Squire, who was the son of a reverend, William Squire of Charlton Mackrell.

“Edith and Henry Adams… through another son of theirs, after 12 generations, we get Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president of the United States.”

Edith Adams’ sister, Anne Squire, married Aquilla Purchase, with a lineage that leads to Millard Fillmore, the 13th president.

Another sister, Margaret Squire, married a man called John Shephard, and their family tree guides to William Howard Taft – the 27th president.

It means this small corner of Somerset can claim to have the second, sixth, 13th, 27th and 30th presidents of the US traced back to it – and its nearby reverend.

In a remote village in western Nepal, thousands of miles from Israel, Mahananda Joshi was sitting restlessly at home on Thursday, his phone in his hand.

The phone is never far from his hand now. And never on silent. He is waiting for news of his son, Bipin Joshi, a 23-year-old Nepalese agriculture student who was kidnapped by Hamas and taken to Gaza.

Any time the phone rings, Mahananda, a local schoolteacher, thinks it might bring news of Bipin, or even – his deepest hope – his son’s voice on the line.

“Sadly, it is always someone else,” Mahananda said.

Bipin was one of dozens of foreign workers kidnapped alongside Israelis when Hamas attacked on 7 October 2023.

Twenty-four were subsequently released – 23 from Thailand and one from the Philippines – but Bipin and nine others remained.

It was never clear why.

• Follow live updates on this story
• Dozens killed as Israeli strikes continue ahead of ceasefire
• What we know about the agreement
• Analysis: Long-overdue deal may end killings but not the conflict
• History of the Israel-Gaza war explained

The last time Bipin’s mother Padma spoke to him was 6 October, she said, the day before he was kidnapped.

He assured her he was eating well, and showed off the clothes he was wearing.

The next time the family saw him was on video footage taken from the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, shown to them by Israeli officials, who asked them to identify him.

It was the confirmation that he had been taken alive.

The BBC now understands that Bipin is believed to still be alive, but Nepal’s ambassador to Israel, Dhan Prasad Pandit, said he had “no concrete information” yet about Bipin’s condition or whereabouts.

Mahananda, Bipin’s mother Padma and 18-year-old sister Puspa live in a small white, one-storey home in the village of Bispuri Mahendranagar, close to the border with India.

As of Thursday, they had not heard anything from officials, they said, only the headlines announcing a ceasefire agreement.

The news had given them all renewed hope.

“I feel like he will message me today or tomorrow saying mummy, I am free now and I will return home immediately,” Padma said.

But the Joshi family’s relief, if it comes, will not be that fast.

Along with the nine other foreign workers who remain hostages, Bipin is not expected to be released in the first phase of the ceasefire, which will prioritise the release of elderly men, women and children.

The fear for the family is that, while they wait, everything can change.

“Everything could fall apart,” Padma said, with tears in her eyes.

The family’s ordeal began on the day of the attack.

Bipin was one of several Nepalese students in Kibbutzim in southern Israel that day, and Mahananda, a teacher at a local school, got a call from one of them to say that Bipin had been kidnapped.

At that point, Mahananda did not know anything of Hamas’s attack nor the situation unfolding in Israel, and he struggled to make sense of what he was hearing.

He would later learn that 10 Nepalese students had been killed in the attack, and that one – his son – appeared to have been taken hostage.

That feeling of disconnection has persisted for 15 agonising months, Mahananda and Padma said on Thursday.

Every hostage family’s pain has been great, but for some of those far away from Israel there has been an added sense of isolation.

“It has been a very lonely experience,” Mahananda said.

Mr Pandit, Nepal’s ambassador to Israel, told the BBC that he had been in regular contact with the family and visited the village.

Mahananda painted a slightly different picture, saying that early on in the war the family did receive many visits from officials, but as it dragged on they were increasingly left alone.

“Since the new ceasefire agreement, no-one has come to see us or communicated with us at all,” he said.

“Everything we know comes from the news.”

A spokesperson for the office of the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, who has been working with hostage families over the past 15 months, said that it treated all hostages the same, either Israeli or from abroad, and was working diligently to get them all freed.

For some of the families, the ceasefire news brings hope that their 15-month ordeal is coming to a close and they will see their loved ones again within weeks.

For others, like the Joshis, any hope must be tempered.

The longer they have to wait, the more likely the ceasefire deal could fall apart.

At home in Bispuri Mahendranagar on Thursday, Bipin’s sister Puspa was holding a photo of her brother as she spoke.

Tears filled her eyes when she talked about him coming home. She was confident he would.

“And when I see him again, I’m going to hug him,” she said. “And cry.”

Two senior Iranian judges have been shot dead in an apparent assassination in the country’s supreme court.

Ali Razini and Mohammad Moghiseh were killed after a gunman entered the court, in the capital Tehran, on Saturday morning.

The attacker killed himself while fleeing the scene, according to the judiciary’s news website, Mizan. A bodyguard was also injured in the attack.

The motive for the attack is unclear, but both judges are said to have played a role in the crackdown on opponents of the Islamic government since the 1980s.

In a statement, the judiciary’s media office described the attack as premeditated assassination.

It also said that, according to initial findings, the attacker had not been involved in any case considered by the supreme court. Officials are investigating whether anyone else is involved in the attack.

Both victims have been in the judiciary for decades. In the supreme court, their responsibilities would have included confirming death sentences.

Razini, 71, was one of Iran’s most senior judges and survived an assassination attempt in 1998.

Moghiseh, 68, has been sanctioned by the EU, the US and Canada over alleged human rights abuses.

Scientists who recently discovered that metal lumps on the dark seabed make oxygen, have announced plans to study the deepest parts of Earth’s oceans in order to understand the strange phenomenon.

Their mission could “change the way we look at the possibility of life on other planets too,” the researchers say.

The initial discovery confounded marine scientists. It was previously accepted that oxygen could only be produced in sunlight by plants – in a process called photosynthesis.

If oxygen – a vital component of life – is made in the dark by metal lumps, the researchers believe that process could be happening on other planets, creating oxygen-rich environments where life could thrive.

Lead researcher Prof Andrew Sweetman explained: “We are already in conversation with experts at Nasa who believe dark oxygen could reshape our understanding of how life might be sustained on other planets without direct sunlight.

“We want to go out there and figure out what exactly is going on.”

The initial discovery triggered a global scientific row – there was criticism of the findings from some scientists and from deep sea mining companies that plan to harvest the precious metals in the seabed nodules.

If oxygen is produced at these extreme depths, in total darkness, that calls into question what life could survive and thrive on the seafloor, and what impact mining activities could have on that marine life.

That means that seabed mining companies and environmental organisations – some of which claimed that the findings provided evidence that seafloor mining plans should be halted – will be watching this new investigation closely.

The plan is to work at sites where the seabed is more than 10km (6.2 miles) deep, using remotely operated submersible equipment.

“We have instruments that can go to the deepest parts of the ocean,” explained Prof Sweetman. “We’re pretty confident we’ll find it happening elsewhere, so we’ll start probing what’s causing it.”

Some of those experiments, in collaboration with scientists at Nasa, will aim to understand whether the same process could allow microscopic life to thrive beneath oceans that are on other planets and moons.

“If there’s oxygen,” said Prof Sweetman, “there could be microbial life taking advantage of that.”

The initial, biologically baffling findings were published last year in the journal Nature Geoscience. They came from several expeditions to an area of the deep sea between Hawaii and Mexico, where Prof Sweetman and his colleagues sent sensors to the seabed – at about 5km (3.1 miles) depth.

That area is part of a vast swathe of seafloor that is covered with the naturally occurring metal nodules, which form when dissolved metals in seawater collect on fragments of shell – or other debris. It’s a process that takes millions of years.

Sensors that the team deployed repeatedly showed oxygen levels going up.

“I just ignored it, Prof Sweetman told BBC News at the time, “because I’d been taught that you only get oxygen through photosynthesis”.

Eventually, he and his colleagues stopped ignoring their readings and set out instead to understand what was going on. Experiments in their lab – with nodules that the team collected submerged in beakers of seawater – led the scientists to conclude that the metallic lumps were making oxygen out of seawater. The nodules, they found, generated electric currents that could split (or electrolyse) molecules of seawater into hydrogen and oxygen.

Then came the backlash, in the form of rebuttals – posted online – from scientists and from seabed mining companies.

One of the critics, Michael Clarke from the Metals Company, a Canadian deep sea mining company, told BBC News that the criticism was focused on a “lack of scientific rigour in the experimental design and data collection”. Basically, he and other critics claimed there was no oxygen production – just bubbles that the equipment produced during sample collection.

“We’ve ruled out that possibility,” Prof Sweetman responded. “But these [new] experiments will provide the proof.”

This might seem a niche, technical argument, but several multi-billion pound mining companies are already exploring the possibility of harvesting tonnes of these metals from the seafloor.

The natural deposits they are targeting contain metals vital for making batteries, and demand for those metals is increasing rapidly as many economies move from fossil fuels to, for example, electric vehicles.

The race to extract those resources has caused concern among environmental groups and researchers. More than 900 marine scientists from 44 countries have signed a petition highlighting the environmental risks and calling for a pause on mining activity.

Talking about his team’s latest research mission at a press conference on Friday, Prof Sweetman said: “Before we do anything, we need to – as best as possible – understand the [deep sea] ecosystem.

“I think the right decision is to hold off before we decide if this is the right thing to do as a a global society.”

A new portrait of the Duchess of Edinburgh has been released to celebrate her 60th birthday.

In the picture, taken by London-based fashion photographer Christina Ebenezer earlier this month, Sophie looks relaxed and happy as she perches in a window seat at her Surrey home.

Buckingham Palace said Sophie was interested in Ebenezer’s style of photography and wanted to support a rising female photographer.

She will mark her birthday on Monday privately at home with the Duke of Edinburgh.

The photo, taken at Bagshot Park, shows the duchess wearing a black turtleneck jumper and a pleated cream skirt.

Sophie’s public profile has grown in recent years, having been hailed as a dependable figure in a slimmed-down working monarchy following the departures of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Prince Andrew, as well as the King and Princess of Wales’s health troubles.

She became the first member of the royal family to visit Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion, travelling to Kyiv to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky and First Lady Olena Zelenska last April.

They discussed how to support survivors of conflict-related sexual violence.

The Palace said that as the duchess turns 60, she has a renewed sense of commitment to her gender equality work and looked forward to further championing the issue in the future.

Ebenezer, born in Lagos, Nigeria, before moving to London at the age of four, has previously been recognised as a Forbes 30 Under 30 arts and culture leader and a British Fashion Council New Wave Creative.

Two of her portraits – of British actresses Michaela Coel and Letitia Wright – were unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery last year.

• Get insider stories and expert analysis every week from our royal correspondent Sean Coughlan, emailed directly to you. Sign up here to get the Royal Watch newsletter.

US President-elect Donald Trump has launched his own cryptocurrency, which quickly soared in market capitalisation to several billion dollars.

His release of the meme coin, $Trump, comes as he prepares to take office on Monday as 47th president of the US.

The venture was co-ordinated by CIC Digital LLC – an affiliate of the Trump Organization – which has previously sold Trump-branded shoes and fragrances.

Meme coins are used to build popularity for a viral internet trend or movement, but they lack intrinsic value and are extremely volatile investments.

By Saturday afternoon, hours after its launch, the market capitalisation for $Trump reached nearly $5.5bn (£4.5bn), according to CoinMarketCap.com.

CIC Digital LLC and Fight Fight Fight LLC, a company formed in Delaware earlier this month, own 80% of the tokens. It is unclear how much money Trump might make from the venture.

“My NEW Official Trump Meme is HERE! It’s time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social as he announced the meme coin on Friday night.

Some 200m of the digital tokens have been issued and another 800m will be released in the next three years, the coin’s website said.

“This Trump Meme celebrates a leader who doesn’t back down, no matter the odds,” the website said.

• Thousands protest in Washington against Trump

It included a disclaimer noting the coin is “not intended to be, or the subject of” an investment opportunity or a security and was “not political and has nothing to do with” any political campaign, political office or government agency.

Critics accused Trump of cashing in on the presidency.

“Trump owning 80 percent and timing launch hours before inauguration is predatory and many will likely get hurt by it,” Nick Tomaino, a crypto venture capitalist, said in a social media post.

Such digital tokens are notorious for speculators using hype to pump up the value before selling at the top of the market, leaving latecomers to count their losses as the price crashes.

Cryptocurrency investors are hoping the Trump administration will boost the industry.

President Joe Biden’s regulators cited concerns about fraud and money laundering as they cracked down on crypto companies by suing exchanges.

Trump was previously skittish about cryptocurrency, but at a Bitcoin conference in Nashville last year he said America would be “the crypto capital of the planet” once he returned to Washington.

His sons Erik and Donald Jr announced their own crypto venture last year.

A young woman described as “at her happiest when she dances” is thought to be among the three Israeli women released after 471 days held hostage by Hamas.

Romi Gonen, 24, was captured as she tried to escape the Nova music festival when it was targeted by the militant group as part of the 7 October 2023 attack.

She is believed to have been freed alongside Doron Steinbrecher, 31, a veterinary nurse, and Emily Damari, 28, who holds dual British-Israeli nationality.

It was confirmed on Sunday afternoon that three hostages had been handed over to the Red Cross by Hamas in Gaza.

Their release forms part of the first phase of the ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas, which began on Sunday. A total of 33 hostages are to be released over the next six weeks.

A delay in Israel getting all the names, which Hamas blamed on “technical field reasons”, pushed the ceasefire back by nearly three hours.

• Follow the latest updates here

Romi had travelled from her home in Kfar Veradim, northern Israel, to the Nova festival, which took place in the Negev Desert in the south.

More than 360 people were killed at the festival when Hamas fighters crossed over the border, 2km (1.3 miles) to the west. The desert landscape offered partygoers limited cover and exit routes were blocked by gunmen.

When sirens sounded as the attack unfolded, Romi called her family. Her mother, Meirav, recalled hearing shots and shouting in Arabic in the final call with her daughter.

Romi was ambushed by Hamas militants as she tried to flee.

In June, her mother addressed the UN Human Rights council to appeal for international help to release the hostages.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said she had gone to the festival “to do what she loved, to dance” – something she had studied for 12 years, starring in solo performances and becoming an “amazing choreographer”.

A video posted by the families’ forum last November described her as “the girl with the biggest smile, the brightest light, the greatest friend”.

The forum also said that Romi’s bedroom at her home “remains exactly as it was when she left”, awaiting her return.

Doron, a 31-year-old veterinary nurse, was abducted from her apartment in Kibbutz Kfar Aza – near Gaza’s north-western border – when Hamas attacked.

The community, one of many Israeli villages along the border, was heavily targeted by armed militants during the 7 October attacks.

Israeli officials said Hamas burned homes and killed civilians, including whole families, as well as taking hostages.

When the assault began, Doron contacted her family and friends via WhatsApp to say she was hiding under the bed as militants advanced, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said.

In her last voice message, she was heard screaming “they’ve caught me” as shouting and gunfire sounded in the background.

Doron’s family received no information about her whereabouts for nearly four months.

In May last year, her sister, Yamit Ashkenazi, wrote an emotional letter through the missing families forum, calling her “my sunshine”.

“I wish you could feel the energy we send to you,” it read.

And in an earlier post, Doron was described as “the glue that connects all her friends, sensitive and funny, always smiling and the first to offer help”.

She studied theatre and film in school, and developed a love for animals that led to her becoming a veterinary nurse.

Speaking to the BBC in November 2023, Doron’s sister Yamit spoke of a new tattoo. It read: “As the sun we will rise again”, but had some of the sun’s rays missing.

“They will be added when she is home,” she added.

Emily, a 28-year-old British-Israeli national, was also taken hostage from Kibbutz Kfar Aza on 7 October 2023.

She was shot in the hand and taken into Gaza from her home during the attack, and also saw her dog shot and killed.

Her mother, Mandy Damari, was also in the kibbutz in her separate home on 7 October. Mrs Damari hid in the safe room and was saved by a bullet hitting the door handle, making it impossible for attackers to get in.

As the assault unfolded, Emily sent her mother a text message containing a single heart emoji – that was the last contact they had.

In December, Mrs Damari told the BBC how concerned she was about the conditions her daughter was facing. Sunday was the first time they received information about Emily since March.

As news of her release came, a source close to her family said that it had been a “torturous 471 days but a particularly torturous 24 hours”.

“All Emily’s mum Mandy wants to do is hug Emily. But she won’t believe it until she sees it,” the source said.

• ‘I just want to hug her’: Family of British-Israeli hostage on news she will be released

Mrs Damari was born and raised in the UK, and met her husband on a holiday in Israel aged 20.

Emily, the youngest of four children, has strong connections with the UK – she is a Tottenham Hotspur fan and would often visit to see relatives, attend concerts, go shopping and visit the pub here.

Mrs Damari previously told the BBC that Emily is “the core of our family and the core is missing”.

“I love her to the moon and back, she is a special person,” she added.

A new US law banning TikTok has come into effect, hours after the popular app stopped working across the country.

Late on Saturday a message appearing on the TikTok for US users said a law banning TikTok had been enacted, meaning “you can’t use TikTok for now”.

The video-sharing app was banned over concerns about its links to the Chinese government. It was given until 19 January to be sold to an approved US buyer to avert the ban.

President Joe Biden had said he would leave the issue to his successor, Donald Trump. The president-elect has said he will “most likely” give TikTok a 90-day reprieve from a ban once he takes office on Monday.

“The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate,” Trump told NBC News on Saturday.

“If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday.”

Users reported the app had also been removed from both Apple and Google’s US app stores and TikTok.com was not showing videos, in line with the terms of the ban.

“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office,” a message displayed by the app read.

• Could TikTok ever be banned in the UK too?

It is the first time the US has banned a major social media platform.

On Friday, the US Supreme Court upheld the law, passed in April last year, banning the app in the US unless its China-based parent company, ByteDance, sold the platform by Sunday, which it has not done.

TikTok has argued that the law violates free speech protections for its 170 million users in the country.

After the ruling, TikTok’s chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, appealed to Trump, thanking him for his “commitment to work with us to find a solution”.

Mr Chew is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday.

In the hours leading up to the social media platform going offline, content creators had been posting videos to say goodbye to their followers.

Creator Nicole Bloomgarden told the BBC that not being on TikTok would result in a significant salary cut.

Another user, Erika Thompson, said educational content on the platform would be the “biggest loss” for the community.

TikTok users were met with a message earlier on Saturday that said the law would “force us to make our services temporarily unavailable. We’re working to restore our service in the U.S. as soon as possible.”

Meanwhile, a government minister told the BBC on Sunday that the UK had no plans to ban TikTok.

“We won’t be following the same path as the Americans unless or until… there is a threat that we are concerned about in the British interest, and then of course we will keep it under review,” Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones said.

The app was banned from the UK Parliament and government devices in 2023 over security concerns.

But Jones told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that “for consumers who want to post videos of their cats dancing, that doesn’t seem like a security threat to me”.

Irawati Karve led a life that stood apart from those around her.

Born in British-ruled India, and at a time when women didn’t have many rights or freedoms, Karve did the unthinkable: she pursued higher studies in a foreign country, became a college professor and India’s first female anthropologist.

She also married a man of her choosing, swam in a bathing suit, drove a scooter and even dared to defy a racist hypothesis of her doctorate supervisor – a famous German anthropologist named Eugen Fischer.

Her writings about Indian culture and civilisation and its caste system are ground-breaking, and are a part of the curriculum in Indian colleges. Yet she remains an obscure figure in history and a lot about her life remains unknown.

A new book titled Iru: The Remarkable Life of Irawati Karve, written by her granddaughter Urmilla Deshpande and academic Thiago Pinto Barbosa, sheds light on her fascinating life, and the many odds she braved to blaze an inspiring trail for the women, and men, who came after her.

Born in 1905 in Burma (now Myanmar), Irawati was named after the Irrawaddy river. The only girl among six siblings, she was doted on by her family and brought up in comfort.

But the young girl’s life took unexpected turns, resulting in experiences that would shape her as a person. Apart from strong women, Irawati’s life also crossed paths with empathetic, progressive men who paved the way for her to break barriers and cheered her on as she did so.

At seven, Irawati was sent to boarding school in Pune – a rare opportunity from her father when most girls were pushed into marriage. In Pune, she met RP Paranjpye, a prominent educationist whose family unofficially adopted Irawati and raised her as their own.

In the Paranjpye household, Irawati was exposed to a way of life that celebrated critical thinking and righteous living, even if that meant going against the grain of Indian society. Paranjpye, who Irawati fondly called “appa” or her “second father”, was a man far ahead of his times.

A college principal and staunch supporter of women’s education, he was also an atheist. Through him, Irawati discovered the fascinating world of social sciences and its impact on society.

When Irawati decided to pursue a doctorate in anthropology in Berlin, despite her biological father’s objections, she found support in Paranjpye and her husband, Dinkar Karve, a professor of science.

She arrived in the German city in 1927, after a days-long journey by ship, and began pursuing her degree under the mentorship of Fischer, a celebrated professor of anthropology and eugenics.

At the time, Germany was still reeling from the impact of World War One and Hitler had not yet risen to power. But the spectre of anti-Semitism had begun raising its ugly head. Irawati bore witness to this hate when she found out one day that a Jewish student in her building had been murdered.

In the book, the authors describe the fear, shock and disgust Irawati felt when she saw the man’s body lying on the footpath outside her building, blood oozing across the concrete.

Irawati wrestled with these emotions while working on the thesis assigned by Fischer: to prove that white Europeans were more logical and reasonable – and therefore racially superior to non-white Europeans. This involved meticulously studying and measuring 149 human skulls.

Fischer hypothesised that white Europeans had asymmetrical skulls to accommodate larger right frontal lobes, supposedly a marker of higher intelligence. However, Irawati’s research found no correlation between race and skull asymmetry.

“She had contradicted Fischer’s hypothesis, of course, but also the theories of that institute and the mainstream theories of the time,” the authors write in the book.

She boldly presented her findings, risking her mentor’s ire and her degree. Fischer gave her the lowest grade, but her research critically and scientifically rejected the use of human differences to justify discrimination. (Later, the Nazis would use Fischer’s theories of racial superiority to further their agenda and Fischer would join the Nazi party.)

Throughout her life, Irawati would display this streak of gumption combined with endless empathy, especially for the women she encountered.

At a time when it was unthinkable for a woman to travel too far away from home, Irawati went on field trips to remote villages in India after returning to the country, sometimes with her male colleagues, at other times with her students and even her children, to study the lives of various tribespeople.

She joined archaeological expeditions to recover 15,000-year-old bones, bridging the past and present. These gruelling trips took her deep into forests and rugged terrain for weeks or months, with the book describing her sleeping in barns or truck beds and often going days with little food.

Irawati also bravely confronted societal and personal prejudices as she interacted with people from all walks of life.

The authors describe how Irawati, a Chitpavan Brahmin from a traditionally vegetarian upper-caste Hindu community, bravely ate partially raw meat offered by a tribal leader she wished to study. She recognised it as a gesture of friendship and a test of loyalty, responding with openness and curiosity.

Her studies fostered deep empathy for humanity, leading her to later criticise fundamentalism across religions, including Hinduism. She believed India belonged to everyone who called it home.

The book recounts a moment when, reflecting on the horrors inflicted by the Nazis on the Jews, Irawati’s mind wandered to a startling realisation that would forever alter her view of humanity.

“In these reflections, Irawati learned the most difficult of lessons from Hindu philosophy: all that is you, too,” the authors write.

Irawati died in 1970, but her legacy endures through her work and the people it continues to inspire.

A hidden cross-border tunnel used to smuggle migrants and contraband between the US and Mexico will be sealed, Mexican border officials have said.

Running between Ciudad Juarez in Mexico and El Paso in Texas, which sit next to each other on either side of the border, the 300m tunnel was concealed in a storm sewer system and only discovered last week – despite official estimates it took at least a year to build.

Investigators are now looking into whether local officials knew of its construction.

Security has been ramped up on both sides of the border ahead of the inauguration of Donald Trump, who has vowed to launch mass deportations of illegal immigrants once in office.

The tunnel had been reinforced with wooden beams to prevent collapses and was equipped with lighting and ventilation.

Such a structure could have taken at least a year to build, army officials said.

The Mexican Attorney General’s Office has been tasked with investigating whether local officials had been complicit in the construction of the tunnel, General Jose Lemus, commander of Ciudad Juarez’s military garrison, told Mexican media.

The tunnel was discovered on 10 January, after US border patrol agents removed a metal plate covering the entry hole to the tunnel and then alerted their Mexican counterparts to its existence.

The flow of migrants from Mexico in the US has long overshadowed relations between the two neighbours and became a defining issue of the 2024 US presidential election race that culminated in Trump’s victory last year.

Raids to detain and deport migrants living in the US without permission could begin as early as Tuesday – the day after Trump officially returns to the White House – according to US media reports.

Under US diplomatic pressure, Mexico has been conducting its largest ever migrant crackdown, bussing and flying non-Mexican migrants to the country’s south, far from the US border.

But Trump campaigned on a promise to seal the US-Mexico border and his threat to impose 25% tariffs was seen as an attempt to force Mexico into doing more to stop undocumented migrants from reaching the southern border of the US.

In response, the recently-elected Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has said she will ask the US take action to stop the flow of weapons being smuggled from the US into Mexico.

All websites on which pornographic material can be found, including social media platforms, must introduce “robust” age-checking techniques such as demanding photo ID or running credit card checks for UK users by July.

The long-awaited guidance, issued by regulator Ofcom, has been made under the Online Safety Act (OSA), and is intended to prevent children from easily accessing pornography online.

Research indicates the average age at which young people first see explicit material online in the UK is 13 – with many being exposed to it much earlier.

“For too long, many online services which allow porn and other harmful material have ignored the fact that children are accessing their services”, said Ofcom boss Melanie Dawes, adding: “today, this starts to change.”

Ofcom confirmed to the BBC this meant user-to-user services such as social media platforms must implement “highly effective checks” – which in some cases might mean “preventing children from accessing the entire site”.

However, some porn sites and privacy campaigners have warned the move will be counterproductive, saying introducing beefed-up age verification will only push people to “darker corners” of the internet.

The media regulator estimates that approximately 14 million people watch online pornography in the UK.

But it is so readily available that campaign groups have raised concerns that children see it at a young age – with one in 10 children seeing it by age nine, according to a survey by the Children’s Commissioner.

“As age checks start to roll out in the coming months, adults will start to notice a difference in how they access certain online services,” said Dame Melanie.

The rules also require services which publish their own pornographic content – including with generative AI tools – to begin introducing age checks immediately.

Age verification platform Yoti called such technology “essential” for creating safe spaces online.

“It is important that age assurance is enforced across pornographic sites of all sizes, creating a level playing field, and providing age-appropriate access for adults,” said chief regulatory and policy officer Julie Dawson.

However Aylo, parent company of the website Pornhub, told the BBC this sort of age verification was “ineffective, haphazard and dangerous”.

It claimed pornography use changed significantly in US state Louisiana after similar age verification controls came into force, with its website’s traffic dropping 80% in the state.

“These people did not stop looking for porn, they just migrated to darker corners of the internet that don’t ask users to verify age,” it claimed.

“In practice, the laws have just made the internet more dangerous for adults and children.”

Ofcom has published what it calls a “non-exhaustive” list of technologies that may be used to verify ages, which includes:

• Open banking
• Photo ID matching
• Facial age estimation
• Mobile network operator age checks
• Credit card checks
• Digital identity services
• Email-based age estimation

The rules specifically state that “self-declaration of age” is no longer considered a “highly effective” method of checking ages – and therefore is not acceptable.

It also states that pornographic content should not be accessible to users before they have completed an age check.

Other age verification firms have responded positively to the news.

“The regulator’s long-awaited guidance on age assurance means adult content providers now have the clarity they need to get their houses in order and put in place robust and reliable methods to keep explicit material well away from underage users,” said Lina Ghazal, head of regulatory and public affairs at Verifymy.

But privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch warned that many age-checking methods could be circumvented, and should not be seen as a panacea.

“Children must be protected online, but many technological age checking methods are ineffective and introduce additional risks to children and adults alike including security breaches, privacy intrusion, errors, digital exclusion and censorship,” said boss Silkie Carlo.

“We must avoid anything like a digital ID system for the internet that would both eradicate privacy online and fail to keep children safe,” she added.

The Israeli and Hamas negotiators never came face to face – but by the end, just one floor separated them.

Ceasefire talks via middlemen from Qatar, Egypt and the US dragged on for several months, at times without hope. Now the key players were all inside one building in Doha and the pace was frantic.

A deal was close but things had gone wrong before: one source described a last-minute push to stop the agreement breaking down while a podium was being set up so the Qatari prime minister could announce it.

“Literally, negotiations were up until 10 minutes before the press conference. So that’s how things were stitched up at the last minute,” the source familiar with the talks said.

The BBC has spoken to a number of officials on all sides of the negotiations to piece together how the final fraught days of the secretive process unfolded.

The deal did not come out of the blue.

The overall framework of the agreement reached on 15 January was broadly the same as the proposal set out by President Joe Biden during a White House address last May. It uses the same three-phase approach and will see a ceasefire, Israeli hostages released in return for Palestinian prisoners, and the Israeli military’s gradual withdrawal from Gaza.

But sources familiar with the discussions agreed the dynamics of the talks shifted decisively in mid-December and the pace changed.

Hamas, already reeling from Israel’s killing of its leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza two months earlier, had become increasingly isolated. Its Lebanon-based ally Hezbollah had been decimated and had agreed to a truce with Israel. Bashar al-Assad’s Iran-backed government in Syria had also been swept away.

The view in Washington is that Hamas was forced to abandon the idea that “the cavalry was coming to save it”, as one US official put it.

“It is hard to overstate how fundamentally the equation changed and what that [did] for Hamas’s calculus,” says a senior Biden administration official familiar with the talks.

An Israeli official who wished to remain anonymous said Hamas was “not in a rush” to strike a deal and had been “dictating” rather than negotiating. They said that changed after the death of Sinwar and Israeli operations against Hamas’s allies in the region.

On top of that, the official said, there was “momentum created by both US administrations” – the Biden White House and the incoming Trump team.

“We could not achieve a deal like this until conditions had changed,” the official added.

On 12 December, Biden’s negotiating team visited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Middle East envoy Brett McGurk and CIA director Bill Burns were all in attendance.

A US official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the meeting lasted “multiple hours” and focused on the “new regional equation” and “how we catapult from the Lebanon ceasefire into another round of intensive discussions” on Gaza.

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• WATCH: Mixed feelings in Israel about deal with Hamas

There was also another piece on the chessboard by this stage: Donald Trump.

On 16 December, weeks after Trump’s victory, the BBC spoke to a Hamas official who was unusually optimistic about the ceasefire efforts, suggesting they seemed to be more serious.

The official – who had taken part in every set of talks since November 2023 – appeared reassured by the fact that an adviser to the incoming US president had sent a message to mediators indicating Trump wanted an agreement before his inauguration.

Trump had also warned of “all hell to pay” if Hamas did not agree to release the hostages – but the Palestinian official was bullish.

“This time, the pressure will not be limited to Hamas, as was customary under the Biden administration,” the official said. “There will also be pressure on Netanyahu. He is the one obstructing the deal, and Trump seems to understand that very well.”

However, that same official’s prediction that a deal could be done by Christmas proved to be optimistic.

During December, the process remained beset by problems. Israel publicly ruled out releasing certain high-profile prisoners, while the White House accused Hamas of throwing up roadblocks over the hostage releases.

A Biden administration official said: “Hamas [was] refusing to agree – and this was a breakdown at that point – to the list of hostages that would be released in phase one of the deal.

“That’s just so fundamental. This is a hostage release deal. Unless you agree to the list of hostages who will come out, there’s not going to be a deal.”

The same official said Hamas made “completely untrue” claims about not knowing the location of the hostages, and added: “We held the line and basically left the table until Hamas agreed to the hostage list.”

An anonymous Israeli official said Hamas had sought to conceal the number of living hostages and “tried to dictate that they would send us only dead bodies”.

For its part, Hamas claimed Israel unexpectedly added 11 names to the list of hostages it wanted to be released in the first phase. Hamas considered them reserve soldiers, and therefore not eligible to be released alongside the women, injured and elderly hostages due to be released in phase one.

The door was left open to Qatari and Egyptian mediators to continue their efforts and on 3 January, there was an apparent breakthrough when Hamas proposed the release of 110 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences in return.

There were by now well-established terms of reference for such trades. For each hostage Hamas was to release, Israel would have to provide what had become known in the nomenclature of the draft deal as a “key” – meaning an agreed number or even specific identities of Palestinian prisoners.

A US official said: “There’s an equation for how many Palestinian prisoners come out. So for female soldiers, for example, there’s a key. And for elderly males, there’s a key. And for women civilians, there’s a key. And this has all been worked out and the prisoners have been named, hundreds and hundreds of prisoners on the list.”

The exchange file in the negotiations – Palestinian prisoners for hostages held by Hamas – became known as “the keys”.

During this phase of the talks, Hamas also relented on two long-standing demands: the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza in the first phase and a formal Israeli commitment to a total ceasefire.

Sensing a breakthrough, the Egyptian mediator urgently dispatched Major General Ahmed Abdel Khaleq – who oversees the Palestinian portfolio in Egyptian intelligence – to Doha. After meeting with Hamas representatives, he secured confirmation the group would make what a senior Hamas official described as “painful concessions.”

But on 6 January, according to a Palestinian official, Israel rejected the offer put forward by Hamas on the 11 hostages. Hamas responded by sending the BBC and other media outlets a list featuring the names and ages of 34 Israeli hostages. Two days later, the body of one of those on that list – Yosef AlZayadni – was found inside Gaza.

The list included reserve soldiers, which indicated Hamas was willing to release them in the first phase.

This appeared to be an attempt to embarrass Netanyahu and rally hostage families in Israel and around the world to pressure him into accepting the deal.

It was also an indication Hamas had not walked away.

Meetings stretching into the small hours of Doha’s hot evenings became common during the final stretch of the negotiations.

In the last month, they had developed into so-called “proximity talks”, with both sides in the same two-storey building, according to multiple accounts from officials familiar with the details.

A senior US official said Hamas’s delegation was on the first floor and Israel’s on the floor above. Mediators ran pieces of paper between them. Maps of Israeli troop withdrawal proposals and details about hostages or prisoners drafted for release were shuttled back and forth.

“That takes an enormous amount of work and, I have to say, all of that was not fully nailed down, really, until just the [final] hours,” said the official.

Inside the building, the delegations met separately with senior figures from Qatar and Egypt. Among those closely involved in the details was Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.

Two crucial areas were worked on in the final phases of the talks: the lists for release of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and the positions for Israeli troop withdrawals from populated areas in Gaza during phase one.

By 9 January, the pressure had escalated. Trump’s envoy, Biden’s envoy, and the Egyptian intelligence chief convened in Doha for a serious eight-hour negotiation session.

A senior Egyptian official told the BBC: “We are at the closest point to reaching an agreement.”

Agreement had been reached on 90% of the outstanding issues, but further talks were required.

Steve Witkoff, Trump’s recently appointed Middle East envoy, was dispatched to Tel Aviv to meet Netanyahu. Though not yet officially in post, the New York property tycoon had become more and more involved in the talks, which Trump was taking a keen interest in.

He was about to be sent on an assignment that proved to be pivotal.

When Trump’s man in the Middle East arrived in Israel on 11 January, it was the sabbath.

Witkoff was asked to wait until the sabbath had ended before he met Netanyahu but, in a breach of custom, the envoy refused and demanded to meet the prime minister immediately.

Netanyahu appears to have come under serious strong-arming during the meeting and the intervention from the Trump camp to get the Israeli government to set aside its final reservations seems to have been critical.

The meeting was reportedly fractious and the message to Netanyahu from the incoming president was clear: Trump wants a deal – now get it done.

Commenting on those talks, an Israeli official who asked to remain anonymous said it was a “very important meeting”.

When Witkoff returned to Doha, he remained in the room with the talks, spending time with Biden’s envoy Mr McGurk, in what two US officials called a “near unprecedented” transition effort in American diplomacy.

This week, Hamas official Bassem Naim told Al Arabiya he “couldn’t imagine that [the deal] could be possible without the pressure of the incoming administration led by President Trump” – and specifically cited Witkoff’s presence at the talks.

By now, the fact a deal could be imminent was out in the open and public expectation was building – not least among the families of those being held hostage and Palestinians displaced inside Gaza.

The final 72 hours of talks involved a constant back and forth over the finer points of how the deal would be implemented, according to one account.

One source close to the negotiations described the hammering out of “arrangements and logistics” for how the hostages would be released in Gaza and for the withdrawal movements of Israeli troops.

On 12 January, a senior Palestinian official familiar with the negotiations said “all the officials are here in the same building”, adding: “Tonight is decisive. We are only a few steps away from an agreement.”

That meeting lasted six hours – but, like so many times before, an impasse was reached.

This time the disagreement that arose was over the mechanism for the return of displaced individuals from southern Gaza to the north.

Israel wanted to search returnees and their vehicles to ensure no militants or military equipment were being transported – which Hamas refused to accept.

Mediators proposed that Qatari and Egyptian technical teams conduct the searches instead. Both sides agreed and one of the final remaining stalemates was resolved.

On 15 January shortly after 18:00, a Hamas negotiator wrote in a message to the BBC: “Everything is finished.”

The podium was being readied.

A deal which once looked impossible had taken shape.

A new portrait of the Duchess of Edinburgh has been released to celebrate her 60th birthday.

In the picture, taken by London-based fashion photographer Christina Ebenezer earlier this month, Sophie looks relaxed and happy as she perches in a window seat at her Surrey home.

Buckingham Palace said Sophie was interested in Ebenezer’s style of photography and wanted to support a rising female photographer.

She will mark her birthday on Monday privately at home with the Duke of Edinburgh.

The photo, taken at Bagshot Park, shows the duchess wearing a black turtleneck jumper and a pleated cream skirt.

Sophie’s public profile has grown in recent years, having been hailed as a dependable figure in a slimmed-down working monarchy following the departures of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Prince Andrew, as well as the King and Princess of Wales’s health troubles.

She became the first member of the royal family to visit Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian invasion, travelling to Kyiv to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky and First Lady Olena Zelenska last April.

They discussed how to support survivors of conflict-related sexual violence.

The Palace said that as the duchess turns 60, she has a renewed sense of commitment to her gender equality work and looked forward to further championing the issue in the future.

Ebenezer, born in Lagos, Nigeria, before moving to London at the age of four, has previously been recognised as a Forbes 30 Under 30 arts and culture leader and a British Fashion Council New Wave Creative.

Two of her portraits – of British actresses Michaela Coel and Letitia Wright – were unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery last year.

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Emily, 21, spends around £20 a month at Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein, turning to it whenever she needs a new party or holiday outfit.

“You can almost always find what you’re looking for, even if the quality is bad”, she says.

Like millions in the UK and the US, she buys from the online shop mostly because of how affordable it is.

The firm has faced scrutiny over how it treats workers, with a BBC investigation highlighting 75-hour weeks for workers in contravention of Chinese labour laws, but it is unlikely shoppers will be put off buying their clothes there.

Emily has considered stopping buying from Shein due to its labour practices, but says everywhere else “is way too expensive”.

“I’m happy to talk about the fact I shop at Shein because I know I’m not the only one,” she adds.

The numbers show she’s right, with Shein transforming from a little-known company just a few years ago into one of the world’s biggest clothing firms.

Global sales are estimated to have reached $36.9bn (£30.2bn) last year, according to GlobalData.

Shein is a private company and does not report its global results.

But profits in the UK doubled in 2023 to more than £24m, according to a Companies House filing.

Shein stocks thousands of different clothing lines, dwarfing rival fast fashion brands such as H&M and Zara.

It sells many clothes for below £10, and turns around new designs quickly.

The firm has been gearing up for for a stock market flotation in the UK, putting it under scrutiny over both its working practices and its environmental impact.

Last year, Shein itself found child labour in its supply chain after tightening scrutiny of suppliers.

It has also faced allegations that it uses cotton produced using forced labour, and last week declined to tell MPs whether it used such cotton.

Shein was contacted for comment.

In response to the BBC investigation into worker conditions it said it is “committed to ensuring the fair and dignified treatment of all workers within our supply chain” and is investing tens of millions of dollars in strengthening governance and compliance.

“We strive to set the highest standards for pay and we require that all supply chain partners adhere to our code of conduct,” it said.

Workers get paid about one to two yuan for making a tee-shirt – which is the equivalent of between 11p and 22p.

Sarah Johnson, the founder of consultancy Flourish Retail, a former head of buying and merchandising for Asos China, said the firm could pay suppliers more, which would give them more leeway to pay workers.

The supplier “doesn’t get paid an awful lot of the final price” of the garment.

When it comes to workers, “you could raise their pay and it would make a minimal amount of difference to the garment price,” she said.

An alternative would be for the firm to make less profit, she added.

Sophie Wills, from Birmingham, said she had previously bought clothes from the retailer due to their affordability.

“Times are hard,” Sophie says, adding she probably couldn’t afford higher-end clothes at the moment.

However, she says saving up and “making investments in stuff that is probably higher quality would be a good way to go”.

Thando Sibenke says she regularly shops at Shein.

“My whole outfit’s from Shein right now,” she says, adding she likes the price, convenience, and variety.

However, Thando says she plans to do more research in the future on how the clothes she buys are made.

Georgina, 24, from London, says she is “embarrassed” that she has shopped at Shein – and has now stopped.

“Since reading up on it, the negatives massively outweigh the positives and even when seeing Shein clothing in charity shops, I don’t feel comfortable buying it.”

Fashion designer and academic Shazia Saleem said that people in Generation Z – those born between about 1995 to 2010 – often say in surveys that sustainability and ethics are important to them, but that doesn’t necessarily come through in their buying choices.

Young people can feel pressure to buy new outfits to keep up appearances on social media, and they don’t have much disposable cash, so will probably continue to buy fast fashion, she said.

She added that although people should make informed buying decisions, it should be down to the government to strengthen existing UK trading standards rules to make sure companies are selling sustainable and ethically sound products.

Louise Deglise-Favre, senior apparel analyst at GlobalData, also said she expected affordability to continue to outweigh ethical concerns for Shein shoppers.

Younger customers tend to not have much disposable income due to being in school or low paying jobs, she said.

Shein releases thousands of new products daily, which can encourage shoppers to buy too much – but it’s also a response to “the desire from consumers to constantly update their wardrobes with the latest trends”, she adds.

Analysts have suggested it is “just matter of time” until the US ban on TikTok spreads to allied countries and beyond – if the Trump administration decides to keep it offline.

The app has been switched off in America after US lawmakers ruled it was a national security risk because of owner ByteDance’s ties to the Chinese government – ties it denies.

Incoming President Trump has indicated though that he is opposed to the ban and will find a way to reverse it.

If the US ban goes ahead, experts point to the previous ousting of Chinese and Russian tech companies on national security grounds as a potential blueprint for how the TikTok ban might spread around the world.

“There are big parallels between TikTok and what happened with China’s Huawei and Russia’s Kaspersky that indicates it’s just a matter of time until a creeping ban takes affect,” says Emily Taylor, Editor of the Cyber Policy Journal.

In both cases these companies were accused by the US of being a threat to national security – but no smoking gun was ever revealed by cyber security authorities.

The same has happened with TikTok.

Under President Trump, Kaspersky’s flagship antivirus software product was banned from civil and military computers in the US after accusations arose in 2017 that it was used by the Kremlin in a hacking incident that was never proven.

The UK followed almost immediately and one by one other allies fell into line with restrictions, warnings or bans.

It took years but eventually a countrywide ban took effect last year in the US but it was all but redundant by then. Kaspersky closed its US operations followed by its UK offices saying there is no viable business there.

The company has always argued that the US government based its decision on the “geopolitical climate and theoretical concerns” rather than independently verifying risk.

According to research from Bitsight Kaspersky’s decline in usage after the ban was pronounced, not just in the US but in at least 25 other countries too, even those with no overt public policy to ban the software.

Almost the exact same thing happened with Chinese telecoms giant Huawei.

The US accused Huawei and other Chinese tech firms of being too close to the Chinese government. It argued that the company’s popular 5G kit should not be used to build telecoms in case it could be used to spy on or degrade communications.

A former Huawei UK member of staff said that once the US decided to ban, block or restrict Huawei it became almost inevitable that allies would follow.

“The UK and others spoke about independently coming to their own conclusions over security but the US was unrelenting in its lobbying behind closed doors. They warned about the national security risks which were never backed up by evidence,” said the former insider, who didn’t want to be named.

Intense US lobbying of allies on security issues is something often seen in many aspects of cyber policy.

It usually starts with countries in the Five Eyes Alliance.

The close-knit intelligence sharing arrangement is between five English-speaking democracies: the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

So far, all members have banned TikTok from government devices and some have issued public warnings too. Canada has ordered an end to TikTok’s Canadian operations citing national security concerns.

The Five Eyes knock-on effect can be considerable and restrictions have already spread with the app banned on devices of government employees, civil servants or military personnel in countries including Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, The Netherlands, Norway and Taiwan.

Ciaran Martin, who was head of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre during the bans on Huawei and Kaspersky, agrees that generally when the US makes a national security or strategic decision about a company, the UK and allies eventually follow suit.

However, as with everything else to do with TikTok, he says there is a huge caveat in the form of the incoming Trump administration.

“What we don’t yet know is whether TikTok will be the exception as Trump has said he is opposed to the ban so will he order allies to replicate a ban? We don’t yet know.”

Trump’s position on TikTok has changed dramatically since his first presidency when he tried to get it banned. Since then he has become a supporter after his re-election campaign gained support through TikTok videos.

Emily Taylor agrees that this unknown factor might make TikTok different to Huawei and Kaspersky.

“It depends on how much pressure the administration is willing to exert”, she told the BBC.

“If their foreign policy agenda is packed then forcing other allies to follow the ban might fall down the list and allow countries to wait it out”.

At the moment, there are “no plans” for a TikTok ban in the UK, a government spokesperson said on Saturday. “We engage with all major social media companies to understand their plans for ensuring the security of UK data and to ensure they meet the high data protection and cyber security standards we expect.”

Meanwhile, UK government minister Darren Jones told the BBC on Sunday: “We won’t be following the same path as the Americans unless or until… there is a threat that we are concerned about in the British interest, and then of course we will keep it under review.”

The app was banned from the UK Parliament in 2023 over security concerns.

But Jones, the chief secretary to the Treasury, told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that “for consumers who want to post videos of their cats dancing, that doesn’t seem like a security threat to me”.

Another aspect to consider about TikTok’s future post-US ban is whether or not the app can continue to thrive without a US customer base.

Any app that loses 170m users would suffer but US users in particular are valuable for creators, advertisers and direct spending in TikTok Shop.

If the rest of the West follows it will reduce the money flowing into the company and curtail development of new features, further entrenching the dominance of US platforms like Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and Snapchat.

TikTok is already banned in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India too – a massive market. It has no presence in China because of its sister app Douyin.

Kaspersky and Huawei both managed to weather their storms by relying on home-grown customer bases and by pivoting to regions like Africa and the Middle East.

So it might be possible for TikTok to build its user bases here. But if the US ban creeps around the world then the app will likely never be as big as it currently is and may well wither and die a slow death.