President Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of launching “another major provocation”, after defence officials said Ukrainian troops crossed into Russia’s Kursk region on Tuesday.

Moscow said troops, supported by 11 tanks and more than 20 armoured combat vehicles, crossed the border near the town of Sudzha, 10km (six miles) from the frontline.

In televised remarks broadcast on Wednesday afternoon, Russia’s Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov told President Putin that the “advance” into Kursk region had been stopped with Russian forces “continuing to destroy the adversary in areas directly adjacent to the Russian-Ukrainian border”.

Mr Gerasimov also said that up to 1,000 Ukrainian troops had entered the region with the aim of taking over the area around the town of Sudzha, and that Russian forces had already killed 100 men and injured another 215.

Ukraine has yet to comment on the Russian allegations.

Thousands of local residents have left their homes in the region, officials said.

Speaking ahead of a meeting of the Security Council in Moscow, Mr Putin accused Ukrainian forces of “firing indiscriminately” at civilian buildings and residences.

Fighting reportedly took place in various villages on Russian territory throughout Tuesday. It was followed by Ukrainian air attacks which killed three civilians and continued into the night, Russian authorities said.

Twenty-four people, including six children, have been wounded in Ukrainian shelling of the border region, Moscow said.

On Wednesday, Russia’s Ministry of Defence claimed it prevented the Ukrainian Armed Forces from advancing “deep into Russian territory” in the Kursk region and said it had destroyed several Ukrainian drones overnight.

However, a number of air alerts continued to be issued in Kursk, where local authorities urged residents to limit their movements and all public events were cancelled.

Footage posted online – and verified by the BBC – showed fighter jets flying low overhead in the region on Tuesday, with smoke rising from areas on the ground.

The acting regional governor, Alexei Smirnov, said he had briefed Russian President Vladimir Putin about the situation, which he said was under control.

Mr Smirnov also said several thousand people had left areas of the region that were under attack and added doctors from Moscow and St Petersburg were on their way to offer assistance.

Kyiv has not yet commented on any of the reports about events in Kursk. However, on Wednesday Volodymyr Artyukh, the head of the Ukrainian region of Sumy, ordered the evacuation of the areas that border the region of Kursk.

One colonel in Ukraine’s military, Vladislav Seleznyov, told the prominent Nexta channel the attack was “preventative” with an estimated 75,000 Russian troops continuing to gather close to the border.

After a major cross-border incursion by Russia into the north-eastern Kharkiv region in May, there had been fears Moscow would attempt the same into the Sumy region further north.

With Ukraine now apparently capturing several settlements and highways the other way, those ambitions may well have been frustrated, for now.

But with Ukrainian forces already overstretched and outmanned, some military analysts are questioning the wisdom of such cross-border raids.

This isn’t the first incursion into Russia by fighters based in Ukraine. Some groups of anti-Kremlin Russians launched raids last year, which were repelled.

The forces crossed into the Belgorod and Kursk regions again in March, where they engaged in clashes with Russian security forces.

In Dhaka, students are on the streets directing traffic and keeping things running as police stage a strike following the popular uprising that toppled prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

The police, normally highly visible, are nowhere to be seen on the usually loud and congested streets of the Bangladeshi capital.

It seems that only students and some paramilitary forces are trying to maintain law and order, after weeks of unrest in which hundreds have been killed. An interim government is promised, but has yet to take office.

Police now fear for their safety after the deadly crackdown that caused so much anger. It failed to quell anti-government protests that had begun over civil service job quotas last month.

Things are calmer two days after Ms Hasina escaped to India, but there are continuing reports of sporadic looting and violence during the power vacuum.

Many Bangladeshis, particularly the young, hope the country is at a turning point.

“I want freedom of expression. I want a corruption-free country. I want people to have the right to protest,” Noorjahan Mily, 21, an Open University student, told the BBC.

“I am uncertain about where the country is heading, because the government has changed. But whether the discrimination will remain or not, I will only be happy when their demands are met.”

The country is now trying to come to terms with the shock of what has just happened, now that power has been prised from the hands of the country’s long-time ruler.

More than 400 people were killed in the recent unrest, most of them civilians shot by security forces, but also a number of police. It’s the bloodiest episode since the war that brought the country independence in 1971.

At the airport, a worker handed me my bags, telling me the situation is very bad and the government used too much force.

“Many kids – as young as six, seven and eight – were killed,” he said.

Outside the airport, students wearing orange hi-vis vests were directing traffic.

“There’s no police here, only students,” the driver said. “There is no government, students are doing 100% security.”

He agreed with the students, saying they had done a good thing.

As we drove on, a group of students were putting out plastic cones to control the flow of vehicles.

“I’m here to protect my brothers and help with the traffic. From the very beginning, I participated in the quota movement that turned into a massive movement,” Julkernayeem Rahat, a business administration student at University of Asia Pacific, told the BBC.

“We are happy we’ve removed the autocratic government. We have gained our freedom and our sovereignty.”

He was confident that the man named as interim leader, Nobel Laureate Muhammed Yunus, will be able to form a government after a few months “with the help of students, lawyers, general people”.

“Bangladesh’s future is in the hands of the student leaders. God willing, things will be good,” said the 22-year-old.

Mahamudul Hassan, 21, is studying on the same course.

“I want democracy so that people of all walks of life can enjoy equal opportunities, equal rights.” He’s hoping for “a leader who can make those things happen”.

Mr Yunus was appointed to the post late on Tuesday by Bangladesh’s president, meeting a key demand of student protesters, who said they would not accept an army-led government. He is now heading back from having surgery in France and could be sworn in on Thursday.

“I’m looking forward to going back home and see what’s happening and how we can organise ourselves to get out of the trouble we’re in,” he told reporters on Wednesday at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, where he was due to fly to Dhaka.

Following reports of looting and revenge attacks on supporters of Sheikh Hasina, he has urged people to refrain from all kinds of violence, warning that if they did not, they risked everything being destroyed.

In an address to the nation on Wednesday, the army chief said he was certain Mr Yunus “will be able to take us through a beautiful democratic process and that we will benefit from this”.

How things turn out is still to be determined – but as far as traffic management goes, the students seem to be doing a good job.

The BBC found it flowing much better than when we visited in January for controversial elections, boycotted by the main opposition, that handed Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League a fourth term in power.

It almost seemed like business as usual when we saw a group of men pulling large metal rods for a construction project.

“The traffic system is better now. The students are managing well. It’s better than when the police were here,” said Mohammed Shwapan, who has been a Dhaka driver for 24 years. “Today is busier than yesterday.”

He supports the choice of interim leader.

“As Mr Yunus is well known internationally, he can mitigate any potential economic collapse.

“I am worried about the international debt, how will Bangladesh be able to manage payments. That’s why I think he can do a good job.”

The challenges ahead are enormous, and not just economic. There are many wounds to heal after Sheikh Hasina’s 15 years in power ended on Monday.

Her government is credited with economic reforms that have improved the standard of living for many in Bangladesh. But she was also accused of serious human rights abuses, including numerous extra-judicial killings and forced disappearances.

Many people have stories to tell of what their families went through.

On the plane to Dhaka, I managed to close my eyes for a few minutes. When I opened them, I found a handwritten note on an airsick bag found in the back pocket of the seat in front.

On it, someone had written that his father was killed by Sheikh Hasina and his brother abducted. He had been in self-imposed exile for the last eight years for the safety of his wife and children.

Now he is coming back to what he calls “a free country”, to visit his father’s grave, the note said.

Suga from K-pop boy band BTS has apologised after being fined for driving an electric scooter while intoxicated.

Posting on social media, the 31-year-old said he was “very heavy-hearted and apologetic” to bring his fans “disappointing news”.

In the post, the rapper explained he had “violated the road traffic act” when he had driven home in Seoul “thinking it was a close distance” and “[forgot] that you can’t use an electric scooter under the influence”.

“I fell while parking the electric scooter in front of my house, and there was a police officer nearby,” he wrote.

“I was given a breathalyser test and subsequently had my license revoked and was fined.”

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that police said his blood alcohol level was 0.08%.

He added: “Although no one was harmed and no property was damaged, this is entirely my responsibility with no excuses.

“I apologise to those who have been hurt by my carelessness and wrongful behaviour, and I will ensure that this does not happen again in the future.”

The phenomenally successful boy band are currently on hiatus as its members complete military service.

Suga started his service last year and is working as a social service agent after being ruled unfit for regular combat duty.

Local media reported the star’s alternative service was likely to be related to shoulder surgery that he required in 2020.

BTS’s record label Bighit have also issued an apology for the scooter incident.

“We express our sincere apology for the incident involving BTS member Suga and his electric kickboard accident,” they said in a statement.

“We apologise for the disappointment caused by the artist’s inappropriate behaviour.

“As a social service agent during his military service, he is prepared to accept any disciplinary actions from his place of work for causing a social disturbance.

“We will take greater care to ensure that such incidents do not happen again in the future.”

US transport safety officials investigating a mid-air emergency on a Boeing 737 Max 9 plane have released thousands of pages of documents, including testimony describing the “chaos” in the moments after the blowout of an unused door.

It came as a two-day National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) hearing about the 5 January incident on an Alaska Airlines flight got underway.

During the event, Boeing told investigators it will introduce design changes to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.

The blowout triggered the US aviation giant’s second major crisis in recent years.

In the more than 3,000 pages of documents released ahead of the hearing, the plane’s crew described the violent decompression that resulted from the panel detaching mid-flight.

The plane’s co-pilot told the investigation there was a “loud bang, ears popping, my head got pushed up into the [head-up display] and my headset got pushed, not off my head, but up almost off my head.”

“It was chaos,” they said.

“And then, just all of a sudden, there was just a really loud bang and lots of whooshing air, like the door burst open,” a flight attendant said.

“Masks came down, I saw the galley curtain get sucked towards the cabin.”

The names of the air crew have been redacted in the documents.

At the hearing, Boeing executives were grilled about the manufacture of the aircraft involved in the incident and the lack of paperwork explaining who carried out work on the door plug before the blowout.

A preliminary report by the NTSB detailed how, after a repair at a Boeing facility, the panel had four bolts missing, which should have helped keep it in place.

“The safety culture needs a lot of work,” said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy, adding that the plane maker needs to take steps to address the issues.

“They are working on some design changes that will allow the door plug to not be closed if there’s any issue until it’s firmly secured,” said Boeing’s senior vice president for quality Elizabeth Lund.

The NTSB and Boeing have yet to find out who was responsible for removing and reinstalling the door plug.

But Ms Lund said two workers who are likely to have been involved are now on paid administrative leave.

The incident was the latest major blow to Boeing’s reputation.

It resulted in the grounding of Max 9 planes around the world for two weeks, a ban on increasing production, a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe and a management shakeup.

The company recently said it would plead guilty to a fraud charge related to fatal crashes of two of its 737 Max planes more than five years ago.

Last week, Boeing said it had lost $1.4bn (£1.1bn) between April and June.

It has also named aerospace industry veteran and engineer Robert K ‘Kelly’ Ortberg as its next chief executive.

A Thai court has ordered the dissolution of the reformist party which won the most seats and votes in last year’s election – but was blocked from forming a government.

The ruling also banned Move Forward’s charismatic, young former leader Pita Limjaroenrat and 10 other senior figures from politics for 10 years.

The verdict from the Constitutional Court was expected, after its ruling in January that Move Forward’s campaign promise to change royal defamation laws was unconstitutional.

The court had said changes to the notoriously harsh lese majeste law was tantamount to calling for the destruction of the constitutional monarchy.

Wednesday’s verdict again serves as a stark reminder of how far unelected institutions are willing to go to preserve the power and status of the monarchy.

But the ruling does not mean an end to the reformist movement in Thai politics.

The surviving 142 Move Forward MPs are expected to transfer to another registered party and continue their role as the main opposition in parliament.

“A new journey has begun. Let’s keep walking together, people,” the party said in a message accompanied by a video on its social media platforms.

Chaithawat Tulathon, the leader of the opposition and one of the MPs barred from politics, stood up in the chamber and bid farewell to his colleagues, saying it was an “honor” to work with them.

This verdict “may raise the question whether Thailand is a constitutional monarchy or an absolute monarchy”, said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University.

He said it was “deja vu on one hand, and uncharted territory, on the other”.

This is more or less a repeat of what happened in 2020 when the then Future Forward Party, which had also done unexpectedly well in an election, was also dissolved, and transformed itself into the Move Forward Party.

That verdict four years ago ignited huge street protests, led by a new generation of student activists, which lasted for six months and voiced unprecedented demands for the monarchy to be made more accountable.

The authorities have since made extensive use of the lese majeste law to prosecute hundreds of protest leaders, including some Move Forward MPs.

The law has been widely criticised as stifling freedom of expression in Thailand, and in its manifesto Move Forward had proposed less severe punishments – jail sentences have been as high as 50 years – and a more rigorous process for filing charges.

Fears among reformists that Move Forward would not do as well in last year’s election as Future Forward had in 2019 proved unfounded.

The party defied expectations to outperform every other party and become the largest in parliament, revealing a strong yearning for change among Thai voters.

However, the military-appointed senate blocked Move Forward from forming a government over its lese majeste proposals, allowing a 11-party coalition of more conservative parties to take power instead.

With so many activists in jail, in exile or fighting criminal charges the large-scale protests seen back in 2020 are much less likely today.

Even Move Forward’s very mild proposals for a less severe lese majeste law have led to the party being stripped of its top leaders, just as its previous incarnation Future Forward was four years ago.

And anyone thinking of organising protests similar to those four years ago will know that they too will be subjected to the tough penalties of lese majeste and several other sweeping laws in the Thai criminal code.

Thailand’s constitutional court, which has dissolved 34 parties since 2006, has long been the principle guardian of the conservative status quo – at its heart is the monarchy, protected by a politically-assertive military. Beyond that, unaccountable power is wielded by palace officials, senior judges, business tycoons, and military and police officers.

Under the military-drafted constitution the senate has a decisive role in the appointment of constitutional court judges, and over the composition of other influential extra-parliamentary bodies like the Election Commission and the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

The previous senate was appointed by the military junta which ruled Thailand from 2014 to 2019, and rewrote the political landscape in which parties have to operate today. It played the central role in blocking Move Forward from forming a government.

It was unclear what to expect from the new senate this year – but the peculiar election system allows only those seeking a seat in the senate to vote for the candidates in several rounds. That, and some murky backroom dealing, have produced a new 200-seat senate, most of whom appear to be linked to a party known for its uncompromising loyalty to the monarchy.

As they walked out for the first time as presidential running mates on Tuesday night, Tim Walz turned to Kamala Harris and mouthed one word: “wow”.

It spoke to the enthusiastic response from the Philadelphia crowd, but also reflected the unlikely journey that the Minnesota governor has been on over the past week.

Few people had Mr Walz on their early lists of possible vice-presidential choices. But on Tuesday, the dark horse won the race.

In a year when “vibes” have been everything in politics – on the economy, on the campaign trail – that is exactly what Kamala Harris has gone for: good vibes.

The Minnesota governor has a “midwestern nice” appeal, even when he is throwing political punches. His background – a teacher, a football coach, an Army National Guard enlisted soldier – broadcasts “meat-and-potatoes middle America”, as does perhaps his balding, rotund, slightly dishevelled appearance.

All of this was on display here in Philadelphia.

After noting that violent crime rates went up under Donald Trump, he added – with a smile – “and that doesn’t even count the crimes he committed”. He called the Republican ticket “weird as hell” –a label that has become a Democratic mantra in just a matter of days. And on the topic of abortion, he said government should follow a midwestern golden rule: “Mind your own damn business”.

Mixing humour with jabs – and speaking openly of the “joy” he sees in Democratic politics – may prove to be a more effective way to convince undecided voters who were simply not convinced by the dark “threat to democracy” rhetoric the Biden campaign had been using.

Mr Walz’s aw-shucks affability stood in sharp contrast with other possible choices – the polished and ambitious Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, with his arrow-straight military demeanour.

Mr Shapiro served as the warm-up act for the new Democratic ticket, and he received a hero’s welcome from his home-state crowd. It was a reminder of what Ms Harris passed over in picking Mr Walz – a popular politician with a silver tongue from perhaps the most important state on the electoral map.

Mr Walz was a safer pick than the Pennsylvanian, however, whose criticism of pro-Palestinian protesters and support for using public funds for private schools prompted objections from key parts of the Democratic base. These risked reopening intraparty divisions at a time when Democrats were finally pulling together.

And while Minnesota is not a battleground state, the Harris campaign may hope that Mr Walz has midwestern appeal in places like Wisconsin and Michigan, which will ultimately help decide this election.

• PROFILE: The ex-football coach and teacher – now VP pick
• ANALYSIS: Three ways Trump will try to end Harris honeymoon
• SWING STATES: Where the election could be won and lost
• EXPLAINER: RFK Jr and others running for president
• VOTERS: US workers in debt to buy groceries

By taking a Republican-held House seat in 2006, Mr Walz has already shown he can win round a significant number of rural and Republican voters.

And Mr Walz has proven adept at defending his record of progressive legislation in a way that moderates and independent voters can understand.

He’s also a native of Nebraska, which in 2020 delivered one of its electoral votes to Joe Biden. It’s by far the smallest battleground, but in a close race it could be the difference between victory and defeat.

Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat grandee who was so instrumental in persuading Joe Biden to step aside for Ms Harris, has been gushing in her praise of the “wonderful” Mr Walz.

It is no surprise. His 2006 victory helped deliver the House majority to Ms Pelosi as House Speaker, and to the Democrats for the first time in 12 years.

Republicans are going to try to erase these early good vibes and replace them with a darker picture.

The Trump campaign has already branded him a “dangerously liberal extremist” and a “far-left lunatic”.

They point to his record in Minnesota of enacting left-wing social programmes and accuse him of not doing enough to control the demonstrations that broke out after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers in 2020.

At the very least, Republicans may welcome not having to face-off against Mr Shapiro, who has a more centrist profile and might have given Ms Harris a decisive boost in Pennsylvania.

JD Vance, Mr Walz’s Republican adversary for the vice-presidency, said the choice showed Ms Harris was willing to “bend the knee to the most radical elements of her party”.

Trump, meanwhile, said Mr Walz will unleash “HELL ON EARTH and open our borders to the worst criminals imaginable”.

But even if Mr Walz provides a more inviting target for Republicans, making that rhetoric stick on his friendly, meat-and-potatoes persona will be no easy task for the Trump campaign.

Now the newly minted Democratic ticket hits the campaign trail, with 91 days left until election day.

“That’s easy,” Mr Walz said of the three-month home stretch. “We can sleep when we’re dead”.

Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential pick Tim Walz has drawn attention halfway across the world in China.

Chinese social media users have been discussing how Mr Walz spent a year teaching in the south-eastern province of Guangdong in 1989 – a topic that was trending on Weibo with 12 million views.

He and his wife, fellow teacher Gwen Whipple, later honeymooned in the country.

Mr Walz once described his decision to teach in China as “one of the best things I’ve ever done”.

The 60-year-old Minnesota governor was a history teacher and football coach before he joined politics.

He was fresh out of college when he moved to China to teach English and American history at a high school.

The fact that it happened in 1989 – the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre – was not lost on those commenting on Chinese social media.

On 4 June that year, Chinese tanks rolled into Beijing’s central square, where hundreds of thousands had gathered demanding political reforms. The day ended in bloodshed and to this day it is unclear exactly how many died. Some estimates put the death toll upwards of 10,000.

Chinese social media users cannot say much about 1989 or risk getting censored. They refer to it obliquely – one comment simply said “If you know, you know”.

Foreigners who were in China at that time “are the most anti-China”, said one user.

Others pointed out that China in 1989 was a vastly different country. It was well before China became the world’s largest manufacturing hub, then its second-largest economy and finally, a powerful US rival.

“This candidate was in China at a very different time. The atmosphere was very different,” one comment read.

And yet they hoped that if he wins, he may signal better US-China ties. The two countries have been at loggerheads on trade, advanced technology, and China’s geopolitical ambitions.

One Weibo user pointed out that Mr Walz’s “unique background gives him a real perspective on China”, and he could “promote cultural exchanges between China and the United States at a time when… relations are extremely difficult”.

Back then, Mr Walz spent a year teaching at the Foshan No 1 High School under a Harvard University volunteer programme.

When he returned to the US, he told a local newspaper that there were “no limits” on what the Chinese could accomplish “if they had proper leadership”.

“They are such kind, generous, capable people,” he said.

Mr Walz and his wife were married on 4 June 1994 – the fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen uprising. She said in an interview that “he wanted to have a date he’ll always remember”.

The couple then started a business which organised summer educational trips to China for US students.

There hasn’t been much official reaction yet from the Republicans to Mr Walz’s time in China.

But some allies of Trump have said Mr Walz’s nomination would be welcomed in China, although Beijing has not commented on it.

“Communist China is very happy with @GovTimWalz as Kamala’s VP pick,” Richard Grenell, a former acting director of National Intelligence in the previous Trump administration, said on X.

An alleged coin bandit has been charged by Australian police with stealing more than A$600,000 ($393,500; £309,000) worth of limited-edition coins based on the hit children’s television show Bluey.

Police say they received a report last month that 64,000 unreleased $1 Bluey coins had been stolen from a warehouse in Western Sydney, where the man allegedly worked.

Police say that the coins – which had been due to enter general circulation next month – are selling for 10 times their face value.

On Wednesday, 47-year-old Steven John Neilson was arrested after a raid on a Sydney home. He has been charged with three counts of breaking and entering.

He was denied bail when he appeared in Parramatta Court on Wednesday.

Police allege the coins were sold online, hours after they were stolen from the back of a truck at the warehouse where the accused worked.

They were due to be transported to a storage facility in Brisbane at the time of the alleged theft, police said.

It took several days until it was realised that the pallet of coins, weighing around 500 kg (1102 lbs), was missing.

Police say that that while they have recovered around 1,000 coins, they believe the rest are in general circulation.

The Royal Australian Mint declined to comment when contacted by the BBC saying it was “inappropriate” due to the investigation.

The New South Wales Police investigation was codenamed Strike Force Bandit, after Bandit who is Bluey’s father in the show.

The coins were marked Dollarbucks – a reference the way that money is often referred to in the cartoon.

The hit show, about the Heeler family of dogs, is made by Brisbane-based animation firm Ludo with BBC Studios and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Bluey has been a huge international success and is now broadcast in more than 60 countries including the UK, the US and China.

It was streamed for more than 20 billion minutes on Disney+ in the US last year, putting it in the country’s top 10 streaming programmes for minutes viewed.

There are more than 150 episodes of Bluey across three seasons.

The stolen coins are different from a collectable set of Bluey currency that caused a frenzy when it went on sale by the Royal Australian Mint in June this year.

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus – a longtime political foe of Bangladesh’s ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina – has been named the country’s interim leader.

The 84-year-old was appointed a day after Ms Hasina fled the country following weeks of deadly protests that brought her resignation.

While Prof Yunus has been lauded for his pioneering use of microloans, Ms Hasina regarded him as a public enemy – he is currently on bail, appealing against a six-month jail term in what he has called a politically-motivated case.

Students who led the mass protests that unseated Ms Hasina refused to accept a military-led government and pushed for Prof Yunus to lead the interim administration.

The decision to name Prof Yunus as chief adviser of the interim government followed a meeting between President Mohammed Shahabuddin, military leaders and student leaders.

“When the students who sacrificed so much are requesting me to step in at this difficult juncture, how can I refuse?” Prof Yunus had said.

He is returning to Dhaka from Paris where he is undergoing a minor medical procedure, his spokesperson said.

The protests in Bangladesh began in early July with demands from university students to abolish quotas in civil service jobs, but snowballed into a broader anti-government movement.

In all, more than 400 people are reported to have died in clashes between government forces and protesters – mostly civilians shot by police.

On Monday alone, more than 100 people died across the country, making it the single deadliest day in the movement. Hundreds of police stations were also torched.

Hours before protesters stormed and looted the former PM’s official residence in the capital Dhaka, Ms Hasina resigned and fled to neighbouring India. That brought a swift and abrupt end to her nearly 15-year rule.

Even as Bangladesh’s economy grew in the past decade, the former PM came under increasing criticism for silencing her critics and jailing her political opponents.

Some of them, such as ex-PM Khaleda Zia and activist Ahmad Bin Quasem, were released soon after Ms Hasina’s hasty exit.

Ms Zia chairs the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which boycotted elections in 2014 and again in 2024, saying free and fair polls were not possible under Ms Hasina.

The 78-year-old was imprisoned in 2018 for corruption – charges, she said, were politically motivated.

Rights groups say Mr Quasem was detained in 2016, one of hundreds of forced disappearances during Ms Hasina’s tenure.

Prof Yunus, who was sentenced to six months in jail in January for violating labour laws, has said he too was a victim of Ms Hasina’s ire.

He has faced other allegations in the past, going back to 2011 when he was accused of defaming Bangladesh’s politicians.

In 1983, he started Grameen Bank, which offers micro, long-term loans to help poor people start small businesses – a concept that has since taken off around the world.

He was accused of tax evasion and serving at Grameen Bank beyond the mandatory retirement age, which led to him being sacked – but Prof Yunus maintained that these were baseless charges.

He, along with the bank, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for showing that “even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development”.

He became known internationally as the “banker to the poor”, but Ms Hasina called him a “bloodsucker” of the poor and accused his bank of charging exorbitant interest rates.

It was never clear what was the origin of the feud with Ms Hasina, but many believe it was his unsuccessful efforts to set up a political party.

Ms Hasina is still in India but it’s unclear yet if that is her final destination. Analysts believe that is unlikely despite her having been a close ally of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India, which shares a 4,096-km (2,545-mile) border with Bangladesh, will be averse to alienating the new government in Dhaka.

Delhi has deployed additional troops along the border, its foreign minister S Jaishankar said.

Foreign leaders called on Bangladesh to uphold democracy after Prof Yunus’s appointment was announced.

“Any decisions that the interim government makes, they need to respect democratic principles… to uphold the rule of law [and] reflect the will of the people,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Australian foreign minister Penny Wong asked all parties to refrain from violence and “respect universal rights”.

Banksy has posted another artwork in London, marking the third piece of a new animal-themed collection – this time featuring monkeys.

It is the third black silhouette composition that the Bristol-based street artist has claimed credit for since Monday.

On Wednesday, he posted an image on Instagram of the monkeys looking as though they were swinging on the bridge of an east London Tube station.

It is on a bridge over Brick Lane, near a vintage clothing shop and a coffee house, not far from Shoreditch High Street.

James Peak, who presented BBC’s The Banksy Story, said it “might be the early days of a wider campaign starting up”.

“How exciting if there was an emerging campaign of pieces to be found around London over the next few days or weeks,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme.

“He’s got form for that.”

On Tuesday, the anonymous street artist posted a photo of two elephant silhouettes, with their trunks stretched towards each other, created on the side of a house in Edith Terrace in Chelsea.

He posted an artwork of a goat perched on top of a wall near Kew Bridge in Richmond on Monday.

He did not write a caption for any of the Instagram posts, which has fuelled speculated online about their meaning.

Three monkeys have been associated with the Japanese proverb “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”.

In Banksy’s work, the monkeys are not covering their eyes, ears or mouths.

Two people have been killed in Kröv, Germany, after a hotel building partially collapsed late on Tuesday night, while several others remain trapped under the rubble.

Rescue operations are ongoing with more than 200 emergency services personnel at the scene.

Located near the banks of the River Moselle, the hotel’s roof collapsed at around 23:00 local time (21:00 GMT) on Tuesday, shattering windows as the top floor of the building collapsed onto the lower floor.

Fourteen people were inside the hotel at the time of the incident, according to local police. A young Dutch family visiting the region was among those rescued on Wednesday morning.

Five people were able to flee the building unharmed late on Tuesday night, but nine others were trapped under rubble.

In a news conference on Wednesday fire inspector Jörg Teusch identified the two people killed as a man and a woman, who he said died during the night as a direct result of the building collapse.

Dutch media reported that a 23-year-old woman from Urk and her infant son were rescued early on Wednesday morning and taken to hospital. The woman’s husband, aged 26, was rescued later the same day and his condition is not yet known.

Some 250 emergency services personnel were deployed to support rescue efforts, including firefighters, police, rescue dog teams and medics.

Two people are still buried under the rubble, but emergency services have said they are still in contact with them.

As reported by local broadcaster SWR, the damaged building in western Germany dates back to the 1600s. It experienced significant renovations back in the 1980s, when an additional floor was added to the now two-storey hotel.

The Moselle valley is a popular tourist destination, famed for its vineyards and picturesque old towns.

One hotel guest quoted by SWR said he was in the toilet when the floor beneath him collapsed.

Nearby residents have been told to evacuate the area given concerns that the hotel building could collapse further.

More than a thousand British military personnel have been put on standby in case British nationals need to be evacuated from Lebanon.

Preparations are being made in response to a Foreign Office warning that the situation in the Middle East could rapidly deteriorate.

On Saturday, the Foreign Office repeated a call for UK nationals to leave Lebanon – while confirming that preparations were underway to help with an evacuation of the country if necessary.

An estimated 16,000 British people are currently in Lebanon, Foreign Secretary David Lammy told the House of Commons last week.

Hundreds of troops have been sent to Cyprus, where the UK already has a military presence.

Meanwhile, in the UK, hundreds more troops have been put on notice – meaning they are ready to be deployed to the region if necessary.

The UK already has a significant military presence in Cyprus.

An RAF base at Akrotiri is likely to be a hub for any air movements, with RAF Typhoon fighter jets already stationed there.

Those jets were involved in defence against an Iranian drone and missile attack on Israel in April.

The statement released by the Foreign Office at the weekend said military personnel were in the process of deploying to provide operational support to UK embassies in the region. It did not mention the number of troops involved.

A Royal Navy destroyer – HMS Duncan – and a landing ship – RFA Cardigan Bay – are already in the Eastern Mediterranean.

RAF helicopters have also been placed on standby.

Tensions have been growing across the Middle East since the Hamas attacks on southern Israel on 7 October.

About 1,200 people were killed in the attack, triggering a massive Israeli military response in Gaza.

At least 39,480 Palestinians have been killed since, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Hostilities between Israel and its neighbours have escalated following the death of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last Wednesday – an attack Iran has blamed on Israel.

Haniyeh’s assassination came hours after Israel killed Hezbollah senior commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut.

In response, Iran has vowed “severe” retaliation against Israel.

Western officials fear that Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia and political movement based in Lebanon, could play a key role in any such retaliation, which in turn could spark a serious Israeli response.

The US, the UK, Australia, France, Canada, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Turkey and Jordan are among the countries to have urged their citizens to leave Lebanon as soon as possible.

Last year, the British government helped co-ordinate the evacuation of British nationals from Gaza, with some 200 UK citizens thought to be living in the territory before the war broke out.

In 2021, over 15,000 people were evacuated from Afghanistan to the UK after the country fell to the Taliban.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus has been chosen to lead Bangladesh’s interim government after the country’s former prime minister Sheik Hasina resigned and fled the country following weeks of violent unrest.

A well-known critic of Ms Hasina, Mr Yunus called the day of Ms Hasina’s departure Bangladesh’s “second liberation day”.

So what do we know about the 84-year-old Nobel laureate?

One of nine children, Mr Yunus was born to a family of Muslim merchants in the coastal Bangladeshi city of Chittagong. At 25 he travelled to the United States to study under a Fulbright scholarship, and returned to Bangladesh in 1971 – the same year the country won its independence from Pakistan in a brutal, bloody war.

Upon his return, Mr Yunus was elected to head Chittagong University’s economics department, and soon became passionately involved with combatting the famine that ravaged Bangladesh in the mid-70s.

“I became involved in the poverty issue not as a policymaker or a researcher,” he said in a 2005 lecture at the Commonwealth Institute in London. “I became involved because poverty was all around me.

“I could not turn my eyes away from it… I wanted to do something immediate to help people around me.”

It was in this way that Mr Yunus became a pioneer of a concept known as “microcredit”: when people who are too impoverished to borrow from a traditional bank are given extremely small loans, often allowing them to become self-employed.

In 1983 Mr Yunus founded Grameen Bank, the self-proclaimed “pioneer microcredit organisation in the world”, which has since accumulated more than nine million clients.

In a 2002 interview with the BBC, he described microcredit as a “need of the people”.

“Whatever name you give it, you have to have those financial facilities coming to them because it is totally unfair… to deny half the population of the world financial services,” he said.

Mr Yunus’s scheme was so successful that even beggars had been able to borrow money under his scheme.

Both Mr Yunus and Grameen Bank were awarded the Peace Prize in 2006 for their work to “create economic and social development from below”, according to the Nobel Prize website.

Some analysts however have criticised the concept of micro-financial institutions, saying they charge exorbitant interest rates and use coercive debt collection methods.

Mr Yunus himself has weathered a storm of hostility and controversy in Bangladesh though, including from Ms Hasina, the leader he is now set to replace.

He attracted the ire of the former prime minister after announcing plans in 2007 to set up his own “Citizen Power” party.

Ms Hasina notoriously accused Mr Yunus of “sucking blood from the poor”, and in 2011 her government removed him as head of Grameen Bank. In 2013, he faced a state-backed smear campaign that accused him of being un-Islamic and promoting homosexuality, after he signed a joint statement criticising the prosecution of gay people in Uganda.

Mr Yunus has also faced charges based on allegations that he received money without government permission, and more recent allegations that he embezzled money from one of his company’s workers’ benefits fund.

In January of this year he was sentenced to six months in prison for violations of labour law, which he denied, and in June he and 13 others were indicted on embezzlement charges. Although he since been granted bail, he now faces more than 100 cases regarding labour violations and graft accusations.

Mr Yunus has denied all charges, claiming that attacks against him are politically motivated.

Such controversies have done little to Mr Yunus’s appeal with many of his supporters, though, who claim he is being targeted as a result of his acrimonious relations with Ms Hasina.

Asif Mahmud, a key leader of the Students Against Discrimination (SAD) group, posted a striking image to Facebook on Tuesday: a red tile with white text – the same format Mr Mahmud has used for dozens of statements relating to the protests and their aftermath.

This one had just five words: “In Dr Yunus, we trust.”

When Sheikh Hasina called crisis security talks to put down spiralling unrest in Bangladesh on Sunday, she appears to have been in denial that her time was up as prime minister.

Within hours, she would be swept away by people power – indeed, few could have predicted the speed of her exit.

In the end, it was the advice of close family rather than top security officials that persuaded her to flee, the BBC was told by her son.

Ms Hasina made her mind up just in time – crowds entered her residence within a couple of hours of her escaping.

The National Security Committee meeting – called for late on Sunday morning – brought the embattled prime minister together with the country’s top three military chiefs, senior security officials and police. The mood was sober.

Pressure on the prime minister had been mounting for weeks as anti-government protests raged around the country. Hundreds have been killed in the worst violence Bangladesh has seen since its war of independence in 1971.

On Sunday alone, at least 90 people lost their lives, mostly demonstrators shot by security forces – but also a growing number of police killed by the crowds.

BBC Bangla has learned from officials that Sheikh Hasina wanted to keep “two options” open. While there were preparations for her to leave the country, she wanted to stay in power until the last moment – by force.

Military leaders did not agree. On Sunday, ordinary people and protesters mingled with field-level soldiers and army officers in various parts of the country. After reviewing the situation, senior military officers realised things were out of control.

Individually, the military top brass at the meeting told the prime minister that soldiers could not shoot at civilians – but they could provide security back-up to police, sources told the BBC. Senior police chiefs also complained they were running out of ammunition, it later emerged.

“Police were exhausted. We heard that they didn’t have adequate ammunition,” retired Brigadier General M Sakhawat Hussain told the BBC.

Sheikh Hasina, however, would not listen – and no-one was willing to disagree with her to her face.

After the meeting, her press secretary delivered her defiant message. She called the protesters “terrorists” and urged people to resist those she described as “arsonists”.

Security forces feared they could soon have a situation approaching civil war on their hands.

Pictures of Sunday’s violence were going viral on social media as the death toll steadily rose. Images of young men with bullet wounds, shot by police and members of the ruling Awami League party’s youth wing, were triggering more anger.

As the ferocity of the clashes became clear, student leaders brought forward their call for a mass march on Dhaka by a day, taking the authorities by surprise.

Intelligence inputs suggested the students’ demands were gaining traction and thousands of people were planning to descend on the capital the following day.

If the security forces tried to stop the protesters, there would be another bloodbath.

So army chief Waker-Uz-Zaman decided to speak to the prime minister again.

Reliable sources said the three service chiefs met her on Sunday evening and politely explained that the situation on the ground was getting more and more volatile, and that crowds of thousands were expected in Dhaka on Monday morning. They could not guarantee the safety of her residence.

Sheikh Hasina did not take their advice, but journalists in Dhaka said they could sense power was already shifting. By Sunday night, police were absent in many places and numerous security barricades were unmanned.

“She was adamant, neither would she resign nor was she willing to leave. The three chiefs came, and they tried to make her understand about what’s happening on the ground,” Gen Hussain said.

“They said it would be difficult for the troops to fire on the crowd. They said our troops are also part of the country. They come from villages, they would not open fire on their own people.”

On Monday morning, large crowds had started moving towards Dhaka. Gen Zaman was at Ms Hasina’s residence once again explaining to her the gravity of the situation. People were breaking the curfew and violence had already started.

Police were being withdrawn from many parts of Dhaka and Gen Zaman told her they could not prevent the crowd from reaching Gono Bhaban, the PM’s official residence in the capital, for much longer. An hour or so at best.

At this point, military chiefs decided to call on family members to intercede.

Police and military chiefs then held talks with Sheikh Hasina’s sister, Rehana Siddiq, to see if she could persuade her elder sibling to leave.

“The officials held discussions with Sheikh Rehana in another room. They asked her to explain the situation to Sheikh Hasina. Sheikh Rehana then talked with her elder sister, but Sheikh Hasina was determined to hold on to power,” the Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily said.

Then Ms Hasina’s son Sajeeb and daughter Saima, who both live abroad, spoke to her on the phone and insisted she should go. During these family negotiations, the army chief, who is related to Ms Hasina by marriage, was reportedly present throughout.

“My mum did not wish to leave the country at all. We had to persuade her,” Sajeeb Wazed Joy told the BBC on Tuesday, adding his mother began thinking of resigning on Saturday evening.

“We in the family begged her, we urged her, this is the mob, they are out for violence and they will kill you and we need to get you to safety. Only however long it took the mob to get there, that was how much time she had. They just left without any preparation.

“I rang her yesterday in Delhi. She’s in good spirits but she’s very disappointed. She’s very disheartened by the people of Bangladesh.”

On Monday morning, sources said, Sheikh Hasina got in touch with government officials in Delhi to request sanctuary. The advice from India, a staunch ally throughout her long career, was for her to leave.

A day earlier, Washington had reportedly been telling Indian foreign ministry officials that time was up for Ms Hasina. She had run out of options.

“She resigned when she realised that the army was not supporting her,” M Sakhawat Hussain, the retired brigadier general, said. “People were about to break the curfew and were gathering in Dhaka to march towards her residence.”

But once Sheikh Hasina reluctantly agreed to sign documents relinquishing her post, there was still the question of how to get her out of the country safely.

A senior military official, who did not wish to be named, told BBC Bangla that only the Special Security Force, the Presidential Guard Regiment and some senior military officers at army headquarters knew when Sheikh Hasina signed the resignation letter and boarded the military helicopter that would fly her out of her residence. The whole thing was done quite secretly.

At about 10:30 local time (05:00GMT), the authorities shut down the internet so that no news about Sheikh Hasina’s movements could spread on social media.

It was only reactivated after she had made her getaway.

According to senior army sources, arrangements were put in place to get Sheikh Hasina to the airport safely. There were concerns her convoy might be attacked, so the entire route was cleared and the departure point secured. But in the end, it was not safe to take her by road, so a helicopter was used instead.

Right up to the moment of departure, Sheikh Hasina was reluctant to get on it, her son said.

“She wanted my aunt to leave,” her son said. “My mother did not want to get on the helicopter. I was on the call, persuading my mother, telling my aunt, both of them that she had to leave.”

Once they did, they were flown from Gono Bhaban to a waiting Bangladeshi Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft that had been made ready.

Sajeeb Wazed Joy says he believes they went to Agartala, the capital of India’s eastern state of Tripura and were flown from there to Delhi. India had already been approached and agreed her transit via this route, officials said.

Other accounts say she was taken by helicopter to an airport in Dhaka, then by plane to Delhi.

Whichever route they took, at about 13:30 local time, Ms Hasina, her sister and a senior Awami League MP, Salman Fazlur Rahman, were transferred from the helicopter to the aircraft that took them to Delhi, officials said.

A video on social media showed four or five suitcases on the ground waiting to be loaded. Many of the things she left behind were being carted off by crowds who invaded her residence, even as she was still in the air.

Several hours later, the aircraft landed in Delhi, its passengers’ onward destination unclear.

Back in Dhaka, the internet was back on and all around Bangladesh, celebrations were breaking out marking the end of Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule.

A woman once viewed as a democrat but later reviled by many as a despot had fled like a fugitive under cover of internet darkness.

Hours after Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country on Monday following mass protests, a development professional in the capital, Dhaka, received a panicked phone call from his cousin.

Avirup Sarkar is a Bangladeshi Hindu, living in a country that is 90% Muslim. His widowed cousin lives in a sprawling joint family house in a mixed neighbourhood in Netrokona, a district crisscrossed by rivers, about 100km (62 miles) north from Dhaka.

“She sounded terrified. She said the house had been attacked and plundered by a mob,” Mr Sarkar, a social protection specialist, told me on the phone from Dhaka.

His cousin said the mob of about 100 people, armed with sticks, stormed the house, smashing furniture, TV, bathroom fittings and doors. Before leaving, they took all the cash and jewellery. They didn’t assault any of the 18-odd residents, including half-a-dozen children belonging to seven families, that lived there.

“You people are descendants of the Awami League! This country is in a bad shape because of you. You should leave the country,” the mob shouted at the residents before leaving with the loot.

Mr Sarkar told me that he was shocked, but not entirely surprised by the incident. Hindu minorities in Bangladesh, he says, are largely viewed as supporters of Sheikh Hasina’s secular Awami League party and are often attacked by rivals in a country where Islam is the state religion.

After Ms Hasina fled the country, social media was flooded with reports of Hindu properties and temples being attacked. India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar told parliament on Tuesday: “What was particularly worrying was that minorities, their businesses and temples also came under attack at multiple locations. The full extent of this is still not clear.”

However, young Muslim groups were also protecting Hindu homes and shrines to prevent further vandalism.

“Bangladeshi Hindus are an easy target,” Mr Sarkar told me. “Every time the Awami League loses power, they are attacked.”

This was not the first time his cousin’s house was attacked, Mr Sarkar says. Minorities in Bangladesh were targeted in 1992 after a Hindu mob tore down the Babri mosque in the Indian city of Ayodhya. Mr Sarkar’s sister’s home was ransacked by a mob.

There have been many religious attacks on Hindus in the following decades. A Bangladeshi human rights group, Ain o Salish Kendra, reported at least 3,679 attacks on the Hindu community between January 2013 and September 2021, including vandalism, arson and targeted violence.

In 2021, following mob attacks on Hindu minority households and temples in Bangladesh during and after Durga Puja, the country’s biggest Hindu festival, rights group Amnesty International said: “Such repeated attacks against individuals, communal violence and destruction of the homes and places of worship of minorities in Bangladesh over the years show that the state has failed in its duty to protect minorities.”

On Monday, other members of Mr Sarkar’s family also faced the prospect of violence. His parents’ home in Kishoreganj, 120km from Dhaka, was spared because “we are a well-known family in the neighbourhood and knew everyone”.

Mr Sarkar says his mother, who runs a local school, received a phone call from her business partner, saying that people were making lists of properties to attack.

The partner then said, “Your name is not on the list. But please be careful.”

Later, Mr Sarkar’s father, who had locked in the family, saw a small crowd congregating outside their iron gate.

“My father heard someone coming up to the crowd and telling them, ‘Don’t do anything here, not here’. The mob dispersed.”

But some distance away, in the Nogua area of Kishoreganj, reports emerged of Hindu households being looted.

“I heard 20-25 houses had been attacked there. My Hindu friend’s gold shop was broken into and the ornaments on display were looted. They could not break or take away the vault though,” Mr Sarkar said.

Some 200km north of Dhaka, Mr Sarkar’s wife’s home in a neighbourhood in Sherpur district was also on the edge. Although her house escaped attack, a mob looted a neighbouring Hindu home. The silver lining: as news of the violence spread, local Muslims rallied to form protective rings around Hindu homes and temples.

“This has also happened all over Bangladesh. Muslims have also protected Hindu properties,” says Mr Sarkar.

But this is not where things ended. As night fell on Monday, a mob began collecting outside Mr Sarkar’s 10-storey apartment building in Dhaka, where he lives with his wife and infant daughter. He reckoned they had come looking for a councillor from Awami League who lived in the same building.

“I came out on my sixth-floor balcony and saw the crowd throwing stones at the building and trying to break in. The gates were locked properly, so they couldn’t enter. Some cars in the parking lot and window panes were damaged,” Mr Sarkar says.

Back in Netrokona, Mr Sarkar’s cousin told him that the family feared more attacks. He called a friend in the army and requested that a military van patrol the neighbourhood regularly.

“This is a harrowing time. There is no law and order. And we are being targeted again,” he says.

When Nazmul Arefin caught wind that Sheikh Hasina – the woman who had led Bangladesh with an iron fist for 15 years – was about to flee the country, he dropped everything and ran onto the streets of Dhaka.

Outside, thousands of anti-government protesters were already marching across the capital, although none knew what awaited them.

A weeks-long nationwide campaign of civil disobedience – which erupted over civil service job quotas – had triggered a violent crackdown, leaving hundreds dead in its wake.

And whether more bloodshed would follow remained an open question: “We were sceptical about whether the army would support the people, or side with the government – that was the doubt in the mind of everyone,” Mr Arefin says.

“If law enforcement and the army had turned on us yesterday, it could have become a massacre.”

But the 38-year-old’s fear was quickly replaced with ecstasy, after news spread like wildfire that Ms Hasina had resigned, and citizens began to declare Bangladesh “free again”.

As scenes of protesters storming her official residence and looting everything from velvet chairs to domesticated animals were broadcast around the world, Mr Arefin was witnessing something else.

“It was like a festival on the streets,” he tells the BBC.

“It was amazing – people of all ages and classes came out, from rickshaw pullers to high society people, there were families taking selfies with army officers. We were shouting and celebrating for a new Bangladesh.”

The prime minister’s downfall was one that few saw coming and the shock was palpable.

“The internet had been out for most of the day, so when we heard the army chief was addressing the nation on television, that was our first hint,” Shariful Islam, who was at home with his family when the news broke, told the BBC.

When it became clear what was unfolding, he says everyone “lost it” – his elderly parents and four-year-old daughter included.

“Oh my god, we were all shouting, dancing, clapping, celebrating, it was a taste of freedom, like something you barely experience.”

Ms Hasina, who had been in power since 2009 and ruled the South Asian nation for more than 20 years in total, had started her career as a symbol of democracy, overcoming military rule to usher in a new era of hope.

In the beginning, she was celebrated as a secular Muslim who had brought stability and economic reform to Bangladesh, lifting millions out of poverty in the process.

But when her long tenure finally came to an end on Monday, most were remembering her as an autocrat, who had sought to entrench her authority by silencing dissent.

“This was a dictatorship that lasted 15 years, no-one could speak their minds, people were thrown in jail for expressing their views, there were gross human rights violations, people disappeared. The fact that this is ending – that’s why the streets were full,” Mr Islam says.

As Bangladeshis wait to see how the vacuum created in the wake of Ms Hasina’s departure will be filled, hope and trepidation loom large.

“People are happy a dictator has stepped down, but there’s uncertainty [over] what will happen… the law-and-order situation is making people anxious,” Avirup Sarkar – a development professional in Dhaka, tells the BBC.

Sayem Faruk – an entrepreneur who runs an AI firm in the city – says that the first thing that needs to happen is an end to any looting and violence.

“We are going to exercise vigilance in the next few days as the caretaker government is formed and as the army starts taking control of the situation.”

The need for calm and peace on the streets has also been a top-down message from some of the students who started the protest movement back in July and have become its de facto leaders.

“Freedom is harder to defend than to gain,” Asif Mahmud, a leading figure in the demonstrations, wrote in a message to his tens of thousands of social media followers on Tuesday.

And another student who has been marching for weeks – 22-year-old Sazid Islam – told the BBC that although there’s a feeling that “freedom of speech has been restored” in Bangladesh, many who have been on the frontlines know the situation remains fragile.

“The fears I have now are that, since we have suddenly gained our political rights, if the situation deteriorates, we could face suppression again. Especially if we fail to uphold the values of the revolution.”

Whether everyday Bangladeshis will meet this moment by banding together and not allowing old religious or political divisions to take hold is also a topic of conversation.

“If you can call this a revolution. The issue now is how soon can you manage this?” Sumon Rahman, a journalism professor at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh, told the BBC.

“I live quite close to the PM’s residence and I brought my kids there to see what’s happening. There was a lot of vandalism.”

Prof Rahman’s house in the Dhanmondi area is a short walk from the former residence of the nation’s founder, the toppled prime minister’s father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, which had been turned into a museum. It was set ablaze in Monday’s protests.

“The protesters burned it down totally. I also saw many pictures of the burned house shared on Facebook. The vandalism happened late into the night,” said Prof Rahman.

“There have also been reports of attacks on religious minorities, but it is unclear now if they have been attacked because they are minorities or because they are supporters of [Ms Hasina’s] Awami League.

“If you look at the history of Bangladesh… When there is a revolution, there will be counter-revolutions, coups, counter-coups. If you really want to reform the system, it is a huge duty, and you cannot just instantly remove the machinery as the country will simply fall apart,” he adds.

Samiul Haque, a strategic consultant from Dhaka, says many of his peers are going to want to see a completely new style of politics in Bangladesh, one which is built “from the ground up”.

“Young people feel that there should not be a return of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami,” the 32-year-old explains, referencing the nation’s opposition parties.

“Inequality had grown so much in Bangladesh as political and economic elites had cosied up to the government. They were reaping so much benefit that what we saw was a class-based movement – students started it, but even rickshaw pullers and normal people joined it. We all felt enough is enough.”

For some in the country, though, the most immediate concern is one of safety.

An Indian worker in a Bangladeshi garments factory in Dhaka told the BBC that he was worried his family, who form part of Bangladesh’s minority Hindu community, could be targeted because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s close alliance with Ms Hasina’s now fallen government.

“I am hearing about some Hindu properties being attacked but I am not sure if it’s true. But my area is peaceful. Many Muslim neighbours have assured us about our safety,” he says.

“I am hoping to get out along with my family as soon as I can. But I do hope to return – my life is here; my career is here. Bangladesh has given me everything.”

But Mr Arefin hopes that the country’s better angels will win out in the next few days and weeks.

“From this point, we are calling it Bangladesh 2.0 and we want to have a diversified and corruption-free country, where everyone can have freedom of speech, and no one will be afraid to raise their voices.”

And Mr Faruk says that he has faith that the demonstrations – which have unified many in the country of 170 million – will stamp out divisions, rather than amplifying them.

“This began as a movement against discrimination and this discrimination applies not only to jobs but everywhere in Bangladesh – attacks on minorities, the fundamentalist forces. We need to control those as well if we don’t want to turn into a failed state.”

The dramatic resignation of Bangladesh’s long-serving prime minister Sheikh Hasina and her flight to India ironically underscore the close ties between the two countries.

Ms Hasina ruled Bangladesh, a nation of 170 million, for close to 15 years until a protest by students to abolish civil service quotas snowballed into a broader and violent anti-government movement. At least 280 people have died in clashes between police and anti-government protesters so far.

Back in June, Ms Hasina visited India twice in two weeks.

Her first visit was to attend Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s oath-taking ceremony. After that, she made a two-day state visit, the first by a head of government to India after Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition’s third consecutive victory in parliamentary elections.

“We have met 10 times in the last one year. However, this meeting is special because Sheikh Hasina is the first state guest after the third term of our government,” Mr Modi said at a joint news conference.

The bonhomie was unmistakable. “Bangladesh greatly values its relations with India,” said Ms Hasina. “Come to Bangladesh to witness what all we have done and plan to do”.

India has a special relationship with Bangladesh. The neighbours share a 4,096km (2,545 miles)-border and linguistic, economic and cultural ties. Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, was born after a war in 1971 with West Pakistan (now Pakistan), with India supporting Bengali nationalists. Bilateral trade between the two countries is around $16bn (£12bn), with India being Bangladesh’s top export destination in Asia.

To be sure, the ties are not perfect: differences arise over Bangladesh’s close relationship with China, border security, migration issues and some Bangladeshi officials’ discomfort with Mr Modi’s Hindu nationalist politics.

After Ms Hasina’s resignation, Bangladesh’s army chief Waker-uz-Zaman has announced plans for an interim government. He will meet President Mohammed Shahabuddin and reports say he’s hoping for a solution by the day’s end after speaking with opposition parties, led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Leadership of the interim government remains unclear.

So far, India has only described the violent protests as an “internal matter” of Bangladesh. Can it say – and do – more about the unfolding developments?

“NOTHING. Nothing for now,” wrote Happymon Jacob, an Indian foreign policy expert, on X (formerly Twitter) on what India should be doing.

“It is still unfolding. And, it’s not about India; it’s about politics in Bangladesh. Let them figure it out.”

Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center, an American think-tank, believes Ms Hasina’s resignation and flight are “close to a worst-case scenario for India, as it has long viewed any alternative to Ms Hasina and her party as a threat to Indian interests”.

Mr Kugelman told the BBC that Delhi will likely reach out to Bangladesh’s military to convey its concerns and hope its interests are taken into account in an interim government.

“Beyond that, India will have to watch and wait nervously. It may support free and fair elections in the interest of stability, but it doesn’t want the BNP – even if it has grown weak and divided – to return. Delhi likely wouldn’t oppose a long period of interim rule for that reason.”

Ms Hasina’s sudden downfall would have caught her allies off guard.

The daughter of Bangladesh’s founding president and the world’s longest-serving female head of government, Ms Hasina led her country for nearly 15 years. She had overseen one of the world’s fastest-growing economies and a major boost in living standards in South Asia.

But her rule had also been marked by accusations of forced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and repression of the opposition. She and her party Awami League denied these charges, while her government blamed opposition parties for fuelling protests.

In January, Ms Hasina won her fourth consecutive term in a controversial election. The opposition BNP boycotted the vote, and allegations of a rigged poll were compounded by mass arrests of its leaders and supporters.

Some of the anti-India sentiment in Bangladesh stems from India’s support for Ms Hasina’s government, which critics view as interference in domestic politics. Historical grievances and accusations of overreach also contribute to some of the negative perception.

Ali Riaz, a Bangladeshi-American political scientist at Illinois State University, told the BBC that India’s silence is “not surprising as it has been the principal backer of the Hasina government for the past 14 years and practically contributed to the erosion of democracy in Bangladesh”.

“The unqualified support to Sheikh Hasina has acted as a bulwark against any pressure on her for human rights transgressions. India has benefitted economically and seen Ms Hasina as the only way to keep the country within India’s sphere of influence.”

India sees the current Bangladeshi opposition and its allies as “dangerous Islamic forces”. Ms Hasina cracked down on anti-India militants on her soil and granted transit rights to secure trade routes to five Indian states which border Bangladesh.

“A peaceful, stable and prosperous Bangladesh is in India’s interests. India should do everything to ensure that those conditions are maintained. Essentially you want to keep peace and calm,” Harsh Vardhan Shringla, a former Indian foreign secretary and high commissioner to Bangladesh, told the BBC, hours before Ms Hasina resigned.

For the moment, the situation is uncertain. “India doesn’t have too many options at this point in time,” a senior diplomat told the BBC. “We have to tighten control on our borders. Anything else would be construed as interference”.

As the only athlete sent by his country to the Olympics in Paris, sprinter Shaun Gill has been revelling in his temporary status as “the most famous man” in Belize.

He is one of four athletes sent to the 2024 Games as their nations’ sole representative. It is a responsibility that brings pride – and some extra anxiety.

Solo competitors told the BBC their jobs could be lonely, but being their nation’s default flagbearer during the opening ceremony had been exhilarating.

As a result of Gill’s sudden celebrity, others in the athletes’ village have been chasing his autograph, the 31-year-old told the BBC.

“I had a joke with one of my friends that I may need a security detail,” he laughed.

The larger Olympic delegations – such as those sent by the US and the UK – are able to choose their flagbearers from groups of hundreds of athletes.

But Belize, a Central American nation with a population of less than half a million, had only one candidate – as did Liechtenstein, Nauru and Somalia.

Gill waved his country’s flag with all the patriotic zeal he could muster, as he and other athletes paraded along the River Seine in boats. He went viral for his impassioned efforts in the driving rain.

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Carrying the hopes of a nation was pressurising, Gill admitted. He did not advance to the men’s 100m final, and reflected that jet lag had left him unable to run as fast as he hoped.

“When the performance is lacking, I’m like, ‘Man, I hope I didn’t make you all disappointed,’” he said.

Somalian runner Ali Idow Hassan is hoping that he manages to do what Gill did not: make it to the medals podium in the Stade de France.

If Hassan is fast enough in the men’s 800m on Wednesday, he will advance to the semi-finals.

Otherwise, the Olympic medal hopes of the east African nation will be over in little more than 100 seconds: the time it will take for Hassan and his rivals to dash around the track.

Some of the world’s smaller nations benefit from universality rules that are designed to ensure a diverse representation of countries during the sporting contest.

Hassan, 26, told the BBC he was “very happy” to be his nation’s solitary envoy at Paris 2024, but admitted there was a flipside: “I feel very sad when I’m alone.”

But Hassan has befriended athletes from other African countries. The experience of staying in the athletes’ village had been less isolating than might be expected, the competitors agreed.

Romano Püntener, a mountain-biker who represented Liechtenstein on his own, was hunted down in the compound by none other than Andy Murray.

The tennis ace wanted to swap pin-badges with Püntener, knowing that one from Liechtenstein was a rarity. The badges are regularly traded by athletes touring the international circuit.

Liechtenstein is a small, land-locked country between Austria and Switzerland, with a population of 38,000 people. Top-level athletes have been few and far between.

The Olympics had been “unforgettable” for Püntener, who said he had enjoyed the sheer investment he had received as his country’s only hope at the 2024 Games.

“It only helped me,” Püntener reflected. “We could really build the whole team around me, and I could decide who I wanted to have with me – and who not.”

The 20-year-old finished 28th in last week’s race, his Olympic debut. But since he was not expected to win a medal, he had been able to enjoy himself, and cherish the support of the 20 or 30 compatriots who turned out to cheer him on. Among them was the country’s prime minister.

But in a digital age, a deluge of support is capable of becoming a distraction when the sportsmen want to focus on delivering for their countries.

“It felt like I got a message from every person living in Liechtenstein,” said Püntener.

Gill said he had received “thousands” of well-wishes. “My phone freezes, my Instagram freezes,” he said. “I had to turn it off at one point because I couldn’t even have a moment of peace to myself… I do appreciate it, but I guess I had to just learn how to manage it real quick.”

Despite the huge support they may have received, the solitary competitors are running against the odds in many ways.

Winzar Kakiouea competed in the men’s 100m race for Nauru, an island in the Pacific that is the world’s smallest republic and heavily reliant on aid.

He told the New York Times many people he met had not heard of his country (population: 11,000), which did not even have a proper race track, only a “dirt oval”.

When the Games are over, and the spotlight moves on to something else, these competitors will return to lives that may look very different to those lived by the world’s sporting megastars.

Gill has chosen to retire from big races and will now focus on training the next generation of runners in Belize, as well as his own future career as an engineer.

Püntener will return to his home in Schaan, in the mountains of Liechtenstein, which is perfect for cross-country cycling. “For me, it feels like a big town,” he said.

Hassan will go back to training in Ethiopia, though he hopes one day he will live again in his birth city of Mogadishu.

Speaking on the eve of the men’s 800m contest, he was hopeful that improvements in Somalia’s security situation could mean more delegates being sent to future Olympics.

Somalia has a population of 17 million, but has been beset by a civil war for decades.

“One day, there will be more athletes,” Nassan predicted. “Ten athletes, 100 athletes will be here.”

Israel’s leading human rights organisation says conditions inside Israeli prisons holding Palestinian detainees amount to torture.

B’tselem’s report entitled “Welcome to Hell”, contains testimony from 55 recently released Palestinian detainees, whose graphic testimony points to a dramatic worsening of conditions inside prisons since the start of the Gaza war 10 months ago.

It’s the latest in a series of reports, including one last week by the UN, which contain shocking allegations of abuse directed against Palestinian prisoners.

B’tselem says the testimony their researchers have gathered is remarkably consistent.

“All of them again and again, told us the same thing,” says Yuli Novak, B’tselem’s executive director.

“Ongoing abuse, daily violence, physical violence and mental violence, humiliation, sleep deprivation, people are starved.”

Ms Novak’s conclusion is stark.

“The Israeli prison system as a whole, in regard to Palestinians, turned into a network of torture camps.”

Since the deadly Hamas attacks of 7 October, in which around 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed, the number of Palestinian detainees has doubled to around 10,000.

Israel’s prisons – some run by the army, others by the country’s prison service – have become overwhelmed.

Jails are overflowing, with a dozen or more inmates sometimes sharing cells designed to accommodate no more than six.

B’tselem’s report describes overcrowded, filthy cells, where some inmates are forced to sleep on the floor, sometimes without mattresses or blankets.

Some prisoners were captured in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attacks. Others were rounded up in Gaza as Israel’s invasion got under way, or were arrested in Israel or the occupied West Bank.

Many were later released without charge.

Firas Hassan was already in jail in October, held under “administrative detention”, a measure by which suspects – though it has overwhelmingly been applied to Palestinians – can be detained, more or less indefinitely, without charge.

Israel says that its use of the policy is necessary, and compliant with international law.

Firas says he saw with his own eyes how conditions quickly deteriorated after 7 October.

“Life totally changed,” he told me when we met in Tuqu’, a West Bank village south of Bethlehem.

“I call what happened a tsunami.”

Mr Hassan has been in and out of jail since the early nineties, twice charged with membership of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an armed group designated as a terrorist organisation by Israel and much of the West.

He makes no secret of his past affiliation, saying he was “active”.

Familiar with the rigours of life in prison, he said nothing prepared him for what happened when officers entered his cell two days after 7 October.

“We were severely beaten by 20 officers, masked men using batons and sticks, dogs and firearms,” he said.

“We were tied from behind, our eyes blindfolded, beaten severely. Blood was gushing from my face. They kept beating us for 50 minutes. I saw them from under the blindfold. They were filming us while beating us.”

Mr Hassan was eventually released, without charge, in April, by which time he said he had lost 3 stone (20kg).

A video filmed on the day of his release shows a gaunt figure.

“I spent 13 years in prison in the past,” he told B’tselem researchers later that month, “and never experienced anything like that.”

But it’s not just Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank who talk about the abuse in Israeli prisons.

Israeli citizens, like Sari Khourieh, an Israeli Arab lawyer from Haifa, say it has also happened to them.

Mr Khourieh was held at the Megiddo prison in northern Israel for 10 days last November. The police said that two of his Facebook posts had glorified the actions of Hamas – a charge quickly dismissed.

But his brief experience of prison – his first – nearly broke him.

“They just lost their mind,” he says of the scenes he witnessed at Megiddo.

“There was no law. There was no order inside.”

Mr Khourieh says he was spared the worst of the abuse. But he says he was stunned by the treatment of his fellow inmates.

“They were hitting them badly for no reason,” he told us. “They were screaming, the guys, ‘we didn’t do nothing. You don’t have to hit us.’”

Speaking to other detainees, he quickly learned that what he was seeing was not normal.

“It wasn’t the best treatment before 7 October, they told me, but afterwards everything was different.”

During a brief spell in an area of isolation cells known by the prisoners as Tora Bora (a reference to al-Qaeda’s network of caves in Afghanistan), Mr Khourieh says he heard a beaten inmate pleading for medical help in an adjacent cell.

According to Mr Khourieh, doctors tried to revive him, but he died shortly afterwards.

According to last week’s UN report, “announcements by IPS (Israel Prison Service) and prisoners organisations indicate that 17 Palestinians have died in the custody of the IPS between 7 October and 15 May”.

Israel’s military advocate, meanwhile, said on 26 May that it was investigating the deaths of 35 Gaza detainees in army custody.

Several months after Mr Khourieh’s release – again, without charge – the lawyer is still struggling to make sense of what he witnessed at Megiddo.

“I’m an Israeli…I’m a lawyer,” he told us. “I’ve seen the world outside the prison. Now I’m inside. I see another world.”

His faith in citizenship and the rule of law, he says, has been shattered.

“It was all crushed after this experience.”

We put claims of the widespread mistreatment of Palestinian detainees to the authorities involved.

The army said it “rejects outright allegations of systematic abuse of detainees”.

“Concrete complaints regarding misconduct or unsatisfactory conditions of detention,” the army told us, “are forwarded to relevant bodies in the IDF, and are dealt with accordingly.”

The prison service said it “was not aware of the claims you described, and as far as we know, no such events have occurred”.

Since 7 October, Israel has refused to grant the International Committee of the Red Cross access to Palestinian detainees, as international law requires.

No explanation has been given for this refusal, but the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has frequently expressed its frustration over the ICRC’s failure to gain access to Israeli and other hostages being held in Gaza.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) has accused the government of “consciously defying international law”.

Last week, the treatment of Palestinian prisoners ignited a furious public row, as far right demonstrators – including members of Israel’s parliament – violently tried to prevent the arrest of soldiers accused of sexually abusing a prisoner from Gaza at the Sde Teiman military base.

Some of those protesting were followers of Israel’s hardline security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, the man in overall charge of the prison service.

Mr Ben Gvir has frequently boasted that under his watch, conditions for Palestinian detainees have deteriorated sharply.

“I’m proud that during my time we changed all the conditions,” he told members of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, during a rowdy session in July.

For B’Tselem, Mr Ben Gvir bears a heavy responsibility for the abuses now being reported.

“These systems were put in the hands of the most right wing, most racist minister that Israel ever had,” Yuli Novak told us.

For her, Israel’s treatment of prisoners, in the wake of the traumatic events of 7 October, is a dangerous indicator of the nation’s moral decline.

“The trauma and anxiety walks with us each and every day,” she says.

“But to let this thing turn us into something that it not human, that doesn’t see people, I think is tragic.”

Oscar joined the Strictly staff when he was 18 expecting it to be warm and welcoming, like he had seen on TV.

But the reality was very different.

As a runner on the show, he was shouted at and called stupid, he says. Once, a celebrity screamed at him, getting so close to Oscar’s face that he could feel spit, he tells BBC News.

“The whole culture was toxic, particularly for junior staff,” he said.

The row over Strictly in recent weeks has focused on celebrities and their professional dance partners.

The show’s production staff have been largely forgotten in the debate. These are people like runners, who do the unglamorous, lower-paid work. Often, they don’t have a voice.

BBC News has spoken to 15 current and former members of staff on the show about its culture behind the scenes. All wanted to remain anonymous for fear of career repercussions.

Some told a positive story of dancers and staff who were kind and respectful to them. But others painted a picture of a workplace in which workers were bullied and junior employees were shouted at by professional dancers.

“I think it’s awful for the celebrities who suffered, but I think for the crew it’s a much bigger problem,” a former TV package editor on Strictly, Jane, told us.

A BBC Studios spokesperson said they don’t recognise the claims, nor will “hundreds of production personnel” who have worked across the two decades the show has been on air.

They apologised if anyone didn’t feel able to raise their experiences at the time, adding: “The welfare and safety of our crew on each series has always been, and remains, our utmost priority.”

The dance world is famous for its intense training, and exacting standards.

With Strictly, you have a weekly national TV show, which involves tight deadlines and the need to have a dance routine perfected by Saturday night.

When you put those two things together, you can see why it might result in a pressure cooker environment.

Jane worked on Strictly’s spin-off show, It Takes Two. The same crew shot the packages for Strictly as for It Takes Two, so she would hear of what was going on on both shows.

“When you’re in the edit suite, you’re like a therapist,” she told BBC News.

“Crew would come in and tell me about their experiences as we cut their .”

Jane says junior staff would say they’d experienced “verbal abuse” from some of the dancers, including “shouting, screaming and being insulted, to an extraordinary level”.

“Whatever mood the dancers were in, would dictate how your day would go,” she said.

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BBC Studios noted that Jane’s testimony is based on rumour, which, it said, “is not unusual in the industry, particularly around successful long running shows”.

But what Jane overheard is echoed by Oscar’s actual experiences.

“Producers would be drinking and partying, while everyone else was running around stressed out,” he said.

On one occasion, he asked someone for a handover, but says he was called “stupid” for asking. “It was bullying behaviour,” he said. “I felt sick, and couldn’t sleep or eat.”

Oscar says his worst experience involved one of the celebrity contestants on the show.

He describes them as flying into a rage when he passed on simple instructions to them before a show. He says nothing he did would appease the celebrity.

“He was shouting and he was so close up in my face, I had to close my eyes as his spit flecks were hitting me,” he said.

“The fact it was in front of everyone made me feel awful and helpless. People were stopping in the corridor to catch a glimpse of what was happening.”

The celebrity later apologised to him. But Oscar said it never should have happened in the first place.

“I remember thinking that this was it, and I couldn’t take it anymore,” he added. “It was the final straw for me.”

Oscar left the show shortly after.

Strictly – with its bright lights, sparkles and sequins – has been running for almost 20 years.

But recently, the shine has come off the show.

A number of former celebrity contestants – including Amanda Abbington, Zara McDermott and Laura Whitmore – have made allegations about the way they were treated on the show.

Paralympian Will Bayley has also spoken out about his experiences, after he was injured following pressure to do a jump.

And what we have heard from former production staff, indicates there could be a wider problem with the workplace culture.

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Others have described more positive experiences. A choreographer who we’re calling Katie, who still works on the show, told us she loves it.

“I have never ever seen any of what is being reported,” she said.

“I have never had an issue with any dancers or staff, I love them and they are very kind and respect me lots.”

A beautician, Laura, who has been on the show for eight years, also said she had never seen any bullying.

She said she was “shocked” to hear some of the allegations, and that they made her “a bit apprehensive” about going back.

In July, Sherlock actress Abbington revealed she had first raised concerns with Strictly producers on her third day in rehearsals.

The BBC has said it takes issues “extremely seriously”, while Abbington’s dance partner Giovanni Pernice has denied “any claim of threatening or abusive behaviour”.

But production staff we have spoken to have also flagged issues with raising complaints.

Oscar never complained about what was going on, because he said he felt he wouldn’t be listened to.

“Unless you were a production executive or one of the producer’s friends, you weren’t empowered to raise issues,” he said.

In response, BBC Studios told us it was “sorry” if Oscar didn’t feel able to speak up about his experiences.

It said that using its initiative The Pledge on all its productions, including Strictly, “we proactively encourage everyone on set to raise concerns of inappropriate behaviour via several avenues, including anonymously to an external third-party whistleblowing service independent of the BBC/BBC Studios.”

But other former runners, also speaking to us anonymously, have painted a similar picture.

Anika, who was a runner in the earlier runs of the show, joined the show to get work experience. She was initially excited to get the job, but she quickly found the work environment “exhausting”.

“There was a lot of shouting backstage,” she told BBC News.

She said one of the male dancers, who has since left the show, treated people “in an insane way. The way he spoke to women, including female dancers and junior staff, was disgusting and chauvinistic. We’d be warned about working with him”.

She also said she didn’t feel she could raise issues.

“I was a nobody, a little runner, I didn’t think I could complain,” she said.

Anna, not her real name, was a runner on a Strictly Christmas special. She said members of the production team would “lose their tempers” at more junior staff.

She said often junior people didn’t feel they could report things as they felt nervous of career repercussions.

Robert – also not his real name – worked on Strictly in the earlier runs of the show.

As a choreographer, he says he spent hours refining movements and perfecting routines. He says producers would get irate and shout at him if even the smallest thing went wrong, but he felt “afraid” to say anything back.

“I left of my own accord and wish there was something or someone I could have spoken to about my concerns.”

Strictly is a hugely prestigious show to work on, especially for those early on in their careers.

Over 35% of the team who have worked on the show for more than five years have been promoted. The show currently has series producers, series editors, senior producers, producer/directors, production managers and assistant producers who all started as runners and worked their way up.

But people we’ve spoken to have said that Strictly’s dominant position in the entertainment world is actually part of the problem.

“There’s a sense that you’re lucky to be on the show as it is one of the biggest in the UK, so you should put up with all the problems you might face,” Robert told us.

That’s something Jack, who worked on the show as a runner, also alleges.

He described an incident where a runner was asked to clean one of the dressing rooms. He says the producers told them they “should be lucky just to be on the show”.

“I guess the problem is that [Strictly is] so big and so valuable to the BBC, one of their main money makers, those who are running the production feel untouchable,” he said.

Jack said the vibe was “all about the glitz and glamour and no care for those making the show”.

The whole experience made him want to leave TV for a while.

For the BBC, there’s no doubt the whole saga has been damaging.

Last month, its director general Tim Davie apologised to Strictly contestants and warned that the show’s professionals should not cross the line between being competitive and “unacceptable behaviour”.

Following these latest allegations from production staff, BBC Studios said it “does not recognise” the claims, “nor will hundreds of production personnel who have worked with us through multiple series and across the two decades the show has been on air.”

It added: “We act speedily when any issues are raised, and have thorough, effective, and longstanding processes to manage them – and we’re sorry if anyone didn’t feel able to talk about their experience on-set at the time.”

Some might argue that the stories coming to light are just part of the rough and tumble of TV.

But that’s something people we’ve spoken to reject.

“I don’t think the rough and tumble of TV is a thing anymore. The world has moved on, it shouldn’t be happening,” said Anika.

Mr Davie, for his part, has insisted the show will return as planned this autumn.

And this week, the BBC has started announcing the celebrity line-up for the 2024 series.

I asked Jane whether she thinks the show will survive.

“I think the BBC won’t let it disappear,” she said.

“But there needs to be change. It can’t go on like this.”

Manizha Talash knew the moment she first saw a video of a man spinning on his head that she would dedicate her life to breaking – a style of street dance.

But it is a dream for which she has risked her life, and the lives of her family, in order to fulfil. It has forced her to flee her country, and hide her identity.

Now, as she prepares to step out on the world stage at the Paris Olympics, Manizha reveals her fight to become Afghanistan’s first female breaker.

Manizha came to breaking late.

She had initially tried shoot boxing, turning to the Japanese martial art that mixes wrestling and kickboxing as a way to protect herself as she worked alongside her father, selling groceries from his cart in the streets of the capital Kabul.

But a few matches in, she broke her shoulder and had to give up.

Then, aged 17, she saw the video of the man on his head – and soon discovered the Superiors Crew, a breaking collective based in Kabul.

She fell in love.

“I couldn’t believe it was real,” she says.

At the same time, she heard breaking would make its debut at the Paris 2024 Olympics. The dream was born – she just had to get there.

But it clearly wasn’t going to be easy from the start.

She visited the Superiors Crew’s training club in western Kabul, which was considered the country’s pioneering centre for hip-hop and breaking, but it was not quite what she expected.

“When I entered the club it was full of boys,” Manizha recalls.

The Superiors Crew’s coach, Jawad Saberi, was also quick to size Manizha up too.

“She was so small,” he remembers. “I was doubtful because there were other b-girls who didn’t stay long,” he says, using the term for a female performer.

But her size was the least of their troubles.

Manizha’s passion, shared with Jawad and the Superiors Crew collective, was risky and people were unhappy about it.

“Everyone was judging me… my relatives were saying words behind my back and complained to my mother,” she recalls.

Outside of her immediate family, there were also comments made on social media – which she didn’t take seriously.

But then, in December 2020, a car bomb exploded near the club, bringing the violence which was killing so many across Afghanistan close to home.

“It really scared me,” she admits.

Yet it didn’t stop her. For Jawad, it was all he needed to know.

“We were under attack, but she came back,” he says. “I saw that she had a dream to go to Paris 2024 – she was fighting for it. I said: ‘She can do it.’ I saw the future.”

At home, things had taken a turn for the worse.

Her father had been abducted by insurgents. He has not been seen since.

She became the main breadwinner for her family – a portion of which she saved for training.

But within months of the car bomb, the club was forced to shut its doors.

This time, the threat had come inside.

“Security forces stormed our club, walked over to a man and put a hood on his head,” Manizha recalls. The man, they said, was a would-be suicide bomber who had been staking out the club for some time, planning an attack.

“They told us that this time we were lucky because there were people who wanted to bomb our club and if we loved our lives, we should shut it.”

Even now, Manizha did not stop breaking.

She did make one concession to the danger, however: Manizha changed her last name to Talash meaning “effort” or “hard work” in Farsi. It was a decision she hoped would protect her family in case they were threatened because of her link to the sport.

And then, that August, the Taliban returned.

Suddenly, Manizha’s world – and the world of Afghan women and girls – began to contract.

They were barred from classrooms and gyms and told to wear top-to-toe clothing. Music and dancing were also effectively banned.

The breaking stopped.

The new restrictions forced Manizha and her friends to make a decision – they had to leave the country.

“If I’d stayed in Afghanistan, I don’t think I’d exist,” she says. “They’d execute me or stone me to death.”

Manizha and some members of the Superiors Crew, including Jawad, fled to Madrid in Spain.

They found work, and sent money home. But they also made connections with local breakers and practised anywhere they could – in clubs, on the streets and even in shopping malls.

It wasn’t easy.

“Every night when I got to bed, I’d struggle with lots of questions,” Manizha admits. “‘What can Afghan women do?’ I’d ask myself. ‘Why can’t I do something for them?'”

She knew that, following the Taliban’s return, it would be almost impossible to compete for her home country in the Olympics. A small, gender-balanced team of six is taking part under the country’s former flag – put together by the exiled Afghan Olympic committee, with no link to the Taliban.

But Manizha found another route to Paris. She had discovered she was eligible to compete for the Refugee Olympic Team, for athletes whose home countries are experiencing conflict or civil war, making it too dangerous for them to return.

In May, she was one of the athletes selected to represent the Refugee Team at the Games and the International Olympic Committee helped arrange coaching for her.

“When they announced my name, I was happy and upset all at once,” Manizha says. “I was sad because when I left Afghanistan, I had to leave my family behind. I chose my goal over their safety.”

But as she prepares for her Olympic debut on Friday, Manizha can breathe a little easier.

When she walks out in Paris and onto screens across the world, her family will be safe.

Just after she was selected, they managed to flee Afghanistan. Finally, after two years of separation, the family was back together in Spain.

Manizha admits it is unlikely that she will take home a medal from Paris – she still needs to “make up for all those years I lost”. But then, getting a spot on the podium is not her priority.

“I’ll compete for my friends and for their dreams and hopes,” she says.

“The girls of Afghanistan will never surrender. Whatever pressure you put on an Afghan girl – restrict her, or even imprison her – she’ll definitely find a way out and will definitely achieve her goals. We fight and we will win.”

Hours after Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country on Monday following mass protests, a development professional in the capital, Dhaka, received a panicked phone call from his cousin.

Avirup Sarkar is a Bangladeshi Hindu, living in a country that is 90% Muslim. His widowed cousin lives in a sprawling joint family house in a mixed neighbourhood in Netrokona, a district crisscrossed by rivers, about 100km (62 miles) north from Dhaka.

“She sounded terrified. She said the house had been attacked and plundered by a mob,” Mr Sarkar, a social protection specialist, told me on the phone from Dhaka.

His cousin said the mob of about 100 people, armed with sticks, stormed the house, smashing furniture, TV, bathroom fittings and doors. Before leaving, they took all the cash and jewellery. They didn’t assault any of the 18-odd residents, including half-a-dozen children belonging to seven families, that lived there.

“You people are descendants of the Awami League! This country is in a bad shape because of you. You should leave the country,” the mob shouted at the residents before leaving with the loot.

Mr Sarkar told me that he was shocked, but not entirely surprised by the incident. Hindu minorities in Bangladesh, he says, are largely viewed as supporters of Sheikh Hasina’s secular Awami League party and are often attacked by rivals in a country where Islam is the state religion.

After Ms Hasina fled the country, social media was flooded with reports of Hindu properties and temples being attacked. India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar told parliament on Tuesday: “What was particularly worrying was that minorities, their businesses and temples also came under attack at multiple locations. The full extent of this is still not clear.”

However, young Muslim groups were also protecting Hindu homes and shrines to prevent further vandalism.

“Bangladeshi Hindus are an easy target,” Mr Sarkar told me. “Every time the Awami League loses power, they are attacked.”

This was not the first time his cousin’s house was attacked, Mr Sarkar says. Minorities in Bangladesh were targeted in 1992 after a Hindu mob tore down the Babri mosque in the Indian city of Ayodhya. Mr Sarkar’s sister’s home was ransacked by a mob.

There have been many religious attacks on Hindus in the following decades. A Bangladeshi human rights group, Ain o Salish Kendra, reported at least 3,679 attacks on the Hindu community between January 2013 and September 2021, including vandalism, arson and targeted violence.

In 2021, following mob attacks on Hindu minority households and temples in Bangladesh during and after Durga Puja, the country’s biggest Hindu festival, rights group Amnesty International said: “Such repeated attacks against individuals, communal violence and destruction of the homes and places of worship of minorities in Bangladesh over the years show that the state has failed in its duty to protect minorities.”

On Monday, other members of Mr Sarkar’s family also faced the prospect of violence. His parents’ home in Kishoreganj, 120km from Dhaka, was spared because “we are a well-known family in the neighbourhood and knew everyone”.

Mr Sarkar says his mother, who runs a local school, received a phone call from her business partner, saying that people were making lists of properties to attack.

The partner then said, “Your name is not on the list. But please be careful.”

Later, Mr Sarkar’s father, who had locked in the family, saw a small crowd congregating outside their iron gate.

“My father heard someone coming up to the crowd and telling them, ‘Don’t do anything here, not here’. The mob dispersed.”

But some distance away, in the Nogua area of Kishoreganj, reports emerged of Hindu households being looted.

“I heard 20-25 houses had been attacked there. My Hindu friend’s gold shop was broken into and the ornaments on display were looted. They could not break or take away the vault though,” Mr Sarkar said.

Some 200km north of Dhaka, Mr Sarkar’s wife’s home in a neighbourhood in Sherpur district was also on the edge. Although her house escaped attack, a mob looted a neighbouring Hindu home. The silver lining: as news of the violence spread, local Muslims rallied to form protective rings around Hindu homes and temples.

“This has also happened all over Bangladesh. Muslims have also protected Hindu properties,” says Mr Sarkar.

But this is not where things ended. As night fell on Monday, a mob began collecting outside Mr Sarkar’s 10-storey apartment building in Dhaka, where he lives with his wife and infant daughter. He reckoned they had come looking for a councillor from Awami League who lived in the same building.

“I came out on my sixth-floor balcony and saw the crowd throwing stones at the building and trying to break in. The gates were locked properly, so they couldn’t enter. Some cars in the parking lot and window panes were damaged,” Mr Sarkar says.

Back in Netrokona, Mr Sarkar’s cousin told him that the family feared more attacks. He called a friend in the army and requested that a military van patrol the neighbourhood regularly.

“This is a harrowing time. There is no law and order. And we are being targeted again,” he says.

Actress Daisy Ridley has spoken for the first time about being diagnosed with Graves’ disease, an autoimmune condition that mainly affects young and middle-aged women.

Ridley, 32, known for playing Rey in the later Star Wars films, initially put symptoms including a racing heart rate, weight loss, fatigue and hand tremors down to the effects of making a recent film.

“I thought, well, I’ve just played a really stressful role, presumably that’s why I feel poorly,” she told Women’s Health.

But she was then diagnosed after a doctor suggested it could be Graves’, which he told her often makes people feel “tired but wired”.

Ridley realised she had been feeling particularly irritable, she said.

“It was funny. I was like, oh, I just thought I was annoyed at the world, but turns out everything is functioning so quickly, you can’t chill out.”

She told the magazine that women should not be prepared to accept feeling unwell.

“We all read the stats about women being undiagnosed or underdiagnosed and [it’s about] sort of coming to terms with saying, ‘I really, actually don’t feel good’ and not going, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.’

“It’s just normalised to not feel good.”

Graves’ disease is related to an overactive thyroid and is “much less severe than what a lot of people go through”, Ridley said.

But she added: “Even if you can deal with it, you shouldn’t have to. If there’s a problem, you shouldn’t have to just [suffer through it].”

After getting her diagnosis almost a year ago and making other lifestyle and diet changes, she said she became aware of the difference they had made.

“I didn’t realise how bad I felt before,” she said. “Then I looked back and thought, How did I do that?”

The British actress is known for appearing in Star Wars films including The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, as well as the recent dramas Magpie and Young Woman and The Sea.

Graves’ disease is an autoimmune condition where your immune system produces antibodies that cause the thyroid to produce too much thyroid hormone, according to the NHS.

About 80% of people with an overactive thyroid gland have it.

The cause is unknown, but it mostly affects young or middle-aged women and often runs in families. Smoking can also increase your risk of getting it.

Symptoms can include:

• Irritability and swings in emotion; nervousness or anxiety
• Weight loss in spite of a good appetite
• Palpitations (fast or irregular heartbeat)
• Sweating and feeling hot
• Shaking or tremor
• Poor sleep
• Muscle weakness, with difficulty getting out of a chair or climbing stairs
• Frequent bowel movements
• In women who are having periods, these may become light or stop altogether

In 2011, US rapper Missy Elliott, then 39, said she had it, and that it had made her hair fall out and shut down her nervous system.

“Any doubt is just a joke. Stress only makes us stronger,” Qin Haiyang – a part of China’s history-making men’s 4x100m medley quartet posted after their unprecedented victory over the US on Monday.

Qin’s seeming defiance came at the tail end of what has been a challenging time for China in the pool.

Some of the country’s top swimmers – including Qin and his relay teammate Sun Jiajun- have faced a slew of doping allegations, followed by contentious US claims that the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) was covering it up.

They were among 23 Chinese swimmers who returned positive doping tests ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.

And although Chinese swimmers have been drug-tested twice as much as some other nations this year before heading to Paris, their performance has been met with scepticism.

After the medley event on Monday, Team GB’s Adam Peaty opened fire on the Chinese team, saying “there’s no point winning if you’re not winning fair”.

Swim legend Michael Phelps, who has been vocal about doping issues, also doubled down: “If you test positive, you should never be allowed to come back and compete again, cut and dry. I believe one and done,” he told the Associated Press news agency.

To the Chinese swimming team and their millions of fans back home, however, the historic victory brought joy and vindication.

The hashtag “China wins gold medal at 4x100m medley relay” was viewed 760 million times on Weibo.

One comment racked up more than 8,000 likes on Weibo: “China’s gold medals are squeaky clean, we won it with our competence!”

“It’s been so hard for the Chinese swimming team,” read another top comment.

The immense pressure the team has been under was reflected in comments by China’s new breakout star Pan Zhanle, who swam the crucial anchor leg of the relay, and also won the men’s 100m freestyle final, setting a new world record.

After his win last week, Pan, who was not among those who tested positive for doping, told Chinese media that he felt that the whole team was “looked down on” by some foreign swimmers. He also said that Australia’s Kyle Chalmers had snubbed him when he tried to say hello – which Chalmers denied.

Pan’s record-breaking swim was questioned by former Australian Olympic swimmer Brett Hawke who posted on Instagram that it’s not “humanly possible to beat that field”.

It wasn’t the first comment of its kind. German athlete Angelina Köhler cast doubt on Zhang Yufei’s bronze win in the women’s 100m butterfly – she too was among the 23 who had tested positive in 2021.

Afte the swim, Köhler, who did not make the podium, reportedly told media that “stories like that always have a bad flavour”,

Zhang, who won a silver and five bronzes in Paris, was defiant.

“Why should Chinese swimmers be questioned when they swim fast? Why did no one dare to question USA’s Michael Phelps when he got eight gold medals?” she asked in a press conference.

The tension has spilled beyond the pool. China’s anti-doping agency (Chinada) released a statement on Tuesday, accusing its US counterpart Usada of displaying double standards.

The press release highlighted the case of US sprinter Erriyon Knighton, a world silver medallist who is competing in the men’s 200m sprint this week. He was not suspended after testing positive for the banned substance trenbolone earlier this year. Like in the case of the Chinese swimmers, the arbitrator had found the result was likely caused by contaminated meat.

Chinese fans, meanwhile, have been reacting furiously, to the accusaitons against the country’s swimmers.

Adam Peaty’s Instagram account was flooded with angry comments – even his girlfriend’s account was not spared.

“Curious why you’re only attacking China but none of the other countries that won ahead of you… pretty weird,” a top comment under Peaty’s most recent post reads.

Following a barrage of critcism from Chinese fans, Brett Hawke, the former Olympic swimmer who is now a coach, deleted the video he had posted about Pan. He also limited comments on his posts.

And a recent post about the men’s medley results says: “Chinese men are victorious!”

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus has been chosen to lead Bangladesh’s interim government after the country’s former prime minister Sheik Hasina resigned and fled the country following weeks of violent unrest.

A well-known critic of Ms Hasina, Mr Yunus called the day of Ms Hasina’s departure Bangladesh’s “second liberation day”.

So what do we know about the 84-year-old Nobel laureate?

One of nine children, Mr Yunus was born to a family of Muslim merchants in the coastal Bangladeshi city of Chittagong. At 25 he travelled to the United States to study under a Fulbright scholarship, and returned to Bangladesh in 1971 – the same year the country won its independence from Pakistan in a brutal, bloody war.

Upon his return, Mr Yunus was elected to head Chittagong University’s economics department, and soon became passionately involved with combatting the famine that ravaged Bangladesh in the mid-70s.

“I became involved in the poverty issue not as a policymaker or a researcher,” he said in a 2005 lecture at the Commonwealth Institute in London. “I became involved because poverty was all around me.

“I could not turn my eyes away from it… I wanted to do something immediate to help people around me.”

It was in this way that Mr Yunus became a pioneer of a concept known as “microcredit”: when people who are too impoverished to borrow from a traditional bank are given extremely small loans, often allowing them to become self-employed.

In 1983 Mr Yunus founded Grameen Bank, the self-proclaimed “pioneer microcredit organisation in the world”, which has since accumulated more than nine million clients.

In a 2002 interview with the BBC, he described microcredit as a “need of the people”.

“Whatever name you give it, you have to have those financial facilities coming to them because it is totally unfair… to deny half the population of the world financial services,” he said.

Mr Yunus’s scheme was so successful that even beggars had been able to borrow money under his scheme.

Both Mr Yunus and Grameen Bank were awarded the Peace Prize in 2006 for their work to “create economic and social development from below”, according to the Nobel Prize website.

Some analysts however have criticised the concept of micro-financial institutions, saying they charge exorbitant interest rates and use coercive debt collection methods.

Mr Yunus himself has weathered a storm of hostility and controversy in Bangladesh though, including from Ms Hasina, the leader he is now set to replace.

He attracted the ire of the former prime minister after announcing plans in 2007 to set up his own “Citizen Power” party.

Ms Hasina notoriously accused Mr Yunus of “sucking blood from the poor”, and in 2011 her government removed him as head of Grameen Bank. In 2013, he faced a state-backed smear campaign that accused him of being un-Islamic and promoting homosexuality, after he signed a joint statement criticising the prosecution of gay people in Uganda.

Mr Yunus has also faced charges based on allegations that he received money without government permission, and more recent allegations that he embezzled money from one of his company’s workers’ benefits fund.

In January of this year he was sentenced to six months in prison for violations of labour law, which he denied, and in June he and 13 others were indicted on embezzlement charges. Although he since been granted bail, he now faces more than 100 cases regarding labour violations and graft accusations.

Mr Yunus has denied all charges, claiming that attacks against him are politically motivated.

Such controversies have done little to Mr Yunus’s appeal with many of his supporters, though, who claim he is being targeted as a result of his acrimonious relations with Ms Hasina.

Asif Mahmud, a key leader of the Students Against Discrimination (SAD) group, posted a striking image to Facebook on Tuesday: a red tile with white text – the same format Mr Mahmud has used for dozens of statements relating to the protests and their aftermath.

This one had just five words: “In Dr Yunus, we trust.”

An alleged coin bandit has been charged by Australian police with stealing more than A$600,000 ($393,500; £309,000) worth of limited-edition coins based on the hit children’s television show Bluey.

Police say they received a report last month that 64,000 unreleased $1 Bluey coins had been stolen from a warehouse in Western Sydney, where the man allegedly worked.

Police say that the coins – which had been due to enter general circulation next month – are selling for 10 times their face value.

On Wednesday, 47-year-old Steven John Neilson was arrested after a raid on a Sydney home. He has been charged with three counts of breaking and entering.

He was denied bail when he appeared in Parramatta Court on Wednesday.

Police allege the coins were sold online, hours after they were stolen from the back of a truck at the warehouse where the accused worked.

They were due to be transported to a storage facility in Brisbane at the time of the alleged theft, police said.

It took several days until it was realised that the pallet of coins, weighing around 500 kg (1102 lbs), was missing.

Police say that that while they have recovered around 1,000 coins, they believe the rest are in general circulation.

The Royal Australian Mint declined to comment when contacted by the BBC saying it was “inappropriate” due to the investigation.

The New South Wales Police investigation was codenamed Strike Force Bandit, after Bandit who is Bluey’s father in the show.

The coins were marked Dollarbucks – a reference the way that money is often referred to in the cartoon.

The hit show, about the Heeler family of dogs, is made by Brisbane-based animation firm Ludo with BBC Studios and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Bluey has been a huge international success and is now broadcast in more than 60 countries including the UK, the US and China.

It was streamed for more than 20 billion minutes on Disney+ in the US last year, putting it in the country’s top 10 streaming programmes for minutes viewed.

There are more than 150 episodes of Bluey across three seasons.

The stolen coins are different from a collectable set of Bluey currency that caused a frenzy when it went on sale by the Royal Australian Mint in June this year.

Suga from K-pop boy band BTS has apologised after being fined for driving an electric scooter while intoxicated.

Posting on social media, the 31-year-old said he was “very heavy-hearted and apologetic” to bring his fans “disappointing news”.

In the post, the rapper explained he had “violated the road traffic act” when he had driven home in Seoul “thinking it was a close distance” and “[forgot] that you can’t use an electric scooter under the influence”.

“I fell while parking the electric scooter in front of my house, and there was a police officer nearby,” he wrote.

“I was given a breathalyser test and subsequently had my license revoked and was fined.”

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that police said his blood alcohol level was 0.08%.

He added: “Although no one was harmed and no property was damaged, this is entirely my responsibility with no excuses.

“I apologise to those who have been hurt by my carelessness and wrongful behaviour, and I will ensure that this does not happen again in the future.”

The phenomenally successful boy band are currently on hiatus as its members complete military service.

Suga started his service last year and is working as a social service agent after being ruled unfit for regular combat duty.

Local media reported the star’s alternative service was likely to be related to shoulder surgery that he required in 2020.

BTS’s record label Bighit have also issued an apology for the scooter incident.

“We express our sincere apology for the incident involving BTS member Suga and his electric kickboard accident,” they said in a statement.

“We apologise for the disappointment caused by the artist’s inappropriate behaviour.

“As a social service agent during his military service, he is prepared to accept any disciplinary actions from his place of work for causing a social disturbance.

“We will take greater care to ensure that such incidents do not happen again in the future.”

In Dhaka, students are on the streets directing traffic and keeping things running as police stage a strike following the popular uprising that toppled prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

The police, normally highly visible, are nowhere to be seen on the usually loud and congested streets of the Bangladeshi capital.

It seems that only students and some paramilitary forces are trying to maintain law and order, after weeks of unrest in which hundreds have been killed. An interim government is promised, but has yet to take office.

Police now fear for their safety after the deadly crackdown that caused so much anger. It failed to quell anti-government protests that had begun over civil service job quotas last month.

Things are calmer two days after Ms Hasina escaped to India, but there are continuing reports of sporadic looting and violence during the power vacuum.

Many Bangladeshis, particularly the young, hope the country is at a turning point.

“I want freedom of expression. I want a corruption-free country. I want people to have the right to protest,” Noorjahan Mily, 21, an Open University student, told the BBC.

“I am uncertain about where the country is heading, because the government has changed. But whether the discrimination will remain or not, I will only be happy when their demands are met.”

The country is now trying to come to terms with the shock of what has just happened, now that power has been prised from the hands of the country’s long-time ruler.

More than 400 people were killed in the recent unrest, most of them civilians shot by security forces, but also a number of police. It’s the bloodiest episode since the war that brought the country independence in 1971.

At the airport, a worker handed me my bags, telling me the situation is very bad and the government used too much force.

“Many kids – as young as six, seven and eight – were killed,” he said.

Outside the airport, students wearing orange hi-vis vests were directing traffic.

“There’s no police here, only students,” the driver said. “There is no government, students are doing 100% security.”

He agreed with the students, saying they had done a good thing.

As we drove on, a group of students were putting out plastic cones to control the flow of vehicles.

“I’m here to protect my brothers and help with the traffic. From the very beginning, I participated in the quota movement that turned into a massive movement,” Julkernayeem Rahat, a business administration student at University of Asia Pacific, told the BBC.

“We are happy we’ve removed the autocratic government. We have gained our freedom and our sovereignty.”

He was confident that the man named as interim leader, Nobel Laureate Muhammed Yunus, will be able to form a government after a few months “with the help of students, lawyers, general people”.

“Bangladesh’s future is in the hands of the student leaders. God willing, things will be good,” said the 22-year-old.

Mahamudul Hassan, 21, is studying on the same course.

“I want democracy so that people of all walks of life can enjoy equal opportunities, equal rights.” He’s hoping for “a leader who can make those things happen”.

Mr Yunus was appointed to the post late on Tuesday by Bangladesh’s president, meeting a key demand of student protesters, who said they would not accept an army-led government. He is now heading back from having surgery in France and could be sworn in on Thursday.

“I’m looking forward to going back home and see what’s happening and how we can organise ourselves to get out of the trouble we’re in,” he told reporters on Wednesday at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, where he was due to fly to Dhaka.

Following reports of looting and revenge attacks on supporters of Sheikh Hasina, he has urged people to refrain from all kinds of violence, warning that if they did not, they risked everything being destroyed.

In an address to the nation on Wednesday, the army chief said he was certain Mr Yunus “will be able to take us through a beautiful democratic process and that we will benefit from this”.

How things turn out is still to be determined – but as far as traffic management goes, the students seem to be doing a good job.

The BBC found it flowing much better than when we visited in January for controversial elections, boycotted by the main opposition, that handed Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League a fourth term in power.

It almost seemed like business as usual when we saw a group of men pulling large metal rods for a construction project.

“The traffic system is better now. The students are managing well. It’s better than when the police were here,” said Mohammed Shwapan, who has been a Dhaka driver for 24 years. “Today is busier than yesterday.”

He supports the choice of interim leader.

“As Mr Yunus is well known internationally, he can mitigate any potential economic collapse.

“I am worried about the international debt, how will Bangladesh be able to manage payments. That’s why I think he can do a good job.”

The challenges ahead are enormous, and not just economic. There are many wounds to heal after Sheikh Hasina’s 15 years in power ended on Monday.

Her government is credited with economic reforms that have improved the standard of living for many in Bangladesh. But she was also accused of serious human rights abuses, including numerous extra-judicial killings and forced disappearances.

Many people have stories to tell of what their families went through.

On the plane to Dhaka, I managed to close my eyes for a few minutes. When I opened them, I found a handwritten note on an airsick bag found in the back pocket of the seat in front.

On it, someone had written that his father was killed by Sheikh Hasina and his brother abducted. He had been in self-imposed exile for the last eight years for the safety of his wife and children.

Now he is coming back to what he calls “a free country”, to visit his father’s grave, the note said.

Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential pick Tim Walz has drawn attention halfway across the world in China.

Chinese social media users have been discussing how Mr Walz spent a year teaching in the south-eastern province of Guangdong in 1989 – a topic that was trending on Weibo with 12 million views.

He and his wife, fellow teacher Gwen Whipple, later honeymooned in the country.

Mr Walz once described his decision to teach in China as “one of the best things I’ve ever done”.

The 60-year-old Minnesota governor was a history teacher and football coach before he joined politics.

He was fresh out of college when he moved to China to teach English and American history at a high school.

The fact that it happened in 1989 – the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre – was not lost on those commenting on Chinese social media.

On 4 June that year, Chinese tanks rolled into Beijing’s central square, where hundreds of thousands had gathered demanding political reforms. The day ended in bloodshed and to this day it is unclear exactly how many died. Some estimates put the death toll upwards of 10,000.

Chinese social media users cannot say much about 1989 or risk getting censored. They refer to it obliquely – one comment simply said “If you know, you know”.

Foreigners who were in China at that time “are the most anti-China”, said one user.

Others pointed out that China in 1989 was a vastly different country. It was well before China became the world’s largest manufacturing hub, then its second-largest economy and finally, a powerful US rival.

“This candidate was in China at a very different time. The atmosphere was very different,” one comment read.

And yet they hoped that if he wins, he may signal better US-China ties. The two countries have been at loggerheads on trade, advanced technology, and China’s geopolitical ambitions.

One Weibo user pointed out that Mr Walz’s “unique background gives him a real perspective on China”, and he could “promote cultural exchanges between China and the United States at a time when… relations are extremely difficult”.

Back then, Mr Walz spent a year teaching at the Foshan No 1 High School under a Harvard University volunteer programme.

When he returned to the US, he told a local newspaper that there were “no limits” on what the Chinese could accomplish “if they had proper leadership”.

“They are such kind, generous, capable people,” he said.

Mr Walz and his wife were married on 4 June 1994 – the fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen uprising. She said in an interview that “he wanted to have a date he’ll always remember”.

The couple then started a business which organised summer educational trips to China for US students.

There hasn’t been much official reaction yet from the Republicans to Mr Walz’s time in China.

But some allies of Trump have said Mr Walz’s nomination would be welcomed in China, although Beijing has not commented on it.

“Communist China is very happy with @GovTimWalz as Kamala’s VP pick,” Richard Grenell, a former acting director of National Intelligence in the previous Trump administration, said on X.

President Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of launching “another major provocation”, after defence officials said Ukrainian troops crossed into Russia’s Kursk region on Tuesday.

Moscow said troops, supported by 11 tanks and more than 20 armoured combat vehicles, crossed the border near the town of Sudzha, 10km (six miles) from the frontline.

In televised remarks broadcast on Wednesday afternoon, Russia’s Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov told President Putin that the “advance” into Kursk region had been stopped with Russian forces “continuing to destroy the adversary in areas directly adjacent to the Russian-Ukrainian border”.

Mr Gerasimov also said that up to 1,000 Ukrainian troops had entered the region with the aim of taking over the area around the town of Sudzha, and that Russian forces had already killed 100 men and injured another 215.

Ukraine has yet to comment on the Russian allegations.

Thousands of local residents have left their homes in the region, officials said.

Speaking ahead of a meeting of the Security Council in Moscow, Mr Putin accused Ukrainian forces of “firing indiscriminately” at civilian buildings and residences.

Fighting reportedly took place in various villages on Russian territory throughout Tuesday. It was followed by Ukrainian air attacks which killed three civilians and continued into the night, Russian authorities said.

Twenty-four people, including six children, have been wounded in Ukrainian shelling of the border region, Moscow said.

On Wednesday, Russia’s Ministry of Defence claimed it prevented the Ukrainian Armed Forces from advancing “deep into Russian territory” in the Kursk region and said it had destroyed several Ukrainian drones overnight.

However, a number of air alerts continued to be issued in Kursk, where local authorities urged residents to limit their movements and all public events were cancelled.

Footage posted online – and verified by the BBC – showed fighter jets flying low overhead in the region on Tuesday, with smoke rising from areas on the ground.

The acting regional governor, Alexei Smirnov, said he had briefed Russian President Vladimir Putin about the situation, which he said was under control.

Mr Smirnov also said several thousand people had left areas of the region that were under attack and added doctors from Moscow and St Petersburg were on their way to offer assistance.

Kyiv has not yet commented on any of the reports about events in Kursk. However, on Wednesday Volodymyr Artyukh, the head of the Ukrainian region of Sumy, ordered the evacuation of the areas that border the region of Kursk.

One colonel in Ukraine’s military, Vladislav Seleznyov, told the prominent Nexta channel the attack was “preventative” with an estimated 75,000 Russian troops continuing to gather close to the border.

After a major cross-border incursion by Russia into the north-eastern Kharkiv region in May, there had been fears Moscow would attempt the same into the Sumy region further north.

With Ukraine now apparently capturing several settlements and highways the other way, those ambitions may well have been frustrated, for now.

But with Ukrainian forces already overstretched and outmanned, some military analysts are questioning the wisdom of such cross-border raids.

This isn’t the first incursion into Russia by fighters based in Ukraine. Some groups of anti-Kremlin Russians launched raids last year, which were repelled.

The forces crossed into the Belgorod and Kursk regions again in March, where they engaged in clashes with Russian security forces.

X can feel like two parallel universes at times.

There’s the version where the president of the United States chooses the platform to announce he won’t be running for re-election. That’s the one where the worldwide authority on a particular subject uses X to offer their expert take on unfolding events.

And then there’s the version where false claims, hate and conspiracy theories, including many posts relating to the recent riots and protests across the UK, are recommended to millions who have made absolutely no attempt to seek them out.

At the centre of it all is X’s owner Elon Musk, one of the world’s richest people. But this isn’t just a story about the monetisation strategy and algorithms employed by X under his tenure and how they are boosting divisive content.

It is increasingly also a story about how Mr Musk himself is choosing to wade in, overtly, to opine on unrest in the UK.

And nobody is quite sure what his game plan is.

Mr Musk bought what was then called Twitter in 2022. In November 2023, the site reinstated the account of the previously banned far-right activist and convicted criminal, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson.

Then this week, Mr Musk responded to a post from Yaxley-Lennon with two exclamation marks – in other words, stirring the pot.

Yaxley-Lennon had taken aim at UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for his words after riots broke out following the murder of three girls in Southport. Yaxley-Lennon had accused the Prime Minister of labelling everyone upset about the murders as “thugs”. Mr Starmer’s speech had specifically referred to thugs as being those throwing bricks at police officers.

Yaxley-Lennon had also been critical of the prime minister’s comments about increasing policing powers in response to the riots.

Mr Musk then later went on to suggest, in response to a video of rioting, that “civil war is inevitable”. The prime minister’s spokesperson said there was “no justification” for this claim.

Mr Musk doubled down again – responding to the prime minister’s post about attacks on Muslim communities by asking: “Shouldn’t you be concerned about attacks on *all* communities?” And Mr Musk repeated the remark in a tweet of his own, making allegations about violence from anti-racist and Muslim counter-protesters and accusing the police of a “one-sided” approach.

It’s not as if X didn’t already contain plenty of content around events in Southport before Mr Musk’s interventions.

False claims that the person responsible for the killings in Southport was a Muslim refugee who arrived in the UK by boat in 2023 spread like wildfire across X. They then spilled out on to other social media platforms and were also posted on some Telegram channels – but much of the most frenzied, amplified conversation was happening on X.

The claims were shared by pseudo-news accounts, profiles with a track record of promoting evidence-free conspiracy theories about everything from the pandemic and vaccines to wars – and then also by prominent political commentators, politicians and influencers.

The profiles reaching the most users with these ideas had often purchased blue ticks meaning their posts were granted more prominence on the platform.

Mr Musk, with his own blue tick and 193 million followers, has been interacting with some profiles sharing divisive content and, in doing so, amplifying their message.

There’s not currently a definitive answer as to what is driving Mr Musk.

His presence as an active player on his own platform is certainly keeping X talked about.

For all the furore around his ownership of X, last month the site said it had 251 million global daily active users in the second quarter of this year, an increase of 1.6% from the same period of the previous year. Of course, this can be attributed to a range of factors – like what’s happening in the world. While these figures represented a drop in growth, X is still a focal point for digital conversations.

For all the warnings that X would cease to exist under Elon Musk, a variety of different users are continuing to post – including many world leaders and prominent political figures of all stripes.

It may also have something to do with Mr Musk’s views on threats of regulation – and in the UK specifically, the Online Safety Act, which was passed under the previous government.

When this comes into full effect in 2025 it will require social media firms to remove illegal content, including where it is “racially or religiously aggravated”. Mr Musk has repeatedly been vocal about his concerns that attempts by governments to regulate social media sites – like his own – risk infringing freedom of speech.

Others wonder if he has simply spent too much time on X. Sander van der Linden, a professor of social psychology at the University of Cambridge, has suggested that Mr Musk may be “radicalising himself on his own platform”.

Of course, the reasons for the protests and riots in the UK clearly extend far beyond social media.

It’s also the case that the Twitter of old, the pre-Musk version, was far from perfect.

There were accusations of bias and suggestions its moderation policies curbed freedom of expression for particular types of accounts. It also had trolls aplenty. But on paper, its policies and approach were different – and, simply from analysing my own feed before and after the takeover, it different.

Straight after the takeover, Mr Musk stated the importance of fairness to all sides – including in terms of what then-Twitter allowed to be shared on the site. He has made clear that freedom of expression is a central priority at X – and as a private citizen, like any user, he’s entitled to share his opinion about politics or other topics.

It is a recent development on Mr Musk’s part, though, to decide so clearly to back specific political positions and candidates.

Take, for example, the way he endorsed Donald Trump after the assassination attempt, or the content he shares that is critical of Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris. He’s shared some posts that are very hostile to some liberal views.

Now he has decided to voice opinions on some of the most sensitive issues in British life, too.

What has evolved is a complex dynamic. As owner, Elon Musk oversees decisions made by X that have affected what content is permitted and actively recommended to users. At the same time, his account is thought to be the world’s most followed and itself plays a significant role in shaping the tone of some of X’s most promoted and contentious content.

I’ve repeatedly approached the social media company in relation to the rioting in the UK, including multiple interview requests for Mr Musk. I even posted on X asking him. He has not responded to any of my interview requests.

Mr Musk has highlighted his concerns that the media doesn’t hold power to account any more. And yet most of the time, when I want to ask questions of both him and of X – there is no response from the social media company. X continues to share in its publicly available guidelines that its priority is protecting and defending the user’s voice.

So instead, I have to settle with imagining what I’d say to him if he finally did agree to speak.

I think one of the first things I’d ask would be: “What’s your game plan?”

It’s a question only he can answer.

Shamima Begum will not be allowed to challenge the removal of her British citizenship at the Supreme Court, judges have ruled.

The 24-year-old hoped to overturn the government’s decision to revoke her citizenship on national security grounds after she travelled to Syria as a teenager to join the Islamic State group.

Justices at the UK’s highest court said Ms Begum could not appeal against an earlier Court of Appeal ruling as the grounds of her case “do not raise an arguable point of law”.

It was Ms Begum’s last chance to challenge the revocation of her citizenship within the UK legal system. But her lawyers told the BBC they would take the case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Ms Begum, who left Bethnal Green, east London, with two schoolfriends in 2015, was later found in a Syrian refugee camp.

She married an Islamic State fighter soon after arriving and went on to have three children, none of whom survived.

Ms Begum was stripped of her British citizenship on national security grounds in 2019 by the then-Home Secretary Sajid Javid, leaving her stateless.

She remains in a camp controlled by armed guards in northern Syria.

Last year, she lost her appeal against the decision to revoke her citizenship at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC).

• Who is Shamima Begum and how can you lose your citizenship?

She then took her case to the Court of Appeal – where three judges unanimously dismissed her bid to regain British citizenship in February.

Then in March, Ms Begum lost an initial bid to challenge the removal of her citizenship at the Supreme Court.

Her remaining option was to ask the Supreme Court directly for permission to have her case heard.

However, on Wednesday three justices at the Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the bid.

Lords Reed, Hodge and Lloyd-Jones found that the grounds on which she had based her case did not legally undermine the decision to strip her of her UK citizenship.

These included questioning the legality of her not being able to argue against the decision to strip her of her citizenship before it took place.

In a statement, Ms Begum’s legal team said it “will take every possible legal step” to restore her citizenship, including petitioning the ECHR in Strasbourg to hear her case.

It said that the Supreme Court had “left resolution” to the Strasbourg court.

In their ruling, the justices found it was a matter for the European court to decide whether the process to deprive Ms Begum of British citizenship should have considered whether she was a potential victim of trafficking.

The Supreme Court justices also affirmed an earlier ruling which found those concerns had no material bearing on the decision under UK law.

Her lawyers added: “It is a matter of the gravest concern that British women and children have been arbitrarily imprisoned in a Syrian camp for five years, all detained indefinitely without any prospect of a trial.

“All other countries in the UK’s position have intervened and achieved the return of their citizens and their children.”

Reacting to the ruling, Maya Foa, director of human rights charity Reprieve, said: “Exiling British nationals like Ms Begum is about politics, not the law.

“The prior government’s failed do-nothing approach must be abandoned. Our politicians should take responsibility and repatriate the small number of British families in this position so their cases can be dealt with here in Britain.”

Ms Begum is held in Camp Roj in north-east Syria, which holds nearly 3,000 individuals, 65% of whom are children, according to the UN.

Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director Steve Valdez-Symonds described the ruling as “deeply concerning” as she was “now exiled in dangerous and inhuman conditions” in the detention camp.

He added: “Stripping Shamima Begum’s nationality was profoundly wrong – she is and has always been British.”

Reprieve said the two other girls Ms Begum travelled to Syria with – Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana – are now both thought to be dead.

Democratic congresswoman and “Squad” member Cori Bush has lost her primary race in Missouri, according to US media projections.

Wesley Bell, a St Louis prosecutor, will instead be the party’s candidate in the state’s first congressional district this November.

Ms Bush, a nurse, came to prominence as an organiser in the Black Lives Matter movement and, after taking office in 2021, as one of the Democratic members of the “Squad”, who are known to support progressive causes.

She has been a vocal critic of Israel’s war in Gaza, with pro-Israel groups spending more than $10m (£7.9m) on efforts to unseat her in the primary.

Projections from both the Associated Press news agency and NBC News suggest Mr Bell is on track to win the vote with 51% of ballots cast, compared to Ms Bush’s 46%.

The district is a strongly Democratic area and Mr Bell is expected to hold it in the November general election.

Almost all the money spent in campaigning against Ms Bush reportedly came from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac). Aipac is a pro-Israel lobbying group and has vowed to spend over $100m to unseat progressive lawmakers who have spoken out against the war in Gaza, Politico reported.

In her concession speech, Ms Bush declared: “All they did was radicalise me, so now they need to be afraid.”

“Aipac, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down,” she added.

It marks the second loss for the Squad – a group of nine progressive Democrats in the US House of Representatives – during the 2024 election cycle.

In June, more than $15m was put into a successful bid to oust Jamaal Bowman, another critic of Israel, from his seat in New York. The figure was the most spent in any House primary in history. Mr Bowman was ousted just weeks after he was censured for pulling a fire alarm while the House was in session.

Speaking to CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner, ahead of the vote, Mr Bell accused Ms Bush of “not doing her job”.

“She is not working with others, and it’s hurting our district.”

Ms Bush defended her record to the outlet: “My community knows who I am. They know that I am going to fight for the people in the streets.”

Less than two weeks after the 7 October attacks, Ms Bush introduced a resolution calling for a ceasefire and humanitarian aid.

The attacks, carried out by Hamas and other armed militant groups saw around 1,200 people killed in Israel and another 251 taken to Gaza as hostages.

In response, Israel declared a “complete siege” on Gaza, cutting off supplies of electricity, food, fuel, and water. To date, more than 39,600 people have been killed during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Ms Bush also boycotted a joint address to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in July, calling him a war criminal and saying he was at the forefront of a genocide. Dozens of House and Senate Democrats boycotted Mr Netanyahu’s address.

In a statement ahead of the vote Ms Bush accused Mr Netanyahu of perpetrating a “genocide” in Gaza and claimed Congress was “actively celebrating” his actions.

Ms Bush has also been investigated by the justice department, House ethics committee and Federal Elections Commission for her campaign spending, mostly over allegations that she improperly paid her husband, a security guard, for protection.

She previously said any claims she had misused federal funds were “simply false”.

Three other US states – Kansas, Michigan and Washington – also held primary elections on Tuesday.

Dan Newhouse, one of the last remaining Republicans to have voted to impeach Donald Trump, appeared to have scraped through in his primary election.

Washington state holds what is known as a jungle primary, allowing the top two finishers – regardless of party – to advance to the general election.

Mr Newhouse, an agricultural scientist who has represented a central Washington district since 2015, faced off against two Trump-endorsed candidates – Navy veteran Jerrod Sessler and ex-nurse Tiffany Smiley.

Early projections of the race show Mr Sessler leading Mr Newhouse, with Ms Smiley close behind them – meaning that the incumbent could face a difficult challenge in November.

Of the so-called “Impeachment 10” – Republicans who voted in favour of Trump’s impeachment – only Mr Newhouse and California’s David Valadao remain in the House.

All other pro-impeachment Republicans have either left Congress since their 2021 vote or been defeated in primary races.

A Thai court has ordered the dissolution of the reformist party which won the most seats and votes in last year’s election – but was blocked from forming a government.

The ruling also banned Move Forward’s charismatic, young former leader Pita Limjaroenrat and 10 other senior figures from politics for 10 years.

The verdict from the Constitutional Court was expected, after its ruling in January that Move Forward’s campaign promise to change royal defamation laws was unconstitutional.

The court had said changes to the notoriously harsh lese majeste law was tantamount to calling for the destruction of the constitutional monarchy.

Wednesday’s verdict again serves as a stark reminder of how far unelected institutions are willing to go to preserve the power and status of the monarchy.

But the ruling does not mean an end to the reformist movement in Thai politics.

The surviving 142 Move Forward MPs are expected to transfer to another registered party and continue their role as the main opposition in parliament.

“A new journey has begun. Let’s keep walking together, people,” the party said in a message accompanied by a video on its social media platforms.

Chaithawat Tulathon, the leader of the opposition and one of the MPs barred from politics, stood up in the chamber and bid farewell to his colleagues, saying it was an “honor” to work with them.

This verdict “may raise the question whether Thailand is a constitutional monarchy or an absolute monarchy”, said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University.

He said it was “deja vu on one hand, and uncharted territory, on the other”.

This is more or less a repeat of what happened in 2020 when the then Future Forward Party, which had also done unexpectedly well in an election, was also dissolved, and transformed itself into the Move Forward Party.

That verdict four years ago ignited huge street protests, led by a new generation of student activists, which lasted for six months and voiced unprecedented demands for the monarchy to be made more accountable.

The authorities have since made extensive use of the lese majeste law to prosecute hundreds of protest leaders, including some Move Forward MPs.

The law has been widely criticised as stifling freedom of expression in Thailand, and in its manifesto Move Forward had proposed less severe punishments – jail sentences have been as high as 50 years – and a more rigorous process for filing charges.

Fears among reformists that Move Forward would not do as well in last year’s election as Future Forward had in 2019 proved unfounded.

The party defied expectations to outperform every other party and become the largest in parliament, revealing a strong yearning for change among Thai voters.

However, the military-appointed senate blocked Move Forward from forming a government over its lese majeste proposals, allowing a 11-party coalition of more conservative parties to take power instead.

With so many activists in jail, in exile or fighting criminal charges the large-scale protests seen back in 2020 are much less likely today.

Even Move Forward’s very mild proposals for a less severe lese majeste law have led to the party being stripped of its top leaders, just as its previous incarnation Future Forward was four years ago.

And anyone thinking of organising protests similar to those four years ago will know that they too will be subjected to the tough penalties of lese majeste and several other sweeping laws in the Thai criminal code.

Thailand’s constitutional court, which has dissolved 34 parties since 2006, has long been the principle guardian of the conservative status quo – at its heart is the monarchy, protected by a politically-assertive military. Beyond that, unaccountable power is wielded by palace officials, senior judges, business tycoons, and military and police officers.

Under the military-drafted constitution the senate has a decisive role in the appointment of constitutional court judges, and over the composition of other influential extra-parliamentary bodies like the Election Commission and the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

The previous senate was appointed by the military junta which ruled Thailand from 2014 to 2019, and rewrote the political landscape in which parties have to operate today. It played the central role in blocking Move Forward from forming a government.

It was unclear what to expect from the new senate this year – but the peculiar election system allows only those seeking a seat in the senate to vote for the candidates in several rounds. That, and some murky backroom dealing, have produced a new 200-seat senate, most of whom appear to be linked to a party known for its uncompromising loyalty to the monarchy.

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus – a longtime political foe of Bangladesh’s ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina – has been named the country’s interim leader.

The 84-year-old was appointed a day after Ms Hasina fled the country following weeks of deadly protests that brought her resignation.

While Prof Yunus has been lauded for his pioneering use of microloans, Ms Hasina regarded him as a public enemy – he is currently on bail, appealing against a six-month jail term in what he has called a politically-motivated case.

Students who led the mass protests that unseated Ms Hasina refused to accept a military-led government and pushed for Prof Yunus to lead the interim administration.

The decision to name Prof Yunus as chief adviser of the interim government followed a meeting between President Mohammed Shahabuddin, military leaders and student leaders.

“When the students who sacrificed so much are requesting me to step in at this difficult juncture, how can I refuse?” Prof Yunus had said.

He is returning to Dhaka from Paris where he is undergoing a minor medical procedure, his spokesperson said.

The protests in Bangladesh began in early July with demands from university students to abolish quotas in civil service jobs, but snowballed into a broader anti-government movement.

In all, more than 400 people are reported to have died in clashes between government forces and protesters – mostly civilians shot by police.

On Monday alone, more than 100 people died across the country, making it the single deadliest day in the movement. Hundreds of police stations were also torched.

Hours before protesters stormed and looted the former PM’s official residence in the capital Dhaka, Ms Hasina resigned and fled to neighbouring India. That brought a swift and abrupt end to her nearly 15-year rule.

Even as Bangladesh’s economy grew in the past decade, the former PM came under increasing criticism for silencing her critics and jailing her political opponents.

Some of them, such as ex-PM Khaleda Zia and activist Ahmad Bin Quasem, were released soon after Ms Hasina’s hasty exit.

Ms Zia chairs the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which boycotted elections in 2014 and again in 2024, saying free and fair polls were not possible under Ms Hasina.

The 78-year-old was imprisoned in 2018 for corruption – charges, she said, were politically motivated.

Rights groups say Mr Quasem was detained in 2016, one of hundreds of forced disappearances during Ms Hasina’s tenure.

Prof Yunus, who was sentenced to six months in jail in January for violating labour laws, has said he too was a victim of Ms Hasina’s ire.

He has faced other allegations in the past, going back to 2011 when he was accused of defaming Bangladesh’s politicians.

In 1983, he started Grameen Bank, which offers micro, long-term loans to help poor people start small businesses – a concept that has since taken off around the world.

He was accused of tax evasion and serving at Grameen Bank beyond the mandatory retirement age, which led to him being sacked – but Prof Yunus maintained that these were baseless charges.

He, along with the bank, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for showing that “even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development”.

He became known internationally as the “banker to the poor”, but Ms Hasina called him a “bloodsucker” of the poor and accused his bank of charging exorbitant interest rates.

It was never clear what was the origin of the feud with Ms Hasina, but many believe it was his unsuccessful efforts to set up a political party.

Ms Hasina is still in India but it’s unclear yet if that is her final destination. Analysts believe that is unlikely despite her having been a close ally of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India, which shares a 4,096-km (2,545-mile) border with Bangladesh, will be averse to alienating the new government in Dhaka.

Delhi has deployed additional troops along the border, its foreign minister S Jaishankar said.

Foreign leaders called on Bangladesh to uphold democracy after Prof Yunus’s appointment was announced.

“Any decisions that the interim government makes, they need to respect democratic principles… to uphold the rule of law [and] reflect the will of the people,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Australian foreign minister Penny Wong asked all parties to refrain from violence and “respect universal rights”.

When Sheikh Hasina called crisis security talks to put down spiralling unrest in Bangladesh on Sunday, she appears to have been in denial that her time was up as prime minister.

Within hours, she would be swept away by people power – indeed, few could have predicted the speed of her exit.

In the end, it was the advice of close family rather than top security officials that persuaded her to flee, the BBC was told by her son.

Ms Hasina made her mind up just in time – crowds entered her residence within a couple of hours of her escaping.

The National Security Committee meeting – called for late on Sunday morning – brought the embattled prime minister together with the country’s top three military chiefs, senior security officials and police. The mood was sober.

Pressure on the prime minister had been mounting for weeks as anti-government protests raged around the country. Hundreds have been killed in the worst violence Bangladesh has seen since its war of independence in 1971.

On Sunday alone, at least 90 people lost their lives, mostly demonstrators shot by security forces – but also a growing number of police killed by the crowds.

BBC Bangla has learned from officials that Sheikh Hasina wanted to keep “two options” open. While there were preparations for her to leave the country, she wanted to stay in power until the last moment – by force.

Military leaders did not agree. On Sunday, ordinary people and protesters mingled with field-level soldiers and army officers in various parts of the country. After reviewing the situation, senior military officers realised things were out of control.

Individually, the military top brass at the meeting told the prime minister that soldiers could not shoot at civilians – but they could provide security back-up to police, sources told the BBC. Senior police chiefs also complained they were running out of ammunition, it later emerged.

“Police were exhausted. We heard that they didn’t have adequate ammunition,” retired Brigadier General M Sakhawat Hussain told the BBC.

Sheikh Hasina, however, would not listen – and no-one was willing to disagree with her to her face.

After the meeting, her press secretary delivered her defiant message. She called the protesters “terrorists” and urged people to resist those she described as “arsonists”.

Security forces feared they could soon have a situation approaching civil war on their hands.

Pictures of Sunday’s violence were going viral on social media as the death toll steadily rose. Images of young men with bullet wounds, shot by police and members of the ruling Awami League party’s youth wing, were triggering more anger.

As the ferocity of the clashes became clear, student leaders brought forward their call for a mass march on Dhaka by a day, taking the authorities by surprise.

Intelligence inputs suggested the students’ demands were gaining traction and thousands of people were planning to descend on the capital the following day.

If the security forces tried to stop the protesters, there would be another bloodbath.

So army chief Waker-Uz-Zaman decided to speak to the prime minister again.

Reliable sources said the three service chiefs met her on Sunday evening and politely explained that the situation on the ground was getting more and more volatile, and that crowds of thousands were expected in Dhaka on Monday morning. They could not guarantee the safety of her residence.

Sheikh Hasina did not take their advice, but journalists in Dhaka said they could sense power was already shifting. By Sunday night, police were absent in many places and numerous security barricades were unmanned.

“She was adamant, neither would she resign nor was she willing to leave. The three chiefs came, and they tried to make her understand about what’s happening on the ground,” Gen Hussain said.

“They said it would be difficult for the troops to fire on the crowd. They said our troops are also part of the country. They come from villages, they would not open fire on their own people.”

On Monday morning, large crowds had started moving towards Dhaka. Gen Zaman was at Ms Hasina’s residence once again explaining to her the gravity of the situation. People were breaking the curfew and violence had already started.

Police were being withdrawn from many parts of Dhaka and Gen Zaman told her they could not prevent the crowd from reaching Gono Bhaban, the PM’s official residence in the capital, for much longer. An hour or so at best.

At this point, military chiefs decided to call on family members to intercede.

Police and military chiefs then held talks with Sheikh Hasina’s sister, Rehana Siddiq, to see if she could persuade her elder sibling to leave.

“The officials held discussions with Sheikh Rehana in another room. They asked her to explain the situation to Sheikh Hasina. Sheikh Rehana then talked with her elder sister, but Sheikh Hasina was determined to hold on to power,” the Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily said.

Then Ms Hasina’s son Sajeeb and daughter Saima, who both live abroad, spoke to her on the phone and insisted she should go. During these family negotiations, the army chief, who is related to Ms Hasina by marriage, was reportedly present throughout.

“My mum did not wish to leave the country at all. We had to persuade her,” Sajeeb Wazed Joy told the BBC on Tuesday, adding his mother began thinking of resigning on Saturday evening.

“We in the family begged her, we urged her, this is the mob, they are out for violence and they will kill you and we need to get you to safety. Only however long it took the mob to get there, that was how much time she had. They just left without any preparation.

“I rang her yesterday in Delhi. She’s in good spirits but she’s very disappointed. She’s very disheartened by the people of Bangladesh.”

On Monday morning, sources said, Sheikh Hasina got in touch with government officials in Delhi to request sanctuary. The advice from India, a staunch ally throughout her long career, was for her to leave.

A day earlier, Washington had reportedly been telling Indian foreign ministry officials that time was up for Ms Hasina. She had run out of options.

“She resigned when she realised that the army was not supporting her,” M Sakhawat Hussain, the retired brigadier general, said. “People were about to break the curfew and were gathering in Dhaka to march towards her residence.”

But once Sheikh Hasina reluctantly agreed to sign documents relinquishing her post, there was still the question of how to get her out of the country safely.

A senior military official, who did not wish to be named, told BBC Bangla that only the Special Security Force, the Presidential Guard Regiment and some senior military officers at army headquarters knew when Sheikh Hasina signed the resignation letter and boarded the military helicopter that would fly her out of her residence. The whole thing was done quite secretly.

At about 10:30 local time (05:00GMT), the authorities shut down the internet so that no news about Sheikh Hasina’s movements could spread on social media.

It was only reactivated after she had made her getaway.

According to senior army sources, arrangements were put in place to get Sheikh Hasina to the airport safely. There were concerns her convoy might be attacked, so the entire route was cleared and the departure point secured. But in the end, it was not safe to take her by road, so a helicopter was used instead.

Right up to the moment of departure, Sheikh Hasina was reluctant to get on it, her son said.

“She wanted my aunt to leave,” her son said. “My mother did not want to get on the helicopter. I was on the call, persuading my mother, telling my aunt, both of them that she had to leave.”

Once they did, they were flown from Gono Bhaban to a waiting Bangladeshi Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft that had been made ready.

Sajeeb Wazed Joy says he believes they went to Agartala, the capital of India’s eastern state of Tripura and were flown from there to Delhi. India had already been approached and agreed her transit via this route, officials said.

Other accounts say she was taken by helicopter to an airport in Dhaka, then by plane to Delhi.

Whichever route they took, at about 13:30 local time, Ms Hasina, her sister and a senior Awami League MP, Salman Fazlur Rahman, were transferred from the helicopter to the aircraft that took them to Delhi, officials said.

A video on social media showed four or five suitcases on the ground waiting to be loaded. Many of the things she left behind were being carted off by crowds who invaded her residence, even as she was still in the air.

Several hours later, the aircraft landed in Delhi, its passengers’ onward destination unclear.

Back in Dhaka, the internet was back on and all around Bangladesh, celebrations were breaking out marking the end of Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule.

A woman once viewed as a democrat but later reviled by many as a despot had fled like a fugitive under cover of internet darkness.

Banksy has posted another artwork in London, marking the third piece of a new animal-themed collection – this time featuring monkeys.

It is the third black silhouette composition that the Bristol-based street artist has claimed credit for since Monday.

On Wednesday, he posted an image on Instagram of the monkeys looking as though they were swinging on the bridge of an east London Tube station.

It is on a bridge over Brick Lane, near a vintage clothing shop and a coffee house, not far from Shoreditch High Street.

James Peak, who presented BBC’s The Banksy Story, said it “might be the early days of a wider campaign starting up”.

“How exciting if there was an emerging campaign of pieces to be found around London over the next few days or weeks,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme.

“He’s got form for that.”

On Tuesday, the anonymous street artist posted a photo of two elephant silhouettes, with their trunks stretched towards each other, created on the side of a house in Edith Terrace in Chelsea.

He posted an artwork of a goat perched on top of a wall near Kew Bridge in Richmond on Monday.

He did not write a caption for any of the Instagram posts, which has fuelled speculated online about their meaning.

Three monkeys have been associated with the Japanese proverb “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”.

In Banksy’s work, the monkeys are not covering their eyes, ears or mouths.