Ukraine has fired US-supplied longer-range missiles at a target inside Russian territory for the first time, a day after Washington gave its permission for such attacks.

US officials confirmed use of the Army Tactical Missile System (Atacms) to CBS news, the BBC’s US partner.

Russia’s defence ministry earlier said the strike targeted the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine to the north on Tuesday morning.

Five missiles were shot down and one damaged, with its fragments causing a fire at a military facility in the region, the ministry said.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov accused Washington of trying to escalate the conflict.

“That Atacms was used repeatedly overnight against Bryansk Region is of course a signal that they [the US] want escalation,” he said.

“And without the Americans, use of these high-tech missiles, as Putin has said many times, is impossible.”

He said Russia would “proceed from the understanding” that the missiles were operated by “American military experts”.

“We will be taking this as a renewed face of the western war against Russia and we will react accordingly,” he told a press conference at the G20 in Rio de Janeiro.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Kremlin approved changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, setting out new conditions under which the country would consider using its arsenal.

It now says an attack from a non-nuclear state, if backed by a nuclear power, will be treated as a joint assault on Russia.

Ukraine has already been using Atacms in Russian-occupied areas of its own territory for more than a year.

The missiles can hit targets at a range of up to 300km (186 miles) and are difficult to intercept.

Kyiv is now able to strike deeper into Russia using the missiles, including around the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces hold over 1,000 sq km of territory. Ukrainian and US officials reportedly expect a counter-offensive in the region.

• Atacms: What we know about missile system Ukraine is using to strike Russia

In a statement, Russia’s defence ministry said the strike was launched at 03:25 (00:25 GMT).

A fire caused by fallen debris from one of the missiles was quickly extinguished and there were no casualties, it said.

Ukraine’s military earlier confirmed that it had struck an ammunition warehouse in the Russian region of Bryansk, but it did not specify whether Atacms were used.

It said the attack, on a depot around 100km from the border near the town of Karachev, caused 12 secondary explosions.

Multiple injuries are feared after a car was driven into a crowd of people outside a primary school in China’s souther Hunan province.

There are no details of casualties yet but state media said “several students and adults were injured and fell to the ground”, and several people are in hospital.

The driver of the vehicle – identified as a white SUV – was caught by parents and school security officers and handed over to police.

This is the third attack on a crowd in China in a week, and it has fuelled concerns about public safety.

“About a dozen people were hit, some of them seriously, but luckily the ambulance came very quickly,” Mr Zhu, a parent of one of the children at the school, told the BBC.

He said he heard the attack just as he was leaving the school premises, after dropping off his eight-year-old.

“Six or seven parents had forced the car of the person who hit others to stop. Even the security guard was knocked down. The guard is quite old, in his 70s or 80s, and couldn’t do much,” he said.

The school has been identified as the Yong’an Primary School in Dingcheng District in Hunan province.

Video from the scene posted on a private WeChat account showed some children lying on the ground, while others, carrying school bags, were fleeing in panic.

Another video filmed soon after the incident showed an angry pedestrian hitting the SUV with a snow shovel while the driver was still inside.

The driver is then seen stepping out of the other side of the vehicle, only to be surrounded by bystanders who started beating him with sticks.

Similar attacks in recent days have sparked discussions online about the social phenomenon of “taking revenge on society“, where individuals act on personal grievances by attacking strangers.

On Saturday eight people were killed and 17 others were wounded in a knife attack at a vocational school in eastern China. Police said the suspect was a 21-year-old former student at the school who was meant to graduate this year but had failed the exam.

Before that, on 12 November, at least 35 people were killed in a car attack in southern China, when a man ran into groups of people exercising on a sports track.

And in October, in Shanghai, a man killed three people and wounded 15 others in stabbing at a supermarket.

According to police records, there have been 19 incidents of indiscriminate violence in China this year in which the perpetrator was not known to the victims. Sixty-three people have been killed and 166 injured in these attacks. This is a sharp increase on previous years – 16 killed and 40 injured in 2023, for instance.

While the incidents are still sporadic and rare, they are high-profile. And the videos that often circulate soon after on social media have prompted concern and fear among people.

“These are symptoms of a society with a lot of pent-up grievances,” Lynette Ong, distinguished professor of Chinese politics at Canada’s University of Toronto, told AFP.

“Some people resort to giving up. Others, if they’re angry, want to take revenge.”

A slowing economy, high youth unemployment and a property crisis that has hurt savings have led to increasing uncertainty about the future among Chinese people.

Ong said, in the circumstacnes, violent attacks were the “negative side of the same coin”.

President Xi Jinping has ordered local officials to ensure the safety and “social stability” of communities and to “strictly prevent extreme cases”.

Officials are keen to show they are acting quickly. They worry that such a high number of casualties in a single year could raise questions about China’s safety record, further alarming people and even discouraging tourism.

The Communist Party has rapidly expanded surveillance in recent years and after the car attack last week in Zhuhai, there have been further orders to deploy local officials and community workers to try to prevent unrest.

A Hong Kong court has sentenced dozens of pro-democracy leaders to years in jail for subversion, following a controversial national security trial.

Benny Tai, 60, and Joshua Wong, 28, were among the so-called Hong Kong 47 group of activists and lawmakers who were involved in a plan to pick opposition candidates for local elections.

Tai received 10 years while Wong received more than four years. A total of 45 people were jailed for conspiring to commit subversion. Two of the defendants were acquitted in May.

This was the biggest trial under the national security law (NSL) which China imposed on the city shortly after explosive pro-democracy protests in 2019.

Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in a months-long standoff against Beijing. Triggered by a proposed government treaty that would have allowed extradition to mainland China, the protests quickly grew to reflect wider demands for democratic reform.

Observers say the NSL and the trial’s outcome have significantly weakened the city’s pro-democracy movement and rule of law, allowing China to cement its control of the former British colony.

Beijing and Hong Kong’s government deny this, arguing instead that the NSL is necessary to maintain stability. They also say these sentences serve as a warning for those trying to undermine China’s national security.

“No one can engage in illegal activities in the name of democracy and attempt to escape justice,” China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday. It also said that it was “firmly opposed” to Western countries “undermining the rule of law in Hong Kong”.

The city’s pro-democracy campaigners reacted to the sentences with disappointment and sadness.

“We are very distressed and their families are devastated,” Emily Lau, former chair of the Democratic Party of Hong Kong, told the BBC’s Today programme.

She added that she and many others were not able to enter the courtroom because it was full. Tuesday’s hearing attracted huge interest from Hongkongers, dozens of whom queued up outside days before to secure a spot in the public gallery.

Many of the 45 people on trial were icons of Hong Kong’s protest movement. Tai, a law professor, shot to fame as a key leader back in 2014, Wong was still a teenager when he took to activism, and Gwyneth Ho, a young former journalist, was admitted to hospital after a mob attack during the 2019 protests.

Veteran former lawmakers such as Claudia Mo and Leung Kwok-hung, also known as Long Hair, spent much of their careers fighting for a freer Hong Kong, and first-time activists such as Owen Chou and Tiffany Yuen stormed the legislative council in what was a defining moment for the protests.

All of them were in court in a rare public appearance as many have been in jail since their arrest in early 2021 because pre-trial detention is common under the NSL.

Standing in line on Tuesday was Lee Yue-shun, one of the two defendants acquitted. He told reporters he wanted to urge Hongkongers to “raise questions” about the case, as “everyone has a chance to be affected” by its outcome.

There were several activists waiting to enter court. Bobo Lam, who was once arrested under the NSL, said he was showing up to support friends who are now in jail and “let them know, that there are still many HongKongers who haven’t forgotten them”. Others seemed heartened by how many people had showed up, suggesting they “remember what happened”.

An elderly woman, Regina Fung, chanted “everybody hang in there, stand for Hong Kong” before the hearing. “It’s very sad, even the weather in Hong Kong is miserable today,” she said.

Inside the courtroom, family members and friends waved from the public gallery to the defendants, who appeared calm as they sat in the dock. Some in the gallery had tears in their eyes as the sentences, ranging from four to 10 years, were read out.

Tai, a former law professor who came up with the plan for the unofficial primary, received the longest sentence with judges saying he had “advocated for a revolution”.

Wong had his sentence reduced by a third after he pleaded guilty. But unlike some other defendants, he was not given further reductions as judges “did not consider him to be a person of good character”. At the time of the arrests, Wong was already in jail for participating in protests.

In court, Wong shouted “I love Hong Kong” before he left the dock.

As Leung’s wife, activist Chan Po-ying, walked out of the court at the end of the hearing, she was heard chanting a protest against his jail term.

The UK government said those sentenced had been “exercising their right to freedom of speech, of assembly and of political participation”.

“Today’s sentencing is a clear demonstration of the Hong Kong authorities’ use of the NSL to criminalise political dissent,” a UK government statement said.

The US has described the trial as “politically motivated”. Australia said it had “strong objections” to the use of the NSL and it was “gravely concerned” by the sentencing of one of its citizens, Gordon Ng.

The ruling comes a day after UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer met with China’s Xi Jinping at the G20 summit – a meeting which saw him raise the case of Jimmy Lai, the billionaire pro-democracy activist on trial for treason.

Asked directly about Tuesday’s ruling, he defended pursuing closer ties with Beijing, saying that while it was “important” to be “open… and talk about our disagreements”, it was also in the “national interest” to have a” serious and pragmatic relationship” with China.

“I certainly hope the British government, the prime minister, will stand up for the rights that they promised the Hong Kong people. All these promises, these rights and rule of law are evaporating,” Ms Lau told the BBC. She asked why organising an election should warrant jail time.

After the 2019 protests dwindled with the Covid pandemic, the defendants organised an unofficial primary for the Legislative Council election as a way to continue the pro-democracy movement.

Their aim was to increase the opposition’s chances of blocking the pro-Beijing government’s bills. More than half a million Hongkongers turned out to vote in the primary held in July 2020.

Organisers argued at the time that their actions were allowed under Hong Kong’s Basic Law – a mini-constitution that allows certain freedoms.

But it alarmed Beijing and Hong Kong officials, who warned that the move could breach the NSL, which came into effect days before the primary. They accused the activists of attempting to “overthrow” the government, and arrested them in early 2021.

The trial judges agreed with the prosecution’s argument that the plan would have created a constitutional crisis.

“Central authorities are using the trial to re-educate the Hong Kong people,” said John P Burns, emeritus professor at the University of Hong Kong. The lesson being “national security is the country’s top priority; don’t challenge us on national security’”.

“The case is significant because it provides clues to the health of Hong Kong’s legal system,” he told the BBC. “How can it be illegal to follow processes laid down in the Basic Law?”

A Human Rights Watch spokesperson said that China and Hong Kong “have now significantly raised the costs for promoting democracy in Hong Kong”.

Stephan Ortmann, assistant professor of politics at the Hong Kong Metropolitan University, agreed. Tuesday’s sentencing “set a precedent for the severity of punishments for political dissent under the NSL”, adding that “self-censorship has become the norm”.

But this isn’t a win for Beijing, said Sunny Cheung, an activist who ran in the 2020 primary but has since fled to the US. “They might be happy in a way because the entire opposition is being wiped out… but they don’t have the trust of the people.”

Others, like Ms Lau, said the city had already lost more than a generation of pro-democracy campaigners.

There has been “no permission for marches and demonstrations in the past few years – it’s very, very quiet, very peaceful,” she said.

“But that’s not Hong Kong. If you have been to Hong Kong, you know it is a city of protest. Very colourful, very vibrant, but not any more.”

Police in Brazil have arrested five people suspected of planning to kill Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva shortly before he was sworn in as president.

Four of those detained on Tuesday are soldiers and one is a police officer, local media reported.

The five were allegedly part of a plot to kill President-elect Lula and his vice-presidential running mate, Geraldo Alckmin, on 15 December 2022, just over two weeks before the presidential inauguration.

Lula was elected in October 2022, narrowly defeating incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, who never publicly accepted defeat.

A week after Lula was sworn in, Bolsonaro supporters stormed Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace and vandalised the buildings.

Police eventually cleared the buildings of the rioters and detained thousands.

Investigations into the events of 8 January 2023 as well as previous alleged attempts to prevent Lula from being sworn in have been under way since.

However, this is the first time that police have revealed an alleged attempt to assassinate Lula.

Speaking after news of the arrests broke, Social Communications Minister Paulo Pimenta said that the alleged plot to assassinate Lula and Alckmin had almost gone ahead.

“It was just details which stopped it [from being carried out],” the minister said.

Brazilian news site G1 said that what was particularly worrying was that four of those arrested were active members of the military and the fifth a serving member of the police force.

AFP news agency quoted a federal police source as saying that the four soldiers “were arrested in Rio, where they were participating in the security operation for the G20 leaders’ meeting” currently under way in the Brazilian city.

According to G1, the four soldiers, who had had special forces training, are accused of forming part of a criminal organisation plotting against Lula.

Brazil’s federal police said in a statement that its investigations “indicate that the criminal organisation used a high level of technical-military knowledge to plan, coordinate and execute illicit actions in the months of November and December 2022”.

According to the statement, the plotters had not just planned to assassinate the president-elect and the vice-president-elect but also wanted to arrest and execute a member of the Supreme Court once their coup was successful.

Police said the plotters had nicknamed the operation “green and yellow dagger”, in reference to the colours of the Brazilian flag.

According to the federal police, the plotters had debated how to best “neutralise” Lula and Geraldo Alckmin and had allegedly settled on poisoning the president-elect.

The arrests were carried out in the early hours of Tuesday morning local time and were authorised by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.

In a sports park next to the red walls and glossy blue tiles which surround Beijing’s Temple of Heaven, a group of pensioners are working out.

“I’m 74 and I hope this helps me live a long time,” one man says after he finishes his pull-ups, just as a cold wind blows leaves from cypress trees across the park, disrupting another man who is mid-headstand. Women reach for gloves and sweaters as they take turns hanging from an overhead assault course.

Chinese emperors once came to this Ming dynasty holy site to pray for a good harvest. Now the park is used by locals to enjoy their retirement after spending decades contributing to China’s spectacular growth.

They’ve watched their country open up to the world and their factories propel its economy, which nips at the heels of the United States as the world’s largest.

But some fear what the promises of US president-elect Donald Trump – who has vowed steep tariffs on goods made in China – means for the country’s export-driven economy.

For many in China, Trump is a figure of fun and memes of him dancing to the YMCA are shared widely on social media. Others worry that he’s too unpredictable.

“I like Trump, but he’s unstable. Who knows what he might do?” says the 74-year-old pensioner, whose name has been withheld.

Some of Trump’s cabinet choices – announced since his election victory – will no doubt make people even more wary.

Marco Rubio, his pick for Secretary of State, has called Beijing “the threat that will define this century”. He is also sanctioned by Beijing. Trump’s choice for National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, wrote earlier this month that the US should “urgently” bring the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East to an end so it can “finally focus strategy attention where it should be: countering the greater threat from the Chinese Communist Party”.

But China has been in training for a second Trump presidency, says Yu Jie, a Senior Research Fellow on China at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.

Despite concern on the street, she says his return comes as “no surprise” to Beijing, although she warns that the world should still “expect a roller-coaster type of relationship to unfold” when Trump takes office in January.

The competition between the two nations has been ramping up for some time, long before Trump won the election. It turned especially tense during the Biden administration because of tariffs and geopolitical disagreements ranging from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the future of Taiwan.

Yet there was dialogue, with several senior US officials making trips to Beijing.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed to work with the incoming Trump administration, but he also used his last meeting with President Joe Biden to warn Washington that a “new cold war should not be fought and cannot be won”.

He added that “containing China is unwise, unacceptable and bound to fail”.

Beijing has long accused the US and its allies of trying to contain China – they see tariffs targeting Chinese-made imports, laws restricting the country’s access to advanced AI chips and military alliances in the South China Sea and beyond as part of this approach.

And Trump’s decision to pick Rubio and Waltz suggests his administration will “take a much harsher, muscular approach with China,” says Lyle Morris from the Asia Society’s Centre for China Analysis.

“While Trump views his personal relationship with Xi Jinping as an avenue for negotiation, he will likely lean on Waltz and Rubio in fashioning a more aggressive, uncompromising policy towards China.”

They are far from the only voices in Washington that see China as a threat to US security and its economy – a view that surprises the average person in Beijing.

“You’re much better off here than in the US right now,” says the 74-year-old in the park before heading off to stretch.

Just north of the Temple of Heaven is the Forbidden City, where Chinese emperors lived for almost 500 years. It was here, in 2017, that Xi hosted Trump, bestowing on his guest an honour not granted to any US president since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Xi shut down the area and took Trump on a tour of the imperial quarters, every moment broadcast live on state TV. He was served kung pao chicken for dinner, and in turn brought a video of his granddaughter, Arabella Kushner, singing a Chinese song which went viral on social media.

It was billed by both as a high point in US-China relations, but that quickly soured after the Covid pandemic broke out in Wuhan in 2019 and spread globally in 2020. Trump repeatedly called it the “Chinese virus” and blamed the outbreak on Beijing. He also kicked off a tit-for-tat trade war, with tariffs still in place on more than $300bn (£238bn) of goods.

When Trump starts his second term, he will be encountering a stronger Xi, who has cemented his position at China’s helm with a historic third term – and the possibility of remaining in power for life.

Given it has the world’s largest army and navy, Washington is now concerned that the country is building a bigger nuclear arsenal.

Even as Trump was unveiling his new cabinet, Chinese state media published videos from the country’s biggest airshow of a new stealth fighter jet – the J35-A – flying vertically and upside-down. China is only the second country to boast two stealth fighters in its inventory. The other is the US. The world’s first two-seat stealth fighter, the J20-S, was also on display.

Last week, researchers at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California found satellite images that indicate China is working on nuclear propulsion for a new aircraft carrier.

The studies have “sparked serious concerns over Beijing’s potential adoption of a first-use strategy and increased nuclear threats, fuelling strong support to significantly boost US nuclear capabilities in response,” says Tong Zhao from think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Unless Trump personally intervenes, which seems unlikely, it appears the two nations are on the brink of a much more intense nuclear competition with far-reaching implications for international stability.”

Under Xi’s leadership in recent years, China has also become more assertive in its territorial claims over Taiwan and the South China Sea.

One worry is that Beijing is ramping up militarily to invade Taiwan, which it sees as a breakaway province that will eventually be under its control. Under Trump and his cabinet, would the US be willing to defend Taiwan?

It’s a question asked of every US president. Trump has dodged it, saying he wouldn’t have to use military force because Xi knew he was “crazy”, and he would impose paralysing tariffs on Chinese imports if that happened.

Despite Trump’s unwillingness to participate in foreign wars, most experts expect Washington to continue providing military assistance to Taipei. For one, it is bound by law to sell defensive weapons to the island. Two, the Trump administration sold more arms to Taiwan than any other.

“There is strong bipartisan support for continuing military aid to Taiwan. I don’t expect Trump to significantly change course on arms sales to Taiwan,” Mr Morris says.

These glaring differences aside, Trump does seem to admire Xi’s strongman image.

In 2020 he declared that he and Xi Jinping “love each other”, even in the midst of a bitter trade war with China.

“I had a very strong relationship with him,” he confirmed in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal.

It’s hard to know what Xi thinks – he has said very little about their relationship and barely mentions Trump by name.

In 2018, Chinese state media CGTN took direct aim at the American leader, and released an unflattering video with the sarcastic title: “Thanks Mr Trump, you are great!” It was later taken down by censors.

But what we do know is both leaders project a type of muscular nationalism. Xi’s dream is the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” and Trump believes only he can “make America great again”. Both promise that they are working towards a new golden age for their countries.

Trump’s “golden age” for America incudes 60% tariffs on Chinese-made goods.

But Beijing is in no mood for a second trade war. It has troubles of its own.

President Xi’s dream of prosperity is in jeopardy. China’s economy is sluggish, its property sector is sinking, nearly 20% of its young people are struggling to find jobs and it has one of the world’s fastest growing ageing populations.

Some of this economic pain is clear at the Temple of Heaven. We join the throngs of Chinese tour groups walking through white marble gates. It has become fashionable for young people to dress up in Qing dynasty costumes although their long silk robes often fail to hide the other big trend – chunky white trainers.

Dozens of school groups are listening attentively to guides about their city’s colourful history while a queue forms around the altar to make a wish. I watch as a middle-aged woman dressed in black takes her turn. She turns three times, clasps her hands, closes her eyes and looks toward the sky. Later we ask what she hoped for. She says many people come here and ask for their children to get jobs or to get into a good school.

“We wish for better lives and prospects,” she says. While China claims to have eradicated extreme poverty, millions of labourers and factory workers across the country, those who contributed to China’s rise, will worry what about what’s to come.

Her future and the future of China’s economy may partly depend on just how serious Trump is about his tariffs. This time, Beijing is prepared, according to Yu Jie.

“China has already begun to diversify its sources of agricultural imports (notably from Brazil, Argentina and Russia) and increased the volumes of its exports in non-US allied countries. At a domestic level, the recent local government debt recapitalisation is also paving the way to offset the negative impacts on the likely trade war with the Trump Administration.”

Beijing may also have another hope. Billionaire Elon Musk now appears to have Trump’s ear. His company, Tesla, depends on China for production – about half of all its EVs are made in the country. Chinese leaders may ask if Musk can temper Trump’s trade impulses.

But the great power struggle of the 21st century is not just over trade. Xi’s dream also involves making China the world’s dominant power.

Some experts believe this is where another Trump presidency may offer Beijing an opportunity.

“Chinese leaders will reinforce the narrative that the US is the single and most disruptive source of global instability, while portraying China as a responsible and confident world power,” says Yu Jie.

Biden spent four years building up friendships across Asia with the likes of South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam – all in an effort to contain China.

In the past, Trump’s “America-first” doctrine isolated and weakened these US alliances. He opted for deals over delicate diplomacy and often put a price tag on America’s friendships. In 2018, for instance, he demanded more money from South Korea to continue keeping US troops in the country.

Beijing has already built up alliances with emerging economies. It is also trying to repair its relationship with the UK and Europe, while mending historical grievances with Asian neighbours, South Korea and Japan.

If Washington’s influence does wane around the world, it could be a win for President Xi.

Back at the park, as we discuss the results of the US election, one man holds up four fingers. “He’s only got four years,” he says. “The US is always changing leaders. In China, we have more time.”

Time is indeed on Beijing’s side. Xi could be president for life – and so can afford to make slow but steady progress towards his goals.

Even if Trump does get in the way, it will not be for long.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has said damage to two undersea cables in the Baltic Sea looks like an act of sabotage and a “hybrid action”, without knowing who is to blame.

A 1,170km (730-mile) telecommunications cable between Finland and Germany was severed in the early hours of Monday, while a 218km internet link between Lithuania and Sweden’s Gotland Island stopped working on Sunday.

The incidents came at a time of heightened tension with Russia and Pistorius said “nobody believes that these cables were cut accidentally”.

A series of incidents involving Baltic pipelines have heightened fears of sabotage since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Germany and Finland have both said they are “deeply concerned” by the severing of the C-Lion1 communications cable, adding that Europe’s security is threatened by Russia’s war, “but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors”.

Finnish telecoms and cyber security firm Cinia said its cable may have been severed “by an outside force”. “These kinds of breaks don’t happen in these waters without an outside impact,” a spokesperson told local media.

Cinia’s chief executive said the damage had taken place close to Sweden’s Oland Island and could take five to 15 days to repair.

On Tuesday, Finland said it had opened a police probe, while the Swedish Prosecution Authority said it had opened an investigation into “sabotage” .

“The preliminary investigation is ongoing and at an early stage. There is no further information to share about the investigation at this time,” prosecutor Henrik Soderman said in a statement.

The two cables intersect in the Baltic although the damage is thought to have taken place elsewhere. Arelion, the company that operates the line to Lithuania, has not said where its cable was cut but expects the repair to take a couple of weeks.

Swedish civil defence minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin said it was “absolutely central” to find out why two cables were not working. About a fifth of Lithuania’s internet capacity has been reduced, although consumers are understood not to be affected.

Arelion spokesman Martin Sjogren told the BBC that cables in the Baltic did get damaged every now and then.

“Fishing vessels accidentally damage cables with anchors,” he said. “The timing is odd of course but we haven’t been able to examine it so we don’t know what caused it.”

Samuli Bergstrom, a Finnish government cybersecurity expert, said the failure of the cable from Finland to Germany had not affected internet traffic as other cable routes were available.

LISTEN: How vulnerable are the undersea cables connecting us?

The biggest act of sabotage since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine took place in the Baltic in the same year.

German prosecutors are still investigating the explosion of Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany.

There have been conspiracy theories around that attack, with unconfirmed rumours that either the Ukrainian, Russian or US government was behind it.

In October 2023 a natural gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia was severely damaged.

Finnish officials later said the incident had been caused by a Chinese container ship dragging its anchor.

Turkish air strikes in drought-struck north-east Syria have cut off access to electricity and water for more than a million people, in what experts say may be a violation of international law.

Turkey carried out more than 100 attacks between October 2019 and January 2024 on oil fields, gas facilities and power stations in the Kurdish-held Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), according to data collated by the BBC World Service.

The attacks have added to the humanitarian crisis in a region reeling from a years-long civil war and four years of extreme drought exacerbated by climate change.

Water had already been scarce, but attacks on electricity infrastructure in October last year shut off power to the region’s main water station, in Alouk, and it has not been working since. On two visits there, the BBC witnessed people struggling to get water.

Turkey said it had targeted the “sources of income and capabilities” of Kurdish separatist groups it regards as terrorists.

It said that it was well known there was a drought in the area, adding that poor water management and neglected infrastructure had made things worse.

The AANES has previously accused Turkey of seeking to “destroy our people’s existence”.

More than a million people in the Hassakeh province who once got their water from Alouk now rely on deliveries of water pumped from around 12 miles (20km) away.

Hundreds of deliveries are made by tanker each day, with the water board prioritising schools, orphanages, hospitals, and those most in need.

But the deliveries are not enough for everyone.

In Hassakeh city, the BBC saw people waiting for the tankers, pleading for the drivers to give them water. “Water is more precious than gold here,” said Ahmad al-Ahmed, a tanker driver. “People need more water. All they want is for you to give them water.”

Some people admitted they fought over it and one woman threatened: “If he [the tanker driver] doesn’t give me water, I’ll puncture his tyres.”

“Let me tell you frankly, north-east Syria is facing a humanitarian catastrophe,” said Yayha Ahmed, co-director of the city water board.

People living in the region have been caught up not only in Syria’s ongoing civil war but also in Turkey’s conflict with Kurdish-led forces, who established the AANES in 2018 after they – with support from the US-led coalition – drove the Islamic State (IS) group out of the region. Coalition forces are still stationed there to prevent a resurgence of IS.

Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has described the AANES – which is not officially recognised by the international community – as a “terror state” next to its border.

The Turkish government considers the Kurdish militia that dominates the main military force there to be an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebel group, which has fought for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey for decades.

The PKK is designated as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the EU, the UK and the US.

Between October 2023 and January 2024, electricity transfer stations in three areas of the AANES were struck: Amouda, Qamishli, and Darbasiyah, as well as the region’s main power plant, Swadiyah.

The BBC confirmed the damage by using satellite imagery, eyewitness videos, news reports, and visits to the sites.

Satellite imagery of night-time lights from before and after the January 2024 attacks indicated a widespread power outage. “On January 18th…. a significant power outage is evident in the region,” said Ranjay Shrestha, a scientist at Nasa who reviewed the imagery.

Life at 50°C: Our Water, Their War

After drought and conflict left more than a million people without access to water in north east Syria, this film follows the engineers and tanker drivers trying to get water to those needing it most.

Watch on iPlayer (UK only) or on YouTube (outside UK)

The UN says Turkish forces carried out the strikes in Swadiyah, Amuda and Qamishli, while humanitarian groups say Turkey was behind the attack in Darbasiyah.

Turkey said it had been targeting the PKK, the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD).

The YPG is the biggest militia in the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces and is the military wing of the PYD, the main political party in the AANES.

“Civilians or civilian infrastructure were not among our targets and have never been,” Turkey said in a statement to the BBC.

But in October last year, the country’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said all “infrastructure, superstructure and energy facilities” that belong to the PKK and the YPG – especially in Iraq and Syria – were “legitimate targets” for its military, security forces and intelligence units.

The consequences of the conflict have been compounded by climate change.

Since 2020, an extreme and exceptional agricultural drought has gripped north-east Syria and parts of Iraq.

Over the past 70 years the average temperature in the Tigris-Euphrates basin has risen by 2C (36F), according to European climate data.

The Khabour river once supplied Hassakeh with water, but levels became too low and people were forced to turn to the Alouk water station.

But in 2019, Turkey took control of the Ras Al-Ain area, where Alouk is situated, saying it needed to establish a “safe zone” to protect the country from what it described as terrorist attacks.

Two years after this, the UN raised concerns about repeated disruption of the water supply from Alouk to north-east Syria, saying the water supply had been interrupted at least 19 times.

And in February 2024 a report published by an independent UN commission said the October 2023 attacks on electricity infrastructure could amount to war crimes because they deprived civilians of access to water.

The BBC shared its findings with international lawyers.

“Turkey’s attacks on energy infrastructure have had a devastating impact on civilians,” said Aarif Abraham, a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, adding: “This could constitute a severe violation of international law.”

Patrick Kroker, an international criminal lawyer at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, said that “the indications that international law was violated here are so strong that they should be investigated by a prosecutorial authority”.

The Turkish government said it “fully respects international law”, adding that the UN’s February 2024 report provided “no substantiating evidence” for its “unfounded allegations”.

It blamed water shortages in the region on climate change and “long-neglected water infrastructure” maintenance there.

Life at 50°C: Syria’s Water Wars

BBC Eye’s Namak Khoshnaw investigates why the people of once-fertile northeast Syria now have almost no drinking water and finds out who or what is to blame.

You can listen on BBC Sounds if you’re in the UK, or on the Documentary podcast outside the UK

Hassakeh residents told the BBC they feel abandoned.

Osman Gaddo, head of water testing at the water board, said: “We have made so many sacrifices – so many of us died in battle. But nobody comes to rescue us. We are just asking for drinking water.”

The jury in the Conor McGregor trial have been told it does not matter if they “loathe” him.

Remy Farrell SC, representing the Irish mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter, began his closing argument at Dublin High Court on Tuesday.

Dublin woman Nikita Hand has accused the sportsman of rape after a Christmas night out in December 2018. He denies all allegations.

The trial is a civil case in Dublin High Court after the Director of Public Prosecutions in Ireland refused to charge Mr McGregor criminally.

Mr Farrell told the jury that “what is important is the evidence”.

“The case is not about a hot take, or what colour writers in newspapers say its about, it doesn’t get reduced to one soundbite, it’s about evidence and nothing but the evidence,” he said.

He told the jury that their opinions on Mr McGregor did not matter.

“You may not like Mr McGregor. Mr McGregor is somebody who is hard to avoid, who elicits strong views, some people love him, some people very much do not,” he said.

“He’s not backwards about coming forwards with his own opinion about various things.

“It may be the case some, a lot, most of you, have negative views about Mr McGregor, some of you may even loathe him, there’s no point pretending it may be otherwise. It’s important I address that.”

The Irish sportsman claims he had consensual sex with Ms Hand twice in the Beacon Hotel in Dublin.

He also claimed in court that Ms Hand had sex with his associate and co-defendant James Lawrence. Ms Hand says she never had sex with Mr Lawrence.

The eight men and four women on the jury have sat through eight days of evidence, including Ms Hand, Mr McGregor and Mr Lawrence as well as doctors and two paramedics.

Speaking on Tuesday, Mr Farrell said his client had a “a forceful personality” and listed things Mr McGregor said or did in court that the jury may not have liked.

He referenced that there was a sharp intake of breath from the jury when Mr McGregor referred to Ms Hand and her friend as “two lovely ladies” on the stand during his testimony.

“You may also be unimpressed with a man who leaves family home on Saturday, goes drinking with women in hotel penthouses… they’re all unlikely to endear him to you,” he added.

“I’m not asking you to like him, I’m asking you to look at the evidence.

“I’m not asking you to invite him to Sunday lunch, but to interrogate your own views.”

Mr Farrell said the CCTV evidence from the Beacon Hotel was irrefutable and claimed Ms Hand’s allegations varied and that she “invented” an account when speaking to her friend Eimear Brennan.

Ms Hand also sought to “airbrush” witness Danielle Kealy out of the situation, he alleged.

“Ms Hand knew full well the account she was giving made no sense if Danielle Kealy was there,” he said, adding it was “an elaborate fabrication”.

In their closing statement, Nikita Hand’s legal team said that Mr McGregor is an “arrogant” “cowardly” man who “savagely” beat Ms Hand.

John Gordon SC told the jury that Mr McGregor had lied throughout the trial about what happened between him and Ms Hand.

He added that he and his co-defendant James Lawrence sought to make Ms Hand look like a “hussy” and colluded together to do so.

“You’re being sold a pup by this arrogant man,” he said.

“Mr McGregor, far from dealing with it, has run away from it. There is no answer to his appalling behaviour.

“What should he have done if he was a man at all is to apologise to my client for what he did to her, he’s not a man, he’s a coward, a devious coward and you should treat him for what he is.”

Mr Gordon added that paramedics, psychologists and doctors have all supported Ms Hand’s version of events.

This includes that she continues to suffer from PTSD and that a tampon was lodged inside her vagina that had to be removed by forceps.

In a Republic of Ireland civil action – as opposed to a criminal case – neither the complainant nor the accused are entitled to automatic anonymity during the court proceedings.

Novo Nordisk has launched its weight-loss drug Wegovy in China after it was approved by local health authorities in June.

It is set to intensify competition with rival Eli Lilly, whose popular weight-loss treatment also got the green light months ago but has yet to go on sale in the world’s second largest pharmaceutical market.

More than 180 million people live with obesity in China, which has a population of 1.4 billion.

According to Chinese business news website Yicai, a dose of four Wegovy injections will cost 1,400 yuan (£153; $194), a fraction of the drug’s price in the United States.

Yicai’s report says patients in China will have to pay the full price for the treatment, as the drug has not been included in the national healthcare insurance.

Research suggests that Wegovy patients can lose more than 10% of their body weight.

In a post on Chinese app, WeChat, Novo Nordisk said its treatment “will provide a safe and effective weight loss option for overweight and obese patients in China”.

Aimed at people who are severely overweight, Wegovy’s active ingredient is a medicine called semaglutide, which helps control blood sugar, lowers appetite, and makes patients feel fuller. It is also the active ingredient in sister drug Ozempic, which is used to treat type 2 diabetes.

However, there can be side effects for some users, such as nausea and vomiting, and research shows that patients often put weight back on after stopping treatment.

Wegovy went on sale in the US in 2021 where a month’s supply currently costs $1,349.

Fuelled by a social media buzz and celebrity users including Elon Musk, the drug has since been flying off pharmacy shelves around the world.

The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has asked doctors to be alert for patients who may be misusing obesity injections, such as Wegovy.

It followed reports that some people who were not obese became sick, after using the jabs for weight loss.

Wegovy’s popularity has turned its maker, Novo Nordisk, into Europe’s most valuable company. It currently has a total market value of of more than $440bn.

The opposition leader of the self-declared republic of Somaliland, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, has won the territory’s presidential election.

More popularly known as Irro, he won with 64% of the vote to become Somaliland’s sixth president since it broke away from Somalia in 1991.

The 69-year-old, a former speaker of Somaliland’s parliament, beat incumbent Musa Abdi Bihi, who took 35% of the vote.

Bihi had led the breakaway region since 2017, but critics described his style as paternalistic and dismissive of public opinion at a time when economic difficulties have undermined the value of the local currency.

Diplomats from nine European countries and the US witnessed the vote on 13 November, which had originally been scheduled to take place in late 2022.

Somaliland is located in a strategic part of the world, and is seen as a gateway to the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.

Despite its relative stability and regular democratic elections, it has not been recognised internationally.

• The unrecognised nation where 15-year-olds vote
• Can the Horn of Africa rift be healed?
• A quick guide to Somaliland

Besides the economy, Somaliland’s new leader will have to grapple with the diplomatic fallout over a deal to lease landlocked Ethiopia a 20km (12-mile) section of its coastline for 50 years to set up a naval base.

As part of the agreement, announced on New Year’s Day, Somaliland expects to be recognised by Addis Ababa as an independent nation.

This has upset Somalia, which regards Somaliland as part of its territory – and it has said it views the deal as an act of aggression.

The former British protectorate of Somaliland joined the rest of Somalia on 1 July 1960.

In a conflict leading up to the overthrow of President Siad Barre in 1991, tens of thousands of people were killed in Somaliland and its main city of Hargeisa was completely flattened in aerial bombardments.

In the chaos that followed Barre’s departure, Somaliland declared its independence and has since rebuilt the city, created its own currency, institutions and security structures.

This is often contrasted to Somalia, which collapsed into anarchy for decades and still faces many challenges, including from Islamist militants, and does not hold direct elections.

Born in Hargeisa, Irro went to school in Somalia and later attended college in the US – graduating with a master’s degree in business administration.

After university he pursued a diplomatic career, joining Somalia’s foreign service in 1981.

He was posted to Moscow where he worked at Somalia’s embassy. During the civil war, he became the country’s acting ambassador to the former Soviet Union.

Many people fled Somalia during the conflict, which tore the nation apart, including Irro’s family who went to live in Finland.

He was able to be reunited with them there and obtained Finnish citizenship.

Irro returned to Somaliland several years later, entering politics in 2002 as co-founder of the opposition Justice and Welfare party (UCID).

He went on to serve as speaker of the parliament for 12 years.

It was during this time that he established the Wadani Party, which has grown to be a powerful political force in Somaliland and on whose ticket he won the 2024 elections.

• Ethiopia warns against invasion amid regional tensions
• Why Ethiopia is so alarmed by an Egypt-Somalia alliance
• How a small African territory has upset China

Ukraine’s President Zelensky urged Europe to “push Russia harder” in a speech marking 1,000 days since Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of the country.

“The more time he [Putin] has, the worse the conditions become,” he told a special session of the European Parliament on Tuesday.

Zelensky spoke amid speculation that Ukraine had for the first time used the US-supplied Atacams long range missile system to hit a target deep inside Russia, a day after Washington signalled its permission.

An ammunition warehouse was struck with the missiles in the Russian region of Bryansk, about 100 kilometres from the border, an unconfirmed report on the RBC Ukraine news website said.

But Kyiv often uses domestic drones to hit targets inside Russia, and there was no immediate evidence that US missiles were used.

On Monday, US officials said that President Biden had removed US sanctions on the use of the Atacms system outside of Ukraine’s borders.

It is thought that Ukraine was given permission to use the missiles only to defend its forces inside Russia’s Kursk region, where Kyiv launched a surprise incursion in August and where an assault from Russian and North Korean troops was expected within days.

• Putin approves changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine

Addressing members of the European Parliament on Tuesday morning, 1,000 days since the invasion began on 24 February 2022, Zelensky warned that Putin “[would] not stop on his own” and urged that Russia be pushed towards a “just peace”.

He said the deployment of North Korean troops was a clear sign that Moscow was determined to escalate the conflict.

“While some European leaders think about some elections, or something like this, at Ukraine’s expense, Putin is focused on winning this war,” he warned.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military commander in chief wrote on Telegram that the country had faced 1,000 days of “extremely complex, fierce battle for our existence” and “destroying the enemy”.

“In the frozen trenches of Donetsk region and in the burning steppes of Kherson region under shells, hail, and anti-aircraft guns – we are fighting for the right to life.”

He added: “Every dark night, even if there are a thousand of them, always ends with dawn.”

The comments came after 12 people, including a child, were killed in a drone attack on Ukraine’s northeastern region of Sumy overnight, where 11 were also killed in a separate strike on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin approved its updated nuclear doctrine – which says that any aggression from a non-nuclear state, if backed by a nuclear power, will be regarded as a joint attack on Russia.

Under the changes, a large attack on Russia with conventional missiles, drones or aircraft could meet the criteria for a nuclear response, as could an attack on Belarus or any critical threat to Russia’s sovereignty.

The EU’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell Fontelles also said on Tuesday the EU continued to stand with Ukraine, but that it “need[ed] to do more and quicker”.

“The European Union will continue to advance support to help achieve victory for Ukraine and to bring peace to our continent,” he said in a video shared on X.

“History will judge us based on our actions and reactions,” read the caption.

• Russia vows ‘tangible’ response if US missiles used against its territory

Earlier, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer reiterated his country’s “ironclad” support for Ukraine amid speculation he could give Kyiv permission to use British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles to hit targets deep inside Russian territory.

Vladimir Putin has approved changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, setting out new conditions under which the country would consider using its arsenal.

The doctrine now says an attack from a non-nuclear state, if backed by a nuclear power, will be treated as a joint assault on Russia.

The update was proposed in September and rubber stamped on Tuesday, the 1,000th day of the war with Ukraine.

It also follows Washington’s decision on Monday to allow Ukraine to fire long-range US missiles into Russia.

Under the changes, a large attack on Russia with conventional missiles, drones or aircraft could meet the criteria for a nuclear response, as could an attack on Belarus or any critical threat to Russia’s sovereignty.

Any aggression against Russia by a state which is a member of a coalition would be seen by Moscow as aggression from the whole group.

The updates expand the number of countries and coalitions, and the kinds of military threats, subject to a possible nuclear response, according to state-run news agency Tass.

Putin has threatened the use of nuclear weapons before, and Ukraine has criticised it as “nuclear sabre-rattling” to deter its allies from providing further support.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said “we strongly are in favour of doing everything to not allow nuclear war to happen”.

Speaking at a press conference at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Mr Lavrov said a declaration signed by the group, which includes Russia “clearly said we want to move towards a world free of nuclear weapons”.

• Missile news welcomed in Ukraine but ‘won’t win war’

Announcing the change, the Kremlin urged other countries to study the changes.

“This is a very important text,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, according to Tass, adding “it should become a subject to a very deep analysis”.

On Monday, Russia warned of “an appropriate and tangible” response to US President Joe Biden’s move to let Ukraine use ATACMS missiles to strike the country.

Such an attack inside Russian territory “would represent the direct involvement of the United States and its satellites in hostilities against Russia”, a foreign ministry statement said.

Mr Peskov said on Tuesday that the new doctrine was published “in a timely manner” and that Putin had requested it be updated earlier this year so that it was “in line with the current situation”, AP reported.

The group known as the Hong Kong 47 include some of the city’s biggest pro-democracy figures.

They were charged in 2021 under a controversial national security law (NSL) imposed by China. On Tuesday a court in Hong Kong sentenced 45 of them to jail terms ranging from four to 10 years. Two defendants were acquitted earlier in the year.

Officials accused the eight women and 39 men of trying to overthrow the government by running an unofficial primary to pick opposition candidates for local elections. Most of the defendants either pleaded guilty or were convicted of conspiring to commit subversion.

Some are famous figures like Joshua Wong and Benny Tai, icons of the 2014 pro-democracy protests that rocked Hong Kong.

There are also well-known opposition lawmakers Claudia Mo, Helena Wong, Kwok ka-ki and Leung Kwok-hung who is also known as Long Hair.

But many like Owen Chow, Ventus Lau and Tiffany Yuen represented a new generation of vocal activists. Mr Lau and Mr Chow were among hundreds who stormed LegCo and spray-painted Hong Kong’s emblem in what became a pivotal moment in the 2019 protests.

Then there are those who were not involved in politics but were galvanised by the 2019 protests – social workers like Hendrick Lui, entrepreneurs like Mike Lam and a former nurse, Winnie Yu.

Most of the defendants have been in jail since the arrests in early 2021, as pre-trial detentions have become the norm under the NSL.

Laurence Lau, a barrister and former district councillor, and Lee Yue-shun, also a former district councillor, were acquitted in May.

One of the main organisers of the 2020 primary, Tai has been labelled by China as a “hardcore troublemaker” for allegedly advocating Hong Kong independence and describing the Communist Party’s rule as a “dictatorship”.

A scholar and law professor, Tai first rose to prominence in 2014 when he founded the pro-democracy Occupy Central movement along with two others.

It was a historic civil disobedience campaign that called for fair and free elections in Hong Kong, and saw hundreds of thousands take to the streets.

In 2019, Tai was sentenced to prison for his role in the Occupy Central protests.

A year later, after the NSL was imposed, he was fired from his tenured job at the prestigious University of Hong Kong (HKU) over his criminal conviction.

Tai accused the university of bowing to Chinese pressure and called it the “end of academic freedom” in the city.

By then, he was already facing accusations of subversion under the NSL for organising the primary.

He has been sentenced to 10 years in jail.

Arguably Hong Kong’s most famous pro-democracy activist, Wong’s journey into activism started when he was just 14.

By 2014, he had become the face of the Umbrella Movement, a mass student protest with the umbrella as a symbol, which sprang up alongside the Occupy Central sit-in.

He was just 20 when his activism landed him in jail, the first of what would be several convictions.

In 2019, Hong Kong erupted in months-long protests as hundreds of thousands marched against a hugely controversial extradition bill that would allow Hongkongers to be sent to mainland China to face trial.

Wong was among thousands who held a 15-hour siege of police headquarters in the Wan Chai district, pelting the building with eggs and spraying graffiti on its walls, in June that year.

While the demonstrations at that time were widely seen as a spontaneous “leaderless” movement, prosecutors said he led that particular protest, pointing to a video of him calling for the crowd to “completely besiege police headquarters”.

He was jailed for his role in them, and placed in solitary confinement.

But he remained defiant after pleading guilty: “Perhaps the authorities wish me to stay in prison one term after another. But I am persuaded that neither prison bars, nor election ban, nor any other arbitrary powers would stop us from activism.”

He was still serving his sentence when he was charged with subversion under the NSL.

Now, at 28, he has received a sentence of four years and eight months on Tuesday.

Former opposition lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung, better known as Long Hair for his coiffure, once described himself as a “Marxist revolutionary”.

The 68-year-old was known for his political theatrics – one of his signature moves involved hurling bananas as a sign of protest. When he was sworn in again as a lawmaker in 2016, he released a balloon with a political banner and held a yellow umbrella, declaring that the “Umbrella Movement would never end”.

This got him disqualified from the council. He was arrested and had repeated stints in jail for taking part in the 2019 protests.

After the NSL was imposed in 2020, he married his long-time partner, Vanessa Chan, also known as Chan Po-ying, who is a prominent activist. They were among the founding members of a political party, the League of Social Democrats.

They said they decided to marry because should one of them be jailed, they would have greater legal rights such as prison visitation.

Forty days after the wedding, Leung was charged.

He has been jailed for six years and nine months.

Claudia Mo, known affectionately in Cantonese as Auntie Mo, was a prominent opposition lawmaker.

She had been a journalist at the AFP news agency, where she covered the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing.

The 67-year-old helped set up the opposition Civic Party in 2006 and by 2012 she had won a seat in LegCo. She gave up British citizenship to hold office in Hong Kong.

She was among 15 lawmakers who resigned en masse from LegCo after four pro-democracy lawmakers were ousted in November 2020. The move left LegCo with no opposition presence.

“We had to,” she said at the time. “We need to protest against what could be the ultimate Beijing crackdown on Hong Kong – to silence the last bit of dissent in the city.”

Police “smashed through into the living room” to arrest her in the early hours of 6 January 2021, the FT reported, citing an unnamed source who described the raid as “sheer thuggery”.

She has been in jail since then. When her husband, British journalist Philip Bowring, was critically ill, Mo was not allowed to visit him from prison.

She was sentenced to four years and two months in jail.

A long-time political and LGBTQ activist, Jimmy Sham also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front (CHRF).

The group disbanded in 2021, saying it could no longer operate amid “unprecedented” challenges posed by China’s crackdown.

Sham was violently attacked several times in 2019, and in one instance, was left on the streets with a head injury. The CHRF accused government supporters of this and other assaults against pro-democracy activists at the time, but it was never proven.

The 37-year-old married his partner in New York in 2013 and fought for Hong Kong to recognise overseas same-sex marriages. Hong Kong’s top court granted him a partial victory in 2023 when it ordered the government to establish a framework to recognise same-sex partnerships.

By then, Sham was in detention for his role in the Hong Kong primary.

He has been repeatedly denied bail, with a judge saying he was a “determined and resolute young man” who would likely continue to commit “acts endangering national security” should he be released.

He was sentenced on Tuesday to four years and three months in jail.

Before pivoting to politics, 33-year-old Gwyneth Ho had worked for several news at outlets – including BBC Chinese, government-run broadcaster RTHK and Stand News.

She shot to fame during the 2019 protests when she was beaten up by a mob while reporting on the movement. The attack landed her in hospital.

She ran in the 2020 primary and won a high number of votes in her constituency.

She said during her trial that it was “inevitable” that the 12 pro-democracy candidates, including her, were disqualified from contesting the legislative elections.

“I believe that most Hongkongers knew deep down in their hearts that fighting for democracy under the Chinese communist regime has always been a fantasy,” she said.

She has been sentenced to seven years in jail.

The mother of a woman who police say was murdered before her body was left in a car boot in east London has told the BBC: “I just want justice for my daughter”.

Harshita Brella’s mother, Sudesh Kumari, spoke through tears to the BBC from the family home in Delhi.

Ms Brella was “very excited” to move to the UK in April after an arranged marriage with Pankaj Lamba, her sister Sonia Dabas said.

Northamptonshire Police believe Mr Lamba murdered Ms Brella and then fled the country after transporting the 24-year-old’s body by car to Ilford, east London.

Ms Brella’s father, Satbir Brella, said: “I want my son-in-law to be brought to justice and I want my daughter’s body brought home.”

Mr Brella described his daughter as a simple and serious young woman. He said she wanted to be a teacher and would spend her days tutoring children in their home in Delhi, before turning to her own studies.

Her sister said she and Ms Brella were “inseparable”.

“She was a part of me and I was a part of her,” she said. “I now feel like I can’t do anything in life without her.”

She added: “We used to chat all day. She had saved my name as ‘heartbeat’ on her phone. You can now understand what bond we shared.”

The family said they had last spoken to Ms Brella by phone on 10 November.

She told them she had made dinner and was waiting for Mr Lamba to come home, her sister said.

Ms Dabas said her sister’s phone was off for the next two days and by 13 November they “thought something was wrong” and asked people they knew to file a complaint.

Northamptonshire Police said it was contacted on Wednesday regarding concerns for her welfare – and that led to the discovery of her body and the launch of a murder investigation.

Ms Dabas explained that her sister and Mr Lamba had entered into an arranged marriage, with a legal wedding held in August 2023.

The couple then had their traditional Indian ceremony on 22 March of this year before they left for the UK around 30 April – settling in Corby, Northamptonshire.

Mr Lamba was a student in London, she said, and her sister had been working in a warehouse.

Ms Dabas said her sister had wanted to be a teacher in India and was achieving things quickly, doing things in two months that others would take years to achieve.

However she said she “didn’t live a very happy life in London”.

“She struggled a lot because of her husband,” she said.

And she said she had said to her sister to “quit and come to India,” telling her to come back to them.

“We would have just taken her away from that person,” she said.

She said her sister had previously loved travelling and when her sister had gone to the UK she had asked her why she wasn’t taking photos and posting them on Instagram. Later her sister had explained that she was not allowed to do so.

“There were restrictions on everything,” she said.

She described how her sister had told her she was not allowed to wear make-up or wear “nice clothes.”

Ms Brella’s father said that her husband complained to him about her failing to make him food “on time” – and said that she was “talking too much to her mother”.

At the end of August Ms Brella phoned her father in India to say she had run away, her sister said.

“She said he was hitting her and she escaped. She ran out on the streets, he chased after her and hit her there as well,” Ms Dabas said.

“There was a local who saw this and asked what happened which is why he left her. Harshita called someone she knew who came to pick her up.”

She was the subject of a domestic violence protection order which was made in early September and lasted 28 days.

Police have since confirmed the order had been in place before Ms Brella’s death.

The force said it had made a mandatory referral to the Independent Office for Police Conduct because there was previous contact with Ms Brella.

Her father told the BBC the family hopes her body can be brought home to India so “her soul can get peace and then maybe we will too.”

In less than two weeks voters in the Republic of Ireland will elect a new government.

Each party will be hoping the electorate will entrust them with safeguarding the future of a currently buoyant economy.

There have never been more people in work, inflation has recently fallen below 1% and the government could afford a giveaway pre-election budget.

But what are the economic issues that people are thinking about as they go to the ballot box?

A recent poll carried out by the Irish Times and Ipsos asked people what issue will have the most influence on their vote.

The clear leader was the cost of living, nominated by 30% of respondents.

Founding any new business involves a certain amount of confidence in the economy.

For one small business owner, things are off to a good start.

James Molloy co-founded his cafe Brosef with his brother in the centre of Letterkenny, County Donegal, earlier this year.

“People don’t mind spending a bit more for a quality product and it is promising to see there’s a market for the brand,” he said.

However, other hospitality businesses suffered during the post-pandemic inflationary shock, which peaked at more than 9% at the end of 2022.

Earlier this month, Perry Street Market, which had three cafes in the Cork city area, shut with immediate effect.

Notices posted in the cafe windows said hospitality has faced “unprecedented challenges in recent years” and “these difficulties continue to intensify”.

Economist Austin Hughes said households in Ireland are continuing to feel the lingering impact of inflation.

“Many are still finding it quite a strain to make it to the end of the month,” he said.

Mr Hughes runs a monthly consumer confidence survey for the Irish League of Credit Unions (ILCU).

His data suggests confidence has picked up over the last year but there is not “a pronounced feelgood factor”.

The ILCU’s chief executive Dave Malone said some of their data also points to how finances remain tight, with loans needed for household emergencies.

“We’ve issued more than 200,000 loans of less than €2,000 in the last 12 months and, of those, 50,000 were for less than €500,” he said.

“We have members coming into us, maybe a washing machine has broken down and they need finance to mitigate that challenge.”

The greatest financial challenge for many households remains the cost and availability of housing.

Data from the property listings website Daft.ie suggests that in the third quarter of this year advertised rents were up by more than 7% compared to the same time in 2023.

That took the average advertised national monthly rent to just under €2,000. In Dublin the average is closer to €2,400.

Rents have now been rising for 15 consecutive quarters as demand for housing has consistently outstripped supply.

The government has struggled to hit housing supply targets, partially due to historic underinvestment.

Director of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), Alan Barrett, said that in the aftermath of the country’s financial crisis in the late 2000s public investment was “cut back severely for a prolonged period of time”.

But then as the economy and population grew from the mid-2010s there was a widening infrastructure deficit.

“Our difficulty at the moment is we’ve lots of money to spend on infrastructure investment, we just don’t have the construction workers to deliver it,” Mr Barratt added.

In theory this should be the biggest problem for Fine Gael, one of the two main coalition partners, which has been in government in one shape or form for the last 14 years.

The party’s case has not been helped by its former housing minister Eoghan Murphy, who used his memoir to criticise the party’s record.

“We didn’t escalate housing to priority number one – because we didn’t want to,” he told the Business Post newspaper.

“It was a choice we could have made.”

Back in Letterkenny there is a reminder that not everyone is sharing in Ireland’s prosperity.

Discretely tucked away behind some shops is the We Care foodbank, which has been operating in the town for the last 10 years.

“We help 80 to 100 families per week,” says Fintan McGrath.

He said the demand for their services has increased by 40% since 2021.

That’s not just about cost of living. It also reflects another big change in the country – immigration.

“When we started off the number of immigrants was way lower,” said Mr McGrath.

“We have the situation in Ukraine, people coming from Asia, South America. We give help to whoever comes through our door.”

Increased immigration is a mark of Ireland’s economic success. But how that has been managed is another election issue.

If it hadn’t been for the squirrels, George Matthew’s attempt to become a cocoa bean producer might have failed.

His farming career began in the 1970s when he inherited a rubber plantation in the the southern Indian state of Kerala , which he managed alongside his career as a doctor.

It was a bad time to inherit a rubber plantation, falling rubber prices meant it kept losing money. So, 10 years ago Dr Matthew decided to experiment with cocoa trees, hoping they would generate some funds to support the rest of the farm.

He bought some saplings and planted them. It didn’t go well.

“It was not that successful – most of the saplings died,” he says.

Squirrels appeared to be making the situation worse by grabbing cocoa bean pods and eating them.

But those raids had an unexpected benefit – cocoa seeds were spread all over the farm.

“All the scattered seeds soon grew in to plants and they were much healthier and stronger than the saplings I had planted,” says Dr Matthew.

“The trick was in sowing the seeds,” he realised.

Today Mr Matthews has 6,000 cocoa trees on his 50 acres of land.

“I think it was the best decision I have made,” he says.

Despite having several regions with weather conditions suitable for cocoa trees, India only accounts for 1% of the world’s cocoa bean production.

Global production is currently dominated by West Africa, where Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana between them produce more than half of the world’s annual output.

Indian growers can only supply a quarter of the beans needed by Indian makers of chocolate and other confectionary.

“The challenge is that it is grown in very fragmented small holdings, so it does not get the kind of attention cocoa should get,” says Renny Jacob, chairman of India Cocoa, a private company that has been growing and processing cocoa beans for more than 30 years.

In particular he says that Indian farmers are poor at handling beans after they have been harvested. Once removed from their pods, beans go through a fermentation process at the farm, which can make a huge difference to their flavour.

“Cocoa fermentation is a critical process in the production of chocolate, transforming raw cocoa beans into a form suitable for chocolate making,” says Sarin Partrick, chief executive of India Cocoa.

“This complex process involves several stages and the activity of various micro-organisms, which help develop the beans’ flavour, aroma, and colour,” he says.

• From bean to bar: How chocolate is made

To raise the quantity and quality of cocoa bean production, the government has introduced several initiatives.

It is investing in schemes to develop hybrid cocoa plants, that are more productive than existing varieties.

In addition there are schemes to train farmers on the latest techniques for growing and processing beans.

“There is a vast opportunity for Indian farmers to enter into cocoa cultivation and avail the benefits,” says Dr Femina, who works in the government department tasked with developing cocoa production.

Business is also investing in new cocoa tree vareities.

Dr Minimol J.S., is the head of cocoa research at Kerala Agriculture University and is working with Cadbury to develop hybrid cocoa trees.

In the project’s orchard existing high-performing varieties are cross-bred with exotic species.

So far the programme has come up with 15 new varieties.

“These are India’s first hybrid, disease-resistant seeds,” she says.

“The seeds are drought tolerant varieties, and have withstood temperatures of even 40C, which is usually not possible,” she adds.

The hybrids are also much more productive than traditional varieties.

“The global average production is 0.25 kilogram per year per tree.

“In Kerala, we get 2.5 kilograms per year per tree. In Andhra and Telangana, we are even getting a yield of four or five kilograms per tree per year,” she says.

India’s production of cocoa beans has risen significantly. This year it hit 110,000 tonnes, up 40% from 2015. But it’s still not enough to meet demand from local chocolate and confectionary makers.

India’s Cocoa Board estimates the demand from industry is rising at 15% per year.

Founded in 2019, Kocoatrait is one of a new generation of Indian chocolate makers.

Based in the east coast city of Chennai, the company only uses Indian cocoa beans.

One reason for that is that locally sourced beans have a much smaller carbon footprint than beans that have been shipped from another continent.

In addition, says Kocoatrait founder Nitin Chordia, Indian beans are cheaper than imports and have a distinctive flavour.

Mr Chordia also runs an agricultural school, where farmers are shown the latest innovations in fermenting and drying beans.

“We are constantly focussing on improving the post-harvest practices for cocoa farmers in India,” he says.

He adds that Indian farmers need to be producing higher quality beans.

“We are not able to compete with international players in the bulk cocoa bean segment,” he says.

While there has been improvement, Indian producers have some way to go.

“Over the last decade, in the fine-flavour cocoa bean segment, India has started to get noticed… but it will be several years before all Indian fine flavour cocoa beans reach a stage of large-scale international recognition.”

Back in Kerala, Dr Matthew reflects on his decade as a cocoa farmer.

“It’s a tricky plant,” he says. “Last year I had no yield. So no farmer can depend solely on cocoa – one has to plant other trees along with it.”

Despite the challenges, he’s optimistic. “The future is bright, with huge demand.”

“I have been approached by a multi-national company to sell my production to them, so I will be making a good profit.”

In a sports park next to the red walls and glossy blue tiles which surround Beijing’s Temple of Heaven, a group of pensioners are working out.

“I’m 74 and I hope this helps me live a long time,” one man says after he finishes his pull-ups, just as a cold wind blows leaves from cypress trees across the park, disrupting another man who is mid-headstand. Women reach for gloves and sweaters as they take turns hanging from an overhead assault course.

Chinese emperors once came to this Ming dynasty holy site to pray for a good harvest. Now the park is used by locals to enjoy their retirement after spending decades contributing to China’s spectacular growth.

They’ve watched their country open up to the world and their factories propel its economy, which nips at the heels of the United States as the world’s largest.

But some fear what the promises of US president-elect Donald Trump – who has vowed steep tariffs on goods made in China – means for the country’s export-driven economy.

For many in China, Trump is a figure of fun and memes of him dancing to the YMCA are shared widely on social media. Others worry that he’s too unpredictable.

“I like Trump, but he’s unstable. Who knows what he might do?” says the 74-year-old pensioner, whose name has been withheld.

Some of Trump’s cabinet choices – announced since his election victory – will no doubt make people even more wary.

Marco Rubio, his pick for Secretary of State, has called Beijing “the threat that will define this century”. He is also sanctioned by Beijing. Trump’s choice for National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, wrote earlier this month that the US should “urgently” bring the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East to an end so it can “finally focus strategy attention where it should be: countering the greater threat from the Chinese Communist Party”.

But China has been in training for a second Trump presidency, says Yu Jie, a Senior Research Fellow on China at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.

Despite concern on the street, she says his return comes as “no surprise” to Beijing, although she warns that the world should still “expect a roller-coaster type of relationship to unfold” when Trump takes office in January.

The competition between the two nations has been ramping up for some time, long before Trump won the election. It turned especially tense during the Biden administration because of tariffs and geopolitical disagreements ranging from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the future of Taiwan.

Yet there was dialogue, with several senior US officials making trips to Beijing.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed to work with the incoming Trump administration, but he also used his last meeting with President Joe Biden to warn Washington that a “new cold war should not be fought and cannot be won”.

He added that “containing China is unwise, unacceptable and bound to fail”.

Beijing has long accused the US and its allies of trying to contain China – they see tariffs targeting Chinese-made imports, laws restricting the country’s access to advanced AI chips and military alliances in the South China Sea and beyond as part of this approach.

And Trump’s decision to pick Rubio and Waltz suggests his administration will “take a much harsher, muscular approach with China,” says Lyle Morris from the Asia Society’s Centre for China Analysis.

“While Trump views his personal relationship with Xi Jinping as an avenue for negotiation, he will likely lean on Waltz and Rubio in fashioning a more aggressive, uncompromising policy towards China.”

They are far from the only voices in Washington that see China as a threat to US security and its economy – a view that surprises the average person in Beijing.

“You’re much better off here than in the US right now,” says the 74-year-old in the park before heading off to stretch.

Just north of the Temple of Heaven is the Forbidden City, where Chinese emperors lived for almost 500 years. It was here, in 2017, that Xi hosted Trump, bestowing on his guest an honour not granted to any US president since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Xi shut down the area and took Trump on a tour of the imperial quarters, every moment broadcast live on state TV. He was served kung pao chicken for dinner, and in turn brought a video of his granddaughter, Arabella Kushner, singing a Chinese song which went viral on social media.

It was billed by both as a high point in US-China relations, but that quickly soured after the Covid pandemic broke out in Wuhan in 2019 and spread globally in 2020. Trump repeatedly called it the “Chinese virus” and blamed the outbreak on Beijing. He also kicked off a tit-for-tat trade war, with tariffs still in place on more than $300bn (£238bn) of goods.

When Trump starts his second term, he will be encountering a stronger Xi, who has cemented his position at China’s helm with a historic third term – and the possibility of remaining in power for life.

Given it has the world’s largest army and navy, Washington is now concerned that the country is building a bigger nuclear arsenal.

Even as Trump was unveiling his new cabinet, Chinese state media published videos from the country’s biggest airshow of a new stealth fighter jet – the J35-A – flying vertically and upside-down. China is only the second country to boast two stealth fighters in its inventory. The other is the US. The world’s first two-seat stealth fighter, the J20-S, was also on display.

Last week, researchers at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California found satellite images that indicate China is working on nuclear propulsion for a new aircraft carrier.

The studies have “sparked serious concerns over Beijing’s potential adoption of a first-use strategy and increased nuclear threats, fuelling strong support to significantly boost US nuclear capabilities in response,” says Tong Zhao from think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Unless Trump personally intervenes, which seems unlikely, it appears the two nations are on the brink of a much more intense nuclear competition with far-reaching implications for international stability.”

Under Xi’s leadership in recent years, China has also become more assertive in its territorial claims over Taiwan and the South China Sea.

One worry is that Beijing is ramping up militarily to invade Taiwan, which it sees as a breakaway province that will eventually be under its control. Under Trump and his cabinet, would the US be willing to defend Taiwan?

It’s a question asked of every US president. Trump has dodged it, saying he wouldn’t have to use military force because Xi knew he was “crazy”, and he would impose paralysing tariffs on Chinese imports if that happened.

Despite Trump’s unwillingness to participate in foreign wars, most experts expect Washington to continue providing military assistance to Taipei. For one, it is bound by law to sell defensive weapons to the island. Two, the Trump administration sold more arms to Taiwan than any other.

“There is strong bipartisan support for continuing military aid to Taiwan. I don’t expect Trump to significantly change course on arms sales to Taiwan,” Mr Morris says.

These glaring differences aside, Trump does seem to admire Xi’s strongman image.

In 2020 he declared that he and Xi Jinping “love each other”, even in the midst of a bitter trade war with China.

“I had a very strong relationship with him,” he confirmed in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal.

It’s hard to know what Xi thinks – he has said very little about their relationship and barely mentions Trump by name.

In 2018, Chinese state media CGTN took direct aim at the American leader, and released an unflattering video with the sarcastic title: “Thanks Mr Trump, you are great!” It was later taken down by censors.

But what we do know is both leaders project a type of muscular nationalism. Xi’s dream is the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” and Trump believes only he can “make America great again”. Both promise that they are working towards a new golden age for their countries.

Trump’s “golden age” for America incudes 60% tariffs on Chinese-made goods.

But Beijing is in no mood for a second trade war. It has troubles of its own.

President Xi’s dream of prosperity is in jeopardy. China’s economy is sluggish, its property sector is sinking, nearly 20% of its young people are struggling to find jobs and it has one of the world’s fastest growing ageing populations.

Some of this economic pain is clear at the Temple of Heaven. We join the throngs of Chinese tour groups walking through white marble gates. It has become fashionable for young people to dress up in Qing dynasty costumes although their long silk robes often fail to hide the other big trend – chunky white trainers.

Dozens of school groups are listening attentively to guides about their city’s colourful history while a queue forms around the altar to make a wish. I watch as a middle-aged woman dressed in black takes her turn. She turns three times, clasps her hands, closes her eyes and looks toward the sky. Later we ask what she hoped for. She says many people come here and ask for their children to get jobs or to get into a good school.

“We wish for better lives and prospects,” she says. While China claims to have eradicated extreme poverty, millions of labourers and factory workers across the country, those who contributed to China’s rise, will worry what about what’s to come.

Her future and the future of China’s economy may partly depend on just how serious Trump is about his tariffs. This time, Beijing is prepared, according to Yu Jie.

“China has already begun to diversify its sources of agricultural imports (notably from Brazil, Argentina and Russia) and increased the volumes of its exports in non-US allied countries. At a domestic level, the recent local government debt recapitalisation is also paving the way to offset the negative impacts on the likely trade war with the Trump Administration.”

Beijing may also have another hope. Billionaire Elon Musk now appears to have Trump’s ear. His company, Tesla, depends on China for production – about half of all its EVs are made in the country. Chinese leaders may ask if Musk can temper Trump’s trade impulses.

But the great power struggle of the 21st century is not just over trade. Xi’s dream also involves making China the world’s dominant power.

Some experts believe this is where another Trump presidency may offer Beijing an opportunity.

“Chinese leaders will reinforce the narrative that the US is the single and most disruptive source of global instability, while portraying China as a responsible and confident world power,” says Yu Jie.

Biden spent four years building up friendships across Asia with the likes of South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam – all in an effort to contain China.

In the past, Trump’s “America-first” doctrine isolated and weakened these US alliances. He opted for deals over delicate diplomacy and often put a price tag on America’s friendships. In 2018, for instance, he demanded more money from South Korea to continue keeping US troops in the country.

Beijing has already built up alliances with emerging economies. It is also trying to repair its relationship with the UK and Europe, while mending historical grievances with Asian neighbours, South Korea and Japan.

If Washington’s influence does wane around the world, it could be a win for President Xi.

Back at the park, as we discuss the results of the US election, one man holds up four fingers. “He’s only got four years,” he says. “The US is always changing leaders. In China, we have more time.”

Time is indeed on Beijing’s side. Xi could be president for life – and so can afford to make slow but steady progress towards his goals.

Even if Trump does get in the way, it will not be for long.

Last month, Ellen Konyak was shocked to discover that a 19th-Century skull from the north-eastern Indian state of Nagaland was up for auction in the UK.

The horned skull of a Naga tribesman was among thousands of items that European colonial administrators had collected from the state.

Konyak, a member of the Naga Forum for Reconciliation (NFR) which is making efforts to bring these human remains back home, says the news of the auction disturbed her.

“To see that people are still auctioning our ancestral human remains in the 21st Century was shocking,” she said. “It was very insensitive and deeply hurtful.”

The Swan at Tetsworth, the UK-based antique centre that put the skull on auction, advertised it as part of their “Curious Collector Sale”, valued between £3,500 ($4,490) and £4,000 ($5,132). Alongside the skull – which is from a Belgian collection – the sale listed shrunken heads from the Jivaro people of South America and skulls from the Ekoi people of West Africa.

Naga scholars and experts protested against the sale. The chief minister of Nagaland, Konyak’s home state, wrote a letter to the Indian foreign ministry describing the act as “dehumanising” and “continued colonial violence upon our people”.

The auction house withdrew the sale following the outcry, but for the Naga people the episode revived memories of their violent past, prompting them to renew calls for the repatriation of their ancestral remains stored or displayed far from their homeland.

Scholars suggest that some of these human remains were bartered items or gifts, but others may have been taken away without the consent of their owners.

Alok Kumar Kanungo, a scholar of Naga culture, estimates that the UK’s public museums and private collections alone hold around 50,000 Naga objects.

Oxford University’s Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM), which has the largest Naga collection, features approximately 6,550 items taken from the state, including 41 human remains. The museum also has human remains from several other states of British India.

But in recent years, experts say, with growing ethical concerns about collection, sale and display of human remains, many collectors are reconsidering their approach.

Kanungo says human remains have become “white elephants” for museums.

“They are no longer an object that can be disposed of or possessed by its owners; no longer a source of tourists’ money; can no longer be used to present Naga peoples as ‘uncivilised’; and of late have become an emotionally and politically charged issue.”

So, museums have started returning human remains from communities such as the Maori tribes of New Zealand, the Mudan warriors of Taiwan, the Aboriginal people of Australia and the Native Hawaiians.

In 2019, PRM told the BBC that it had returned 22 such objects.

A museum spoksperson told the BBC that the figure has now gone up to 35. “So far these [objects] have all been returned to Australia, New Zealand, US and Canada.”

As part of an ethical review, the museum removed Naga skulls from public display in 2020 and placed them in storage. This is when FNR demanded their repatriation for the first time.

The museum said it was yet to receive a formal claim from Naga descendants and the processes to return human remains “can take between 18 months and several years, depending on the complexity of the case”.

Repatriating human remains is more complicated than returning artefacts. It requires extensive research to determine whether the items were collected ethically, to identify descendants and to navigate complex international regulations on movement of human remains.

The Naga forum has formed a group called Recover, Restore and Decolonise under anthropologists Dolly Kikon and Arkotong Longkumer to facilitate returns.

“It is a bit like detective work,” Longkumer said. “We have to sift through different layers of information and try to read between the lines to actually find out about the exact nature of the collections and where they are from.”

But for the Naga people, this process is not merely logistical. “We are dealing with human remains,” said Konyak. “It’s an international and legal process, but it’s also a spiritual one for us.”

The group has been travelling to villages, meeting Naga elders, organising lectures and distributing educational materials such as comic books and videos to spread awareness.

They are also trying to build consensus around subjects such as the last rites of repatriated remains. Most Nagas now follow Christianity, but their ancestors were animists who followed different birth and death rituals.

The group found that even Naga elders were unaware that their ancestral remains were in foreign land. Anthropologist and archaeologist Tiatoshi Jamir said one elder told him that this could make “the soul of their ancestors restless”.

Jamir said even he was not aware about the skulls on display in foreign museums until he read about them in a local paper in the early 2000s.

The British took over the Naga areas in 1832 and, in 1873, introduced a special permission for travellers – called the Inner Line Permit – to strictly control access to the region.

Historians say the colonial administrators put down any rebellions and often burnt Naga villages to subdue them, in the process erasing much of their important cultural markers such as paintings, engravings and artefacts.

Konyak says she has discovered that one of the human remains in PRM’s list is of a person from her village and tribe.

“I am like, ‘Oh my goodness! It belongs to one of ancestors’,” she told the BBC.

She is still undecided about how the last rites would be performed once the remains are returned.

“But we want them back as a mark of respect to our elders,” she said. “To reclaim our history. To claim our narrative.”

Google has said it would harm consumers and businesses if it is forced to sell Chrome, the world’s most popular web browser.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) will propose the measure to a judge on Wednesday, Bloomberg has reported.

Judge Amit Mehta ruled Google operates an online search monopoly in August, and has been considering what remedies or penalties to impose.

The DOJ has not commented on the report – but Google has made clear it is a proposal it opposes.

“The DOJ continues to push a radical agenda that goes far beyond the legal issues in this case,” said Google executive Lee-Anne Mulholland in a statement.

Google will also reportedly be asked to establish new measures around its artificial intelligence, Android operating system and use of data.

“The government putting its thumb on the scale in these ways would harm consumers, developers and American technological leadership at precisely the moment it is most needed,” Ms Mulholland added.

Chrome is the most used browser worldwide – with web traffic tracker Similarweb placing its global market share at 64.61% in October.

Meanwhile Google search corners an almost 90% share of the global search engine market as of October, according to Statcounter.

It is the default engine in Chrome as well as on many smartphone browsers, including Safari on iPhones.

Judge Mehta said in his ruling in August that the default search engine was “extremely valuable real estate” for Google.

“Even if a new entrant were positioned from a quality standpoint to bid for the default when an agreement expires, such a firm could compete only if it were prepared to pay partners upwards of billions of dollars in revenue share,” he wrote.

The DOJ had been expected to provide its final proposed remedies to the court by Wednesday.

It said in an October filing documenting initial proposals it would be considering seeking a break-up of Google.

Potential remedies “that would prevent Google from using products such as Chrome, Play [its app store], and Android to advantage Google search and Google search-related products” were among its considerations, it said then.

Google has previously denied operating a monopoly in online search.

In response to the DOJ’s filing in October, Google said “splitting off” parts of its business like Chrome or Android would “break them”.

“Breaking them off would change their business models, raise the cost of devices, and undermine Android and Google Play in their robust competition with Apple’s iPhone and App Store,” the company said.

It also said it would make it harder to keep Chrome secure.

• What could Google monopoly ruling mean for you?

Revenues from Google’s search and advertising businesses rose by 10% to $65.9bn, according to the company’s latest quarterly results.

Chief executive Sundar Pichai said the company’s AI search tools for were now being accessed by millions of users.

Investors have been keeping a close eye on Google’s share price on Tuesday, following reports of the DOJ’s proposed remedies.

More than 40,000 people have protested outside New Zealand’s parliament against a controversial bill seeking to reinterpret the country’s founding document between British colonisers and Māori people.

Tuesday’s demonstration marked the end of a nine-day hīkoi, or peaceful protest, that had made its way through the country.

The Treaty Principles bill argues that New Zealand should reinterpret and legally define the principles of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, a document seen as fundamental to the country’s race relations.

Many critics see it as an attempt to take rights away from Māori people. Supporters of the change say the treaty no longer reflects a multicultural society.

Tuesday’s march brought together activists and other opponents of the bill.

The hīkoi swelled to one of the biggest in the country’s history, with many participants draped in colours of the Māori flag, as they marched through the capital Wellington.

It easily dwarfed the 5,000-strong crowd that turned up for land rights in 1975, and double the size of another major hīkoi in 2004, which rallied for shore and sea ownership rights.

Wellington’s rail network saw what might have been its busiest morning ever as the hīkoi poured through the capital, according to the city’s transport chair Thomas Nash.

The Māori Queen Ngā Wai hono i te pō led the delegation into the grounds surrounding the Beehive, New Zealand’s parliament house, as thousands followed behind.

The bill is not likely to pass into law but the conversations and the division are set to continue. It will be another six months until a second reading.

It was introduced by a junior member of the governing coalition, the Act political party.

The party’s leader, David Seymour, says that over time the treaty’s core values have led to racial divisions, not unity.

“My Treaty Principles Bill says that I, like everybody else, whether their ancestors came here a thousand years ago, like some of mine did, or just got off the plane at Auckland International Airport this morning to begin their journey as New Zealanders, have the same basic rights and dignity,” Seymour, who has Māori ancestry, told the BBC.

“Your starting point is to take a human being and ask, what’s your ancestry? What kind of human are you? That used to be called prejudice. It used to be called bigotry. It used to be called profiling and discrimination. Now you’re trying to make a virtue of it. I think that’s a big mistake.”

Meanwhile, inside the Beehive, MPs discussed the bill.

Among them was Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who said it would not pass into law – despite him being part of the same coalition as Act.

“Our position as the National Party is unchanged. We won’t be supporting the bill beyond second reading and therefore it won’t become law,” Luxon said, according to the New Zealand Herald.

“We don’t think through the stroke of a pen you go rewrite 184 years of debate and discussion.”

New Zealand is often considered a world leader when it comes to supporting indigenous rights – but under Luxon’s centre-right government, there are fears those rights are now at risk.

“They are trying to take our rights away,” Stan Lingman, who has both Māori and Swedish ancestry told the BBC before Tuesday’s protest. “[The hikoi is] for all New Zealanders – white, yellow, pink, blue. We will fight against this bill.”

Stan’s wife Pamela said she was marching for her “mokos”, which means grandchildren in the Māori language.

Other New Zealanders felt the march has gone too far.

“They [Māori] seem to want more and more and more,” said Barbara Lecomte, who lives in the coastal suburbs north of Wellington. “There’s a whole cosmopolitan mix of different nationalities now. We are all New Zealanders. I think we should work together and have equal rights.”

Equality, though, is still a way off, according to Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, co-leader of Te Pāti Māori (Maori Party).

“We can’t live equally if we have one people who are the indigenous people living ‘less than’,” she argued. What the coalition government is doing is “an absolute attempt to divide an otherwise progressive country and it’s really embarrassing”.

New Zealand’s parliament was brought to a temporary halt last week by MPs performing a haka, or traditional dance, in opposition to the bill. Footage of the incident went viral.

“To see it in parliament, in the highest house in Aotearoa, there’s been a real state of surprise and I think disappointment and sadness that in 2024 when we see politics and the Trump extremes, this is what the Māori are having to endure,” said Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “It’s humiliating for the government because we [New Zealand] are normally seen as punching above our weight in all of the great things in life.”

Protest organisers on Monday taught participants the words and moves of the rally’s haka, with the audience enthusiastically repeating the lyrics written on a large white sheet.

“This isn’t just any normal hīkoi – this is the hīkoi of everybody,” said grandmother Rose Raharuhi Spicer, explaining that they’ve called on non-Māori, Pacific Islanders and the wider population in New Zealand to support them.

This was the fourth hīkoi Rose had been on. She comes from New Zealand’s northernmost settlement, Te Hāpua, directly above Auckland. It’s the same village that the most famous hīkoi started from, back in 1975, protesting over land rights.

This time, she brought her children and grandchildren.

“This is our grandchildren’s legacy,” she said. “It’s not just one person or one party – and to alter [it] is wrong.”

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated former congressman and Fox Business host Sean Duffy to lead the Department of Transportation.

Duffy, who was one of Trump’s most vocal defenders on cable news, is the second Fox commentator to be picked for the incoming cabinet.

If confirmed, he will take charge of aviation, automotive, rail, transit and other transportation policies at the transport department, with a roughly $110bn (£86bn) annual budget.

“Sean has been a tremendous and well-liked public servant,” Trump wrote in an announcement on Truth Social, adding Duffy was “admired across the aisle”.

Trump said Duffy would use his experience in Congress “to maintain and rebuild our Nation’s Infrastructure, and fulfil our Mission of ushering in The Golden Age of Travel, focusing on Safety, Efficiency, and Innovation”.

“The husband of a wonderful woman, Rachel Campos-Duffy, a STAR on Fox News, and the father of nine incredible children, Sean knows how important it is for families to be able to travel safely, and with peace of mind,” the president-elect said.

Before beginning his career in public service, Duffy was a prosecutor and a reality TV star, appearing on several shows including The Real World: Boston, and Road Rules: All Stars.

In 2011, he was elected as a Republican to represent Wisconsin in the US House of Representatives, where he served until 2019.

If confirmed, he will succeed Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who was nominated by President Joe Biden in 2021.

The Department of Transportation has nearly 55,000 workers and leads the country’s safety, sustainability and efficiency efforts with regard to travel and transport.

The incoming secretary will continue to face a number of safety-related aviation issues, including the continued problems at Boeing, as the troubled manufacturer addresses a series of safety and quality issues.

The threat of labour action also looms, as well as potential upheaval if Trump delivers on his campaign promise to reverse the Biden administration’s new rules on vehicle emissions.

Since his resounding election win earlier this month, Trump has steadily named those he wants to fill high-ranking positions in his administration, seeming to choose close allies over those with related policy experience.

• What Trump can and can’t do on day one
• How these new recruits will be vetted
• Seven things Trump says he will do in power
• When does he become president again?
• Who has Trump appointed to his top team so far?
• Why is Elon Musk Trump’s efficiency tsar?

Police in Georgia have clashed with demonstrators in the centre of the capital Tbilisi protesting against last month’s disputed election which they say was stolen by the government.

The protesters had set up tents and barriers at a major junction near Tbilisi State University and security and riot police detained a number of people as they moved in to clear the area.

Georgia’s pro-Western opposition accuses the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party of using voter intimidation and fraud to win last month’s parliamentary elections.

Georgian Dream denies rigging the vote. The result has been rubber-stamped by the central election commission even though it was not corroborated by Western polling groups.

The European Union and US have backed opposition calls for an investigation into the 26 October election which was seen in Georgia as a choice between a future within the European Union or a return to Russia’s orbit.

After years of increasingly authoritarian rule under Georgian Dream, it was widely considered the most crucial vote since Georgians backed independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Tens of thousands of Georgians had already taken to the streets to protest against the disputed result, but the election commission’s decision on Saturday to confirm the ruling party’s victory prompted further demonstrations in the centre of the capital.

The commission said GD had won 53.9% of the vote and 89 seats in the 150-seat parliament. But Edison Research, one of two respected US firms who carried out exit polls for opposition TV channels, said the commission’s figure could not be explained “by normal variation”.

After opposition protesters, many of them students, set up tents and barriers near Tbilisi State University, police moved in early on Tuesday to disperse them by force.

A cameraman working for an opposition TV channel was among those arrested and several people were reportedly hurt.

One of the opposition leaders, Helene Khoshtaria, told the BBC that the protests would continue because they were fighting for the votes of the people and struggling for Georgia’s European future.

The EU has said it will send a mission to Georgia to discuss “the irregularities” of the vote, warning that the government in Tbilisi will not be able to move towards membership of the European Union “without strong changes”.

The leader of Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia is resigning after days of mass protests over a controversial pro-Russia bill.

Aslan Bzhania’s press office said he was quitting “to maintain stability and constitutional order” and that the two sides had agreed protesters who had stormed the parliament in Sukhumi must disperse on Tuesday.

The bill, which would have legalised Russian investment and land ownership, has been withdrawn.

Abkhazia declared its independence in 1999, and Russia recognised it as an independent state after the Georgian-Russian war in 2008. Georgia says Abkhazia is “occupied” by Moscow.

Most countries regard the area on the Black Sea coast as part of Georgia.

In a statement posted on Telegram late on Monday, Bzhania’s press office said Abkhazia’s parliament would consider his resignation on Tuesday.

It said Bzhania’s deputy would become Abkhazia’s acting leader, who would then dismiss the current prime minister.

The statement warned that Bzhania would withdraw his resignation offer if protesters refused to leave the government buildings.

Bzhania describes himself as Abkhazia’s president – Georgia and most of the world do not recognise his authority.

Abkhazia’s opposition has not commented on Bzhania’s resignation offer.

Located along the Black Sea and Caucasus mountains, Abkhazia is known for its natural beauty and coastline, and was one of the favoured holiday destinations for the Soviet elite until the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

Locals feared that the proposed bill would trigger an influx of Russian investment, pricing them out of the property market and further strengthening Moscow’s grip on the region.

Backed by Russia, Abkhazia fought a war of secession with Georgia in 1992-93, before unilaterally declaring independence.

Abkhazia’s economy depends overwhelmingly on tourism from Russia.

In 2009, Moscow signed a five-year agreement with Abkhazia to take formal control of its frontiers with the rest of Georgia, while in 2014 Moscow and Sukhumi signed a “strategic partnership” agreement.

The White House has condemned a neo-Nazi march in Ohio which took place over the weekend, after videos of masked men shouting racial slurs and carrying swastika flags were shared online.

“President Biden abhors the hateful poison of Nazism, antisemitism, and racism – which are hostile to everything the United States stands for,” a spokesman said on Monday, adding that the march was a “sickening display”.

The videos showed roughly a dozen people, dressed in black and wearing face coverings, marching through the streets of Columbus carrying flags with red swastikas on them.

Police briefly detained some of the group on Saturday but released them after determining no laws had been broken.

“Neo-Nazis… roamed streets in Columbus today, carrying Nazi flags and spewing vile and racist speech,” Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said in a statement.

“There is no place in this state for hate, bigotry, antisemitism or violence, and we must denounce it wherever we see it.”

Police received multiple calls at around 13:30 on Saturday about the march, public safety dispatchers told the local CBS affiliate WBNS.

In some videos, members of the group can be heard shouting racial slurs into a bullhorn at people nearby.

Officers were also advised that the group may have been in a physical altercation with people in the area that involved the use of pepper spray.

No arrests were made during the incident on Saturday.

“The Constitution protects First Amendment activity, no matter how hateful,” Police Chief Elaine R Bryant said.

“We are bound by the law in enforcement of such activity,” she added. “No one in our community should experience intimidation or harassment.”

As no one was charged, the identities of those in the group have not been released.

The scene in Ohio’s capital city occurred one week after a similar incident in Michigan.

On 9 November, several masked men were seen waving Nazi flags and shouting slurs outside a theatre performance of The Diary of Anne Frank.

Oren Segal, vice-president of the Anti Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, told the BBC that there are “more and more groups that are marching with swastika flags” and they are doing so increasingly in smaller “more focused” groups.

“These relatively small and quick protests are designed to signal back to their online community… for this to be an example of these groups bringing their hatred on the ground,” Mr Segal said.

The ADL, which monitors white supremacist events around the country, said hundreds had taken place over the past two years.

Vladimir Putin has approved changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, setting out new conditions under which the country would consider using its arsenal.

The doctrine now says an attack from a non-nuclear state, if backed by a nuclear power, will be treated as a joint assault on Russia.

The update was proposed in September and rubber stamped on Tuesday, the 1,000th day of the war with Ukraine.

It also follows Washington’s decision on Monday to allow Ukraine to fire long-range US missiles into Russia.

Under the changes, a large attack on Russia with conventional missiles, drones or aircraft could meet the criteria for a nuclear response, as could an attack on Belarus or any critical threat to Russia’s sovereignty.

Any aggression against Russia by a state which is a member of a coalition would be seen by Moscow as aggression from the whole group.

The updates expand the number of countries and coalitions, and the kinds of military threats, subject to a possible nuclear response, according to state-run news agency Tass.

Putin has threatened the use of nuclear weapons before, and Ukraine has criticised it as “nuclear sabre-rattling” to deter its allies from providing further support.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said “we strongly are in favour of doing everything to not allow nuclear war to happen”.

Speaking at a press conference at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Mr Lavrov said a declaration signed by the group, which includes Russia “clearly said we want to move towards a world free of nuclear weapons”.

• Missile news welcomed in Ukraine but ‘won’t win war’

Announcing the change, the Kremlin urged other countries to study the changes.

“This is a very important text,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, according to Tass, adding “it should become a subject to a very deep analysis”.

On Monday, Russia warned of “an appropriate and tangible” response to US President Joe Biden’s move to let Ukraine use ATACMS missiles to strike the country.

Such an attack inside Russian territory “would represent the direct involvement of the United States and its satellites in hostilities against Russia”, a foreign ministry statement said.

Mr Peskov said on Tuesday that the new doctrine was published “in a timely manner” and that Putin had requested it be updated earlier this year so that it was “in line with the current situation”, AP reported.

Ukraine has fired US-supplied longer-range missiles at a target inside Russian territory for the first time, a day after Washington gave its permission for such attacks.

US officials confirmed use of the Army Tactical Missile System (Atacms) to CBS news, the BBC’s US partner.

Russia’s defence ministry earlier said the strike targeted the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine to the north on Tuesday morning.

Five missiles were shot down and one damaged, with its fragments causing a fire at a military facility in the region, the ministry said.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov accused Washington of trying to escalate the conflict.

“That Atacms was used repeatedly overnight against Bryansk Region is of course a signal that they [the US] want escalation,” he said.

“And without the Americans, use of these high-tech missiles, as Putin has said many times, is impossible.”

He said Russia would “proceed from the understanding” that the missiles were operated by “American military experts”.

“We will be taking this as a renewed face of the western war against Russia and we will react accordingly,” he told a press conference at the G20 in Rio de Janeiro.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Kremlin approved changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, setting out new conditions under which the country would consider using its arsenal.

It now says an attack from a non-nuclear state, if backed by a nuclear power, will be treated as a joint assault on Russia.

Ukraine has already been using Atacms in Russian-occupied areas of its own territory for more than a year.

The missiles can hit targets at a range of up to 300km (186 miles) and are difficult to intercept.

Kyiv is now able to strike deeper into Russia using the missiles, including around the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces hold over 1,000 sq km of territory. Ukrainian and US officials reportedly expect a counter-offensive in the region.

• Atacms: What we know about missile system Ukraine is using to strike Russia

In a statement, Russia’s defence ministry said the strike was launched at 03:25 (00:25 GMT).

A fire caused by fallen debris from one of the missiles was quickly extinguished and there were no casualties, it said.

Ukraine’s military earlier confirmed that it had struck an ammunition warehouse in the Russian region of Bryansk, but it did not specify whether Atacms were used.

It said the attack, on a depot around 100km from the border near the town of Karachev, caused 12 secondary explosions.

Vladimir Putin has approved changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, setting out new conditions under which the country would consider using its arsenal.

The doctrine now says an attack from a non-nuclear state, if backed by a nuclear power, will be treated as a joint assault on Russia.

The update was proposed in September and rubber stamped on Tuesday, the 1,000th day of the war with Ukraine.

It also follows Washington’s decision on Monday to allow Ukraine to fire long-range US missiles into Russia.

Under the changes, a large attack on Russia with conventional missiles, drones or aircraft could meet the criteria for a nuclear response, as could an attack on Belarus or any critical threat to Russia’s sovereignty.

Any aggression against Russia by a state which is a member of a coalition would be seen by Moscow as aggression from the whole group.

The updates expand the number of countries and coalitions, and the kinds of military threats, subject to a possible nuclear response, according to state-run news agency Tass.

Putin has threatened the use of nuclear weapons before, and Ukraine has criticised it as “nuclear sabre-rattling” to deter its allies from providing further support.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said “we strongly are in favour of doing everything to not allow nuclear war to happen”.

Speaking at a press conference at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Mr Lavrov said a declaration signed by the group, which includes Russia “clearly said we want to move towards a world free of nuclear weapons”.

• Missile news welcomed in Ukraine but ‘won’t win war’

Announcing the change, the Kremlin urged other countries to study the changes.

“This is a very important text,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, according to Tass, adding “it should become a subject to a very deep analysis”.

On Monday, Russia warned of “an appropriate and tangible” response to US President Joe Biden’s move to let Ukraine use ATACMS missiles to strike the country.

Such an attack inside Russian territory “would represent the direct involvement of the United States and its satellites in hostilities against Russia”, a foreign ministry statement said.

Mr Peskov said on Tuesday that the new doctrine was published “in a timely manner” and that Putin had requested it be updated earlier this year so that it was “in line with the current situation”, AP reported.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has said damage to two undersea cables in the Baltic Sea looks like an act of sabotage and a “hybrid action”, without knowing who is to blame.

A 1,170km (730-mile) telecommunications cable between Finland and Germany was severed in the early hours of Monday, while a 218km internet link between Lithuania and Sweden’s Gotland Island stopped working on Sunday.

The incidents came at a time of heightened tension with Russia and Pistorius said “nobody believes that these cables were cut accidentally”.

A series of incidents involving Baltic pipelines have heightened fears of sabotage since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Germany and Finland have both said they are “deeply concerned” by the severing of the C-Lion1 communications cable, adding that Europe’s security is threatened by Russia’s war, “but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors”.

Finnish telecoms and cyber security firm Cinia said its cable may have been severed “by an outside force”. “These kinds of breaks don’t happen in these waters without an outside impact,” a spokesperson told local media.

Cinia’s chief executive said the damage had taken place close to Sweden’s Oland Island and could take five to 15 days to repair.

On Tuesday, Finland said it had opened a police probe, while the Swedish Prosecution Authority said it had opened an investigation into “sabotage” .

“The preliminary investigation is ongoing and at an early stage. There is no further information to share about the investigation at this time,” prosecutor Henrik Soderman said in a statement.

The two cables intersect in the Baltic although the damage is thought to have taken place elsewhere. Arelion, the company that operates the line to Lithuania, has not said where its cable was cut but expects the repair to take a couple of weeks.

Swedish civil defence minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin said it was “absolutely central” to find out why two cables were not working. About a fifth of Lithuania’s internet capacity has been reduced, although consumers are understood not to be affected.

Arelion spokesman Martin Sjogren told the BBC that cables in the Baltic did get damaged every now and then.

“Fishing vessels accidentally damage cables with anchors,” he said. “The timing is odd of course but we haven’t been able to examine it so we don’t know what caused it.”

Samuli Bergstrom, a Finnish government cybersecurity expert, said the failure of the cable from Finland to Germany had not affected internet traffic as other cable routes were available.

LISTEN: How vulnerable are the undersea cables connecting us?

The biggest act of sabotage since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine took place in the Baltic in the same year.

German prosecutors are still investigating the explosion of Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany.

There have been conspiracy theories around that attack, with unconfirmed rumours that either the Ukrainian, Russian or US government was behind it.

In October 2023 a natural gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia was severely damaged.

Finnish officials later said the incident had been caused by a Chinese container ship dragging its anchor.

Google has said it would harm consumers and businesses if it is forced to sell Chrome, the world’s most popular web browser.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) will propose the measure to a judge on Wednesday, Bloomberg has reported.

Judge Amit Mehta ruled Google operates an online search monopoly in August, and has been considering what remedies or penalties to impose.

The DOJ has not commented on the report – but Google has made clear it is a proposal it opposes.

“The DOJ continues to push a radical agenda that goes far beyond the legal issues in this case,” said Google executive Lee-Anne Mulholland in a statement.

Google will also reportedly be asked to establish new measures around its artificial intelligence, Android operating system and use of data.

“The government putting its thumb on the scale in these ways would harm consumers, developers and American technological leadership at precisely the moment it is most needed,” Ms Mulholland added.

Chrome is the most used browser worldwide – with web traffic tracker Similarweb placing its global market share at 64.61% in October.

Meanwhile Google search corners an almost 90% share of the global search engine market as of October, according to Statcounter.

It is the default engine in Chrome as well as on many smartphone browsers, including Safari on iPhones.

Judge Mehta said in his ruling in August that the default search engine was “extremely valuable real estate” for Google.

“Even if a new entrant were positioned from a quality standpoint to bid for the default when an agreement expires, such a firm could compete only if it were prepared to pay partners upwards of billions of dollars in revenue share,” he wrote.

The DOJ had been expected to provide its final proposed remedies to the court by Wednesday.

It said in an October filing documenting initial proposals it would be considering seeking a break-up of Google.

Potential remedies “that would prevent Google from using products such as Chrome, Play [its app store], and Android to advantage Google search and Google search-related products” were among its considerations, it said then.

Google has previously denied operating a monopoly in online search.

In response to the DOJ’s filing in October, Google said “splitting off” parts of its business like Chrome or Android would “break them”.

“Breaking them off would change their business models, raise the cost of devices, and undermine Android and Google Play in their robust competition with Apple’s iPhone and App Store,” the company said.

It also said it would make it harder to keep Chrome secure.

• What could Google monopoly ruling mean for you?

Revenues from Google’s search and advertising businesses rose by 10% to $65.9bn, according to the company’s latest quarterly results.

Chief executive Sundar Pichai said the company’s AI search tools for were now being accessed by millions of users.

Investors have been keeping a close eye on Google’s share price on Tuesday, following reports of the DOJ’s proposed remedies.

Turkish air strikes in drought-struck north-east Syria have cut off access to electricity and water for more than a million people, in what experts say may be a violation of international law.

Turkey carried out more than 100 attacks between October 2019 and January 2024 on oil fields, gas facilities and power stations in the Kurdish-held Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), according to data collated by the BBC World Service.

The attacks have added to the humanitarian crisis in a region reeling from a years-long civil war and four years of extreme drought exacerbated by climate change.

Water had already been scarce, but attacks on electricity infrastructure in October last year shut off power to the region’s main water station, in Alouk, and it has not been working since. On two visits there, the BBC witnessed people struggling to get water.

Turkey said it had targeted the “sources of income and capabilities” of Kurdish separatist groups it regards as terrorists.

It said that it was well known there was a drought in the area, adding that poor water management and neglected infrastructure had made things worse.

The AANES has previously accused Turkey of seeking to “destroy our people’s existence”.

More than a million people in the Hassakeh province who once got their water from Alouk now rely on deliveries of water pumped from around 12 miles (20km) away.

Hundreds of deliveries are made by tanker each day, with the water board prioritising schools, orphanages, hospitals, and those most in need.

But the deliveries are not enough for everyone.

In Hassakeh city, the BBC saw people waiting for the tankers, pleading for the drivers to give them water. “Water is more precious than gold here,” said Ahmad al-Ahmed, a tanker driver. “People need more water. All they want is for you to give them water.”

Some people admitted they fought over it and one woman threatened: “If he [the tanker driver] doesn’t give me water, I’ll puncture his tyres.”

“Let me tell you frankly, north-east Syria is facing a humanitarian catastrophe,” said Yayha Ahmed, co-director of the city water board.

People living in the region have been caught up not only in Syria’s ongoing civil war but also in Turkey’s conflict with Kurdish-led forces, who established the AANES in 2018 after they – with support from the US-led coalition – drove the Islamic State (IS) group out of the region. Coalition forces are still stationed there to prevent a resurgence of IS.

Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has described the AANES – which is not officially recognised by the international community – as a “terror state” next to its border.

The Turkish government considers the Kurdish militia that dominates the main military force there to be an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebel group, which has fought for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey for decades.

The PKK is designated as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the EU, the UK and the US.

Between October 2023 and January 2024, electricity transfer stations in three areas of the AANES were struck: Amouda, Qamishli, and Darbasiyah, as well as the region’s main power plant, Swadiyah.

The BBC confirmed the damage by using satellite imagery, eyewitness videos, news reports, and visits to the sites.

Satellite imagery of night-time lights from before and after the January 2024 attacks indicated a widespread power outage. “On January 18th…. a significant power outage is evident in the region,” said Ranjay Shrestha, a scientist at Nasa who reviewed the imagery.

Life at 50°C: Our Water, Their War

After drought and conflict left more than a million people without access to water in north east Syria, this film follows the engineers and tanker drivers trying to get water to those needing it most.

Watch on iPlayer (UK only) or on YouTube (outside UK)

The UN says Turkish forces carried out the strikes in Swadiyah, Amuda and Qamishli, while humanitarian groups say Turkey was behind the attack in Darbasiyah.

Turkey said it had been targeting the PKK, the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD).

The YPG is the biggest militia in the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces and is the military wing of the PYD, the main political party in the AANES.

“Civilians or civilian infrastructure were not among our targets and have never been,” Turkey said in a statement to the BBC.

But in October last year, the country’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said all “infrastructure, superstructure and energy facilities” that belong to the PKK and the YPG – especially in Iraq and Syria – were “legitimate targets” for its military, security forces and intelligence units.

The consequences of the conflict have been compounded by climate change.

Since 2020, an extreme and exceptional agricultural drought has gripped north-east Syria and parts of Iraq.

Over the past 70 years the average temperature in the Tigris-Euphrates basin has risen by 2C (36F), according to European climate data.

The Khabour river once supplied Hassakeh with water, but levels became too low and people were forced to turn to the Alouk water station.

But in 2019, Turkey took control of the Ras Al-Ain area, where Alouk is situated, saying it needed to establish a “safe zone” to protect the country from what it described as terrorist attacks.

Two years after this, the UN raised concerns about repeated disruption of the water supply from Alouk to north-east Syria, saying the water supply had been interrupted at least 19 times.

And in February 2024 a report published by an independent UN commission said the October 2023 attacks on electricity infrastructure could amount to war crimes because they deprived civilians of access to water.

The BBC shared its findings with international lawyers.

“Turkey’s attacks on energy infrastructure have had a devastating impact on civilians,” said Aarif Abraham, a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, adding: “This could constitute a severe violation of international law.”

Patrick Kroker, an international criminal lawyer at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, said that “the indications that international law was violated here are so strong that they should be investigated by a prosecutorial authority”.

The Turkish government said it “fully respects international law”, adding that the UN’s February 2024 report provided “no substantiating evidence” for its “unfounded allegations”.

It blamed water shortages in the region on climate change and “long-neglected water infrastructure” maintenance there.

Life at 50°C: Syria’s Water Wars

BBC Eye’s Namak Khoshnaw investigates why the people of once-fertile northeast Syria now have almost no drinking water and finds out who or what is to blame.

You can listen on BBC Sounds if you’re in the UK, or on the Documentary podcast outside the UK

Hassakeh residents told the BBC they feel abandoned.

Osman Gaddo, head of water testing at the water board, said: “We have made so many sacrifices – so many of us died in battle. But nobody comes to rescue us. We are just asking for drinking water.”

If it hadn’t been for the squirrels, George Matthew’s attempt to become a cocoa bean producer might have failed.

His farming career began in the 1970s when he inherited a rubber plantation in the the southern Indian state of Kerala , which he managed alongside his career as a doctor.

It was a bad time to inherit a rubber plantation, falling rubber prices meant it kept losing money. So, 10 years ago Dr Matthew decided to experiment with cocoa trees, hoping they would generate some funds to support the rest of the farm.

He bought some saplings and planted them. It didn’t go well.

“It was not that successful – most of the saplings died,” he says.

Squirrels appeared to be making the situation worse by grabbing cocoa bean pods and eating them.

But those raids had an unexpected benefit – cocoa seeds were spread all over the farm.

“All the scattered seeds soon grew in to plants and they were much healthier and stronger than the saplings I had planted,” says Dr Matthew.

“The trick was in sowing the seeds,” he realised.

Today Mr Matthews has 6,000 cocoa trees on his 50 acres of land.

“I think it was the best decision I have made,” he says.

Despite having several regions with weather conditions suitable for cocoa trees, India only accounts for 1% of the world’s cocoa bean production.

Global production is currently dominated by West Africa, where Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana between them produce more than half of the world’s annual output.

Indian growers can only supply a quarter of the beans needed by Indian makers of chocolate and other confectionary.

“The challenge is that it is grown in very fragmented small holdings, so it does not get the kind of attention cocoa should get,” says Renny Jacob, chairman of India Cocoa, a private company that has been growing and processing cocoa beans for more than 30 years.

In particular he says that Indian farmers are poor at handling beans after they have been harvested. Once removed from their pods, beans go through a fermentation process at the farm, which can make a huge difference to their flavour.

“Cocoa fermentation is a critical process in the production of chocolate, transforming raw cocoa beans into a form suitable for chocolate making,” says Sarin Partrick, chief executive of India Cocoa.

“This complex process involves several stages and the activity of various micro-organisms, which help develop the beans’ flavour, aroma, and colour,” he says.

• From bean to bar: How chocolate is made

To raise the quantity and quality of cocoa bean production, the government has introduced several initiatives.

It is investing in schemes to develop hybrid cocoa plants, that are more productive than existing varieties.

In addition there are schemes to train farmers on the latest techniques for growing and processing beans.

“There is a vast opportunity for Indian farmers to enter into cocoa cultivation and avail the benefits,” says Dr Femina, who works in the government department tasked with developing cocoa production.

Business is also investing in new cocoa tree vareities.

Dr Minimol J.S., is the head of cocoa research at Kerala Agriculture University and is working with Cadbury to develop hybrid cocoa trees.

In the project’s orchard existing high-performing varieties are cross-bred with exotic species.

So far the programme has come up with 15 new varieties.

“These are India’s first hybrid, disease-resistant seeds,” she says.

“The seeds are drought tolerant varieties, and have withstood temperatures of even 40C, which is usually not possible,” she adds.

The hybrids are also much more productive than traditional varieties.

“The global average production is 0.25 kilogram per year per tree.

“In Kerala, we get 2.5 kilograms per year per tree. In Andhra and Telangana, we are even getting a yield of four or five kilograms per tree per year,” she says.

India’s production of cocoa beans has risen significantly. This year it hit 110,000 tonnes, up 40% from 2015. But it’s still not enough to meet demand from local chocolate and confectionary makers.

India’s Cocoa Board estimates the demand from industry is rising at 15% per year.

Founded in 2019, Kocoatrait is one of a new generation of Indian chocolate makers.

Based in the east coast city of Chennai, the company only uses Indian cocoa beans.

One reason for that is that locally sourced beans have a much smaller carbon footprint than beans that have been shipped from another continent.

In addition, says Kocoatrait founder Nitin Chordia, Indian beans are cheaper than imports and have a distinctive flavour.

Mr Chordia also runs an agricultural school, where farmers are shown the latest innovations in fermenting and drying beans.

“We are constantly focussing on improving the post-harvest practices for cocoa farmers in India,” he says.

He adds that Indian farmers need to be producing higher quality beans.

“We are not able to compete with international players in the bulk cocoa bean segment,” he says.

While there has been improvement, Indian producers have some way to go.

“Over the last decade, in the fine-flavour cocoa bean segment, India has started to get noticed… but it will be several years before all Indian fine flavour cocoa beans reach a stage of large-scale international recognition.”

Back in Kerala, Dr Matthew reflects on his decade as a cocoa farmer.

“It’s a tricky plant,” he says. “Last year I had no yield. So no farmer can depend solely on cocoa – one has to plant other trees along with it.”

Despite the challenges, he’s optimistic. “The future is bright, with huge demand.”

“I have been approached by a multi-national company to sell my production to them, so I will be making a good profit.”

In a sports park next to the red walls and glossy blue tiles which surround Beijing’s Temple of Heaven, a group of pensioners are working out.

“I’m 74 and I hope this helps me live a long time,” one man says after he finishes his pull-ups, just as a cold wind blows leaves from cypress trees across the park, disrupting another man who is mid-headstand. Women reach for gloves and sweaters as they take turns hanging from an overhead assault course.

Chinese emperors once came to this Ming dynasty holy site to pray for a good harvest. Now the park is used by locals to enjoy their retirement after spending decades contributing to China’s spectacular growth.

They’ve watched their country open up to the world and their factories propel its economy, which nips at the heels of the United States as the world’s largest.

But some fear what the promises of US president-elect Donald Trump – who has vowed steep tariffs on goods made in China – means for the country’s export-driven economy.

For many in China, Trump is a figure of fun and memes of him dancing to the YMCA are shared widely on social media. Others worry that he’s too unpredictable.

“I like Trump, but he’s unstable. Who knows what he might do?” says the 74-year-old pensioner, whose name has been withheld.

Some of Trump’s cabinet choices – announced since his election victory – will no doubt make people even more wary.

Marco Rubio, his pick for Secretary of State, has called Beijing “the threat that will define this century”. He is also sanctioned by Beijing. Trump’s choice for National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, wrote earlier this month that the US should “urgently” bring the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East to an end so it can “finally focus strategy attention where it should be: countering the greater threat from the Chinese Communist Party”.

But China has been in training for a second Trump presidency, says Yu Jie, a Senior Research Fellow on China at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.

Despite concern on the street, she says his return comes as “no surprise” to Beijing, although she warns that the world should still “expect a roller-coaster type of relationship to unfold” when Trump takes office in January.

The competition between the two nations has been ramping up for some time, long before Trump won the election. It turned especially tense during the Biden administration because of tariffs and geopolitical disagreements ranging from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the future of Taiwan.

Yet there was dialogue, with several senior US officials making trips to Beijing.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed to work with the incoming Trump administration, but he also used his last meeting with President Joe Biden to warn Washington that a “new cold war should not be fought and cannot be won”.

He added that “containing China is unwise, unacceptable and bound to fail”.

Beijing has long accused the US and its allies of trying to contain China – they see tariffs targeting Chinese-made imports, laws restricting the country’s access to advanced AI chips and military alliances in the South China Sea and beyond as part of this approach.

And Trump’s decision to pick Rubio and Waltz suggests his administration will “take a much harsher, muscular approach with China,” says Lyle Morris from the Asia Society’s Centre for China Analysis.

“While Trump views his personal relationship with Xi Jinping as an avenue for negotiation, he will likely lean on Waltz and Rubio in fashioning a more aggressive, uncompromising policy towards China.”

They are far from the only voices in Washington that see China as a threat to US security and its economy – a view that surprises the average person in Beijing.

“You’re much better off here than in the US right now,” says the 74-year-old in the park before heading off to stretch.

Just north of the Temple of Heaven is the Forbidden City, where Chinese emperors lived for almost 500 years. It was here, in 2017, that Xi hosted Trump, bestowing on his guest an honour not granted to any US president since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Xi shut down the area and took Trump on a tour of the imperial quarters, every moment broadcast live on state TV. He was served kung pao chicken for dinner, and in turn brought a video of his granddaughter, Arabella Kushner, singing a Chinese song which went viral on social media.

It was billed by both as a high point in US-China relations, but that quickly soured after the Covid pandemic broke out in Wuhan in 2019 and spread globally in 2020. Trump repeatedly called it the “Chinese virus” and blamed the outbreak on Beijing. He also kicked off a tit-for-tat trade war, with tariffs still in place on more than $300bn (£238bn) of goods.

When Trump starts his second term, he will be encountering a stronger Xi, who has cemented his position at China’s helm with a historic third term – and the possibility of remaining in power for life.

Given it has the world’s largest army and navy, Washington is now concerned that the country is building a bigger nuclear arsenal.

Even as Trump was unveiling his new cabinet, Chinese state media published videos from the country’s biggest airshow of a new stealth fighter jet – the J35-A – flying vertically and upside-down. China is only the second country to boast two stealth fighters in its inventory. The other is the US. The world’s first two-seat stealth fighter, the J20-S, was also on display.

Last week, researchers at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California found satellite images that indicate China is working on nuclear propulsion for a new aircraft carrier.

The studies have “sparked serious concerns over Beijing’s potential adoption of a first-use strategy and increased nuclear threats, fuelling strong support to significantly boost US nuclear capabilities in response,” says Tong Zhao from think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Unless Trump personally intervenes, which seems unlikely, it appears the two nations are on the brink of a much more intense nuclear competition with far-reaching implications for international stability.”

Under Xi’s leadership in recent years, China has also become more assertive in its territorial claims over Taiwan and the South China Sea.

One worry is that Beijing is ramping up militarily to invade Taiwan, which it sees as a breakaway province that will eventually be under its control. Under Trump and his cabinet, would the US be willing to defend Taiwan?

It’s a question asked of every US president. Trump has dodged it, saying he wouldn’t have to use military force because Xi knew he was “crazy”, and he would impose paralysing tariffs on Chinese imports if that happened.

Despite Trump’s unwillingness to participate in foreign wars, most experts expect Washington to continue providing military assistance to Taipei. For one, it is bound by law to sell defensive weapons to the island. Two, the Trump administration sold more arms to Taiwan than any other.

“There is strong bipartisan support for continuing military aid to Taiwan. I don’t expect Trump to significantly change course on arms sales to Taiwan,” Mr Morris says.

These glaring differences aside, Trump does seem to admire Xi’s strongman image.

In 2020 he declared that he and Xi Jinping “love each other”, even in the midst of a bitter trade war with China.

“I had a very strong relationship with him,” he confirmed in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal.

It’s hard to know what Xi thinks – he has said very little about their relationship and barely mentions Trump by name.

In 2018, Chinese state media CGTN took direct aim at the American leader, and released an unflattering video with the sarcastic title: “Thanks Mr Trump, you are great!” It was later taken down by censors.

But what we do know is both leaders project a type of muscular nationalism. Xi’s dream is the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” and Trump believes only he can “make America great again”. Both promise that they are working towards a new golden age for their countries.

Trump’s “golden age” for America incudes 60% tariffs on Chinese-made goods.

But Beijing is in no mood for a second trade war. It has troubles of its own.

President Xi’s dream of prosperity is in jeopardy. China’s economy is sluggish, its property sector is sinking, nearly 20% of its young people are struggling to find jobs and it has one of the world’s fastest growing ageing populations.

Some of this economic pain is clear at the Temple of Heaven. We join the throngs of Chinese tour groups walking through white marble gates. It has become fashionable for young people to dress up in Qing dynasty costumes although their long silk robes often fail to hide the other big trend – chunky white trainers.

Dozens of school groups are listening attentively to guides about their city’s colourful history while a queue forms around the altar to make a wish. I watch as a middle-aged woman dressed in black takes her turn. She turns three times, clasps her hands, closes her eyes and looks toward the sky. Later we ask what she hoped for. She says many people come here and ask for their children to get jobs or to get into a good school.

“We wish for better lives and prospects,” she says. While China claims to have eradicated extreme poverty, millions of labourers and factory workers across the country, those who contributed to China’s rise, will worry what about what’s to come.

Her future and the future of China’s economy may partly depend on just how serious Trump is about his tariffs. This time, Beijing is prepared, according to Yu Jie.

“China has already begun to diversify its sources of agricultural imports (notably from Brazil, Argentina and Russia) and increased the volumes of its exports in non-US allied countries. At a domestic level, the recent local government debt recapitalisation is also paving the way to offset the negative impacts on the likely trade war with the Trump Administration.”

Beijing may also have another hope. Billionaire Elon Musk now appears to have Trump’s ear. His company, Tesla, depends on China for production – about half of all its EVs are made in the country. Chinese leaders may ask if Musk can temper Trump’s trade impulses.

But the great power struggle of the 21st century is not just over trade. Xi’s dream also involves making China the world’s dominant power.

Some experts believe this is where another Trump presidency may offer Beijing an opportunity.

“Chinese leaders will reinforce the narrative that the US is the single and most disruptive source of global instability, while portraying China as a responsible and confident world power,” says Yu Jie.

Biden spent four years building up friendships across Asia with the likes of South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam – all in an effort to contain China.

In the past, Trump’s “America-first” doctrine isolated and weakened these US alliances. He opted for deals over delicate diplomacy and often put a price tag on America’s friendships. In 2018, for instance, he demanded more money from South Korea to continue keeping US troops in the country.

Beijing has already built up alliances with emerging economies. It is also trying to repair its relationship with the UK and Europe, while mending historical grievances with Asian neighbours, South Korea and Japan.

If Washington’s influence does wane around the world, it could be a win for President Xi.

Back at the park, as we discuss the results of the US election, one man holds up four fingers. “He’s only got four years,” he says. “The US is always changing leaders. In China, we have more time.”

Time is indeed on Beijing’s side. Xi could be president for life – and so can afford to make slow but steady progress towards his goals.

Even if Trump does get in the way, it will not be for long.

A Hong Kong court has sentenced dozens of pro-democracy leaders to years in jail for subversion, following a controversial national security trial.

Benny Tai, 60, and Joshua Wong, 28, were among the so-called Hong Kong 47 group of activists and lawmakers who were involved in a plan to pick opposition candidates for local elections.

Tai received 10 years while Wong received more than four years. A total of 45 people were jailed for conspiring to commit subversion. Two of the defendants were acquitted in May.

This was the biggest trial under the national security law (NSL) which China imposed on the city shortly after explosive pro-democracy protests in 2019.

Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in a months-long standoff against Beijing. Triggered by a proposed government treaty that would have allowed extradition to mainland China, the protests quickly grew to reflect wider demands for democratic reform.

Observers say the NSL and the trial’s outcome have significantly weakened the city’s pro-democracy movement and rule of law, allowing China to cement its control of the former British colony.

Beijing and Hong Kong’s government deny this, arguing instead that the NSL is necessary to maintain stability. They also say these sentences serve as a warning for those trying to undermine China’s national security.

“No one can engage in illegal activities in the name of democracy and attempt to escape justice,” China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday. It also said that it was “firmly opposed” to Western countries “undermining the rule of law in Hong Kong”.

The city’s pro-democracy campaigners reacted to the sentences with disappointment and sadness.

“We are very distressed and their families are devastated,” Emily Lau, former chair of the Democratic Party of Hong Kong, told the BBC’s Today programme.

She added that she and many others were not able to enter the courtroom because it was full. Tuesday’s hearing attracted huge interest from Hongkongers, dozens of whom queued up outside days before to secure a spot in the public gallery.

Many of the 45 people on trial were icons of Hong Kong’s protest movement. Tai, a law professor, shot to fame as a key leader back in 2014, Wong was still a teenager when he took to activism, and Gwyneth Ho, a young former journalist, was admitted to hospital after a mob attack during the 2019 protests.

Veteran former lawmakers such as Claudia Mo and Leung Kwok-hung, also known as Long Hair, spent much of their careers fighting for a freer Hong Kong, and first-time activists such as Owen Chou and Tiffany Yuen stormed the legislative council in what was a defining moment for the protests.

All of them were in court in a rare public appearance as many have been in jail since their arrest in early 2021 because pre-trial detention is common under the NSL.

Standing in line on Tuesday was Lee Yue-shun, one of the two defendants acquitted. He told reporters he wanted to urge Hongkongers to “raise questions” about the case, as “everyone has a chance to be affected” by its outcome.

There were several activists waiting to enter court. Bobo Lam, who was once arrested under the NSL, said he was showing up to support friends who are now in jail and “let them know, that there are still many HongKongers who haven’t forgotten them”. Others seemed heartened by how many people had showed up, suggesting they “remember what happened”.

An elderly woman, Regina Fung, chanted “everybody hang in there, stand for Hong Kong” before the hearing. “It’s very sad, even the weather in Hong Kong is miserable today,” she said.

Inside the courtroom, family members and friends waved from the public gallery to the defendants, who appeared calm as they sat in the dock. Some in the gallery had tears in their eyes as the sentences, ranging from four to 10 years, were read out.

Tai, a former law professor who came up with the plan for the unofficial primary, received the longest sentence with judges saying he had “advocated for a revolution”.

Wong had his sentence reduced by a third after he pleaded guilty. But unlike some other defendants, he was not given further reductions as judges “did not consider him to be a person of good character”. At the time of the arrests, Wong was already in jail for participating in protests.

In court, Wong shouted “I love Hong Kong” before he left the dock.

As Leung’s wife, activist Chan Po-ying, walked out of the court at the end of the hearing, she was heard chanting a protest against his jail term.

The UK government said those sentenced had been “exercising their right to freedom of speech, of assembly and of political participation”.

“Today’s sentencing is a clear demonstration of the Hong Kong authorities’ use of the NSL to criminalise political dissent,” a UK government statement said.

The US has described the trial as “politically motivated”. Australia said it had “strong objections” to the use of the NSL and it was “gravely concerned” by the sentencing of one of its citizens, Gordon Ng.

The ruling comes a day after UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer met with China’s Xi Jinping at the G20 summit – a meeting which saw him raise the case of Jimmy Lai, the billionaire pro-democracy activist on trial for treason.

Asked directly about Tuesday’s ruling, he defended pursuing closer ties with Beijing, saying that while it was “important” to be “open… and talk about our disagreements”, it was also in the “national interest” to have a” serious and pragmatic relationship” with China.

“I certainly hope the British government, the prime minister, will stand up for the rights that they promised the Hong Kong people. All these promises, these rights and rule of law are evaporating,” Ms Lau told the BBC. She asked why organising an election should warrant jail time.

After the 2019 protests dwindled with the Covid pandemic, the defendants organised an unofficial primary for the Legislative Council election as a way to continue the pro-democracy movement.

Their aim was to increase the opposition’s chances of blocking the pro-Beijing government’s bills. More than half a million Hongkongers turned out to vote in the primary held in July 2020.

Organisers argued at the time that their actions were allowed under Hong Kong’s Basic Law – a mini-constitution that allows certain freedoms.

But it alarmed Beijing and Hong Kong officials, who warned that the move could breach the NSL, which came into effect days before the primary. They accused the activists of attempting to “overthrow” the government, and arrested them in early 2021.

The trial judges agreed with the prosecution’s argument that the plan would have created a constitutional crisis.

“Central authorities are using the trial to re-educate the Hong Kong people,” said John P Burns, emeritus professor at the University of Hong Kong. The lesson being “national security is the country’s top priority; don’t challenge us on national security’”.

“The case is significant because it provides clues to the health of Hong Kong’s legal system,” he told the BBC. “How can it be illegal to follow processes laid down in the Basic Law?”

A Human Rights Watch spokesperson said that China and Hong Kong “have now significantly raised the costs for promoting democracy in Hong Kong”.

Stephan Ortmann, assistant professor of politics at the Hong Kong Metropolitan University, agreed. Tuesday’s sentencing “set a precedent for the severity of punishments for political dissent under the NSL”, adding that “self-censorship has become the norm”.

But this isn’t a win for Beijing, said Sunny Cheung, an activist who ran in the 2020 primary but has since fled to the US. “They might be happy in a way because the entire opposition is being wiped out… but they don’t have the trust of the people.”

Others, like Ms Lau, said the city had already lost more than a generation of pro-democracy campaigners.

There has been “no permission for marches and demonstrations in the past few years – it’s very, very quiet, very peaceful,” she said.

“But that’s not Hong Kong. If you have been to Hong Kong, you know it is a city of protest. Very colourful, very vibrant, but not any more.”

Ukraine’s President Zelensky urged Europe to “push Russia harder” in a speech marking 1,000 days since Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of the country.

“The more time he [Putin] has, the worse the conditions become,” he told a special session of the European Parliament on Tuesday.

Zelensky spoke amid speculation that Ukraine had for the first time used the US-supplied Atacams long range missile system to hit a target deep inside Russia, a day after Washington signalled its permission.

An ammunition warehouse was struck with the missiles in the Russian region of Bryansk, about 100 kilometres from the border, an unconfirmed report on the RBC Ukraine news website said.

But Kyiv often uses domestic drones to hit targets inside Russia, and there was no immediate evidence that US missiles were used.

On Monday, US officials said that President Biden had removed US sanctions on the use of the Atacms system outside of Ukraine’s borders.

It is thought that Ukraine was given permission to use the missiles only to defend its forces inside Russia’s Kursk region, where Kyiv launched a surprise incursion in August and where an assault from Russian and North Korean troops was expected within days.

• Putin approves changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine

Addressing members of the European Parliament on Tuesday morning, 1,000 days since the invasion began on 24 February 2022, Zelensky warned that Putin “[would] not stop on his own” and urged that Russia be pushed towards a “just peace”.

He said the deployment of North Korean troops was a clear sign that Moscow was determined to escalate the conflict.

“While some European leaders think about some elections, or something like this, at Ukraine’s expense, Putin is focused on winning this war,” he warned.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military commander in chief wrote on Telegram that the country had faced 1,000 days of “extremely complex, fierce battle for our existence” and “destroying the enemy”.

“In the frozen trenches of Donetsk region and in the burning steppes of Kherson region under shells, hail, and anti-aircraft guns – we are fighting for the right to life.”

He added: “Every dark night, even if there are a thousand of them, always ends with dawn.”

The comments came after 12 people, including a child, were killed in a drone attack on Ukraine’s northeastern region of Sumy overnight, where 11 were also killed in a separate strike on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin approved its updated nuclear doctrine – which says that any aggression from a non-nuclear state, if backed by a nuclear power, will be regarded as a joint attack on Russia.

Under the changes, a large attack on Russia with conventional missiles, drones or aircraft could meet the criteria for a nuclear response, as could an attack on Belarus or any critical threat to Russia’s sovereignty.

The EU’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell Fontelles also said on Tuesday the EU continued to stand with Ukraine, but that it “need[ed] to do more and quicker”.

“The European Union will continue to advance support to help achieve victory for Ukraine and to bring peace to our continent,” he said in a video shared on X.

“History will judge us based on our actions and reactions,” read the caption.

• Russia vows ‘tangible’ response if US missiles used against its territory

Earlier, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer reiterated his country’s “ironclad” support for Ukraine amid speculation he could give Kyiv permission to use British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles to hit targets deep inside Russian territory.