A year ago, the images were searing.

With Israel still reeling from the worst attack in its history and Gaza already under devastating bombardment, it felt like a turning point.

The Israel-Palestine conflict, largely absent from our screens for years, had exploded back into view.

It seemed to take almost everyone by surprise. The US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan had famously declared just a week before the attacks: “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.”

A year on, the region is in flames.

More than 41,000 Palestinians are dead. Two million Gazans have been displaced. In the West Bank, another 600 Palestinians have been killed. In Lebanon, another one million people are displaced and more than 2,000 dead.

More than 1,200 Israelis were killed on that first day. Since then, Israel has lost 350 more soldiers in Gaza. Two hundred thousand Israelis have been forced from their homes close to Gaza and along the volatile northern border with Lebanon. Around 50 soldiers and civilians have been killed by Hezbollah rockets.

Across the Middle East, others have joined the fight. Dogged US efforts to prevent the crisis from escalating, involving presidential visits, countless diplomatic missions and the deployment of vast military resources, have all come to nothing. Rockets have been fired from far away in Iraq and Yemen.

And mortal enemies Israel and Iran have exchanged blows too, with more almost certain to come.

Washington has rarely looked less influential.

As the conflict has spread and metastasised, its origins have faded from view, like the scene of a car crash receding in the rear view mirror of a juggernaut hurtling towards even bigger disasters.

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• Analysis: Year of killing and broken assumptions has taken Middle East to edge of deeper, wider war
• Gaza then and now – a visual guide to how life has changed in 12 months
• These are the hostages still held by Hamas

The lives of Gazans, before and after October 7, have been almost forgotten as the media breathlessly anticipates “all-out war” in the Middle East.

Some Israelis whose lives were turned upside down that terrible day are feeling similarly neglected.

“We have been pushed aside,” Yehuda Cohen, father of hostage Nimrod Cohen, told Israel’s Kan news last week. Mr Cohen said he held Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu responsible for a “pointless war that has pitted all possible enemies against us”.

“He is doing everything, with great success, to turn the event of October 7 into a minor event,” he said.

Not all Israelis share Mr Cohen’s particular perspective. Many now see the Hamas attacks of a year ago as the opening salvo of a wider campaign by Israel’s enemies to destroy the Jewish state.

The fact that Israel has struck back – with exploding pagers, targeted assassinations, long-range bombing raids and the sort of intelligence-led operations the country has long prided itself on – has restored some of the self-confidence the country lost a year ago.

“There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach,” Mr Netanyahu confidently declared last week.

The prime minister’s poll ratings were rock bottom for months after October 7. Now he can see them creeping up again. A license, perhaps, for more bold action?

But where’s it all going?

“None of us know when the music is going to stop and where everybody will be at that point,” Simon Gass, Britain’s former ambassador to Iran, told the BBC’s Today Podcast on Thursday.

The US is still involved, even if the visit to Israel of US Central Command (Centcom) chief Gen. Michael Kurilla feels more like crisis management than an exploration of diplomatic off-ramps.

With a presidential election now just four weeks away and the Middle East more politically toxic than ever before, this doesn’t feel like a moment for bold new American initiatives.

For now, the immediate challenge is simply to prevent a wider regional conflagration.

There’s a general assumption, among her allies, that Israel has the right – even the duty – to respond to last week’s ballistic missile attack by Iran.

No Israelis were killed in the attack and Iran appeared to be aiming at military and intelligence targets, but Mr Netanyahu has nevertheless promised a harsh response.

After weeks of stunning tactical success, Israel’s prime minister seems to harbour grand ambitions.

In a direct address to the Iranian people, he hinted that regime change was coming in Tehran. “When Iran is finally free, and that moment will come a lot sooner than people think, everything will be different,” he said.

For some observers, his rhetoric carried uncomfortable echoes of the case made by American neoconservatives in the run up to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

But for all the danger of the moment, fragile guardrails do still exist.

The Iranian regime may dream of a world without Israel, but it knows that it’s far too weak to take on the region’s only superpower, especially at a time when Hezbollah and Hamas – its allies and proxies in the so-called “axis of resistance” – are being crushed.

And Israel, which would dearly like to get rid of the threat posed by Iran, also knows that it cannot do this alone, despite its recent successes.

Regime change is not on Joe Biden’s agenda, nor that of his vice president, Kamala Harris.

As for Donald Trump, the one time he seemed poised to attack Iran – after Tehran shot down a US surveillance drone in June 2019 – the former president backed down at the last moment (although he did order the assassination of a top Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani, seven months later).

Few would have imagined, a year ago, that the Middle East was heading for its most perilous moment in decades.

But looked at through that same juggernaut’s rear view mirror, the past 12 months seem to have followed a terrible logic.

With so much wreckage now strewn all across the road, and events still unfolding at an alarming pace, policy makers – and the rest of us – are struggling to keep up.

As the conflict that erupted in Gaza grinds on into a second year, all talk of the “day after” – how Gaza will be rehabilitated and governed when the fighting finally ends – has ceased, or been drowned out by the din of a wider war.

So too has any meaningful discussion of a resolution of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians, the conflict which got us here in the first place.

At some point, when Israel feels it has done enough damage to Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel and Iran have both had their say – assuming this doesn’t plunge the region into an even deeper crisis – and the US presidential election is over, diplomacy may get another chance.

But right now, that all feels a very long way off.

Two grey shapes, visible from satellites for most of this year at Cambodia’s Ream naval base, seem to confirm growing fears in Washington: that China is expanding its military footprint, beyond the three disputed islands in the South China Sea which it has already seized and fortified.

The shapes are type 056A corvettes of the Chinese navy – 1,500-tonne warships – and they have been berthed alongside a new, Chinese-built pier that is big enough to accommodate much larger vessels. Onshore there are other facilities, also built by China, which are presumed to be for the use of the Chinese navy.

The Cambodian government has repeatedly denied such a possibility, citing its constitution which bans any permanent foreign military presence, and stating that Ream is open to use by all friendly navies.

“Please understand this is a Cambodian, not a Chinese base,” said Seun Sam, a Policy Analyst at the Royal Academy of Cambodia. “Cambodia is very small, and our military capacities are limited.

“We need more training from outside friends, especially from China.”

Others, however, are watching with suspicion.

For all the talk about the rapid rise of Chinese sea power – the country now has more ships in its navy than the US – China currently has only one overseas military base, in the African state of Djibouti, which it built in 2016.

The United States, by contrast, has around 750 – one also in Djibouti, and many others in countries close to China like Japan and South Korea.

The US believes the imbalance is changing, however, because of China’s stated ambition to be a global military power. That, and the scale of its investments in overseas infrastructure through the Belt and Road Initiative, which under Chinese law must be built to military standards.

Some in Washington predict that China will eventually have a global network of bases, or civilian ports that it can use as bases. And one of the first of these is Ream.

Until a few years ago, Ream – which sits on Cambodia’s southern tip – was being upgraded with US assistance; part of the tens of millions of dollars’ worth of yearly military aid provided to Cambodia. But the US cut back this aid after 2017, when Cambodia’s main opposition party was banned and its leaders exiled or jailed.

Already increasingly dependent on Chinese aid and investment, the Cambodian government abruptly switched partners. It cancelled the regular joint military exercises held with the US, and switched to the so-called Golden Dragon exercises it now holds with China.

By 2020, two US-funded buildings in Ream had been torn down and an extensive, Chinese-funded expansion of the facilities there had begun. By the end of last year the new pier had been built. It was almost identical to the 363 metre-long pier at the base in Djibouti, and long enough to accommodate China’s largest aircraft carrier.

Soon the two corvettes were docked at Ream – and either they, or identical replacements, have stayed there for most of this year.

Cambodia claims the ships are for training, and to prepare for this year’s Golden Dragon exercises. It also says China is constructing two new 056A corvettes for its own navy, and insists that the Chinese presence in Ream is not permanent, so does not count as a base.

That has not stopped US officials from expressing their concern over the expansion of the site, though, which satellite photographs show has, in addition to the new pier, a new dry dock, warehouses, and what look like administrative offices and living quarters with four basketball courts.

In 2019 the Wall Street Journal reported on what it said was a leaked agreement between Cambodia and China to lease 77 hectares of the base for 30 years. This allegedly included the stationing of military personnel and weapons.

The Cambodian government dismissed the report as fake news – but it is noteworthy that only Chinese warships have so far been allowed to dock at the new pier. Two Japanese destroyers visiting in February were instead told to dock at the nearby town of Sihanoukville.

Even if the Chinese presence does start to become more permanent and exclusive, however, some analysts doubt it would violate Cambodia’s constitution.

It is technically true that Ream is not a permanent base. And while its expansion is Chinese-funded, the base itself is not leased to China, said Kirsten Gunness, a Senior Policy Researcher at the California-based Rand Corporation.

“We are seeing a pattern of Chinese ships being continuously docked [at Ream],” she said. “One way to get around the constitutional prohibition is not to call it a foreign base, but allow foreign forces continuous access on a rotational basis.”

The US and the Philippines operate under similar agreements, Gunness added.

Most analysts believe a long-term Chinese presence at Ream would offer very few real advantages to China. They point to the three bases it has already built on Mischief, Fiery Cross and Subi Reefs in the South China Sea, and the formidable naval forces it maintains on its south coast.

But a Chinese base in Ream, at the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand, does worry Cambodia’s neighbours, Thailand and Vietnam. Together with other bases further north, it could be seen as an attempt by China to encircle the long Vietnamese coast.

Like the Philippines, Vietnam disputes China’s claim to almost all the islands in the South China Sea, and its forces have clashed with China’s in the past.

Thai national security officials have also privately expressed alarm at the thought of a Chinese base just south of the Thai navy’s main port in Sattahip, covering their exit from the Gulf of Thailand. Thailand and Cambodia still have unresolved territorial disputes, after all.

Neither country is likely to voice these complaints publicly, though. Thailand will want to avoid causing ripples in its economically vital relationship with China, while Vietnam will want to avoid stirring up anti-Vietnamese sentiment in Cambodia. Public resentment of China in Vietnam, where such feelings are never far from the surface, is also something the Vietnamese government will want to steer clear of.

US and Indian strategists, meanwhile, are more concerned about the future possibility of a Chinese base in the Indian Ocean – like the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota, which a Chinese state-owned company acquired a 99-year lease for in 2017, or the port of Gwadar in Pakistan, which has also been redeveloped with Chinese funding.

But these are still very distant prospects. Few analysts believe China will be able to rival the global military reach of the US for many more years.

“The Ream base does not add much in the way of power projection – it doesn’t get the Chinese navy any closer to places it wants to go,” said Greg Poling, director of the CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.

What it could do is make a big difference in gathering intelligence, tracking satellites and detecting or monitoring long-range targets.

“These are not necessarily the best options for China,” Mr Poling added. “But they are the only ones on offer.”

The northern Indian state of Haryana and Indian-administered Kashmir sprang surprises on Tuesday as votes were counted in assembly elections there.

Most exit polls had predicted a hung assembly in Kashmir but an alliance of the main opposition Congress and the National Conference Party (NCP) are on course for a landslide in the 90-member house and poised to form a government.

In Haryana, which also has 90 seats, predictions of a Congress landslide were upended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which has proved the pollsters wrong.

The BJP-led government appears on course to return for a rare third consecutive term in Haryana.

The polls in Kashmir are significant as these are first assembly elections there in a decade – and also the first since the federal government revoked the region’s autonomy and changed the former state into a federally- governed territory in 2019.

Unlike Kashmir – which India and its neighbour Pakistan have fought wars over – Haryana does not often command global headlines.

But the tiny state grabs much attention in India as it is next to the capital, Delhi. Along with Punjab, it is called the bread basket of India for its large wheat and paddy farms, and the city of Gurugram is home to offices of some of the biggest global brands such as Google, Dell and Samsung.

The results are being watched keenly in India as these are the first state assembly polls since the summer parliamentary election. Analysts say Tuesday’s results will set the tone as the country heads into more regional elections, including in the state of Maharashtra and Delhi, over the next few months.

Perhaps the best description of what transpired in the state has come from political scientist Sandeep Shastri.

“The Congress has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory,” he told the BBC.

For weeks, political circles had been abuzz that the BJP was facing a huge wave of anti-incumbency and analysts were confidently saying that the party’s government was on its way out.

After most of the post-election exit polls predicted a Congress landslide, many said it was an election for the party to lose.

Shastri blames the Congress defeat on overconfidence and infighting within the party.

“They were confident they would win and became complacent. BJP, on the other hand, worked on issues quietly on the ground and successfully fought anti-incumbency to return to power.”

Both parties, he said, tried to form social coalitions by bringing together different caste groups – the results show the majority chose to support the BJP.

Shastri says differences between two top Congress leaders – Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Kumari Selja, who were contenders for the chief minister’s post – did not go down well with the voters.

Tuesday’s count, however, has been mired in controversy with the Congress accusing the Election Commission (EC) of delaying updating numbers on their website.

After party leader Jairam Ramesh submitted a complaint letter to the Election Commission, Selja said her party may still come out on top.

“I am telling you… there is something going on. If all goes well, Congress will form the government in Haryana,” she said.

But with numbers not on their side, that will likely remain a dream.

The EC has denied the allegations.

In the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, the Hindu nationalist BJP has little support, but it enjoys tremendous goodwill in the Hindu-dominated Jammu region. And the results reflect that divide. But the Congress-NC alliance has enough seats and is headed to form a government in the state.

The Modi government’s 2019 decision to scrap Article 370 of the constitution, which granted special status to Kashmir, and carve the state into two sent shockwaves around the valley, which elects 47 assembly seats.

At his campaign rallies, Modi had promised to restore the region’s “statehood”. But as the results show, that failed to placate angry voters.

The region saw a surprisingly high turnout – but as political analyst Sheikh Showkat Hussain says, they were voting against the BJP and the revocation of the region’s special status.

• Article 370: What happened with Kashmir and why it matters
• Modi’s BJP ahead in Haryana election but trails in Kashmir

“The BJP made this election into a sort of referendum on its decision [to revoke Article 370]. However, people voted in favour of the stand taken by the regional parties,” he said.

Noor Mohammad Baba, another political analyst in Kashmir, says the results reveal that the BJP’s “policies weren’t popular” in the region.

“The result is a message to Delhi that they need to mend their policies towards Jammu and Kashmir,” he added.

One surprising outcome of the election has been the poor showing by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), led by former Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti.

Mufti, who earlier ruled in coalition with the BJP, has managed to win only three seats.

Responding to a query about her party’s poor performance, she said it was the “people’s choice”.

“Winning or losing is a part of politics. People feel that Congress and National Conference will give them a stable government and keep the BJP at bay. We respect their verdict,” she added.

Russia’s intelligence agency has been on a mission to generate “sustained mayhem on British and European streets”, the head of MI5 has said.

Giving his annual update on security threats faced by the UK, Ken McCallum said GRU agents had carried out “arson, sabotage and more dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness” in Britain after the UK backed Ukraine in its war with Russia.

MI5 had also responded to 20 plots backed by Iran since 2022, although he added the majority of its work still mostly involved Islamist extremism followed by extreme right-wing terrorism.

The complex mix of terror-related threats and threats from nation states meant MI5 had “one hell of a job on its hands”, he warned.

In a wide-ranging speech, he said:

• Young people are increasingly being drawn into online extremism, with 13% of those investigated for terrorism involvement aged under 18
• A total of 43 late-stage plots involving firearms and explosives to commit “mass murder” in the UK have been foiled since 2017
• The number of state-threat investigations by MI5 had increased by 48%
• Counter-terrorism work remained split between “75% Islamist extremism, 25% extreme right-wing terrorism”

There were a “dizzying range of beliefs and ideologies” MI5 had to deal with, he told the briefing at MI5’s counter-terrorism operations centre in London.

“The first 20 years of my career here were crammed full of terrorist threats. We now face those alongside state-backed assassination and sabotage plots, against the backdrop of a major European land war,” he said.

The UK’s “leading role” in supporting Ukraine means “we loom large in the fevered imagination of Putin’s regime” and further acts of aggression on UK soil should be expected, he warned.

The UK’s current terror threat level is substantial – meaning an attack is likely.

More than 750 Russian diplomats had been expelled from Europe since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying “a great majority of them” were spies, Mr McCallum said.

This affected the Russian intelligence services’ capability, he explained, and added that diplomatic visas had been denied to those Britain and allies considered Russian spies.

Russian state actors turned to proxies, such as private intelligence operatives and criminals, to do “their dirty work”, but this affected the professionalism of their operations and made them easier to disrupt.

While Mr McCallum has spoken publicly before about both the Russian and Iranian threats he has not previously accused Moscow in such stark terms.

In a previous public address he referred to 10 plots against Iranians in the UK. That number has now doubled, implying that Iranian state activity is undeterred by the threat of being caught.

In both cases, Russia and Iran, the MI5 boss stressed that because it was difficult to almost impossible for their accredited diplomats to carry out such actions they were turning increasingly to underworld criminal gangs.

On China, he said the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had a programme to steal data and information from the UK and “we have seen 20,000 obfuscated approaches to individuals by China”.

The number of young people being drawn into online extremism is growing, Mr McCallum warned.

About 13% of those investigated for involvement in terrorism were under 18 – a threefold increase in the last three years.

“Canny online memes” draw young people into extreme ideologies, he warned.

The security agency was seeing “far too many cases where very young people are being drawn into poisonous online extremism”.

Responding to questions from reporters, he reiterated concerns about the role of the internet being the “biggest factor” driving the trend, and described how easily youngsters could access material from their bedrooms.

A high proportion of the threat was made up by “lone individuals indoctrinated online” he said.

“In dark corners of the internet, talk is cheap. Sorting the real plotters from armchair extremists is an exacting task,” he said.

“Anonymous online connections are often inconsequential, but a minority lead to deadly, real world actions.”

Home Office figures published last month show that of 242 people detained on suspicion of terror offences in the year to June, 17% (40) were aged 17 and under.

Sir Keir Starmer acknowledged the “sober findings” outlined by Mr McCallum but said the public should be “reassured that our security services are world class and will do everything necessary to keep us safe”.

China has imposed taxes on imports of European brandy in a move that France has said is retaliation for recent big tariffs the EU announced on Chinese electric vehicles.

The European Commission said it would challenge China’s tax at the World Trade Organization (WTO), calling it an “abuse” of trade defence measures.

But China said the move was an “anti-dumping” measure that would protect its domestic producers.

French brandy producers said the duties, which will hit big brands including Hennessy and Remy Martin, would be “catastrophic” for the industry.

Shares in brandy companies dropped after the announcement.

China announced new restrictions on European brandy just days after EU countries approved steep tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles.

China’s commerce ministry said brandy imports threaten “substantial damage” to its own producers. Importers will have to pay “security deposits” on European brandy.

China is also considering new tariffs on other EU imports including cars, pork, and dairy.

It has said EU tariffs on its electric vehicles are a breach of global trade rules.

French Trade Minister Sophie Primas said the brandy tax “seems to be a retaliatory measure” after the European Union decision to raise tariffs on Chinese electric cars.

She said that kind of retaliation would be “unacceptable”, and a “total contradiction” of international trade rules, adding that France would work with the European Union to take action at the WTO.

France accounts for 99% of brandy exported to China, and French cognac lobby group BNIC said the move would be “catastrophic” for the industry.

“The French authorities cannot abandon us and leave us alone to deal with Chinese retaliation that has nothing to do with us,” BNIC said, adding that the taxes “must be suspended before it’s too late”.

Shares in companies that sell spirits took a battering after the Chinese announcement.

Luxury firm LVMH, which produces Hennessy, fell more than 3%, while Remy Cointreau, which makes Remy Martin, fell more than 8%.

Analysts at Jefferies estimate that the tariffs could translate into a 20% price increase for consumers, which would probably lead to volumes and supplier sales falling by a fifth.

Shares in German carmakers, which could also be hit by tariff moves from China, also slid.

Volkswagen, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and BMW were all down after the announcement.

More than a dozen states in the US have sued TikTok, accusing the social media platform of helping to drive a mental health crisis among teenagers.

A bipartisan group of 14 attorneys general from across the country allege that the company uses addictive features to hook children to the app and that it has intentionally misled the public about the safety of prolonged use.

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It adds to the legal woes facing the wildly popular app, which more than half of US teenagers are estimated to use multiple times a day.

TikTok is already battling a law passed by Congress in April that would ban it from the US, unless Chinese parent company Bytedance agreed to a sale.

“TikTok knows that compulsive use of and other harmful effects of its platform are wreaking havoc on the mental health of millions of American children and teenagers,” said the lawsuit filed in New York on Tuesday.

“Despite such documented knowledge, TikTok continually misrepresents its platform as ‘safe’ [and] ‘appropriate for children and teenagers’.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James said young people across the country had died or been injured doing TikTok “challenges” and many others were feeling “more sad, anxious and depressed because of TikTok’s addictive features”.

She cited a 15-year-old boy, who died in Manhattan while “subway surfing” – riding on top of a moving subway car. His mother later found TikTok videos of such activity on his phone, she said.

“TikTok claims that their platform is safe for young people, but that is far from true,” Ms James said in a statement announcing the action.

The lawsuit singles out certain features as problematic: alerts that disrupt sleep; videos that vanish, driving users to check the platform frequently; and beauty filters that allow users to augment their appearance.

Though TikTok has promoted tools aimed at helping people limit their screen-time or resetting what content they are served, it has misrepresented their effectiveness, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuits were filed by 13 states separately and in the District of Columbia, where the attorney general also accused the company of running an unlicensed money transmission business via its “virtual currency” offering.

The lawsuit asks the court to bar TikTok from such conduct and seeks financial penalties.

Regulators have launched similar cases against Facebook and Instagram for their impact on young people’s mental health.

States such as Texas and Utah have also previously filed similar suits against TikTok focused on child safety.

The Federal Trade Commission, a national watchdog, also accused TikTok of violating child privacy laws in August.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has sent a birthday message to Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling him his “closest comrade”.

Kim, congratulating Putin on his 72nd birthday, added that relations between both countries would be raised to a new level.

Relations between Pyongyang and Moscow have deepened since the start of the Ukraine war – in a move that has worried the West.

Separately on Tuesday, Kim said Pyongyang would speed up steps to make his country a military super power with nuclear weapons.

According to Yonhap News quoting North Korean state media KCNA, Kim praised relations between both countries, saying they had become “invincible and eternal”, since Putin’s visit to Pyongyang in June.

“Meetings and comradely ties between us… will make a positive contribution to further consolidating the eternal foundation of the DPRK-Russia friendship,” he added, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The relationship between North Korea and Russia goes back decades – to Stalin and Kim Il-sung, the current Kim’s grandfather. The Soviet Union supported North Korea in its early days with weapons and technology, and Pyongyang has never wanted to completely rely on China – which it does not fully trust.

Earlier this year, Putin and Kim signed an agreement pledging that they would help each other in the event of “aggression” against either country – though it was unclear what would constitute aggression.

Kim has been accused of helping Russia in the war against Ukraine by supplying it with weapons in exchange for economic and technological assistance.

There has been growing evidence that Russia has been deploying North Korean missiles in Ukraine.

For Putin, the relationship is likely more tactical than strategic. He needs support for his war in Ukraine and North Korea will certainly be willing to sell him whatever munitions he is willing to pay for.

Jeffrey Lewis, a director at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, had earlier said both Kim and Putin were “trying to reduce the pain of international sanctions by creating an alternate network of friends and partners beyond the reach of US sanctions”.

North Korea certainly can benefit enormously from access to Russian military technology – which despite Russia’s problems is still far more advanced than North Korea’s homegrown and reverse-engineered systems.

North Korea is primarily trying to perfect its nuclear and missile arsenal. It has made very surprising progress in the last decade in producing new missile systems and miniaturising its nuclear devices.

But Russia has far more advanced thermonuclear warhead designs, re-entry vehicle designs and solid rocket motor designs.

During a visit by Kim to Russia in September 2023, Putin had promised to help North Korea develop its satellites, after several failed launches by Pyongyang.

A South Korean lawmaker also separately on Tuesday claimed that Seoul’s military had detected apparent signs that North Korea had started to build a possible nuclear-powered submarine.

Citing Korea’s intelligence agency, Rep Kang Dae-sik said construction was still in its early stages and “further confirmation is needed on whether it is nuclear powered”.

The main suspect in the disappearance of three-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann, has been cleared by a German court of rape and sexual abuse in an unrelated trial.

Christian Brückner, 47, was acquitted of carrying out five offences in Portugal between 2000 and 2017. He is already serving a seven-year jail term in Germany for rape.

Brückner has not been charged in the case of Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in Portugal in 2007 and has never been found.

Brückner’s defence team had argued he should be cleared because of a lack of evidence, although prosecutors had called for the court in Braunschweig in northern Germany to impose an additional 15-year jail term.

Brückner’s existing seven-year jail term, imposed by the court in Braunschweig in 2019 for raping an American pensioner, ends next September according to prosecutors.

Presiding Judge Uta Engemann said there was insufficient evidence for a conviction and some of the witnesses were unreliable.

District prosecutor Christian Wolters told the BBC they would appeal against Tuesday’s verdict to the Federal Court of Justice, and until then the verdict was not legally binding.

Although he spent many years in the Algarve region of Portugal, Brückner moved between there and his native Germany and was identified as a suspect by German investigators in the Madeleine McCann case in 2020.

She had been on holiday with her family in the Algarve when she vanished from their apartment in Praia da Luz. German prosecutors are convinced she is no longer alive.

Brückner was put on trial in Braunschweig as that was where he was last listed as living. Although unrelated to the McCann case, his latest rape trial prompted widespread international interest when it began in February.

However, during the summer the court lifted an arrest warrant in connection with the case, which was seen by some observers as an early indication that Brückner could be acquitted.

Brückner himself did not give evidence during the trial, but his lawyer, Friedrich Fülscher, said on Monday that acquittal was “the only correct outcome of the case” because two of the rape victims, a teenager and an elderly woman, had never been identified and the witnesses were not credible.

A key witness had earlier told the trial that he had broken into Brückner’s home in Portugal and found videos involving the rape of a girl and a woman aged 70 to 80.

An Irish woman, Hazel Behan, later told the court she had been raped when she was 20 by a masked man who broke into her flat in Portugal in 2004. She waived her anonymity for the trial and described how she had never forgotten Brückner’s bright eyes, which she said had “bored into my skull”.

Ms Behan told the court that she believed he was her attacker.

Prosecutors had previously said one of the rape charges should be dropped.

They have sought to ensure Brückner remains in preventive detention when his jail term ends next year.

However, Brückner’s defence lawyer has said he also intends to challenge the 2019 rape conviction.

His acquittal in the latest trial has raised questions about the prosecutors’ separate case involving the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

Legally there is no connection between the two. The judge made that clear when she delivered the acquittal, saying that the verdict had to be carried out on the basis of evidence for the charges in question, and should not be influenced by other cases or by a public media debate.

However, some of the witnesses deemed unreliable by the judge were potential witnesses in the McCann case as well, so Tuesday’s verdict may have further repercussions.

The district prosecutor disagreed with the court’s characterisation of some of the witnesses as unreliable and told the BBC the verdict would not have an impact on their Madeleine McCann inquiry.

Their next step is likely to depend on their appeal to the federal court of justice.

The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to two scientists, Geoffrey Hinton and John Hopfield, for their work on machine learning.

British-Canadian Professor Hinton is sometimes referred to as the “Godfather of AI” and said he was flabbergasted.

He resigned from Google in 2023, and has warned about the dangers of machines that could outsmart humans.

The announcement was made by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences at a press conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

American Professor John Hopfield, 91, is a professor at Princeton University in the US, and Prof Hinton, 76, is a professor at University of Toronto in Canada.

Machine learning is key to artificial intelligence as it develops how a computer can train itself to generate information.

It drives a vast range of technology that we use today from how we search the internet to editing photographs on our phones.

“I had no idea this would happen. I’m very surprised,” said Prof Hinton, speaking on the phone to the Academy minutes after the announcement.

He said he was in a hotel with bad internet in California and thought he might need to cancel the rest of his day’s plans.

The Academy listed some of the crucial applications of the two scientists’ work, including improving climate modelling, development of solar cells, and analysis of medical images.

Prof Hinton’s pioneering research on neural networks paved the way for current AI systems like ChatGPT.

In artificial intelligence, neural networks are systems that are similar to the human brain in the way they learn and process information. They enable AIs to learn from experience, as a person would. This is called deep learning.

Prof Hinton said his work on artificial neural networks was revolutionary.

“It’s going to be like the Industrial Revolution – but instead of our physical capabilities, it’s going to exceed our intellectual capabilities,” he said.

But he said he also had concerns about the future. He was asked if he regretted his life’s work as he told journalist last year.

In reply, he said he would do the same work again, “but I worry that the overall consequences of this might be systems that are more intelligent than us that might eventually take control”.

He also said he uses the AI chatbot ChatGPT4 for many things now but with the knowledge that it does not always get the answer right.

Professor John Hopfield invented a network that can save and recreate patterns.

It uses physics that describes a material’s characteristics due to atomic spin.

In a similar way to how the brain tries to recall words by using associated but incomplete words, Prof Hopfield developed a network that can use incomplete patterns to find the most similar.

The Nobel Prize committee said the two scientists’ work has become part of our daily lives, including in facial recognition and language translation.

But Ellen Moons, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said “its rapid development has also raised concerns about our future collectively”.

The winners share a prize fund worth 11m Swedish kronor (£810,000).

When Prof Hinton resigned from Google last year, he told the BBC some of the dangers of AI chatbots were “quite scary”.

He also said at the time that his age had played into his decision to leave the tech giant.

Earlier this year, in an interview with BBC Newsnight, he said the UK government will have to establish a universal basic income to deal with the impact of AI on inequality, as he was “very worried about AI taking lots of mundane jobs”.

He added that while AI would increase productivity and wealth, the money would go to the rich “and not the people whose jobs get lost and that’s going to be very bad for society”.

In the same interview, he said developments over the last year showed governments were unwilling to rein in military use of AI while the competition to develop products rapidly meant there was a risk tech companies wouldn’t “put enough effort into safety”.

Prof Hinton said “my guess is in between five and 20 years from now there’s a probability of half that we’ll have to confront the problem of AI trying to take over”.

• 2023 – Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier for work on attoseconds – extremely short pulses of light that can be used to capture and study rapid processes inside atoms;

• 2022 – Alain Aspect, American John Clauser and Austrian Anton Zeilinger for research into quantum mechanics – the science that describes nature at the smallest scales;

• 2021 – Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi were given the prize for advancing our understanding of complex systems, such as Earth’s climate;

• 2020 – Sir Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez received the prize for their work on the nature of black holes;

• 2019 – James Peebles, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz shared the prize for ground-breaking discoveries about the Universe;

• 2018 – Donna Strickland, Arthur Ashkin and Gerard Mourou were awarded the prize for their discoveries in the field of laser physics.

US Vice-President Kamala Harris was pressed on issues including the Middle East, Ukraine, gun ownership and immigration during a one-on-one interview with CBS News’ 60 Minutes.

The recorded interview comes as Harris ramps up media appearances on a series of podcasts and TV networks amid criticism that she has made very few.

Donald Trump also was invited to 60 Minutes, but declined.

There is less than a month to go before Election Day in the race for the White House between the Democrat and her Republican opponent.

The interview on CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, aired Monday night after both Harris and Trump appeared at events to commemorate one year since the 7 October attack on Israel.

Harris declined to agree when asked by reporter Bill Whitaker whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a “strong ally” of the United States, after recent public disagreements between the White House and Jerusalem.

“The work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles,” Harris said.

“I think, with all due respect, the better question is, do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people,” she continued. “And the answer to that question is yes.”

In a more tense moment, Harris also was pressed to defend her immigration record, which has been heavily attacked by Trump and Republicans.

Mr Whitaker asked her whether it was a “mistake” to loosen border restrictions put in place during Trump’s presidency, given that the Biden-Harris administration re-enacted restrictions three years after taking control of the White House.

“It’s a longstanding problem. And solutions are at hand. And from day one, literally, we have been offering solutions,” she said, blaming Trump for pressuring Republicans in Congress to torpedo a border deal that would have increased immigration enforcement.

The reporter responded: “What I was asking was, was it a mistake to kind of allow that flood to happen in the first place?”

Harris replied that “the policies that we have been proposing are about fixing a problem, not promoting a problem”. She said that she and Biden have “cut the flow of illegal immigration by half”.

On Ukraine, Harris said she would not sit down with Russian President Vladimir Putin unless Ukraine was also at the table.

She slammed Trump’s position, saying: “He talks about, oh, he can end it on day one. You know what that is? It’s about surrender,” she said.

If Trump was still president, she said, “Putin would be in Kyiv right now”.

She also was asked about her economic plan and how her administration would fund its plans, which could add $3tr (£2.3tr) to the US national deficit over the next decade.

“My economic plan would strengthen America’s economy. His would weaken it,” she said, adding that her plan relied on “strengthening small businesses”.

Asked again how she would pay for it, Harris responded that she would raise taxes on “the richest among us who can afford it”.

On Monday, a new analysis by the non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found Trump’s proposals would increase the US national debt by double the amount of Harris’.

Trump would add $7.5tn and Harris would add $3.5tn, the group said.

The think tank warned that neither was addressing the country’s growing $35.6tn debt.

• US debt would increase under Harris and soar under Trump – study
• Election polls – is Harris or Trump ahead?

In her interview, Harris also discussed owning a firearm, revealing that her pistol is made by Austrian company Glock.

“I’ve had it for quite some time,” she said, noting that her “background is in law enforcement”.

Harris, a former district attorney in California, laughed when asked if she had ever fired it, saying, “of course I have, at a shooting range.”

Also speaking on the same programme, Harris’s running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, criticised Trump for his comments on his opponents and migrants.

“They’re dehumanising, they go beyond weird because, I said this, it becomes almost dangerous. Let’s try to debate policy in a real way and let’s try to find objective truth again.”

He also defended his record of making false statements about his military service and travels in Asia in the 1980s.

Walz described himself as a guy “telling a story, getting a date wrong”, rather than a “pathological liar” like Trump.

“I will own up to being a knucklehead at times, but the folks closest to me know that I keep my word.”

Trump also was invited to 60 Minutes. He accepted, but later changed his mind and declined, according to CBS.

Trump’s campaign disputed that he ever agreed to be interviewed. His spokesman, Steven Cheung called it “fake news”.

During his 2020 presidential campaign, Trump walked out of his interview with CBS presenter Leslie Stahl after growing frustrated with questions about Covid-19.

Earlier on Monday, Harris commemorated those killed or taken hostage on 7 October by planting a pomegranate tree at the vice-president’s residence in Washington.

“A symbol of hope and righteousness… to remind future vice-presidents of the United States not only of the horror of October 7th but the strength and endurance of the Jewish people,” Harris said.

Former President Donald Trump donned a black yarmulke as he visited Ohel Chabad Lubavitch, the final resting place of Rabbi Schneerson in Queens, New York on Monday.

The site is considered the holiest Jewish site in North America, according to some Orthodox Jews.

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North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Lebanon’s prime minister at the time of its last war with Israel in 2006 has told the BBC his country has been abandoned by the international community.

Fouad Siniora said it was unacceptable to leave Lebanon to fall, and there was a lack of initiative when it came to trying to restore peace.

“We are now in a very difficult situation that requires real effort locally, as well on the Arab side and internationally.

“You can push things – sometimes to the brink of falling – in a major catastrophe without really realising what it means later on.

“It’s happening at a time when the American administration is so busy with the elections.

“And we are unable to elect a president, because some groups in the country, particularly Hezbollah, have been insisting that they want a president that will not stab that group in the back,” Siniora said.

The last war between Lebanon and Israel, nearly 20 years ago, began when Hezbollah fighters crossed the border and attacked Israeli soldiers. Two were kidnapped and three were killed, sparking a month-long conflict.

In the days that followed, Siniora made a public statement distancing the Lebanese government from what had happened.

He thinks the country’s current leaders have failed their people by not doing the same thing.

“This government did not do what my government did that day. My government was very clear and determined in stating that we were not aware, and we were not informed, of Hezbollah’s plan to cross the Blue Line on the border and to kidnap and kill Israeli soldiers.

“This time there hasn’t been any move made by the Lebanese government. The advantage of what we did is that we created a distance between the Lebanese government and Lebanon on the one hand, and Hezbollah on the other,” he explained.

Siniora is unflinching in his assessment of Lebanon’s lost sovereignty.

“Practically, Lebanon as a state has been kidnapped by Hezbollah. And behind Hezbollah is Iran.

“This gun that was held by Hezbollah, instead of being pointed towards Israel, started to be pointed domestically and started to be used as a way for Iran to interfere in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen. Lebanon can’t get involved in such a war.”

Siniora was also one of the architects of UN resolution 1701, the agreement which ended the 2006 war.

Among its conditions was that a swathe of southern Lebanon – the area south of the landmark Litani river – should be kept as a buffer zone between the two sides, free of any Hezbollah fighters or weapons.

Despite the deployment of the UN peacekeeping force Unifil and the presence of the Lebanese army, that didn’t happen. Hezbollah’s people, and its military infrastructure, remained bedded into the area.

This vacuum at the top of the Lebanese political system has made Hezbollah’s influence on the country particularly difficult to control.

Lebanon has been without a properly functioning government since its last set of elections in 2022, being run instead by a caretaker administration.

When President Michel Aoun’s term ended nearly two years ago, lawmakers couldn’t agree on his replacement – so the job remains empty. Many Lebanese believe leadership is in short supply.

Siniora is also clear that the conflict in Lebanon should not be inextricably linked to the current year-old war in Gaza.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has visited regional capitals, calling for simultaneous ceasefires in both Lebanon and Gaza.

“Since October 2023 things have been dragging and getting worse and worse. Many chances were made available to dissociate the Lebanese situation from Gaza. It’s very important nationally and from an Arab point of view to associate with Gaza,” Siniora said.

“But particularly now Lebanon cannot afford, in principle, to get involved in such a matter.

“When the Gaza situation has become 2.2 million Palestinians homeless and all of Gaza destroyed, to continue to link Lebanon’s situation with Gaza is not wise.”

Millions of people in the Middle East dream of safe, quiet lives without drama and violent death. The last year of war, as bad as any in the region in modern times, has shown yet again that dreams of peace cannot come true while deep political, strategic and religious fault lines remain unbridged. Once again, war is reshaping the politics of the Middle East.

The Hamas offensive came out of well over a century of unresolved conflict. After Hamas burst through the thinly defended border, it inflicted the worst day the Israelis had suffered.

Around 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, were killed. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, phoned President Joe Biden and told him that “We’ve never seen such savagery in the history of the state”; not “since the Holocaust.” Israel saw the attacks by Hamas as a threat to its existence.

Since then, Israel has inflicted many terrible days on the Palestinians in Gaza. Nearly 42,000 people, mostly civilians have been killed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Much of Gaza is in ruins. Palestinians accuse Israel of genocide.

The war has spread. Twelve months after Hamas went on the offensive the Middle East is on the edge of an even worse war; wider, deeper, even more destructive.

A year of killing has stripped away layers of assumptions and illusions. One is Benjamin Netanyahu’s belief that he could manage the Palestinian issue without making concessions to their demands for self-determination.

With that went the wishful thinking that had comforted Israel’s worried Western allies. Leaders in the US and UK, and others, had convinced themselves that Netanyahu, despite opposing a Palestinian state alongside Israel all his political life, could somehow be persuaded to accept one to end the war.

Netanyahu’s refusal reflected almost universal distrust of Palestinians inside Israel as well as his own ideology. It also torpedoed an ambitious American peace plan.

President Biden’s “grand bargain” proposed that Israel would receive full diplomatic recognition by Saudi Arabia, the most influential Islamic country, in return for allowing Palestinian independence. The Saudis would be rewarded with a security pact with the US.

The Biden plan fell at the first hurdle. Netanyahu said in February that statehood would be “huge reward” for Hamas. Bezalel Smotrich, one of the ultra-nationalist extremists in his cabinet, said it would be an “existential threat” to Israel.

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The Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, presumed to be alive, somewhere in Gaza had his own illusions. A year ago, he must have hoped that the rest of Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance” would join, with full force, into a war to cripple Israel. He was wrong.

Sinwar kept his plans to attack Israel on 7 October so secret that he took his enemy by surprise. He also surprised some on his own side. Diplomatic sources told the BBC that Sinwar might not even have shared his plans with his own organisation’s exiled political leadership in Qatar. They had notoriously lax security protocols, talking on open lines that could be easily overheard, one source said.

Far from going on the offensive, Iran made it clear it did not want a wider war, as Israel invaded Gaza and President Biden ordered American carrier strike groups to move closer to protect Israel.

Instead, Hassan Nasrallah, and his friend and ally, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, restricted themselves to rocketing Israel’s northern border, which they said would continue until a ceasefire in Gaza. The targets were mostly military, but Israel evacuated more than 60,000 people away from the border. In Lebanon, perhaps twice as many had to flee over the months as Israel hit back.

Israel made clear it would not tolerate an indefinite war of attrition with Hezbollah. Even so, the conventional wisdom was that Israel would be deterred by Hezbollah’s formidable fighting record in previous wars and its arsenal of missiles, provided by Iran.

In September, Israel went on the offensive. No one outside the senior ranks of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Mossad spy agency believed so much damage could be inflicted so quickly on Iran’s most powerful ally.

Israel remotely exploded booby-trapped pagers and radios, destroying Hezbollah’s communications and killing leaders. It launched one of the most intense bombing campaigns in modern warfare. On its first day Israel killed about 600 Lebanese people, including many civilians.

The offensive has blown a big hole in Iran’s belief that its network of allies cemented its strategy to deter and intimidate Israel. The key moment came on 27 September, with the huge air strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut that killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah and many of his top lieutenants. Nasrallah was a vital part of Iran’s “axis of resistance”, its informal alliance and defence network of allies and proxies.

Israel broke out of the border war by escalating to a bigger one. If the strategic intention was to force Hezbollah to cease fire and pull back from the border, it failed. The offensive, and invasion of south Lebanon, has not deterred Iran.

Iran seems to have concluded that its open reluctance to risk a wider war was encouraging Israel to push harder. Hitting back was risky, and guaranteed an Israeli response, but for the supreme leader and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, it had become the least bad option.

On Tuesday 1 October, Iran attacked Israel with ballistic missiles.

___

Kibbutz Kfar Aza is very close to the wire that was supposed to protect Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip. The kibbutz was a small community, with modest homes on an open-plan campus of lawns and neat gardens. Kfar Aza was one of Hamas’s first targets on 7 October. Sixty-two people from the kibbutz were killed by Hamas. Of the 19 hostages taken from there into Gaza, two were killed by Israeli troops after they escaped from captivity. Five hostages from Kfar Aza are still in Gaza.

The Israeli army took journalists into Kfar Aza on 10 October last year, when it was still a battle zone. We saw Israeli combat troops dug into the fields around the kibbutz and could hear gunfire as they cleared buildings where they suspected Hamas fighters might be sheltering. Israeli civilians killed by Hamas were being carried out in body bags from the ruins of their homes. Hamas fighters killed by Israeli soldiers as they fought their way into the kibbutz still lay on the neat lawns, turning black as they decomposed in the strong Mediterranean sun.

A year later the dead are buried but very little has changed. The living have not returned to live in their homes. Ruined houses have been preserved as they were when I saw them on 10 October last year, except the names and photos of the people who lived and were killed inside them are displayed on big posters and memorials.

Zohar Shpak, a resident who survived the attack with his family, showed us round the homes of neighbours who were not as lucky. One of the houses had a large photo on its wall of the young couple who lived there, both killed by Hamas on 7 October. The ground around the houses has been dug over. Zohar said the young man’s father had spent weeks sifting earth to try to find his son’s head. He had been buried without it.

The stories of the dead of 7 October, and the hostages, are well known in Israel. Local media still talk about their country’s losses, adding new information to old pain.

Zohar said it was too early to think about how they might rebuild their lives.

“We are still inside the trauma. We are not in post-trauma. Like people said, we’re still here. We are still in the war. We wanted the war will be ended, but we want it will be ended with a victory, but not an army victory. Not a war victory.

“My victory is that I could live here, with my son and daughter, with my grandchildren and living peacefully. I believe in peace.”

Zohar and many other Kfar Aza residents identified with the left wing of Israeli politics, meaning that they believed Israel’s only chance of peace was allowing the Palestinians their independence. Israelis like Zohar and his neighbours are convinced that Netanyahu is a disastrous prime minister who bears a heavy responsibility for leaving them vulnerable and open to attack on 7 October.

But Zohar does not trust the Palestinians, people he used to ferry to hospitals in Israel in better times when they were allowed out of Gaza for medical treatment.

“I don’t believe those people who are living over there. But I want the peace. I want to go to Gaza’s beach. But I don’t trust them. No, I don’t trust any one of them.”

Hamas leaders do not accept that the attacks on Israel were a mistake that brought the wrath of Israel, armed and supported by the United States down on to the heads of their people. Blame the occupation, they say, and its lust for destruction and death.

In Qatar, an hour or so before Iran attacked Israel on 1 October, I interviewed Khalil al-Hayya, the most senior Hamas leader outside Gaza, second only in their organisation to Yahya Sinwar. He denied his men had targeted civilians – despite overwhelming evidence – and justified the attacks by saying it was necessary to put the plight of the Palestinians on the world’s political agenda.

“It was necessary to raise an alarm in the world to tell them that here there is a people who have a cause and have demands that must be met. It was a blow to Israel, the Zionist enemy.”

Israel felt the blow, and on 7 October, as the IDF was rushing troops to the Gaza border, Benjamin Netanyahu made a speech promising a “mighty vengeance”. He set out war aims of eliminating Hamas as a military and political force and bringing the hostages home. The prime minister continues to insist that “total victory” is possible, and that force will in the end free the Israelis held by Hamas for a year.

His political opponents, including relatives of the hostages, accuse him of blocking a ceasefire and a hostage deal to appease ultra-nationalists in his government. He is accused of putting his own political survival before the lives of Israelis.

Netanyahu has many political enemies in Israel, even though the offensive in Lebanon has helped repair his poll numbers. He remains controversial but for most Israelis the war in Gaza is not. Since 7 October, most Israelis have hardened their hearts to the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.

Two days into the war, Israel’s Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, said he had ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip.

“There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed… We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”

Since then, under international pressure, Israel has been forced to loosen its blockade. At the United Nations at the end of September, Netanyahu insisted Gazans have all the food they need.

The evidence shows clearly that is not true. Days before his speech, UN humanitarian agencies signed a declaration just demanding an end to “appalling human suffering and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza”.

“More than 2 million Palestinians are without protection, food, water, sanitation, shelter, health care, education, electricity and fuel – the basic necessities to survive. Families have been forcibly displaced, time and time again, from one unsafe place to the next, with no way out.”

BBC Verify has analysed the condition of Gaza after a year of war.

The Hamas-run health ministry says nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed so far. Analysis of satellite imagery by US academics Corey Scher and Jamon Van Den Hoek suggests 58.7% of all buildings have been damaged or destroyed.

But there is another human cost – displacement – with civilians repeatedly instructed to move by the IDF.

The effects of the movement of people can be seen from space.

Satellite images show how tents have amassed and dispersed in central Rafah. It’s a pattern that has been repeated across the strip.

These waves of displacement began on 13 October, when the IDF told residents of the northern half of the strip to move south for their own “safety”.

BBC Verify has identified more than 130 social media posts like these shared by the IDF, detailing which areas were designated combat zones, routes to take out and where temporary pauses in fighting would take place.

In total, these often-overlapping posts amounted to about 60 evacuation orders covering more than 80% of the Gaza strip.

On many of the notices, BBC Verify has found key details to be unreadable and drawn boundaries inconsistent with the text.

The IDF has designated a coastal area – al-Mawasi – in southern Gaza as a humanitarian zone. It still gets bombed. BBC Verify has analysed footage of 18 air strikes within the zone’s borders.

___

Satellite pictures show a huge bottleneck of people on Salah al-Din Street, after Israel ordered the effective depopulation of northern Gaza. Somewhere in the crowds moving down Salah al-Din, Gaza’s main north-south route, was Insaf Hassan Ali, her husband and two children, a boy of 11 and a girl of seven. So far, they have all survived, unlike many members of their extended family.

Israel does not allow journalists into Gaza to report freely. We assume that is because Israel does not want us to see what it has done there. We commissioned a trusted Palestinian freelancer inside Gaza to interview Insaf Ali and her son.

She spoke about the terrible fear they felt as they walked south, with perhaps one million others, on the orders of the Israeli army. Death was everywhere, she says.

“We were walking on Salah al-Din Street. A car in front of us was hit. We saw it, and it was burning… On the left, people were killed, and on the right, even the animals—donkeys were thrown around, they were bombed.

“We said, ‘That’s it, we’re done.’ We said, ‘now the rocket that is coming will be for us’.”

Insaf and her family had a comfortable middle-class life before the war. Since then, they have been displaced 15 times on the orders of Israel. Like millions of others, they are destitute, often hungry, living in a tent at al-Mawasi, a desolate area of sand dunes. Snakes, scorpions and venomous giant worms invade the tents and have to be swept out. As well as the risk of death in an air strike, they face hunger, disease and the faecal dust generated when millions of people do not have access to proper sanitation.

Insaf wept for her old life, and the people they have lost.

“Our lives were beautiful, and suddenly we had nothing—no clothes, no food, no essentials for life. Constantly being displaced is incredibly hard on my children’s health. They’ve had malnutrition and they have been infected with diseases, including amoebic dysentery and hepatitis.”

Insaf said that the beginning of months of Israeli bombing felt like the “horrors of judgement day”.

“Any mother would feel the same, anyone who owns something precious and is afraid it might slip from their hands at any moment. Each time we moved to a house, it would be bombed, and someone in our family would be killed.”

The only chance of making even small improvements in the lives of Insaf and her family and well over two million others in Gaza is to agree a ceasefire. If the killing stops, diplomats might have a window to stop the slide into a much wider catastrophe.

More disasters await in the future, if the war drags on and a new generation of Israelis and Palestinians cannot shake the hatred and horror many currently feel about the actions of the other side.

Insaf’s 11-year-old son, Anas Awad, has been deeply affected by everything he has seen.

“There’s no future for Gaza’s children. The friends I used to play with have been martyred. We used to run around together. May God have mercy on them. The mosque where I used to memorise the Quran has been bombed. My school has been bombed. So has the playground… everything has gone. I want peace. I wish I could return with my friends and play again. I wish we had a house, not a tent.”

“I don’t have friends anymore. Our whole life has turned to sand. When I go out to the prayer area, I feel anxious, and hesitant. I don’t feel right.”

His mother was listening.

“It has been the hardest year of my life. We saw sights we should not have seen – scattered bodies, the desperation of a grown man holding a bottle of water to drink for his children. Of course, our homes are no longer homes; they are just piles of sand, but we hope for the day when we can return.’

UN humanitarian agencies have condemned both Israel and Hamas: “The parties’ conduct over the last year makes a mockery of their claim to adhere to international humanitarian law and the minimum standards of humanity that it demands.”

Both sides deny accusations they have broken the laws of war. Hamas claims it ordered its men not to kill Israeli civilians. Israel says it warns Palestinian civilians to get out of harm’s way but Hamas uses them as human shields.

Israel has been referred to the International Court of Justice, accused by South Africa of genocide. The chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court has applied for arrest warrants on a range of war crimes charges for Yahya Sinwar of Hamas, and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.

For Israelis the Hamas attacks on 7 October were a painful reminder of centuries of pogroms against Jews in Europe that culminated in the genocide carried out by Nazi Germany. In the first month of the war, the Israeli writer and former politician Avraham Burg explained the profound psychological impact on his country.

“We, the Jews,” he told me, “we believe that the state of Israel is the first and best immune system and protective system versus Jewish history. No more pogroms, no more Holocaust, no more mass murderers. And all of a sudden, all of it is back.”

Ghosts of the past tormented Palestinians as well. Raja Shehadeh, the celebrated Palestinian writer and human rights campaigner believes that Israel wanted to make another Nakba – another catastrophe: in his latest book What Does Israel Fear From Palestine? he writes “as the war progressed I could see that they meant every word and did not care about civilians, including children. In their eyes, as well as the eyes of most Israelis, all Gazans were guilty”.

No one can doubt Israel’s determination to defend its people, helped enormously by the might of the United States. It is clear though, that the war has shown that nobody can fool themselves that Palestinians will accept lives lived forever under an Israeli military occupation, without proper civil rights, freedom of movement and independence.

After generations of conflict Israelis and Palestinians are used to confronting each other. But they are also used to living alongside each other, however uncomfortably. When a ceasefire comes, and with a new generation of leaders, there will be chances to push again for peace.

But that is a more distant future. The rest of the year and into 2025, with a new president in the White House, are uncertain and full of danger.

For months after Hamas attacked Israel, the fear was that the war would spread, and get worse. Slowly, and then very quickly, it happened, after Israel’s devastating attacks on Hezbollah and Lebanon.

It is too late to say the Middle East is on the brink. Israel is facing off against Iran. The warring parties have plunged over it, and countries not yet directly involved are desperate not to be dragged over the edge.

As I write Israel has still not retaliated for Iran’s ballistic missile attack on 1 October. It has indicated that it intends to inflict a severe punishment. President Biden and his administration, Israel’s constant supplier of weapons and diplomatic support, are trying to calibrate a response that might offer Iran a way to stop the accelerating climb up the ladder of escalation, a phrase strategists use to describe the way wars speed from crisis to disaster.

The proximity of the US elections, along with Joe Biden’s steadfast support for Israel, despite his misgivings about the way it has been fighting, do not induce much optimism that the US will somehow finesse a way out.

The signals from Israel indicate that Netanyahu, Gallant, the generals of the IDF and the intelligence agencies believe they have the upper hand. October 7th was a disaster for them. All the major security and military chiefs, except the prime minister, apologised and some resigned. They had not planned for a war with Hamas. But planning for the war with Hezbollah started after the last one ended in 2006 in a humiliating stalemate for Israel. Hezbollah has suffered blows from which it might never recover.

So far Israel’s victories are tactical. To get to a strategic victory it would need to coerce its enemies into changing their behaviour. Hezbollah, even in its reduced state, is showing that it wants to fight on. Taking on Israeli infantry and tanks now that south Lebanon has once more been invaded might negate some of Israel’s advantages in air power and intelligence.

If Iran answers Israel’s retaliation with another wave of ballistic missiles other countries might get pulled in. In Iraq, Iran’s client militias could attack American interests. Two Israeli soldiers were killed by a drone that came from Iraq.

Saudi Arabia is also looking on nervously. Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman has made clear his view of the future. He would contemplate recognising Israel, but only if the Palestinians get a state in return and Saudi Arabia gets a security pact with the United States.

Joe Biden’s role, simultaneously trying to restrain Israel while supporting it with weapons, diplomacy and carrier strike groups, exposes the Americans to getting involved in a wider war with Iran. They don’t want that to happen, but Biden has pledged that he will come to Israel’s aid if it becomes necessary.

Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, and the damage done to Iran’s strategy and its “axis of resistance” is fostering a new set of illusions among some in Israel and the United States. The dangerous idea is that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape the Middle East by force, imposing order and neutering Israel’s enemies. Joe Biden – and his successor – should be wary of that.

The last time that restructuring the Middle East by force was contemplated seriously was after al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks on America, when US President George W Bush and Tony Blair, the UK’s prime minister, were getting ready to invade Iraq in 2003.

The invasion of Iraq did not purge the Middle East of violent extremism. It made matters worse.

The priority for those who want to stop this war should be a ceasefire in Gaza. It is the only chance to cool matters and to create a space for diplomacy. This year of war started in Gaza. Perhaps it can end there too.

US officials are warning about the potentially life-threating impacts of Hurricane Milton as it barrels towards the Florida coast.

Milton is one of the most powerful storms to form in the North Atlantic in recent years.

It comes just two weeks after Hurricane Helene caused substantial damage across the US.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) expects Milton to make landfall as an “extremely dangerous hurricane” in the US state of Florida on Wednesday night, local time.

It could strike near the city of Tampa, whose wider metropolitan area has a population of more than three million people.

Forecasters are warning of torrential rain, flash flooding, high winds and possible storm surges – which occur when water moves inland from the coast.

They say Milton could be the worst storm to hit the area in about a century – with a surge of 10-15ft (3-4.5m) possible, and localised rainfall of up to 1.5ft.

• Live: The latest on Hurricane Milton
• Florida warned of ‘potentially catastrophic’ Hurricane Milton
• What is a storm surge and how serious is the threat from Milton?

Milton became a category one hurricane on Sunday and has been steadily moving eastwards, through the Gulf of Mexico, after brushing past Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.

BBC weather presenter Chris Fawkes said it had undergone explosive intensification in a 24-hour period, culminating in sustained wind gusts of 200mph (321km/h).

It was placed in the most powerful hurricane category – five – though it has fluctuated in strength, and was subsequently downgraded to a category four.

While the hurricane dropped in intensity on Tuesday, officials warned that it could double in size before striking Florida again on Wednesday.

The core of the hurricane is expected to pass over west-central Florida on Wednesday, with a large storm surge expected along a swathe of the state’s coast.

It is then due to cut across the peninsula before ending up in the Atlantic Ocean.

Floridians have been told to prepare for the state’s largest evacuation effort in years, with Governor Ron DeSantis warning that a “monster” is on the way.

Most counties are in an official state of emergency, and evacuations have been ordered up and down Florida’s west coast.

Disaster management authorities have issued a list and map of the evacuation orders.

Several large shelters have also been prepared as a last resort for those stranded.

Airports in Milton’s expected path have announced closures, and queues of traffic have been observed as people start to leave their homes.

• Are you in Florida? Please share your experiences
• Hurricanes: A look inside the deadly storms
• How is climate change affecting hurricanes?
• BBC Verify: Fact checking misinformation about Hurricane Helene

Hurricanes – sometimes known as cyclones or typhoons – are a type of tropical storm that form in the North Atlantic. They bring strong winds and heavy rain.

When ocean air is warm and moist, it rises, and then starts to cool – which causes clouds to form.

Sometimes this rising air can move away at the top of the hurricane more quickly than it can be replaced at the surface, causing the surface pressure to fall.

The falling pressure causes the winds to accelerate with more air then getting pulled in as the hurricane strengthens.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Association (Noaa) predicted that the 2024 hurricane season would be more active than usual. Rising average sea level temperatures due to human-caused climate change were partly to blame, it said.

Category five hurricanes are considered “catastrophic” by Noaa.

They carry wind speeds greater than 155mph (249km/h) and can cause “very severe and extensive damage”.

The US government agency urges “massive evacuations” in residential areas near shorelines, since a category five hurricane can also bring storm surges that exceed 18ft (5m) and destroy many homes.

Trees and power lines can also be downed, causing the isolation of residential areas and lengthy power cuts. Noaa says affected areas can be left uninhabitable for weeks or months.

A database from Noaa shows that at least 40 storms in the Atlantic have reached category five status since 1924, though only four have actually hit land at that strength. Here are some of the most damaging:

Hurricane Camille

Camille crashed into Mississippi in 1969, producing a peak storm surge of 24ft and destroying almost everything along the coast.

It killed 259 people, most of them in Virginia, and caused about $1.4bn (£1.06bn) in damage.

Hurricane Andrew

Hurricane Andrew decimated southern Florida in 1992 with sustained wind speeds of up to 165mph and gusts as high as 174mph.

It claimed 26 lives directly and was blamed for dozens of other deaths. After causing $30bn in damage, it was considered the costliest natural disaster in US history at the time.

Hurricane Michael

Hurricane Michael slammed into Florida in 2018 with 160mph wind speeds and was the strongest storm to make landfall in the Sunshine State.

At least 74 deaths were attributed to the storm – 59 in the US and 15 in Central America – and Michael caused an estimated $25.1bn in damage.

Lower-category storms

Milton comes less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene hit the US as a category four storm, killing more than 200 people and becoming the deadliest hurricane to strike the US mainland since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to get exclusive insight on the latest climate and environment news from the BBC’s Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt, delivered to your inbox every week. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.

India has agreed to extend hundreds of millions of dollars in financial support to the Maldives to help strengthen its struggling economy.

The deal was announced after Maldives President Mohammed Muizzu held talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his five-day visit to India.

The support includes a $400m currency swap deal and an additional 30bn rupees ($357m; £273m) in another swap agreement which will allow companies to do business in local currencies rather than in US dollars.

The Maldivian president was given red carpet treatment after relations soured in recent months. Modi called his visit a “new chapter” in ties.

“India will always be there for the progress and prosperity of the people of Maldives,” he said.

The statements – and the Indian financial package – signal a significant improvement in relations between Male and Delhi, which have been strained since Muizzu came to power in November 2023.

Soon after taking over, he chose to travel to Turkey and China – his visit to the latter in January was seen especially as a high-profile snub to India as previous Maldivian leaders traditionally visited Delhi first after being elected.

Around the same time, India was angered by derogatory comments from three Maldivian officials about Modi.

But analysts say the country’s ailing economy has made its leadership mend its ties with India.

The Maldives is staring at a debt default as its foreign exchange reserves have dropped to $440m (£334m), just enough for one-and-a-half months of imports.

On Monday, Muizzu said he held “extensive discussions” with Modi to chart “a path for the future collaboration between our two countries”.

He thanked India and said the budgetary support would be “instrumental in addressing foreign exchange issues”.

The two countries have also agreed on a deal to start talks on a free trade agreement.

Ahead of his meeting with Modi, Muizzu had told the BBC that he expected India to help the country as it has done in the past.

“India is fully cognisant of our fiscal situation, and as one of our biggest development partners, will always be ready to ease our burden, find better alternatives and solutions to the challenges we face,” he said.

Without referring to his anti-India campaign, he said: “We are confident that any differences can be addressed through open dialogue and mutual understanding.”

This was in contrast to his previous decisions, some of which were seen as a way to reduce Delhi’s influence and forge closer ties with India’s rival China.

In February, his administration allowed a Chinese research ship to dock in the Maldives, much to Delhi’s displeasure. Some saw it as a mission to collect data which could be used by the Chinese military for submarine operations.

Muizzu has however rejected the pro-China tag, calling his policies as “Maldives First”.

But the country also continues to depend on China, which has so far extended $1.37bn in loans.

Dorothy Masasa happily walks down a dirt road on a sunny afternoon, her baby securely strapped on her back.

Just six months ago the 39-year-old, originally from southern Malawi’s Thyolo district, was in Kenya for life-saving radiotherapy.

Malawi has only recently received its first such machines, so other women with cancer may no longer have to travel abroad for treatment.

“I was registered as an emergency case after doctors discovered I had cervical cancer while 13 weeks pregnant. They told me these two things don’t go together,” the mother of three tells the BBC.

She says the doctors in Malawi told her that she could have an operation to remove the cancer but this would terminate the pregnancy, or she could have chemotherapy but this would risk the baby being born with a disability.

She opted for chemotherapy until the baby was born via Caesarean section – without any disability.

Her uterus was removed in the same operation.

Before the diagnosis, Ms Masasa experienced cramping in her lower abdomen, bleeding and a foul-smelling vaginal discharge that just wouldn’t go away. At first doctors thought it was a sexually transmitted infection.

But despite the chemotherapy and the operation, she still needed further treatment to cure the cancer – treatment which wasn’t available in Malawi until earlier this year.

She joined a group of 30 women who were taken to a Nairobi hospital in Kenya by the aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to undergo radiotherapy to kill the cancerous cells.

This was the first time she had travelled on a plane so she was quite worried and also reluctant to leave her newborn baby behind.

“But because I was going there for treatment, I encouraged myself that I should indeed go and get treatment and that I will come back home healthy and happy.”

When the BBC visited her at the hospital, Ms Masasa was still frail from the effects of the treatment, having lost weight and her hair.

She is one of 77 patients who was airlifted from Malawi to Kenya for cervical cancer treatment since 2022.

Sixty years after gaining independence from the UK, Malawi only installed its first radiotherapy machine, at the privately owned International Blantyre Cancer Centre, in March this year, marking a huge step in the country’s healthcare system.

More machines arrived in June and are due to be placed at the National Cancer Centre still under construction in the capital, Lilongwe.

Although Malawi still has a long way to go to provide comprehensive cancer treatment, it is ahead of many other countries in the region.

In sub-Saharan Africa more than 20 countries have no access to radiotherapy, which is critical to fighting cancer.

This means patients are forced to undertake expensive and exhausting journeys for treatment.

Cancer of the cervix is the fourth most common cancer among women worldwide, with an estimated 660,000 new cases and 350,000 deaths reported in 2022, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

All but one of the 20 countries with the highest rates of cervical cancer in 2018 were in Africa, according to the World Health Organization.

This is down to a lack of access to preventative human papillomaviruses vaccines (HPV), adequate screening and treatment, meaning many women are treated late.

The Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH), Malawi’s oldest and largest government-owned treatment centre, receives a huge number of cervical cancer patients from across the country.

An obstetrician and gynaecologist at the hospital, Dr Samuel Meja, says cervical cancer is a big problem for most countries in the region.

“Poor access to screening, and the scourge of HIV, which has been ravaging most parts of sub-Saharan Africa, have worsened the situation,” he says.

In 2018, Malawi was only second to Eswatini in southern Africa, which had the highest rate of cervical cancer in the world.

Outgoing WHO regional director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, says that globally a woman dies of cervical cancer every two minutes. Africa accounts for 23% of the deaths.

In order to reverse these grim statistics, Africa has seen massive campaigns to vaccinate girls against the HPV that causes cervical cancer.

Lesotho has reached an exceptional 93% coverage after vaccinating 139,000 girls against HPV.

But stigma around cervical cancer in various African countries has affected the numbers of people getting vaccinated.

In Zambia, for instance, talking about anything gynaecological is frowned upon.

In Malawi, Dr Meja says that cervical cancer screening has been introduced.

“This is a very simple strategy that identifies women at risk and you treat them before they become cancer patients. This investment is what we need to make as a nation before it gets out of hand,” he says.

As for Ms Masasa, she is now back at her home in Malawi.

The treatment she received in Kenya has given her a new lease of life. Her hair has grown back, she can walk around with her baby on her back, tend to her cow, and work in the fields.

She says she now knows that cervical cancer can be treated and that the vaccine can help other women avoid the disease, so has no doubts about vaccinating her daughter.

“Cervical cancer took me through a hard phase and I wouldn’t want my daughter to go through the same,” she says.

“There is a huge difference between how I was then and how I am now. I feel so happy that I am healed.”

• Banana wine brings sweet taste of success to Malawi farmers
• The Malawi music icon who became a ‘soldier for the poor’
• ‘I was sold into marriage for £7 at the age of 12’

A US teenager is the first known person to get classic video game Tetris to reset to level 0 after beating it.

Michael Artiaga, 16, claimed the historic moment of so-called “rebirth” while livestreaming himself playing Nintendo’s version of the game on Twitch on Sunday.

It took him 82 minutes to successfully clear level 255 on Tetris – the game’s highest. Artiaga, who streams as “dogplayingtetris”, celebrated and watched in shock as it started again from scratch.

“Am I dreaming, bro?” he asked viewers, saying he was in “disbelief”.

The teen carried on playing and eventually finished with 29.4 million points.

“I’m so glad that game is over,” he added, as he prepared to wrap up his stream.

“I never want to play this game again”.

He was reportedly playing an edition of the game made for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) console that prevents crashes after level 155.

The game’s crashes and kill screens have marked the efforts of other young streamers hoping to set new records.

Oklahoma teen Willis “Blue Scuti” Gibson claimed to be the first to ever beat the game earlier this year when he reached level 157 in 38 minutes before it crashed.

Tetris was first created in 1984 by Soviet engineer Alexey Pajitnov, and has spawned into hundreds of versions for arcades, consoles and PCs.

The classic video game has remained popular ever since for its simplicity, yet frustrating difficulty.

Players have to arrange falling different shapes, each composed of four blocks, to make them fit together like a jigsaw into horizontal lines that vanish when completed.

If you fail to clear lines of blocks, which fall more quickly as players progress through levels, before they pile up to the top of the window – it’s game over.

Artiaga is one of several teenage gamers who have livestreamed their attempts to break previous, and each others’, records for the number of levels reached or lines cleared without the game crashing.

He became the world’s youngest Tetris world champion at the age of 13 when he beat his older brother in the Classic Tetris World Championship final in 2020.

“I still cannot believe it… first ever to get Rebirth!” he wrote in the description for his two hour-long stream on YouTube.

“I’m so happy about finally getting this after all of the attempts. Thanks to everyone for the support over the years.

“It’s finally over,” he added.

In the week since Hurricane Helene caused devastation in parts of the US – in the middle of the election campaign – misinformation about the government’s response has been spreading on social media.

Many of the hurricane victims are in swing states, including North Carolina and Georgia, and Republican Donald Trump has been highly critical of how the Biden-Harris administration has handled the disaster.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) has disputed a number of his claims and Vice-President Kamala Harris has called his comments “extraordinarily irresponsible”.

As Fema prepares for Hurricane Milton, it has described misinformation about its efforts as “extremely damaging” and believes this has discouraged some survivors from seeking help.

BBC Verify has been looking at the claims made by Trump and other senior Republicans.

At multiple campaign events since the hurricane struck, Trump and his allies have claimed that government money earmarked for disaster victims has been spent on migrants who crossed illegally into the US.

“Kamala spent all her Fema money—billions of dollars—on housing for illegal migrants”, Trump said in Michigan last week.

Trump’s claim that Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, has spent “all her Fema money” on housing these people is false.

Fema, a US government agency, has a Disaster Relief Fund (worth more than $20bn for the last financial year) which is ring-fenced to spend on responding to hurricanes and other natural disasters.

Fema also has a dedicated budget from Congress to be spent on food, shelter, transportation, and other support services for immigrants released from Department of Homeland Security (DHS) custody.

This budget amounts to around one billion dollars over the last two financial years – not the “billions” Trump claims.

So, these are two separate pots of money – administered by the agency – which Trump appears to be conflating.

Fema, which has now set up a fact-checking page on its website, called Trump’s claim “false” saying, “no money is being diverted from disaster response needs”.

In 2019, while Trump was President, money was diverted from Fema’s Disaster Relief Fund – around $38m – to give to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The focus on Fema’s current funding comes after the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas – who oversees the agency – warned that it was running low on funds for the rest of the hurricane season.

But Fema says it has “enough money right now for immediate response and recovery needs”.

Donald Trump and JD Vance have repeatedly highlighted a $750 payment from Fema to hurricane victims, often contrasting it with the money the US government spends on Ukraine or on illegal migrants.

“They promised $750 to American citizens who have lost everything,” Vance said at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday.

It is true that the victims are getting $750 but some context is needed.

This is just one type of assistance provided by Fema.

The $750 is what people can get as an upfront payment to help cover the costs of food, water, medication, and other emergency supplies.

Following this initial payment, disaster victims may receive additional funds following a Fema assessment.

This can go towards repairing damage to homes and personal property, and to help find a temporary place to stay.

So far, Fema has said that more than $210m has been given to communities affected by Hurricane Helene – this includes upfront payments and money to support housing needs.

When the hurricane first hit, Trump claimed that the governor of Georgia hadn’t spoken to President Biden following the state being badly affected.

“He has been calling the president, hasn’t been able to get him,” Trump said at a news conference in Georgia on the afternoon of 30 September.

But earlier that day, Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp – a Republican – said in an interview: “The president just called me yesterday afternoon, I missed him and called him right back, and he just said ‘hey what do you need?’ and I told him we’ve got what we need, we’re working through the federal process.”

“He offered if there’s other things we need to call him directly, which I appreciate,” he added.

Trump said at the Butler rally that “Kamala wined and dined in San Francisco, and all of the people in North Carolina — no helicopters, no rescue — it’s just — what’s happened there is very bad.”

This is false. By the time Trump made this remark on 5 October, the North Carolina National Guard, which is under the dual command of federal and state governments, had already posted on X that its “air assets have completed 146 flight missions, resulting in the rescue of 538 people and 150 pets”.

The post, published on 3 October, featured a video of a National Guard helicopter.

The North Carolina Department of Public Safety’s website says that President Biden approved the state governor’s request for military personnel and equipment to support rescue operations in North Carolina.

The National Guard and military personnel “are operating 50 helicopters” as part of search and rescue missions, and are also helping to deliver critical supplies in the state, the Department said.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

The US presidential election is just weeks away and one essential voting bloc is getting a lot of attention from both parties: young voters. But it’s economic woes – from inflation to housing – that could drive them to the polls.

It’s Isabella Morris’s first presidential election, and the 21-year-old mum from Rosenberg, Texas, said she’s listening closely to what both candidates have to say.

Recently married with a two-year-old, Isabella works part-time to supplement her husband’s full-time income. She stays at home with her child while her family rents a small one-bedroom apartment.

The plan seemed solid—two incomes, no mortgage, or daycare costs—but it’s not enough.

“Our debts are paid off, but we can’t afford any mistakes. We have no savings, nothing. One job used to be enough to live on, even at a minimum wage. Now it feels like we’re barely scraping by,” she said.

Economic fears about her future will drive her to vote in November, but when she spoke to the BBC, she was still undecided on which candidate she would support.

“As these elections draw closer, we cannot possibly fathom a candidate not addressing the economic crisis right now,” she said.

Isabella is one of 8 million young people who will be voting in a presidential election for the first time. Comprising about a third of the US electorate, voters under 35 are being fought over by both parties, and polls show the economy is their top priority this election season.

Though reproductive rights, the war in Gaza and gun violence have dominated headlines when it comes to young voters’ policy priorities, 18 to 26-year-olds rank economic growth, income inequality and poverty as the most important problems facing the country, according to a Gen Forward Survey conducted by the University of Chicago and released in September.

That’s in contrast to the 2020 election, when Covid-19, racism, and healthcare outranked the economy as the main issue driving young voters to the polls, according to the same survey.

Isabella’s concerns reflect the broader challenges facing young voters, who are entering a world of high rents, unaffordable homes and slowing job creation – not to mention a once-in-a-generation surge in prices, according to economics TikToker Kyla Scanlon.

Last month, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates for the first time in more than four years, a decision which could lead to lower borrowing costs on mortgages, credit cards and saving rates for millions of people. But it remains to be seen whether the change in rates will change people’s outlook on the economy.

“The overall situation has degraded,” Ms Scanlon, 27, told the BBC, noting that young people today have it worse than previous generations – even millennials who entered the workforce after the 2008 financial crisis.

A Gen Z-er herself, Ms Scanlon often turns to TikTok, where she has more than 180,000 followers, to educate young people about the economy.

People aged 22-24 hold more debt of all kinds – credit cards, car loans and mortgages – than millennials did at the same age, the credit agency TransUnion found. And their debt is rising faster than their income.

“There’s no beginner mode anymore – the bottom rung of the ladder just feels completely gone, I think, for most of the generation,” Ms Scanlon said.

And those fears of being left behind could drive voters to the ballot box, experts say.

Abby Kiesa, deputy director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (Circle), told the BBC she expects about half of young voters to turn out in this election – a similar proportion to 2020, which had the highest turnout in decades and an 11% increase compared to the presidential election in 2016.

Meanwhile, the 2018 midterms saw a record-breaking turnout among young voters, according to Circle.

That’s still far below the turnout of other age groups. In 2020, 69% of eligible Americans aged 35-64 voted, while 74% of voters over the age of 65 went to the polls, according to the US Census. But in an election that will be won by a razor’s edge, being able to rally a significant percentage of new voters could help give a candidate the boost they need to win.

Ms Kiesa said focusing on addressing economic hardship will be key if politicians hope to boost turnout among Gen Z-ers feeling disconnected from politics.

“For the past three elections, turnout among young voters has been historic,” she said. “We need candidates who understand, engage, and speak with them. That’s what has to change.”

The two presidential nominees – Trump and Harris – have both sharpened their economic message in recent weeks and stepped up efforts to appeal to young voters.

Harris has expanded on the Biden administration’s economic initiatives around student loan forgiveness, consumer pricing and housing affordability. She’s proposed a $25,000 subsidy for first-time home buyers and a $6,000 tax credit for families with newborns.

Her campaign has doubled her youth organising staff and invested heavily in digital ads. She has enjoyed endorsements from high-profile celebrities including Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish, and built momentum by embracing viral memes about the vice-president on social media. Harris has also spent the last year touring college campuses in key battleground states.

Meanwhile, Trump has sought to capitalise on economic dissatisfaction among young people, attacking Harris and Biden’s economic record and highlighing lower prices on goods under his administration. Both he and Harris have promised to eliminate tip taxation – a move aimed at the service industry, which employs millions of young people – and committed to ending regulatory barriers on cryptocurrency.

The former president has also tried to reach younger voters through social media, podcasts, and partnerships with influencers. He’s posted TikToks with influencers like Logan Paul and Adin Ross.

Polls showed Trump made inroads among young voters while he was running against Biden, who is 81. When Biden was still in the race, he led Trump by only a few percentage points, and the GenForward survey showed young people thought Trump handled the economy better than the Biden administration.

But momentum has shifted back to the much younger Harris.

She now holds a 31-point lead over Trump among likely voters aged 18-29, according to the Harvard Institute of Politics poll released in late September.

Economic woes aren’t just driving people to vote, they’re lighting a fire in some young people to run for office themselves.

Gabriel Sanchez, 27, a Democratic candidate for the Georgia state legislature, said he’s running for office to try to help ease the financial strain on his generation.

As a waiter at a sports bar, he said rent hikes have forced him to move repeatedly. He is concerned that essentials like stable housing are becoming a privilege for many young Americans.

“Most of us aren’t able to own a home, afford healthcare or buy the basic things we need,” Sanchez said in a TikTok posted on his campaign account.

In May, Sanchez and three other young candidates cruised to victory in Georgia’s Democratic primary election, an outcome dubbed as Gen Z’s night in Atlanta.

Sanchez said he believes his economic struggles resonated with voters.

“We’re working hard but not seeing any rewards. This economy isn’t working for us,” Sanchez said. “We need representation – candidates who understand what young people are going through.”

But it’s not only Democrats that are luring young candidates.

Wyatt Gable, a 21-year-old in his last year at East Carolina University, won the Republican primary for North Carolina’s House of Representatives. He defeated George Cleveland, a 10-term, 85-year-old, incumbent.

If elected in November, Gable will become the youngest person ever to hold a seat in the state legislature.

As he prepares for the November vote, he said he expects the economy to be top of mind for young people at the polls this year.

“My generation feels it. Seeing how bad inflation is, and with interest rates skyrocketing, that’s going to be the biggest thing on young people’s minds when they go to the ballot box,” he said.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• EXPLAINER: What Harris or Trump would do in power
• VOTERS: What young Democrats want from Harris
• ANALYSIS: Don’t mention Trump – Republicans trying to sway women
• POLLS: Who is winning the race for the White House?

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Japan’s government has admitted an official photo of its new cabinet was manipulated to make members look less unkempt after online speculation that it had been edited.

Photos taken by local media showed the new prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, and his defence minister with small patches of white shirt showing under their suits.

But in the official photo issued by the prime minister’s office on Thursday, the untidiness had disappeared.

After plenty of online mockery, a government spokesperson on Monday said “minor editing was made” to the image.

Spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters the image had been manipulated as group photos taken by the prime minister’s office “will be preserved forever as memorabilia”.

He added that “minor editing is customarily performed on these photos”.

His comments come after a barrage of mockery on social media.

“This is more hideous than a group picture of some kind of a seniors’ club during a trip to a hot spring. It’s utterly embarrassing,” one user wrote on X.

Another user said it was clear the cabinet members were wearing suits in the incorrect size.

Other users have been referring to the cabinet – and their trousers – as “ill-fitting”, according to local media.

The photograph was taken on Thursday following the first meeting of Japan’s new cabinet.

A few days earlier, Ishiba, 67, replaced outgoing prime minister, Fumio Kishida, as chief of the country’s ruling party.

He was officially appointed to the role of prime minister on Tuesday.

Ishiba has already announced plans for a snap election on 27 October.

“It is important for the new administration to be judged by the people as soon as possible,” he told a news conference in Tokyo, according to Reuters.

The election, which is set to take place more than a year before it is due, will decide which party controls parliament’s lower house.

A Dutch museum had to pick artwork out of the bin after a member of staff thought that the display, which consisted of two empty beer cans, was leftover rubbish.

All The Good Times We Spent Together by French artist Alexandre Lavet shows two dented beer cans on the floor. They were exhibited inside the museum’s lift as if left behind by construction workers.

However, a closer look “reveals that these dented cans were meticulously hand-painted with acrylics”, the LAM museum in Lisse said.

But a lift technician thought the art was simply the leftovers of lazy visitors and threw them in the bin.

Once a curator spotted that the artwork was missing, staff were tasked with searching for it, the museum said on its website.

Eventually it was discovered in a bin bag and “miraculously, both cans were found intact”, it said.

The cans were cleaned and placed at the museum’s entrance.

Despite the mishap, the museum says it “bears no ill will towards the lift technician who made the mistake”, who was covering for someone who is “well acquainted with the building and its exhibits”.

“The theme of our collection is food and consumption,” said Sietske van Zanten, the museum’s director.

“Our art encourages visitors to see everyday objects in a new light. By displaying artworks in unexpected places, we amplify this experience and keep visitors on their toes.”

A French-Cameroonian writer, Charles Onana, is due to go on trial in Paris accused of complicity in contesting the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

About 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed within 100 days.

In a book published five years ago, Mr Onana described the idea that the Hutu government had planned a genocide in Rwanda as “one of the biggest scams” of the last century.

His lawyer, Emmanuel Pire, insists that Mr Onana does not question that genocide took place, or that Tutsis were particularly targeted.

Mr Pire told the AFP news agency that the book in question was “the work of a political scientist based on 10 years of research to understand the mechanisms of the genocide before, during and after”.

• Rwanda genocide – my return home after 30 years
• Rwanda’s 100 days of slaughter

Mr Onana, now 60, and his publishing director at Editions du Toucan, Damien Serieyx, were sued four years ago over the same book.

That case was brought by the NGO Survie, and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) for “publicly contesting a crime against humanity”.

Monday’s trial is only the second case of denying the Rwandan genocide to come to trial in France.

Under French law, it is an offence to deny or “minimise” the fact of any genocide that is officially recognised by France.

Mr Onana’s trial will be “historic, since there is not yet any case law strictly speaking related to Rwanda” on questions of Holocaust denial, Camille Lesaffre, campaign manager for Survie, told AFP.

“We will mainly base ourselves on case law related to the Holocaust.”

In 2021, French President Emmanuel Macron asked Rwandans to forgive France for its role in the Rwandan genocide.

He said France had not heeded warnings of impending carnage and had for too long “valued silence over examination of the truth”, but said his country had not been an accomplice in the killings.

• ‘I forgave my husband’s killer – our children married’
• The genocide orphans still searching for their names
• ‘My father, the rapist’: Hidden victims of Rwanda’s genocide

Madonna has paid tribute to her brother Christopher Ciccone, who has died at the age of 63, describing him as “the closest thing to me for so long”.

Her brother, who was a tour director for the pop star and danced in her early music videos including Lucky Star, died from cancer on Friday in Michigan.

In a heartfelt post on Instagram, the 66-year-old singer wrote that their bond was hard to explain but it “grew out of an understanding that we were different”.

She added: “Society was going to give us a hard time for not following the status quo.

“We took each other’s hands and we danced through the madness of our childhood, in fact dance was a kind of superglue that held us together.”

The singer explained that “discovering dance in our small Midwestern town saved me”, and then “it saved him too” as a gay young man.

She wrote: “When I finally got the courage to go to New York to become a dancer, my brother followed, and again we took each other’s hands, and we danced through the madness of New York City.”

She added that the pair “devoured art and music and film like hungry animals” in the city, and “were in the epicentre of all of these things exploding”.

“We danced together on stage in the beginning of my career and eventually, he became my creative director of many tours.”

She added: “My brother was right by my side, he was a painter a poet and a visionary, I admired him.

“He had impeccable taste. And a sharp tongue, which he sometimes used against me but I always forgave him.

“We soared the highest heights together, and floundered in the lowest lows.

“Somehow, we always found each other again and we held hands and we kept dancing.”

The pair fell out around the early 2000s, with Ciccone saying his relationship with his sister came under strain after she married her ex-husband, film director Guy Ritchie.

He later released his autobiography, titled Life With My Sister Madonna (2008), in which he wrote about her love life and what it was like working for her.

Speaking about reuniting prior to his death, Madonna added: “The last few years have not been easy.

“We did not speak for some time but when my brother got sick, we found our way back to each other.

“I did my best to keep him alive as long as possible.

“He was in so much pain towards the end, once again, we held hands, we closed our eyes and we danced, together.

“I’m glad he’s not suffering anymore, there will never be anyone like him. I know he’s dancing somewhere.”

Ciccone was also an artist and interior designer, and directed music videos for other stars including Dolly Parton and Tony Bennett.

Madonna’s stepmother Joan also died from cancer recently, and the star’s older brother Anthony died early last year.

A pair of red shoes, two beaded necklaces and a British 10p coin are among the few clues that could help to identify a teenage girl found murdered in western France more than 40 years ago.

Her death is one of 46 cold cases European police are seeking to solve as part of the second phase of a campaign aimed at finding the names of unidentified murdered women.

BBC coverage of last year’s appeal helped to identify a British woman some 30 years after her murder.

“We want to identify the deceased women, bring answers to families, and deliver justice to the victims,” Jürgen Stock, secretary-general of Interpol, which is co-ordinating the effort, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Whether it is a memory, a tip, or a shared story, the smallest detail could help uncover the truth.”

The second phase of the Operation Identify Me campaign includes cases in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy and Spain.

Details of each one have been published on Interpol’s website, along with photographs of possible identifying items and facial reconstructions.

Most of the victims are thought to have been aged between 15 and 30.

The body of the teenager with red shoes, beaded necklaces and a 10p piece was found underneath layers of leaves in a layby near a village called Le Cellier in 1982. It had been there for several months.

Speaking near the area she was found, now overgrown with brambles, nettles and horse chestnut trees, detective Franc Dannerolle says the teenager’s body was “disposed of like garbage”.

“There was no respect, no care for her before her death,” he adds.

The 10p coin led investigators to believe that she was either British or had been travelling in Britain before her murder, though they acknowledge that she could have found it, or been given it.

Police have chosen not to go into detail about the nature of her killing to avoid “fake perpetrators” from claiming responsibility.

Unfortunately, the teenager’s remains can no longer be found, which complicates the cold case investigators’ task.

“If we manage to find them, it could be possible to work on her DNA to have a link with the family,” says Det Dannerolle.

Retired detective Alain Brillet worked on the case at the time and describes it as a “triple enigma”.

“The strangest and most incredible thing was that we had someone who had been murdered, because we knew she had been murdered, but we could never find out what her name was, where she was from, or who had killed her,” he says.

The BBC found one woman who recalled the fear the discovery of her body sparked in the village, but because the victim wasn’t local, most people forgot about it and moved on.

The launch of the Operation Identify Me campaign last year marked the first time that Interpol had ever gone public with a list known as “black notices”, seeking information about unidentified bodies. Such notices had historically only been circulated internally among Interpol’s network of police forces.

Across Europe, the ease of movement due to open borders, increased global migration, and human trafficking has led to more people being reported missing outside their home country, says Dr Susan Hitchin, co-ordinator of Interpol’s DNA unit.

“These women have suffered a double injustice. They’ve become victims twice: they’ve been killed through an act of violence and they’ve been denied their name in death,” she says.

Interpol is using targeted social media to advertise the campaign in specific locations and demographics. The global police force has also been asking celebrities to speak on behalf of the unknown, unnamed women.

Another case that Interpol is hoping people may be able to help solve is that of a woman whose body was discovered in Wassenaar in the Netherlands some two decades ago.

The discovery was Dutch forensic investigator Sandra Baasbank’s first case. She remembers seeing the woman lying face down in sand dunes, with no obvious signs of injury or struggle.

Det Baasbank says the woman was wearing brown plaid leggings and red shiny patent shoes – “unusual if you are going for a walk on the beach”.

“She was very fit, sporty. Wearing a headband, and sunglasses. Her buttons were done up and she was wearing a scarf,” the detective adds.

Forensic analysis found the woman was born in Eastern Europe and spent the final five years of her life in Western Europe.

One of the keys she was carrying was traced back to Germany.

“Maybe she made me better at what I do. ‘Never give up,’ is my motto. I’m determined in the work I do, and maybe she’s the reason why,” Det Baasbank says.

She is hopeful that the new Identify Me campaign will help ignite some new leads and provide a form of closure.

And there is reason for her optimism.

Rita Roberts, a British woman murdered in Belgium, was identified when her family spotted her distinctive black rose tattoo in a BBC report based on the first appeal.

The last contact her family had with her was via a postcard in May 1992. Her body was found the following month.

When her family were told the body was indeed Rita, her sister Donna says she “broke into tears crying”. For them, it had ended decades of uncertainty.

While it has been hard learning of her sister’s death, she says she takes comfort in feeling that Rita is “at peace”.

Now she has been identified, her family are appealing to the public for any information however small to help with the investigation.

And they’re also hoping that other murdered women will also be identified.

They are “sisters, mothers, aunties,” Donna says. “Just because they don’t have names, don’t assume they’re not people.”

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2024 has been awarded to US scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their work on microRNA.

Their discoveries help explain how complex life emerged on Earth and how the human body is made up of a wide variety of different tissues.

MicroRNAs influence how genes – the instructions for life – are controlled inside organisms, including us.

The winners share a prize fund worth 11m Swedish kronor (£810,000).

Every cell in the human body contains the same raw genetic information, locked in our DNA.

However, despite starting with the identical genetic information, the cells of the human body are wildly different in form and function.

The electrical impulses of nerve cells are distinct from the rhythmic beating of heart cells. The metabolic powerhouse that is a liver cell is distinct to a kidney cell, which filters urea out of the blood. The light-sensing abilities of cells in the retina are different in skillset to white blood cells that produce antibodies to fight infection.

So much variety can arise from the same starting material because of gene expression.

The US scientists were the first to discover microRNAs and how they exerted control on how genes are expressed differently in different tissues.

The medicine and physiology prize winners are selected by the Nobel Assembly of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute.

They said: “Their groundbreaking discovery revealed a completely new principle of gene regulation that turned out to be essential for multicellular organisms, including humans.

“It is now known that the human genome codes for over 1,000 microRNAs.”

Without the ability to control gene expression, every cell in an organism would be identical, so microRNAs helped enable the evolution of complex life forms.

Abnormal regulation by microRNAs can contribute to cancer and to some conditions, including congenital hearing loss and bone disorders.

A severe example is DICER1 syndrome, which leads to cancer in a variety of tissues, and is caused by mutations that affect microRNAs.

Prof Ambros, 70, works at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and Prof Ruvkun, 72, is a professor at Harvard Medical School.

Both conducted their research on the nematode worm – .

They experimented on a mutant form of the worm that failed to develop some cell types, and eventually homed in on tiny pieces of genetic material or microRNAs that were essential for the worms’ development.

This is how it works:

• A gene or genetic instruction is contained within our DNA
• Our cells make a copy, which is called messenger RNA or simply mRNA (you’ll remember this from Covid vaccines)
• This travels out of the cell’s nucleus and instructs the cell’s protein-making factories to start making a specific protein
• But microRNAs get in the way by sticking to the messenger RNA and stop it working
• In essence the mircoRNA has prevented the gene from being expressed in the cell

Further work showed this was not a process unique to worms, but was a core component of life on Earth.

Prof Janosch Heller, from Dublin City University, said he was “delighted” to hear the prize had gone to Profs Ambros and Ruvkun.

“Their pioneering work into gene regulation by microRNAs paved the way for groundbreaking research into novel therapies for devastating diseases such as epilepsy, but also opened our eyes to the wonderful machinery that is tightly controlling what is happening in our cells.”

2023 – Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman for developing the technology that led to the mRNA Covid vaccines.

2022 – Svante Paabo for his work on human evolution.

2021 – David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for their work on how the body senses touch and temperature.

2020 – Michael Houghton, Harvey Alter and Charles Rice for the discovery of the virus Hepatitis C.

2019 – Sir Peter Ratcliffe, William Kaelin and Gregg Semenza for discovering how cells sense and adapt to oxygen levels.

2018 – James P Allison and Tasuku Honjo for discovering how to fight cancer using the body’s immune system.

2017- Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young for unravelling how bodies keep a circadian rhythm or body clock.

2016 – Yoshinori Ohsumi for discovering how cells remain healthy by recycling waste.

The northern Indian state of Haryana and Indian-administered Kashmir sprang surprises on Tuesday as votes were counted in assembly elections there.

Most exit polls had predicted a hung assembly in Kashmir but an alliance of the main opposition Congress and the National Conference Party (NCP) are on course for a landslide in the 90-member house and poised to form a government.

In Haryana, which also has 90 seats, predictions of a Congress landslide were upended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which has proved the pollsters wrong.

The BJP-led government appears on course to return for a rare third consecutive term in Haryana.

The polls in Kashmir are significant as these are first assembly elections there in a decade – and also the first since the federal government revoked the region’s autonomy and changed the former state into a federally- governed territory in 2019.

Unlike Kashmir – which India and its neighbour Pakistan have fought wars over – Haryana does not often command global headlines.

But the tiny state grabs much attention in India as it is next to the capital, Delhi. Along with Punjab, it is called the bread basket of India for its large wheat and paddy farms, and the city of Gurugram is home to offices of some of the biggest global brands such as Google, Dell and Samsung.

The results are being watched keenly in India as these are the first state assembly polls since the summer parliamentary election. Analysts say Tuesday’s results will set the tone as the country heads into more regional elections, including in the state of Maharashtra and Delhi, over the next few months.

Perhaps the best description of what transpired in the state has come from political scientist Sandeep Shastri.

“The Congress has snatched defeat from the jaws of victory,” he told the BBC.

For weeks, political circles had been abuzz that the BJP was facing a huge wave of anti-incumbency and analysts were confidently saying that the party’s government was on its way out.

After most of the post-election exit polls predicted a Congress landslide, many said it was an election for the party to lose.

Shastri blames the Congress defeat on overconfidence and infighting within the party.

“They were confident they would win and became complacent. BJP, on the other hand, worked on issues quietly on the ground and successfully fought anti-incumbency to return to power.”

Both parties, he said, tried to form social coalitions by bringing together different caste groups – the results show the majority chose to support the BJP.

Shastri says differences between two top Congress leaders – Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Kumari Selja, who were contenders for the chief minister’s post – did not go down well with the voters.

Tuesday’s count, however, has been mired in controversy with the Congress accusing the Election Commission (EC) of delaying updating numbers on their website.

After party leader Jairam Ramesh submitted a complaint letter to the Election Commission, Selja said her party may still come out on top.

“I am telling you… there is something going on. If all goes well, Congress will form the government in Haryana,” she said.

But with numbers not on their side, that will likely remain a dream.

The EC has denied the allegations.

In the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, the Hindu nationalist BJP has little support, but it enjoys tremendous goodwill in the Hindu-dominated Jammu region. And the results reflect that divide. But the Congress-NC alliance has enough seats and is headed to form a government in the state.

The Modi government’s 2019 decision to scrap Article 370 of the constitution, which granted special status to Kashmir, and carve the state into two sent shockwaves around the valley, which elects 47 assembly seats.

At his campaign rallies, Modi had promised to restore the region’s “statehood”. But as the results show, that failed to placate angry voters.

The region saw a surprisingly high turnout – but as political analyst Sheikh Showkat Hussain says, they were voting against the BJP and the revocation of the region’s special status.

• Article 370: What happened with Kashmir and why it matters
• Modi’s BJP ahead in Haryana election but trails in Kashmir

“The BJP made this election into a sort of referendum on its decision [to revoke Article 370]. However, people voted in favour of the stand taken by the regional parties,” he said.

Noor Mohammad Baba, another political analyst in Kashmir, says the results reveal that the BJP’s “policies weren’t popular” in the region.

“The result is a message to Delhi that they need to mend their policies towards Jammu and Kashmir,” he added.

One surprising outcome of the election has been the poor showing by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), led by former Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti.

Mufti, who earlier ruled in coalition with the BJP, has managed to win only three seats.

Responding to a query about her party’s poor performance, she said it was the “people’s choice”.

“Winning or losing is a part of politics. People feel that Congress and National Conference will give them a stable government and keep the BJP at bay. We respect their verdict,” she added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party was leading in the northern state of Haryana but set to fall short in Indian-administered Kashmir as votes were counted in two regional elections.

An opposition alliance formed by the Congress and regional party National Conference (NC) is ahead in Jammu and Kashmir.

These were the first assembly polls to be held in India since the general election, which returned the BJP to power in June with a reduced majority.

A third straight win in Haryana would be a big boost for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of other state elections due in the next few weeks.

The Congress had expressed confidence of a victory in Haryana ahead of the results but analysts now say complacency, infighting and a consolidation against the powerful Jat community may have affected its chances.

A keenly watched seat in Haryana – Julana – gave some relief to the Congress as top wrestler Vinesh Phogat won her first election.

The two results have proven exit polls wrong again – they had predicted a majority for the Congress in Haryana and a hung assembly in Jammu and Kashmir.

Both Haryana and Jammu and Kashmir have 90 assembly seats and a party or coalition that crosses the halfway mark can form the government.

This was the first assembly election to be held in Jammu and Kashmir since 2019, when the federal government revoked the region’s autonomy and changed it into a federally governed territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

The three-phase elections saw top leaders from the BJP and Congress make several promises, including the restoration of full statehood.

Many voters told the BBC that they hoped that the election would give them a chance to voice their concerns after having no local representatives for years.

However, many say they are sceptical about how much influence the elected government will have, since the chief minister will have to get the federally appointed lieutenant governor’s approval on major decisions.

After the last election in 2014, the BJP formed a government with the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). But they parted ways in June 2018 over political and ideological differences amid rising violence in the Kashmir valley. Since then, Delhi has governed the region.

The elections in 2024 were closely watched as federal officials held them up as a proof of normalcy in a region facing militancy for decades.

The region has witnessed a violent insurgency against Indian rule for more than three decades, resulting in thousands of deaths.

India blames Pakistan for fomenting the violence, a charge its neighbour denies. The countries have fought two wars over Kashmir, which both claim in full but administer only in parts.

For the first time in decades, several separatists – who advocate for Kashmir’s independence from India – also took part in the elections. Smaller players and regional parties were hoping to play a crucial role in government formation after exit polls suggested a hung assembly.

In Haryana, the governing BJP faced the major challenge of anti-incumbency after a decade of being in power.

The Congress’s hopes were buoyed by anger over controversial federal farm laws – now withdrawn – and a short-term army recruitment scheme brought by the BJP.

The farm laws had sparked months of protests from farmers in Haryana and neighbouring states as protesters feared they would allow the entry of private players into agriculture.

The short-term army recruitment scheme, Agniveer, was a contentious issue in the state, which contributes a significant number of soldiers to the Indian army, especially at a time when India grapples with a jobs crisis.

But now the BJP looks set to overcome these challenges to achieve a hat-trick win.

Russia’s intelligence agency has been on a mission to generate “sustained mayhem on British and European streets”, the head of MI5 has said.

Giving his annual update on security threats faced by the UK, Ken McCallum said GRU agents had carried out “arson, sabotage and more dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness” in Britain after the UK backed Ukraine in its war with Russia.

MI5 had also responded to 20 plots backed by Iran since 2022, although he added the majority of its work still mostly involved Islamist extremism followed by extreme right-wing terrorism.

The complex mix of terror-related threats and threats from nation states meant MI5 had “one hell of a job on its hands”, he warned.

In a wide-ranging speech, he said:

• Young people are increasingly being drawn into online extremism, with 13% of those investigated for terrorism involvement aged under 18
• A total of 43 late-stage plots involving firearms and explosives to commit “mass murder” in the UK have been foiled since 2017
• The number of state-threat investigations by MI5 had increased by 48%
• Counter-terrorism work remained split between “75% Islamist extremism, 25% extreme right-wing terrorism”

There were a “dizzying range of beliefs and ideologies” MI5 had to deal with, he told the briefing at MI5’s counter-terrorism operations centre in London.

“The first 20 years of my career here were crammed full of terrorist threats. We now face those alongside state-backed assassination and sabotage plots, against the backdrop of a major European land war,” he said.

The UK’s “leading role” in supporting Ukraine means “we loom large in the fevered imagination of Putin’s regime” and further acts of aggression on UK soil should be expected, he warned.

The UK’s current terror threat level is substantial – meaning an attack is likely.

More than 750 Russian diplomats had been expelled from Europe since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying “a great majority of them” were spies, Mr McCallum said.

This affected the Russian intelligence services’ capability, he explained, and added that diplomatic visas had been denied to those Britain and allies considered Russian spies.

Russian state actors turned to proxies, such as private intelligence operatives and criminals, to do “their dirty work”, but this affected the professionalism of their operations and made them easier to disrupt.

While Mr McCallum has spoken publicly before about both the Russian and Iranian threats he has not previously accused Moscow in such stark terms.

In a previous public address he referred to 10 plots against Iranians in the UK. That number has now doubled, implying that Iranian state activity is undeterred by the threat of being caught.

In both cases, Russia and Iran, the MI5 boss stressed that because it was difficult to almost impossible for their accredited diplomats to carry out such actions they were turning increasingly to underworld criminal gangs.

On China, he said the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had a programme to steal data and information from the UK and “we have seen 20,000 obfuscated approaches to individuals by China”.

The number of young people being drawn into online extremism is growing, Mr McCallum warned.

About 13% of those investigated for involvement in terrorism were under 18 – a threefold increase in the last three years.

“Canny online memes” draw young people into extreme ideologies, he warned.

The security agency was seeing “far too many cases where very young people are being drawn into poisonous online extremism”.

Responding to questions from reporters, he reiterated concerns about the role of the internet being the “biggest factor” driving the trend, and described how easily youngsters could access material from their bedrooms.

A high proportion of the threat was made up by “lone individuals indoctrinated online” he said.

“In dark corners of the internet, talk is cheap. Sorting the real plotters from armchair extremists is an exacting task,” he said.

“Anonymous online connections are often inconsequential, but a minority lead to deadly, real world actions.”

Home Office figures published last month show that of 242 people detained on suspicion of terror offences in the year to June, 17% (40) were aged 17 and under.

Sir Keir Starmer acknowledged the “sober findings” outlined by Mr McCallum but said the public should be “reassured that our security services are world class and will do everything necessary to keep us safe”.

President Joe Biden has warned people in Florida to evacuate as a “matter of life and death” ahead of category four Hurricane Milton’s landfall in the state.

Milton has weakened slightly from a category five, but is still packing ferocious winds of up to 145mph (233km/h) after brushing past the northern edge of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.

The storm is expected to slam into the heavily populated city of Tampa Bay with full force on Wednesday night, less than two weeks after the state was hit by the devastating Hurricane Helene.

Floridians have been told to prepare for the state’s largest evacuation effort in years.

• Follow live updates as Milton bears down on Florida
• When will the hurricane hit? Everything we know so far

Speaking at the White House on Tuesday, President Biden said the storm could be one of Florida’s worst in a century.

“Evacuate now, now, now,” he told Florida residents, vowing that the federal government would help the state “before, during and after” the hurricane hits.

Thousands of federal personnel are also being deployed, Biden added.

Governor Ron DeSantis said Florida had prepared dozens of shelters to help house residents left stranded in the storm.

“We have one of the sites that can do 10,000,” he said in a news briefing. “Others will do multiple thousands. But these are designed to be a shelter of last resort.”

He said on Monday that the storm looked like it was going to be a “monster”.

In wake of the storm, the White House said Biden cancelled a planned visit to Germany and Angola in order to oversee preparations for Milton, in addition to ongoing recovery efforts for Hurricane Helene.

The government of the Bahamas has now also issued a tropical storm watch for parts of the island nation, including Grand Bahama Island, the Abacos and Bimini.

Less than two weeks ago Hurricane Helene – the deadliest mainland storm since Katrina in 2005 – pummelled the US south-east, killing at least 225 people. Hundreds more are missing.

At least 14 of those deaths were in Florida, where 51 of 67 counties are now under emergency warnings as Milton approaches.

While the hurricane weakened on Tuesday morning, the National Hurricane Center warned that it could double in size before striking Florida on Wednesday.

“Milton has the potential to be one of the most destructive hurricanes on record for west-central Florida,” the update said.

In a mid-morning update on Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center said that sustained winds had reached 150mph, down from 180mph the night before.

Hurricanes are separated into five categories based on their wind speed.

Those reaching category three and higher are considered major hurricanes because of their potential for significant loss of life and damage, according to the National Weather Service.

The National Hurricane Center has warned that life-threatening storm surges and damaging winds along portions of Florida’s west coast were possible from late Tuesday or early Wednesday.

Rainfall totals could reach localised highs of 15in (38cm), and coastal areas could see storm surges of 10-15ft (3-4.5m).

“Use today as your day to finalise and execute the plan that is going to protect you and your family,” DeSantis told residents on Tuesday.

Counties began issuing evacuation orders on Monday, with tolls suspended on roads in western and central Florida.

Long queues at petrol stations began forming in south Florida, with some reports of stations running out of fuel.

Traffic congestion in some areas has increased by as much as 90% above average, DeSantis said.

School closures in several counties begun on Tuesday.

Keith Turi, a spokesperson for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), said on Tuesday: “I’m encouraged by the amount of evacuation that’s going on right now.

“This is actually a good sign.”

Parts of Pinellas County, where at least a dozen people were killed by Helene, were placed under evacuation orders on Monday.

Airports in Tampa and Orlando announced they would be suspending flight operations from Tuesday because of the storm.

A town hall style event to be filmed with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in Miami on Tuesday was postponed until next week.

“The health and safety of everyone involved in this event is the highest priority,” said the host network Univision.

• Are you in Florida? Please share your experiences
• How is climate change affecting hurricanes like Milton?
• What made Hurricane Helene so damaging?
• Hurricanes: A look inside the deadly storms
• What is a storm surge and how serious is the threat from Milton?

The approach of the new hurricane comes as the US government warns that clean-up efforts could take years after Hurricane Helene.

Over 12,000 cubic yards of debris have been removed in Helene-affected areas of Florida in less than two days, officials said.

Hundreds of roads in affected areas remain closed, hampering efforts to send aid to hard-hit communities.

Helene made landfall in late September as a category four hurricane.

As well as in Florida, deaths were recorded in Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia – and the worst-hit state, North Carolina.

Biden has ordered another 500 soldiers to be deployed to North Carolina. The troops – who now number 1,500 in all – will work with thousands of government relief workers and National Guard.

Biden has so far approved nearly $140m (£107m) in federal assistance.

Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to get exclusive insight on the latest climate and environment news from the BBC’s Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt, delivered to your inbox every week. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.

US officials are warning about the potentially life-threating impacts of Hurricane Milton as it barrels towards the Florida coast.

Milton is one of the most powerful storms to form in the North Atlantic in recent years.

It comes just two weeks after Hurricane Helene caused substantial damage across the US.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) expects Milton to make landfall as an “extremely dangerous hurricane” in the US state of Florida on Wednesday night, local time.

It could strike near the city of Tampa, whose wider metropolitan area has a population of more than three million people.

Forecasters are warning of torrential rain, flash flooding, high winds and possible storm surges – which occur when water moves inland from the coast.

They say Milton could be the worst storm to hit the area in about a century – with a surge of 10-15ft (3-4.5m) possible, and localised rainfall of up to 1.5ft.

• Live: The latest on Hurricane Milton
• Florida warned of ‘potentially catastrophic’ Hurricane Milton
• What is a storm surge and how serious is the threat from Milton?

Milton became a category one hurricane on Sunday and has been steadily moving eastwards, through the Gulf of Mexico, after brushing past Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.

BBC weather presenter Chris Fawkes said it had undergone explosive intensification in a 24-hour period, culminating in sustained wind gusts of 200mph (321km/h).

It was placed in the most powerful hurricane category – five – though it has fluctuated in strength, and was subsequently downgraded to a category four.

While the hurricane dropped in intensity on Tuesday, officials warned that it could double in size before striking Florida again on Wednesday.

The core of the hurricane is expected to pass over west-central Florida on Wednesday, with a large storm surge expected along a swathe of the state’s coast.

It is then due to cut across the peninsula before ending up in the Atlantic Ocean.

Floridians have been told to prepare for the state’s largest evacuation effort in years, with Governor Ron DeSantis warning that a “monster” is on the way.

Most counties are in an official state of emergency, and evacuations have been ordered up and down Florida’s west coast.

Disaster management authorities have issued a list and map of the evacuation orders.

Several large shelters have also been prepared as a last resort for those stranded.

Airports in Milton’s expected path have announced closures, and queues of traffic have been observed as people start to leave their homes.

• Are you in Florida? Please share your experiences
• Hurricanes: A look inside the deadly storms
• How is climate change affecting hurricanes?
• BBC Verify: Fact checking misinformation about Hurricane Helene

Hurricanes – sometimes known as cyclones or typhoons – are a type of tropical storm that form in the North Atlantic. They bring strong winds and heavy rain.

When ocean air is warm and moist, it rises, and then starts to cool – which causes clouds to form.

Sometimes this rising air can move away at the top of the hurricane more quickly than it can be replaced at the surface, causing the surface pressure to fall.

The falling pressure causes the winds to accelerate with more air then getting pulled in as the hurricane strengthens.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Association (Noaa) predicted that the 2024 hurricane season would be more active than usual. Rising average sea level temperatures due to human-caused climate change were partly to blame, it said.

Category five hurricanes are considered “catastrophic” by Noaa.

They carry wind speeds greater than 155mph (249km/h) and can cause “very severe and extensive damage”.

The US government agency urges “massive evacuations” in residential areas near shorelines, since a category five hurricane can also bring storm surges that exceed 18ft (5m) and destroy many homes.

Trees and power lines can also be downed, causing the isolation of residential areas and lengthy power cuts. Noaa says affected areas can be left uninhabitable for weeks or months.

A database from Noaa shows that at least 40 storms in the Atlantic have reached category five status since 1924, though only four have actually hit land at that strength. Here are some of the most damaging:

Hurricane Camille

Camille crashed into Mississippi in 1969, producing a peak storm surge of 24ft and destroying almost everything along the coast.

It killed 259 people, most of them in Virginia, and caused about $1.4bn (£1.06bn) in damage.

Hurricane Andrew

Hurricane Andrew decimated southern Florida in 1992 with sustained wind speeds of up to 165mph and gusts as high as 174mph.

It claimed 26 lives directly and was blamed for dozens of other deaths. After causing $30bn in damage, it was considered the costliest natural disaster in US history at the time.

Hurricane Michael

Hurricane Michael slammed into Florida in 2018 with 160mph wind speeds and was the strongest storm to make landfall in the Sunshine State.

At least 74 deaths were attributed to the storm – 59 in the US and 15 in Central America – and Michael caused an estimated $25.1bn in damage.

Lower-category storms

Milton comes less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene hit the US as a category four storm, killing more than 200 people and becoming the deadliest hurricane to strike the US mainland since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

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The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to two scientists, Geoffrey Hinton and John Hopfield, for their work on machine learning.

British-Canadian Professor Hinton is sometimes referred to as the “Godfather of AI” and said he was flabbergasted.

He resigned from Google in 2023, and has warned about the dangers of machines that could outsmart humans.

The announcement was made by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences at a press conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

American Professor John Hopfield, 91, is a professor at Princeton University in the US, and Prof Hinton, 76, is a professor at University of Toronto in Canada.

Machine learning is key to artificial intelligence as it develops how a computer can train itself to generate information.

It drives a vast range of technology that we use today from how we search the internet to editing photographs on our phones.

“I had no idea this would happen. I’m very surprised,” said Prof Hinton, speaking on the phone to the Academy minutes after the announcement.

He said he was in a hotel with bad internet in California and thought he might need to cancel the rest of his day’s plans.

The Academy listed some of the crucial applications of the two scientists’ work, including improving climate modelling, development of solar cells, and analysis of medical images.

Prof Hinton’s pioneering research on neural networks paved the way for current AI systems like ChatGPT.

In artificial intelligence, neural networks are systems that are similar to the human brain in the way they learn and process information. They enable AIs to learn from experience, as a person would. This is called deep learning.

Prof Hinton said his work on artificial neural networks was revolutionary.

“It’s going to be like the Industrial Revolution – but instead of our physical capabilities, it’s going to exceed our intellectual capabilities,” he said.

But he said he also had concerns about the future. He was asked if he regretted his life’s work as he told journalist last year.

In reply, he said he would do the same work again, “but I worry that the overall consequences of this might be systems that are more intelligent than us that might eventually take control”.

He also said he uses the AI chatbot ChatGPT4 for many things now but with the knowledge that it does not always get the answer right.

Professor John Hopfield invented a network that can save and recreate patterns.

It uses physics that describes a material’s characteristics due to atomic spin.

In a similar way to how the brain tries to recall words by using associated but incomplete words, Prof Hopfield developed a network that can use incomplete patterns to find the most similar.

The Nobel Prize committee said the two scientists’ work has become part of our daily lives, including in facial recognition and language translation.

But Ellen Moons, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said “its rapid development has also raised concerns about our future collectively”.

The winners share a prize fund worth 11m Swedish kronor (£810,000).

When Prof Hinton resigned from Google last year, he told the BBC some of the dangers of AI chatbots were “quite scary”.

He also said at the time that his age had played into his decision to leave the tech giant.

Earlier this year, in an interview with BBC Newsnight, he said the UK government will have to establish a universal basic income to deal with the impact of AI on inequality, as he was “very worried about AI taking lots of mundane jobs”.

He added that while AI would increase productivity and wealth, the money would go to the rich “and not the people whose jobs get lost and that’s going to be very bad for society”.

In the same interview, he said developments over the last year showed governments were unwilling to rein in military use of AI while the competition to develop products rapidly meant there was a risk tech companies wouldn’t “put enough effort into safety”.

Prof Hinton said “my guess is in between five and 20 years from now there’s a probability of half that we’ll have to confront the problem of AI trying to take over”.

• 2023 – Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier for work on attoseconds – extremely short pulses of light that can be used to capture and study rapid processes inside atoms;

• 2022 – Alain Aspect, American John Clauser and Austrian Anton Zeilinger for research into quantum mechanics – the science that describes nature at the smallest scales;

• 2021 – Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi were given the prize for advancing our understanding of complex systems, such as Earth’s climate;

• 2020 – Sir Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez received the prize for their work on the nature of black holes;

• 2019 – James Peebles, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz shared the prize for ground-breaking discoveries about the Universe;

• 2018 – Donna Strickland, Arthur Ashkin and Gerard Mourou were awarded the prize for their discoveries in the field of laser physics.

Lebanon’s prime minister at the time of its last war with Israel in 2006 has told the BBC his country has been abandoned by the international community.

Fouad Siniora said it was unacceptable to leave Lebanon to fall, and there was a lack of initiative when it came to trying to restore peace.

“We are now in a very difficult situation that requires real effort locally, as well on the Arab side and internationally.

“You can push things – sometimes to the brink of falling – in a major catastrophe without really realising what it means later on.

“It’s happening at a time when the American administration is so busy with the elections.

“And we are unable to elect a president, because some groups in the country, particularly Hezbollah, have been insisting that they want a president that will not stab that group in the back,” Siniora said.

The last war between Lebanon and Israel, nearly 20 years ago, began when Hezbollah fighters crossed the border and attacked Israeli soldiers. Two were kidnapped and three were killed, sparking a month-long conflict.

In the days that followed, Siniora made a public statement distancing the Lebanese government from what had happened.

He thinks the country’s current leaders have failed their people by not doing the same thing.

“This government did not do what my government did that day. My government was very clear and determined in stating that we were not aware, and we were not informed, of Hezbollah’s plan to cross the Blue Line on the border and to kidnap and kill Israeli soldiers.

“This time there hasn’t been any move made by the Lebanese government. The advantage of what we did is that we created a distance between the Lebanese government and Lebanon on the one hand, and Hezbollah on the other,” he explained.

Siniora is unflinching in his assessment of Lebanon’s lost sovereignty.

“Practically, Lebanon as a state has been kidnapped by Hezbollah. And behind Hezbollah is Iran.

“This gun that was held by Hezbollah, instead of being pointed towards Israel, started to be pointed domestically and started to be used as a way for Iran to interfere in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen. Lebanon can’t get involved in such a war.”

Siniora was also one of the architects of UN resolution 1701, the agreement which ended the 2006 war.

Among its conditions was that a swathe of southern Lebanon – the area south of the landmark Litani river – should be kept as a buffer zone between the two sides, free of any Hezbollah fighters or weapons.

Despite the deployment of the UN peacekeeping force Unifil and the presence of the Lebanese army, that didn’t happen. Hezbollah’s people, and its military infrastructure, remained bedded into the area.

This vacuum at the top of the Lebanese political system has made Hezbollah’s influence on the country particularly difficult to control.

Lebanon has been without a properly functioning government since its last set of elections in 2022, being run instead by a caretaker administration.

When President Michel Aoun’s term ended nearly two years ago, lawmakers couldn’t agree on his replacement – so the job remains empty. Many Lebanese believe leadership is in short supply.

Siniora is also clear that the conflict in Lebanon should not be inextricably linked to the current year-old war in Gaza.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has visited regional capitals, calling for simultaneous ceasefires in both Lebanon and Gaza.

“Since October 2023 things have been dragging and getting worse and worse. Many chances were made available to dissociate the Lebanese situation from Gaza. It’s very important nationally and from an Arab point of view to associate with Gaza,” Siniora said.

“But particularly now Lebanon cannot afford, in principle, to get involved in such a matter.

“When the Gaza situation has become 2.2 million Palestinians homeless and all of Gaza destroyed, to continue to link Lebanon’s situation with Gaza is not wise.”

China has imposed taxes on imports of European brandy in a move that France has said is retaliation for recent big tariffs the EU announced on Chinese electric vehicles.

The European Commission said it would challenge China’s tax at the World Trade Organization (WTO), calling it an “abuse” of trade defence measures.

But China said the move was an “anti-dumping” measure that would protect its domestic producers.

French brandy producers said the duties, which will hit big brands including Hennessy and Remy Martin, would be “catastrophic” for the industry.

Shares in brandy companies dropped after the announcement.

China announced new restrictions on European brandy just days after EU countries approved steep tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles.

China’s commerce ministry said brandy imports threaten “substantial damage” to its own producers. Importers will have to pay “security deposits” on European brandy.

China is also considering new tariffs on other EU imports including cars, pork, and dairy.

It has said EU tariffs on its electric vehicles are a breach of global trade rules.

French Trade Minister Sophie Primas said the brandy tax “seems to be a retaliatory measure” after the European Union decision to raise tariffs on Chinese electric cars.

She said that kind of retaliation would be “unacceptable”, and a “total contradiction” of international trade rules, adding that France would work with the European Union to take action at the WTO.

France accounts for 99% of brandy exported to China, and French cognac lobby group BNIC said the move would be “catastrophic” for the industry.

“The French authorities cannot abandon us and leave us alone to deal with Chinese retaliation that has nothing to do with us,” BNIC said, adding that the taxes “must be suspended before it’s too late”.

Shares in companies that sell spirits took a battering after the Chinese announcement.

Luxury firm LVMH, which produces Hennessy, fell more than 3%, while Remy Cointreau, which makes Remy Martin, fell more than 8%.

Analysts at Jefferies estimate that the tariffs could translate into a 20% price increase for consumers, which would probably lead to volumes and supplier sales falling by a fifth.

Shares in German carmakers, which could also be hit by tariff moves from China, also slid.

Volkswagen, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and BMW were all down after the announcement.

Two grey shapes, visible from satellites for most of this year at Cambodia’s Ream naval base, seem to confirm growing fears in Washington: that China is expanding its military footprint, beyond the three disputed islands in the South China Sea which it has already seized and fortified.

The shapes are type 056A corvettes of the Chinese navy – 1,500-tonne warships – and they have been berthed alongside a new, Chinese-built pier that is big enough to accommodate much larger vessels. Onshore there are other facilities, also built by China, which are presumed to be for the use of the Chinese navy.

The Cambodian government has repeatedly denied such a possibility, citing its constitution which bans any permanent foreign military presence, and stating that Ream is open to use by all friendly navies.

“Please understand this is a Cambodian, not a Chinese base,” said Seun Sam, a Policy Analyst at the Royal Academy of Cambodia. “Cambodia is very small, and our military capacities are limited.

“We need more training from outside friends, especially from China.”

Others, however, are watching with suspicion.

For all the talk about the rapid rise of Chinese sea power – the country now has more ships in its navy than the US – China currently has only one overseas military base, in the African state of Djibouti, which it built in 2016.

The United States, by contrast, has around 750 – one also in Djibouti, and many others in countries close to China like Japan and South Korea.

The US believes the imbalance is changing, however, because of China’s stated ambition to be a global military power. That, and the scale of its investments in overseas infrastructure through the Belt and Road Initiative, which under Chinese law must be built to military standards.

Some in Washington predict that China will eventually have a global network of bases, or civilian ports that it can use as bases. And one of the first of these is Ream.

Until a few years ago, Ream – which sits on Cambodia’s southern tip – was being upgraded with US assistance; part of the tens of millions of dollars’ worth of yearly military aid provided to Cambodia. But the US cut back this aid after 2017, when Cambodia’s main opposition party was banned and its leaders exiled or jailed.

Already increasingly dependent on Chinese aid and investment, the Cambodian government abruptly switched partners. It cancelled the regular joint military exercises held with the US, and switched to the so-called Golden Dragon exercises it now holds with China.

By 2020, two US-funded buildings in Ream had been torn down and an extensive, Chinese-funded expansion of the facilities there had begun. By the end of last year the new pier had been built. It was almost identical to the 363 metre-long pier at the base in Djibouti, and long enough to accommodate China’s largest aircraft carrier.

Soon the two corvettes were docked at Ream – and either they, or identical replacements, have stayed there for most of this year.

Cambodia claims the ships are for training, and to prepare for this year’s Golden Dragon exercises. It also says China is constructing two new 056A corvettes for its own navy, and insists that the Chinese presence in Ream is not permanent, so does not count as a base.

That has not stopped US officials from expressing their concern over the expansion of the site, though, which satellite photographs show has, in addition to the new pier, a new dry dock, warehouses, and what look like administrative offices and living quarters with four basketball courts.

In 2019 the Wall Street Journal reported on what it said was a leaked agreement between Cambodia and China to lease 77 hectares of the base for 30 years. This allegedly included the stationing of military personnel and weapons.

The Cambodian government dismissed the report as fake news – but it is noteworthy that only Chinese warships have so far been allowed to dock at the new pier. Two Japanese destroyers visiting in February were instead told to dock at the nearby town of Sihanoukville.

Even if the Chinese presence does start to become more permanent and exclusive, however, some analysts doubt it would violate Cambodia’s constitution.

It is technically true that Ream is not a permanent base. And while its expansion is Chinese-funded, the base itself is not leased to China, said Kirsten Gunness, a Senior Policy Researcher at the California-based Rand Corporation.

“We are seeing a pattern of Chinese ships being continuously docked [at Ream],” she said. “One way to get around the constitutional prohibition is not to call it a foreign base, but allow foreign forces continuous access on a rotational basis.”

The US and the Philippines operate under similar agreements, Gunness added.

Most analysts believe a long-term Chinese presence at Ream would offer very few real advantages to China. They point to the three bases it has already built on Mischief, Fiery Cross and Subi Reefs in the South China Sea, and the formidable naval forces it maintains on its south coast.

But a Chinese base in Ream, at the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand, does worry Cambodia’s neighbours, Thailand and Vietnam. Together with other bases further north, it could be seen as an attempt by China to encircle the long Vietnamese coast.

Like the Philippines, Vietnam disputes China’s claim to almost all the islands in the South China Sea, and its forces have clashed with China’s in the past.

Thai national security officials have also privately expressed alarm at the thought of a Chinese base just south of the Thai navy’s main port in Sattahip, covering their exit from the Gulf of Thailand. Thailand and Cambodia still have unresolved territorial disputes, after all.

Neither country is likely to voice these complaints publicly, though. Thailand will want to avoid causing ripples in its economically vital relationship with China, while Vietnam will want to avoid stirring up anti-Vietnamese sentiment in Cambodia. Public resentment of China in Vietnam, where such feelings are never far from the surface, is also something the Vietnamese government will want to steer clear of.

US and Indian strategists, meanwhile, are more concerned about the future possibility of a Chinese base in the Indian Ocean – like the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota, which a Chinese state-owned company acquired a 99-year lease for in 2017, or the port of Gwadar in Pakistan, which has also been redeveloped with Chinese funding.

But these are still very distant prospects. Few analysts believe China will be able to rival the global military reach of the US for many more years.

“The Ream base does not add much in the way of power projection – it doesn’t get the Chinese navy any closer to places it wants to go,” said Greg Poling, director of the CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.

What it could do is make a big difference in gathering intelligence, tracking satellites and detecting or monitoring long-range targets.

“These are not necessarily the best options for China,” Mr Poling added. “But they are the only ones on offer.”

Katie Smith has had an addiction for as long as she can remember. Something she feels compelled to do dozens of times a day.

The 30-year-old finds herself repeatedly opening the Rightmove app, despite the fact she has no intention of moving house anytime soon.

“Rightmove is my porn,” laughs Katie, from Stone, Staffordshire. “It’s like being a modern day peeping Tom,” she says, referring to the number of homes she looks inside, all from the comfort of her smartphone.

Last week, after a day trip to Knutsford, Cheshire, she spent the evening looking at all the houses for sale there – regardless of price. And during a recent weekend in London, she loved looking at “how expensive houses in Richmond are”, which was close to her hotel.

Property portals like Rightmove, Zoopla and On the Market are goldmines of user data about both homebuyers and sellers.

Zoopla told the BBC that 1,860 properties are viewed every minute on its website and app, while the figure is even higher for Rightmove – nearly 10,000 properties viewed per minute.

Rightmove recently rejected a fourth takeover bid by Rupert Murdoch’s REA Group, saying the latest £6.2bn offer undervalued the company and its future prospects, showing just how valuable the data it holds is.

The websites themselves acknowledge that not all their users may actually be looking to move home, so what is it that keeps people scrolling?

Katie, who previously worked in interior design, says she loves to check how quickly properties might sell and has a list of favourite homes she has looked at.

“I love character properties, things with features like beautiful Georgian homes,” she says.

While she and her partner are planning to move out of her rented accommodation in about six months, there is no immediate or urgent need to search.

“He thinks I am looking at more houses because of this, but it’s not – it’s just because I love it!”

Sam Kennedy Christian, who lives in Herne Bay in Kent with her husband and two children, uses Zoopla to look at her dream purchases.

“I love imagining what I’d get if we won the lottery… specifically in the Isle of Man where I grew up and my family still live,” she says.

They moved closer to the seaside during the pandemic as many people looked for more outdoor space.

Sam says she enjoys refreshing the Zoopla app as part of her “bedtime scrolling” routine, or while waiting for the baby to drop off to sleep.

She also keeps an eye on similar properties in the local market, although they are not intending to sell anytime soon.

“I especially love a floorplan – you can get a real handle on a house, and how you might use the space.”

When we browse property websites, we’re engaging in “a form of escapism that taps into the brain’s reward systems,” says Louisa Dunbar, the founder of OrangeGrove, a research agency that uses behavioural science to improve business websites.

“Visualising ourselves in these desirable homes triggers the dopamine system, giving us a sense of pleasure, even if we’re not planning to buy. It’s a chance to mentally step into a better life.”

She says that certain features of property portals can play a big role on what we might click on.

High-quality photos may encourage viewers to picture themselves living in a property, while the use of badging listings with terms like “Highlight” or “Just added” fuels the fear of missing out.

These psychological triggers can keep us engaged as we nose around the neighbour’s living room, or imagine a better future, she says.

Users may love these property sites, but are they worth it to estate agents, given most online viewings will not turn into actual enquiries?

Some agents have expressed unease at the high cost to advertise, particularly on Rightmove as the market leader. They say they provide all the photos and listings information about the houses for sale and are then having to pay to do it. It means these high costs can limit their ability to advertise in local newspapers or other places.

One estate agent, who did not wish to be named, told the BBC: “Right now, it’s a case of not being able to live without the likes of Rightmove. The prices [for estate agents] are going up faster than I’d like and I worry about the stranglehold they have on the market.

“But, even if many users are just idly browsing without any real intention of moving, it is still worth it to have properties on there.”

Rightmove responded, saying it has “a variety of different packages to suit businesses of different sizes and needs and the average [agent] spends £1,497 per month”.

Both Rightmove and Zoopla are bullish about the future, saying that confidence in the market is recovering as mortgage rates fall. On Thursday, Zoopla said the number of homes for sale on its platform is growing.

And for now they seem to be attracting everyone whether you’re an idle browser just nosing around, fantasising perhaps about castles you can never afford, a homeowner checking on how the value of your home compares with your neighbours’, or even an actual genuine buyer.