Koh Jae-hak can still vividly remember when he saw soldiers gunning down a group of young women in cold blood.

It was April 1960. Students had launched protests calling for the resignation of the dictatorial president Syngman Rhee. Mr Koh was working in a government building when he looked out of the window and saw protesters clashing with police.

“There were demonstrations from various universities, and they all gathered in front… that’s when shots were fired,” the 87-year-old said. Days later, martial law was declared.

South Korea is widely considered a peaceful beacon of democracy in Asia, but that wasn’t always the case. This is a country that saw 16 bouts of martial law during its first four decades ruled largely by dictators.

It is why democracy is now deeply treasured by South Koreans as a hard-won right. It is also why President Yoon Suk-yeol’s declaration of martial law this week – the first to happen in 45 years and during democratic rule – was particularly triggering and prompted such a visceral response.

Almost immediately, lawmakers jumped out of bed and rushed to the national assembly, clambering over fences to reverse martial law.

Hundreds of ordinary citizens gathered to hold back troops who had been ordered to throw out MPs.

Some soldiers, apparently unwilling to carry out their orders, reportedly dragged their feet in clearing the crowd and entering the building.

When Yoon declared martial law on Tuesday night, he said it was necessary to get rid of “pro-North anti-state” forces. Initially, it caused confusion with some South Koreans who believed there was a genuine threat from the North.

But as they continued watching Yoon’s televised announcement, many grew sceptical. He gave no evidence of such forces at work, nor explained who they were. As Yoon had previously used similar language to describe the opposition that had been stymying his reforms, the public concluded he was actually trying to crush his political foes.

Previous periods of martial law had also been justified by leaders as necessary to stabilise the country, and sometimes stamp out what they alleged were communist subversives planted by North Korea.

They curtailed freedom of press and freedom of movement. Night curfews and arrests were common.

Violent clashes sometimes took place, most indelibly in 1980, when then President Chun Doo-hwan extended martial law to deal with student protesters calling for democracy in the southern city of Gwangju. A brutal military crackdown was launched, and it has since been labelled a massacre – while the official death toll is 193, some experts believe hundreds more died.

South Korea eventually transitioned to democracy in 1988, when the government held its first free and fair presidential election following mounting public pressure. But the preceding decades had permanently and profoundly shaped the nation’s consciousness.

“Most Koreans have trauma, deep trauma, about martial law,” said Kelly Kim, 53, an environmental activist. “We don’t want to repeat the same thing over and over.”

Ms Kim was a young child when martial law was last in place and has little memory of it. Still, she shudders at the thought of it returning.

“The government would control all the media, our normal activities. I’m working in civil society, so all our activities, like criticising the government, would not be possible under the martial law. So that’s really horrible.”

The freedoms afforded by democracy have not just led to a thriving civil society.

In the more than 35 years since that first democratic election, South Korea’s creative industries have flourished, with its dramas, TV shows, music and literature becoming world famous. Those creative industries have turned their own lenses onto the country’s past, bringing history to life for those too young to remember.

The country has seen a proliferation of shows about its dictatorship past, immortalising incidents such as the Gwangju uprising in popular culture.

Some were blockbusters featuring South Korea’s biggest stars, such as last year’s 12.12 The Day, a historical drama starring popular actor Hwang Jung-min. The movie depicts the political chaos that took place in 1979 as martial law was declared following the assassination of then president Park Chung-hee.

“As soon as I saw the images [of Yoon’s declaration of martial law], it reminded me of that movie… it made me question, are we about to repeat that history now?” said Marina Kang, a 37-year-old web designer.

“Korea’s got a wealth of visual representational works [of that era] in films and documentaries. Though we only have indirect experience of the horrific past through these works… that still makes me feel very strongly that such events should not happen again.”

Among younger citizens, there is a sense of disbelief that it could have returned. Despite never knowing life under martial law, they have been taught by their parents and older relatives to fear it.

“At first [when I heard Yoon’s announcement], I was excited at the thought of getting a day off from school. But that joy was fleeting, and I was overwhelmed by the fear of daily life collapsing. I couldn’t sleep,” said 15-year-old Kwon Hoo.

“My father was concerned that under martial law, he wouldn’t be able to stay out late even though his work required him to… when he heard the news about the possibility of a curfew being imposed again, he started swearing while watching the news.”

Not all South Koreans feel this way about their past.

“The vast majority of Koreans appreciate democracy enormously and regret the authoritarianism of the post-war period,” said Mason Richey, associate professor of international politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul.

But, he added, “the country remains very divided regarding numerous aspects of the authoritarian past, notably how justified certain repressive measures were in order to prevent communist subversion.”

There is the view among a significant portion of the population, especially among older folk, that martial law was necessary in the past for stability and democracy.

“Back then, it was a time defined by ideological warfare between democracy and communist socialism,” said Kang Hyo-san, 83. He was sitting next to his friend Mr Koh in a cafe at Gwanghwamun, Seoul’s main square and focal point for the city’s protest rallies.

The competing ideologies would lead to clashes and “when the military intervened, the situation would stabilise… it was a process to restore order and properly establish free democracy.

“Given the circumstances, we couldn’t help but view it positively,” he said, adding that he felt each period of martial law left the country in a more “favourable” position. Martial law in South Korea “fundamentally differed” from other nations, where it “wasn’t about killing people or senseless violence”, he insisted.

But this time, it’s different. Both octogenarians felt that Yoon’s declaration of martial law was unacceptable. “Even though we’ve experienced martial law many times throughout our lives, this time there’s no justification for its declaration,” said Mr Koh.

Like them, Ms Kim, the environmental activist, was glad Yoon did not succeed and democracy prevailed in the end. “Because we fought so hard to get it, right? We don’t want to lose it again.

“Without democracy and freedom of living, what is life?”

South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol has apologised for declaring martial law earlier this week and has said there will not be another such order.

The embattled leader is facing potential impeachment following Tuesday night’s declaration, which was quickly overturned in the National Assembly.

In response to the president’s address, the leader of his ruling People Power Party (PPP) told reporters that it had become impossible for Yoon to continue his normal duty.

“His early resignation is inevitable,” said Han Dong-hoon.

“I am very sorry and would like to sincerely apologise to the people who were shocked,” Yoon said in his brief televised speech.

“Regarding the declaration of martial law, I will not avoid any legal or political responsibility.”

It had been speculated that he would use the address to the nation – his first since declaring martial law – to resign but he did not do so, instead saying that he would delegate the work of stabilising the situation to his ruling party.

He also did not mention impeachment.

The opposition is pushing for a vote on the motion to impeach Yoon on Saturday. It needs at least eight members of Yoon’s party to vote in favour for the motion to pass with a two-thirds majority in the 300-seat parliament.

Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung said he was disappointed with President Yoon’s comments on Friday and that they would only increase the public’s sense of anger and betrayal.

Lee added that he would do his best to remove the president from office.

“The greatest risk facing South Korea right now is the very existence of the president.”

It is not only politicians who have been outraged by Yoon’s actions.

Yang Soonsil, 50, is a seafood shop owner at Namdaemun market in the South Korean capital, Seoul. She told the BBC that she had felt fear and disbelief when martial law was declared.

“I have lost complete trust in him [Yoon] as a president, I don’t think he’s my president any more,” she said.

“We need to fight until the end, we can’t let him maintain his position as a president.”

At the same market was shopper Han Jungmo, who said that Yoon’s apology was not enough.

“He must either step down voluntarily or be impeached, if he’s not willing to,” he said, adding that the president had broken trust with the people.

“If he continues to insist on being president, then it would be a very hopeless situation because I believe for this president, this martial law is not the only misdeed he has conducted.”

South Korea was plunged into political turmoil late on Tuesday night when Yoon made the shock martial law declaration.

He cited threats from “anti-state forces” and North Korea. However, it soon became clear that his move had been spurred not by external threats but by his own domestic political troubles.

Some lawmakers jumped over barricades and fences to get past security forces in order to convene in parliament and void Yoon’s decree.

Yoon rolled back the declaration six hours later after MPs voted it down but there had been concern he would attempt to make a second decree. Some lawmakers had been staying near the National Assembly to make sure they were there ready to void it.

Before his attempt to place the country under military rule, Yoon had been beset by low popularity ratings, corruption allegations and an opposition-led legislature that reduced him to a lame-duck leader.

Election day has arrived in Ghana, where a debt crisis and high living costs mean the economy is uppermost in the minds of many voters.

The West African nation is guaranteed a new president as Nana Akufo-Addo steps down after reaching the official limit of two terms in office.

But he could be replaced with a familiar face, if former President John Mahama succeeds in his comeback attempt for the NDC party.

His main challenger is expected to be Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia, who would become the country’s first Muslim leader if he wins for the governing NPP party.

Other candidates include Nana Kwame Bediako, a businessman popular with young voters and Alan Kyerematen, who defected from the ruling NPP party last year.

Close to 19 million Ghanaians are registered to vote.

A man is once again guaranteed to become the next president, despite Ghana recently bringing in tougher legislation to drive up the numbers of women in frontline politics.

The only female presidential candidate in this election – Akua Donkor of the Ghana Freedom Party – died in October. Yet her name will still be listed on ballot papers because the candidate chosen to succeed her was disqualified.

Saturday’s general election also sees voters in 275 constituencies across the country choosing their members of parliament.

• What an accountant-turned-mechanic says about Ghana’s election

Since the return of multi-party politics to Ghana in 1992, only candidates from either the National Democratic Congress (NDC) or the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) have won the presidency.

No party has ever won more than two consecutive terms in power.

Voters have a 10-hour window on Saturday to cast their ballots – with polling stations set to open at 07:00 GMT and close at 17:00.

Results are set to be announced within three days.

In order to win in the first round, a presidential candidate must gain more than 50% of the vote. Failing that, the top two contenders will enter a run-off vote to take place by the end of December.

As campaigns came to a close on Friday, Bawumia said of his main rival: “What is clear is that notwithstanding the challenges we’ve had, we have performed better than the government of John Dramani Mahama.”

While Mahama told supporters “it is a choice between the Ghana we have today and the Ghana we want together. A Ghana of opportunity, prosperity, and justice for all.”

Ghanaians have been hit particularly hard by inflation in recent years, which reached a peak of 54.1% in 2022. Although it has since come down, many thousands of people have been pushed into poverty and living standards have suffered, says the World Bank.

That same year, Ghana defaulted on its debt repayments and the government is still in lengthy negotiations with international lenders to try and restructure the loans.

Unemployment is also at a high – particularly among the young, whose views could have a big impact on the outcome of the election.

• EXPLAINER: What’s at stake in Ghana’s elections?
• CHARTS: What’s on the minds of voters?
• PROFILE: Who is John Mahama?
• PROFILE: Who is Mahamudu Bawumia?
• IN BRIEF: Ghana – a basic guide

As 2024 draws to a close, and winter arrives, Russian forces are continuing to push their Ukrainian opponents back.

In total, Russia has captured and retaken about 2,350 sq km of territory (907 sq miles) in eastern Ukraine and in Russia’s western Kursk region.

But the cost in lives has been horrendous.

Britain’s defence ministry says that in November Russia suffered 45,680 casualties, more than during any month since its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

According to the latest UK Defence Intelligence estimate, Russia lost a daily average of 1,523 men, killed and wounded.

On 28 November, it says, Russia lost more than 2,000 men in a single day, the first time this has happened.

“We’re seeing the Russians grinding out more advances,” one official said, on condition of anonymity. “But at enormous cost.”

Officials said the casualty figures were based on open-source material, sometimes cross-referenced with classified data.

All in all, Russia is estimated to have lost about 125,800 soldiers over the course of its autumn offensives, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Russia’s “meat-grinder” tactics, the ISW says, mean that Moscow is losing more than 50 soldiers for each square kilometre of captured territory.

Ukraine does not allow publication of its own military casualties, so there are no official estimates covering the last few months.

The Russian defence ministry says more than 38,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been lost (killed and wounded) in Kursk alone – a number that is impossible to verify.

Yuriy Butusov, a well-connected but controversial Ukrainian war correspondent, says that 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since February 2022, with another 35,000 missing.

Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denied US media reports that as many as 80,000 Ukrainian troops had died, saying it was “much less”.

He did not offer his own figure.

But taken together, the Russian and Ukrainian casualty figures point to the terrifying intensity of fighting going on in Kursk and Ukraine’s eastern regions.

Western officials see no sign of this changing.

“The Russian forces are highly likely to continue to attempt to stretch Ukrainian forces by using mass to overwhelm defensive positions and achieve tactical gains,” one said.

The pace of Russia’s advance has increased in recent weeks (while still nothing like the speed of its rapid advances in the first months of the war), stemmed only by a significant change in the ratio of artillery fire between the two sides.

Where once Russia was able to fire as many as 13 shells for every one Ukraine fired back, the ratio is now around 1.5 to 1.

This dramatic turnaround is partly explained by increased domestic production, as well as successful Ukrainian attacks on depots containing Russian and North Korean ammunition.

But artillery, while important, no longer plays such a decisive role.

“The bad news is that there’s been a massive increase in Russian glide bomb use,” one Western official said, “with devastating effects on the front line.”

Russia’s use of glide bombs – launched from jets flying well inside Russian-controlled airspace – has increased 10-fold over the past year, the official said.

Glide bombs and drones have transformed the conflict, as each side races to innovate.

“We’re at the point where drone warfare made infantry toothless, if not obsolete,” Serhiy, a front line soldier told me via WhatsApp.

As for manpower, both Ukraine and Russia continue to experience difficulties, but for different reasons.

Ukraine has been unwilling to reduce its conscription age below 25, depriving it of all 18- to 24-year-olds – except those who volunteer.

Russia, meanwhile, is still able to replace its losses, although President Vladimir Putin’s reluctance to conduct a fresh round of mobilisation points to a number of domestic considerations.

Soaring inflation, overflowing hospitals and problems with compensation payments to bereaved families are all factors.

In some regions of Russia, bonuses offered to volunteers willing to sign up for the war in Ukraine have risen as high as three million roubles (about £23,500; $30,000).

“I’m not suggesting that the Russian economy is on the brink of collapse,” the official said. “I’m just saying that pressures continue to mount there.”

Recent events in Syria could add to Moscow’s woes, as the Kremlin decides what resources it can afford to devote to its defence of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

But with the situation in Syria developing rapidly, officials say it’s too early to know what impact events there will have on the war in Ukraine.

“There’s certainly potentially longer-term prioritisation dilemmas for Russia,” one official said.

“It depends how the situation in Syria goes.”

Rebel forces in southern Syria have reportedly captured most of the Deraa region – the birthplace of the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

A UK-based war monitor reports that the “local factions” were able to take control of many military sites there following “violent battles” with government forces.

According to the Reuters news agency, rebel sources saying they had reached a deal for the army to withdraw and for military officials to be given safe passage to the capital, Damascus – roughly 100km (62 miles) away.

The BBC has been unable to independently verify these reports, which come as Islamist-led rebels in northern Syria claimed to have reached the outskirts of the city of Homs.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based war monitor, said on Friday that the rebels in the south now control more than 90% of the Deraa region and that only the Sanamayn area is still in government hands.

Deraa city has both strategic and symbolic importance. It is a provincial capital and is close to the main crossings on the Jordanian border, while also being where pro-democracy protests erupted in 2011 – sparking the country’s ongoing civil war, in which more than half a million people have been killed.

Jordan’s interior minister said the country had closed its side of the border as “a result of the surrounding security conditions in Syria’s south”.

Elsewhere, Kurdish-led forces say they have taken the city of Deir Ezzor, the government’s main foothold in the vast desert in east of the country.

• What is happening in north-western Syria and why now?
• Syria in maps: Where have anti-Assad rebels taken control?

It has been just over a week since rebels in the north launched their lightning offensive – the biggest against the Syrian government in years, which has exposed the weakness of the country’s military.

At least 370,000 people are thought to have been displaced so far as a result of the rebel offensive, according to the UN, which has said the fighting is also “worsening an already horrific situation for civilians in the north of the country”.

Some civilians are trapped in front-line areas unable to reach safer locations.

SOHR says more than 820 people, including 111 civilians, have been killed across the country since the Islamist-led rebels began their offensive last week.

They seized Hama, to the north of Homs, on Thursday – a second major blow to President Assad, who lost control of Aleppo last week.

The leader of the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, told residents of Homs “your time has come”.

The rebels have been advancing south, and Homs would be the next stop on the road to the Damascus.

Terrified members of President Assad’s Alawite minority community are rushing to leave Homs, with video footage showing roads jammed with cars.

“Our forces have liberated the last village on the outskirts of the city of Homs and are now on its walls,” the Syrian faction leading the assault said on Telegram.

The BBC has not been able to verify these movements, but SOHR earlier reported that rebels were within a few kilometres of the city.

The SOHR said Russian warplanes had bombed a bridge in nearby Rastan to try and slow the rebel advance.

After the Syrian military lost control of Hama following days of fighting, it is not clear whether it will be able to defend Homs.

The defence ministry has denied claims it had withdrawn troops from the strategic city, which links the capital Damascus to the Alawite heartland on the Mediterranean coast.

The Alawites are a minority sect of Shia Muslims from which the Assad family originates.

They have long formed a major support base for Assad rule, and are key to the president’s grip on power.

Assad has vowed to “crush” the rebels and accused Western powers of trying to redraw the map of the region.

But analysts say his forces are demoralised, dealing with low pay and corruption in the ranks. He announced a 50% pay rise in recent days, according to state news agency SANA.

Russia and Iran, the regime’s most important allies, have declared continued support for Assad,

But they have not provided the kind of military assistance that so far has been propping up his rule, and Moscow is now urging Russian nationals to leave the country.

The US on Friday also advised its citizens to leave Syria “while commercial options remain available in Damascus”.

The Kremlin is preoccupied with its war in Ukraine, and Iran has been weakened by Israel’s punishing campaign against its most powerful allied militia, Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, whose fighters had been key to holding regime territory in Syria, are now largely absent from the battlefield, although reports in the Lebanese and Israeli press say small numbers have crossed the border to shore up Homs’ defence.

Russian and Iranian officials are expected to meet with their Turkish counterparts at the weekend to discuss a response to this upsurge in Syria’s civil war.

Turkey backs some of the rebel groups and its president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has for months pressed Mr Assad to reach a political solution with the opposition.

He has voiced support for the rebels’ recent advances, and said the offensive would not have happened if Assad had responded to his calls.

Analysts say it almost certainly could not have happened without Ankara’s knowledge and approval.

For his part, the leader of HTS, Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, has been making public remarks to soften his image and reassure both Syrians and foreign leaders.

He has emphasized his split years ago from Islamic State and Al Qaeda, presenting himself as a nationalist opposed to attacks outside Syria, and promising protection for minority communities.

In an interview with CNN, al-Jawlani said the goal of the rebel forces was to overthrow the Assad regime and install a government that represents all Syrians.

Earlier, HTS fighters and their allies took over Hama and released inmates from its central prison amid fierce battles, while the military said it had redeployed troops outside the city.

Hama is home to one million people and is 110km south of Aleppo, which the rebels captured last week.

In Aleppo, a city of two million people, some public services and critical facilities – including hospitals, bakeries, power stations, water, internet and telecommunications – are disrupted or non-functional because of shortages of supplies and personnel.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged “all those with influence to do their part” to end the civil war.

A gravely weakened President Emmanuel Macron hopes to win a new lease of political life from Saturday’s ceremonial reopening of Notre Dame.

Joined by US President-elect Donald Trump, Prince William and other international figures, he will seek to present the renovated cathedral as a symbol of France’s inner reserves of creative strength.

In a speech marking the occasion, he will urge the world to see beyond the country’s current crisis and admire the determination, organisation and hard graft that have rescued one of France’s most famous buildings in just five years.

The long-awaited event comes just as France enters a period of deep uncertainty triggered by the fall of Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government on Wednesday. A replacement has yet to be named.

Five-and-a-half years after the devastating fire, Macron had planned to make the cathedral’s reopening the optimistic climax of 2024 – a year also marked by the Paris Olympic Games.

But while he seeks to capitalise on the project’s undoubted success, a contrast is unavoidable between the depressed state of the country as a whole, and the soaring achievement of fixing this magnificent Gothic cathedral.

The ceremony marks the moment that the Catholic church retakes possession of the cathedral, ahead of the first mass to be celebrated on Sunday.

Archbishop Laurent Ulrich will knock on the front portal using a staff made from one of the rescued roof-timbers. Answered by the choir, which will already be inside, he will enter the cathedral and bid the organ “ring forth praises of God”.

Macron had originally intended to make an address inside the cathedral, but was advised that this would contravene France’s strict rules on secularity.

As a compromise, he visited the cathedral eight days ago to thank hundreds of craftsmen and women – a televised tour which allowed the world a first glimpse of the stunningly rejuvenated interior.

The evening’s religious ceremony will be followed by a concert featuring Chinese pianist Lang Lang and Canadian singer Garou.

Sunday’s mass – which the president will attend – will be conducted by Archbishop Ulrich in the presence of 170 French bishops and priests from 106 Paris parishes. The first mass for the public is on Sunday evening, but booking was required – as it is for all the masses planned for the week ahead.

One dignitary who will not be attending is Pope Francis, though he has sent a message that will be read out on Saturday.

The Pope’s relations with France are cordial rather than friendly. He is reported to have been angered by French policies to cut immigration, and by Macron’s decision to put the right to abortion in the constitution.

In the French press, the Pope is said to be more interested in the younger and growing Christian communities of the southern hemisphere than the medieval churches of Europe.

The fire on 15 April 2019 destroyed the medieval roof-timbers, the spire and three sections of stone vaulting. An appeal for donors raised €850m ($897m; £704m), and 2,000 masons, carpenters, art-restorers, engineers and architects worked on the project.

“The moment I looked inside on the day after the fire, I knew that everything would be all right. The damage was nothing like as bad as I had feared,” said cathedral chief architect Philippe Villeneuve, who disputes the widespread theory that Notre-Dame came close to total collapse.

“Apart from replacing the roof and spire, the main task was decontamination. Everything was covered in lead oxide powder. But that meant we could restore and clean – which explains why the cathedral looks so beautiful today.”

Before the fire, the cathedral was already deemed to be in a state of severe disrepair, and scaffolding was in place to renovate the spire and other external parts much damaged by corrosion.

Some 12 million people per year were visiting the cathedral, a number which is now expected to rise. A new route around the building has been devised to cope with the 100 visitors a minute expected to come here at the height of the tourist season.

Wedged into the middle of a three storey-high pile of rubble and charred possessions in southern Beirut is a twisted and cracked metal sign. “Spare parts. Jeep Cherokee,” it says.

It is the only indication that the ground floor of this destroyed building had been occupied by a busy car parts dealership – one of many such businesses destroyed by Israel’s heavy bombing of Dahieh, the largely Hezbollah-controlled southern suburb of the capital.

“We were so confident we wouldn’t be hit, because of the nature of the people here – ordinary, people, business owners,” said Imad Abdelhak, staring up at the smashed building.

Abdelhak’s garage, next door, had survived the worst of the air strike, but he was waiting to find out if the whole structure would have to be torn down because of the impact.

All over Lebanon, business owners are reeling after an intense conflict between Israel and Hezbollah saw Israeli bombs rain down on residential, commercial and industrial parts of the country, destroying shops, warehouses and stocks of goods.

A US- and French-brokered ceasefire, which is largely holding, halted the war last week, but for many of the country’s business owners and workers the pain is only beginning.

“I have lost $20,000 and my only source of income,” said Ibrahim Mortada, another car parts dealer in Dahieh whose building was hit. “I have no idea how we can survive,” he said.

Like Abdelhak, Mortada was waiting for engineers to assess the building, but it was clear to anyone standing underneath it that the structure was unsafe. The top seven floors had been destroyed by a direct strike. Huge slabs of concrete and loose rubble hung precariously over Mortada’s head as he attempted to clear up what was left of his premises.

“My business has been open here for 23 years,” he said, dejectedly. “We are counting on God to help us now.”

The business owners of Dahieh and beyond are also counting on Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese political and militant group, which said it will begin this week to assess the damage to homes and businesses and dole out cash for people to pay rent, buy new furniture, and begin to rebuild.

In the southern city of Nabatieh on Wednesday, where its Ottoman-era market and surrounding businesses were completely destroyed, people were still waiting for the Hezbollah assessors to arrive.

“Nobody has contacted us – nobody from the government, nobody from any group,” said Niran Ali, a 56-year-old woman whose shop, Zen Baby Fashion, had disappeared with virtually all of its stock.

Scanning the rubble, Ali caught sight of a pink, soot-covered pair of girls’ tracksuit bottoms, hanging from a steel girder jutting out of the heap. “These were mine,” she said, running her finger across the blackened fabric. “Maybe they are the only thing left of my business.”

Like others in Nabatieh, Ali had heard that Hezbollah was going to begin by assessing homes (the group has pledged $5,000 per household to help pay for rent, and $8,000 to replace furniture) and then move on to businesses, where the losses are much higher.

Jalal Nasser, who owned a large complex containing a coffee shop, restaurant and library, returned to the city on the first day of the ceasefire to find the complex transformed into a charred husk by a massive air strike across the road. He estimated he had lost up to $250,000.

He set up a small table and chair on the edge of the shell of the building, overlooking the main street, and smoked his shisha. “To give people hope”, he said.

As for where the money was going to come from to rebuild, “that is the big question,” he said, shrugging. “But we are waiting for Hezbollah. I’m sure they will give.”

The World Bank estimates this war has caused at least $8.5bn worth of damage to Lebanon’s economy. It would be a huge sum for any similar nation, but for Lebanon it comes on the heels of a financial crisis in 2019 and the devastating port blast the following year.

In the aftermath of the previous war with Israel, in 2006, money poured in from Iran and from gulf states to rebuild Lebanon. This time around, it is unclear if that tap will turn on.

“There is nothing yet in terms of allocation for reconstruction,” Nasser Yasin, the environment minister and head of the government’s crisis cell told the BBC on Wednesday.

“We have some good indications, some pledges from friends of Lebanon,” he said. “But we estimate we are going to need billions of dollars this time. The level of destruction is probably six to 10 times what it was in 2006.”

Israel has said it was acting solely against Hezbollah in its strikes on Nabatieh, and not against the Lebanese population. Yasin accused the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of “urbicide” for its widespread destruction of the city.

On a visit to Nabatieh on Wednesday afternoon, Imran Riza, the UN’s deputy special co-ordinator for Lebanon, told the BBC the scale of what needed to be done was “enormous”.

“The past two and a half months, particularly, have been massively destructive,” he said. “It is a very long road back.”

The historic market in Nabatieh dates back about 500 years. It has repeatedly come under attack from Israel in the decades since 1978. Unlike previous attacks, this time the destruction was total.

“This is the worst for Nabatieh, the worst war we have seen,” said Yusuf Mouzzain, who owned a clothes shop in the market. In his shop, a few surviving clothes hung on a rail, coated in soot. He estimated he had suffered about $80,000 worth of damage.

In 2006, Hezbollah gave a good sum to the affected business owners. This time, he had no idea what they would receive, or who from. “But we have lost everything, he said. “So someone has to give us something.”

The “brazen and targeted” killing of a health insurance executive outside a New York hotel this week shocked America. The reaction to the crime also exposed a simmering rage against a trillion-dollar industry.

“Prior authorisation” does not seem like a phrase that would generate much passion.

But on a hot day this past July, more than 100 people gathered outside the Minnesota headquarters of UnitedHealthcare to protest the insurance firm’s policies and denial of patient claims.

“Prior authorisation” allows companies to review suggested treatments before agreeing to pay for them.

Eleven people were arrested for blocking a road during the protest.

Police records indicate they came from around the country, including Maine, New York, Texas and West Virginia, to the rally organised by the People’s Action Institute.

Unai Montes-Irueste, media strategy director of the Chicago-based advocacy group, said those protesting had personal experience with denied claims and other problems with the healthcare system.

• What we know about NYC killing of healthcare executive
• Who was Brian Thompson?

“They are denied care, then they have to go through an appeals process that’s incredibly difficult to win,” he told the BBC.

The latent anger felt by many Americans at the healthcare system – a dizzying array of providers, for profit and not-for-profit companies, insurance giants, and government programmes – burst into the open following the apparent targeted killing of health insurance executive Brian Thompson in New York City on Wednesday.

Thompson was the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the insurance unit of health services provider UnitedHealth Group. The company is the largest insurer in the US.

Police are still on the hunt for the suspected killer, whose motivation is unknown, but authorities have revealed messages written on shell casings found at the scene.

The words “deny”, “defend”, and “depose” were discovered on the casings, which investigators believe could refer to tactics used by insurance companies to deny coverage and increase profits.

A scroll through Thompson’s LinkedIn history reveals that many were angry about denied claims.

One woman responded to a post the executive had made boasting of his firm’s work on making drugs more affordable.

“I have stage 4 metastatic lung cancer,” she wrote. “We’ve just left [UnitedHealthcare] because of all the denials for my meds. Every month there is a different reason for the denial.”

Thompson’s wife told US broadcaster NBC that he had received threatening messages before.

“There had been some threats,” Paulette Thompson said. “Basically, I don’t know, a lack of [medical] coverage? I don’t know details.”

“I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him.”

A security expert says that frustration at high costs across a range of industries inevitably results in threats against corporate leaders.

Philip Klein, who runs the Texas-based Klein Investigations, which protected Thompson when he gave a speech in the early 2000s, says that he’s astonished the executive didn’t have security for his trip to New York City.

“There’s lot of anger in the United States of America right now,” Mr Klein said.

“Companies need to wake up and realise that their executives could be hunted down anywhere. I would not allow any of my clients to go into New York City right now.”

Mr Klein says he’s been inundated with calls since Thompson was killed. Top US firms typically spend millions of dollars on personal security for high-level executives.

In the wake of the shooting, a number of politicians and industry officials expressed shock and sympathy.

Michael Tuffin, president of insurance industry organistion Ahip, said he was “heartbroken and horrified by the loss of my friend Brian Thompson”.

“He was a devoted father, a good friend to many and a refreshingly candid colleague and leader.”

In a statement, UnitedHealth Group said it had received many messages of support from “patients, consumers, health care professionals, associations, government officials and other caring people”.

But online many people, including UnitedHealthcare customers and users of other insurance services, reacted differently.

Those reactions ranged from acerbic jokes (one common quip was “thoughts and prior authorisations”, a play on the phrase “thoughts and prayers”) to commentary on the number of insurance claims rejected by UnitedHealthcare and other firms.

At the extreme end, critics of the industry pointedly said they had no pity for Thompson. Some even celebrated his death.

The online anger seemed to bridge the political divide.

Animosity was expressed from avowed socialists to right-wing activists suspicious of the so-called “deep state” and corporate power. It also came from ordinary people sharing stories about insurance firms denying their claims for medical treatments.

Mr Montes-Irueste of People’s Action said he was shocked by the news of the killing.

He said his group campaigned in a “nonviolent, democratic” way – but he added he understood the bitterness online.

“We have a balkanised and broken healthcare system, which is why there are very strong feelings being expressed right now by folks who are experiencing that broken system in various different ways,” he said.

The posts underlined the deep frustration many Americans feel towards health insurers and the system in general.

“The system is incredibly complicated,” said Sara Collins, a senior scholar at The Commonwealth Fund, a healthcare research foundation.

“Just navigating and understanding how you get covered can be challenging for people,” she said. “And everything might seem fine until you get sick and need your plan.”

Recent Commonwealth Fund research found that 45% of insured working-age adults were charged for something they thought should have been free or covered by insurance, and less than half of those who reported suspected billing errors challenged them. And 17% of respondents said their insurer denied coverage for care that was recommended by their doctor.

Not only is the US health system complicated, it’s expensive, and huge costs can often fall directly on individuals.

Prices are negotiated between providers and insurers, Ms Collins says, meaning that what’s charged to patients or insurance companies often bears little resemblance to the actual costs of providing medical services.

“We find high rates of people saying that their healthcare costs are unaffordable, across all insurance types, even (government-funded) Medicaid and Medicare,” she said.

“People accumulate medical debt because they can’t pay their bills. This is unique to the United States. We truly have a medical debt crisis.”

A survey by researchers at health policy foundation KFF found that around two-thirds of Americans said insurance companies deserve “a lot” of blame for high healthcare costs.

Christine Eibner, a senior economist at the nonprofit think tank the RAND Corporation, said that in recent years insurers have been increasingly issuing denials for treatment coverage and making use of prior authorisations to decline coverage.

She said premiums are about $25,000 (£19,600) per family.

“On top of that, people face out-of-pocket costs, which could easily be in the thousands of dollars,” she said.

UnitedHealthcare and other insurance providers have faced lawsuits, media investigations and government probes over their practices.

Last year, UnitedHealthcare settled a lawsuit brought by a chronically ill college student whose story was covered by news site ProPublica, who says he was saddled with $800,000 of medical bills when his doctor-prescribed drugs were denied.

The company is currently fighting a class-action lawsuit that claims it uses artificial intelligence to end treatments early.

The BBC contacted UnitedHealth Group for comment.

TikTok’s bid to overturn a law which would see it banned or sold in the US from early 2025 has been rejected.

The social media company had hoped a federal appeals court would agree with its argument that the law was unconstitutional because it represented a “staggering” impact on the free speech of its 170 million US users.

But the court upheld the law, which it said “was the culmination of extensive, bipartisan action by the Congress and by successive presidents”.

TikTok says it will now take its fight to the US Supreme Court, the country’s highest legal authority.

The US wants TikTok sold or banned because of what it says are its owners links to the Chinese state – links TikTok and parent company Bytedance have always denied.

The court agreed the law was “carefully crafted to deal only with control by a foreign adversary, and it was part of a broader effort to counter a well-substantiated national security threat posed by the PRC (People’s Republic of China).”

But TikTok said it was not the end of its legal fight.

“The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement.

They added that the law was based on “inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information” and a ban would censor US citizens.

Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 US Presidential Election may also present a lifeline for the app.

Despite unsuccessfully attempting to ban TikTok during his first term in 2020, he said in the run-up to the November elections he would not allow the ban on TikTok to take effect.

Trump will be inaugurated on 20 January – the day after the law says TikTok must be be banned or sold.

However, it remains to be seen whether he will follow through on his pre-election vow.

Professor James Grimmelmann of Cornell University said the president-elect would be “swimming upstream to give TikTok a reprieve”.

“The anti-China sentiment in the US Congress is very strong, so there are now substantial constituencies in both parties that want TikTok to be restricted from the US market,” he told BBC News.

The court case has been closely watched both by those who use TikTok- and the app’s rivals.

Tiffany Cianci, a small business advocate and TikTok creator, said she was “not shocked” by Friday’s decision – but told BBC News she would not be shifting her TikTok content or presence to the platform’s rivals, such as Instagram.

“I’m not going to do what they want and take my content to their platforms where it’s not as successful where it’s more likely to be censored, where I am more likely to have less control over my audience,” she said.

Nonetheless, other platforms are positioning themselves for a post-TikTok social media landscape.

Meta, which owns Facebook as well as Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, has sought to build rivals to TikTok’s short form videos within its own apps, and made changes that users have likened to TikTok amid questions over the app’s US future.

Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at eMarketer, said there would be “major upheaval” if a TikTok appeal were to fail at the Supreme Court and a ban was enforced.

She said this would be “benefitting Meta, YouTube and Snap, while hurting content creators and small businesses that rely on the app to make a living.”

But TikTok won’t be easily recreated, said Cory Johnson, Chief Market Strategist at Epistrophy Capital Research. Johnson said deep learning models power TikTok’s recommendation engine.

“Enabling such complex AI and big data processing at TikTok’s immense scale requires a colossal and expensive technical infrastructure,” Johnson said.

He said TikTok’s hyper-targeting and China’s data laws pose significant risks, and pointed to Elon Musk’s alterations to algorithms at his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, as a cautionary tale.

In the run-up to the U.S. election, Musk’s political posts received more views than all U.S. political campaign ads on X’s disclosure dataset, Johnson said.

“We have very real and very recent experience in America with a social media network tweaking its algorithms to favor certain voices,” he added.

The Princess of Wales has hosted her annual Christmas carol service at Westminster Abbey – the biggest event in her return to royal duties after ending her chemotherapy.

It was a candle-lit, festive occasion, but also with some poignancy – as it came at the end of a year of health problems for Catherine and for some of the guests who have faced very difficult times.

Among the 1,600 guests were families affected by the Southport knife attack, and a candle was lit by Olympic cyclist Sir Chris Hoy, who had a cancer diagnosis.

The Prince of Wales joined Catherine at the service, along with the couple’s three children – Prince George, Prince Louis and Princess Charlotte.

It was an atmospheric occasion in the medieval Abbey, which was richly decorated in winter colours of red and green, with Christmas trees dotted around the ancient tombs and monuments.

“I didn’t know this year was going to be the year that I’ve just had… But lots of people have had challenging times,” Catherine said to singer Paloma Faith.

Catherine wore a bright red coat – and when she saw the singer also wearing the same colour, she said: “It’s a celebration, everybody’s wearing red.”

Prince George and Prince Louis were both seen wearing red ties to match their mother’s coat.

The Together at Christmas service was a mix of traditional carols, music and readings, with Catherine looking relaxed and greeting the performers when she arrived at the Abbey.

The Prince of Wales read a lesson from the Bible, and actor Richard E Grant performed a passage from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

There were songs and carols from Paloma Faith, Olivia Dean and Gregory Porter, in an event that will be broadcast by ITV on Christmas Eve.

Catherine spoke to singer Olivia Dean about her own memories and emotional associations with the Abbey, including being married there.

Many in the congregation had been invited to thank them for their work in helping others in their communities.

They included 18-year-old Olivia Bowditch from Dorset, who volunteers for a charity that sends letters to cancer patients at risk of being lonely and isolated.

Also there was Diven Halai from London, who has a serious lung condition but ran the London Marathon with an oxygen machine, in a charity fundraiser.

There were four World War Two veterans attending, including Bernard Morgan from Crewe, aged 100, who landed in Normandy on D-Day.

He’s now an ambassador for the Royal British Legion and gives talks to schools about his wartime experiences.

The theme of the service was the importance of kindness and empathy and the congregation heard readings and prayers linking it to the story of Christmas.

Prominently displayed in the nave of the Abbey was a large nativity scene, with figures of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the shepherds.

Guests received a letter from Catherine, which said that the Christmas message was about promoting “love, not fear”.

“Love is the light that can shine bright, even in our darkest times,” the princess wrote, at the end of what has been a difficult year for her and her family.

The Order of Service conveyed the same message of empathy, with a specially commissioned illustration by Charlie Mackesy.

The illustration said: “How did I help?” with the answer: “You were by my side, which was everything”. This sentiment expresses the carol concert’s message of showing solidarity for those in need.

Prince William has also been helping others this week, with a visit to the Passage homelessness charity in Westminster.

The prince, who has been associated with the charity since going there first with his mother Diana, helped prepare the Christmas dinner for the charity’s clients.

Leo Scanlon, who was at the dinner, praised the prince for how he talked to people and for the questions he asked: “He clearly has a great understanding of homelessness and the issues around it.”

The head of the UN nuclear watchdog has told the BBC Iran’s decision to begin producing significantly more highly enriched uranium was “very worrisome”.

Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Iran was increasing its stockpile of uranium enriched to 60%, just below the level of purity needed for a nuclear weapon.

This will be seen by many in the region as Tehran’s response to its military and diplomatic setbacks in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza in recent months.

Mr Grossi said it was “no secret” some politicians in Iran were calling for the development of a nuclear weapon – but after holding talks in Tehran in recent weeks, he said that “doesn’t seem to be the path of choice” by the current leadership.

Mr Grossi was speaking on the margins of the Manama Dialogue conference in Bahrain run by the London-based think tank, the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

He warned Israel against attacking Iranian nuclear facilities, saying the consequences would be “very, very serious indeed” in terms of Tehran’s retaliation and the potential spread of radiation.

He also said it was “extremely concerning” that more countries were thinking of acquiring nuclear weapons and that the public conversation about their use had become “normalised”.

In a report to IAEA governors on Friday, Mr Grossi said his inspectors had confirmed Iran was feeding more partially enriched uranium into the cascades of two centrifuges at its Fordow nuclear plant south of Tehran.

“The facility’s updated design information showed that the effect of this change would be to significantly increase the rate of production of UF6 (uranium) enriched up to 60%,” the report said. It assessed the facility would produce 34kg (75lb) of 60% uranium per month compared previously with 4.7kg.

The IAEA had demanded further “safeguard measures” at Fordow “as a matter of urgency to enable the agency to provide timely and technically credible assurances that the facility is not being misused to produce uranium of an enrichment level higher than that declared by Iran, and that there is no diversion of declared nuclear material”.

Iran denies having a military nuclear programme. But Mr Grossi told the BBC its nuclear energy facilities had increased over the last decade.

“They have a nuclear programme that has grown, has spawned in every possible direction.

“The Iran of 2015 has nothing to do with Iran of 2025. Iran is starting production of 60% [uranium] at a much higher level of production, which means they will have the amounts necessary – if they so choose – to have a nuclear device in a much faster way. So we see an escalation in this regard, which is very worrisome.”

On a visit to Tehran last month, Mr Grossi said he had been given an assurance by Iranian leaders that they would limit their production of 60% enriched uranium.

Iran’s decision to increase production comes after little progress was made in nuclear talks between European and Iranian officials last week.

Mr Grossi said there were groups in Iran that were “very vocal” calling for the country to “do its own thing” on nuclear weapons.

“In my conversations with the government, that doesn’t seem to be the path of choice, but they sometimes refer to this as something they might need to reconsider. I hope not. I have told them this would be a regrettable choice.”

Israel has not yet launched a full-scale attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities – but its ministers have openly discussed the possibility.

Asked about the consequences of any such Israeli attack, Mr Grossi said: “I don’t think this would go without an answer, militarily speaking, so I think we need to avoid this.

“One should not forget that a big part of the nuclear programme in Iran is underground and very well protected. So kinetic action against the programme would require a vast deployment of force.

“I just hope that we are not going to get there. I know the radiological consequences if you attack a nuclear facility.”

Mr Grossi also warned that the world’s nuclear non-proliferation regime was under stress, as established nuclear powers “seem to be relying more on nuclear weapons or modernising their arsenals”.

As a result, other nations were talking more about acquiring nuclear weapons.

“There are countries saying: well, why not us? If we see that we have a world… with new conflicts, the big [countries] are saying that perhaps they might use the nuclear weapons they have, maybe we should think about our own security.”

Romania’s constitutional court has scrapped the recent presidential election and ordered its rerun, following allegations and evidence of possible Russian interference.

This is a shock ruling by Romania’s constitutional court, but it comes after two weeks of high political tension here.

All predictions, any certainty, have flown out of the window.

So far, the streets are calm in Bucharest as people absorb the news.

Annulling the entire presidential election is a bold choice, but it follows another unprecedented move when the outgoing president ordered intelligence documents to be declassified and made public.

The document that talked of a massive online influence campaign to sway the vote in favour of fringe politician Calin Georgescu blamed a “state-sponsored actor”.

Another, on attempts to hack electoral websites, talked of links to cyber-crime sites in Russia. A third file said that Russia was engaged in hybrid war here.

Romanians have joined the dots and they blame Moscow. That brings dark memories for many people.

At a rally on Thursday night, outside the university, I met people who recalled their years living under communist dictatorship and were genuinely scared that today’s Russia could be meddling here.

In a bookshop, a children’s writer told me she would “leave the country immediately” if there was any sign Romania was turning away from its European path, becoming less free.

It’s certainly true that Georgescu’s policies – ending aid to Ukraine, comments that question the point of Nato or undermine the EU – are helpful to Moscow.

In the Kremlin, though they deny any role in these events, I am sure people are happy Russia is seen as so powerful; its tentacles so far-reaching they can even stir up Romanian politics. A Nato country, long seen as a stable and reliable partner.

But when I met the man at the heart of all this controversy, Calin Georgescu brushed off any idea his meteoric rise – from fringe to election frontrunner – was down to Russian meddling.

In fact, he laughed out loud.

He did tell me that Vladimir Putin was a “leader and a patriot”, though he claimed he was “not a fan”.

Suave and smooth-talking, he says he’s being blocked because he’s challenging the political establishment. He thinks his “Romania First” politics have genuine appeal to people here.

On that last point, he’s probably right.

I haven’t actually met anyone in Bucharest – outside Georgescu’s immediate team – who’s admitted to voting for him. But his online content – which flooded TikTok – had many messages that will appeal in a culturally conservative country, especially beyond the capital.

He talks of sovereignty and of God and of fighting “the System”. He tells people their lives should be better.

Will his followers, whoever they are, believe the reports that he is a Russian project and accept the cancellation of the vote? Or might they emerge from behind their computer screens and phones to protest?

So far, the calls are to stay at home and stay calm. The election re-run might not be until spring. That’s a long time in Romanian politics.

A Florida jury has ordered an amusement ride manufacturer pay $310m (£243m) to the family of a teenage boy who fell to his death on their drop ride at an Orlando theme park in 2022.

Tyre Sampson weighed 43kg (94lbs) more than the ride’s 129kg limit, when he plunged 30m (98ft) from the ride, which had no seat belts.

His family’s lawyers argued his death was a result of safety failures and negligence by the ride operators and maker.

The Austrian manufacturer, Funtime Handels GMBH, did not send a representative to court and no lawyer was listed in the court records.

Tyre, 14, was visiting ICON theme park in Orlando with his American football team during spring break.

After falling from the ride, he was taken to a nearby children’s hospital where he died from his injuries.

In awarding damages this week, the jury said the amount was for the “pain and suffering as a result of Tyre Sampson’s injury and death”.

“Tyre’s death was the result of blatant negligence and a failure to prioritise safety over profits,” the family’s lawyer, Ben Crump said.

The damages have been split equally between Tyre’s mother and father, who launched the civil suit in March 2022, a month after their son’s death.

Last year, they settled for an undisclosed amount with two other defendants, the ride’s owner, Eagle Drop Slingshot, and ICON Park, where it operated.

At the time, Tyre’s uncle Carl Sampson described him as a “really good kid” and “very intelligent”.

His death has prompted safety reforms in Florida, which is home to several of the country’s most famous amusement parks.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Tyre Sampson Act into law in May 2023.

It strengthens the safety standards for theme park rides, including mandatory seat belts and harnesses for any ride taller than 100 feet (30m).

“This verdict is a step forward in holding corporations accountable for the safety of their products,” Mr Crump said on Thursday.

One of the biggest questions on people’s minds in Seoul on Wednesday is: what was the president thinking?

In a late-night address that threw South Korea’s parliament into chaos and tested the country’s commitment to democracy, President Yoon Suk Yeol declared that he was imposing martial law.

Less than 24 hours later, his political future is on the brink, with protests on the streets and impeachment proceedings against him under way.

So, what happened?

• What is martial law and why was it declared?
• Woman who grabbed South Korean soldier’s gun speaks to BBC
• How two hours of martial law chaos unfolded

Martial law was last introduced in South Korea in 1979, sparked by the assassination of the then-military ruler in a coup. Today’s South Korea, however, is a far cry from that, and the repressive years that followed.

It is a stable, prosperous democracy – yet Yoon claimed he was introducing military rule to save the country from dark forces. He called the opposition-controlled National Assembly a “den of criminals” that was “attempting to paralyse” the government.

Hours later, he was forced to back down as furious protesters and lawmakers gathered outside the National Assembly – the MPs made it inside and voted down the order.

His shock declaration was, in fact, a bid to get the kind of grip on power that has eluded him since he won the presidency in 2022 by the slimmest margin in South Korea’s history.

And barely a month has passed since then without controversy.

In late 2022, he was criticised for his government’s response to the horrific crowd crush during Halloween, which killed 159 young people in Seoul.

Then there were calls to investigate his wife after she was caught accepting a Dior handbag as a gift – a scandal that is always hovering close to the headlines.

In April this year, his party was defeated in parliamentary elections, leaving him in a lame-duck position. This week alone he has been locked in a political battle with opposition lawmakers over the country’s budget.

Even before he told South Koreans he was suspending their rights, his approval rate was below 20%.

There are some clues in Yoon’s address as to what he was thinking.

What was immediately evident was that he was frustrated with the opposition-controlled parliament. In his Tuesday night address, he called the assembly where they exercise their mandate a “monster that destroys the liberal democratic system”.

The reference to a threat from North Korea and “anti-state forces” suggests he was also hoping to garner support from the kind of right-wing conservatives in South Korea who label liberal politicians “communists”.

But the president misread his country and its politics.

His declaration was a chilling reminder of a period many in South Korea have tried to forget. On television, newsreaders were seen shaking.

In 1980, when pro-democracy activists, many of them students, took to the streets of the city of Gwangju to protest at martial law, the army responded with violence and around 200 people were killed.

While martial law lasted three years – 1979 to 1981 – there had been military rule for decades before, and it continued until 1987. And in those years South Korea was rife with suspicion, when anti-government activists were dubbed Communist spies and arrested or killed.

Yet, during his election campaign Yoon praised authoritarian general Chun Doo-hwan and said he had managed government affairs well – except for his suppression of pro-democracy activists.

He was later forced to apologise and said he “certainly did not defend or praise Chun’s government”.

But it does provide some insight into the president’s view of what constitutes power.

There have been rumours in South Korean political circles for months that Yoon was considering imposing martial law. In September, opposition leaders and party members declared it was a possibility. Most dismissed it as too extreme an option.

But he may well have been driven by something more: the fear of prosecution.

Park Geun-hye, the country’s first female leader, was jailed after being found guilty of abuse of power and corruption. Her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, was investigated over allegations he was involved in stock price manipulation. He was sentenced to 17 years in prison for corruption and bribery in 2020.

Another former president, Roh Moo-hyun, took his own life in 2009 while under investigation for allegedly receiving millions in bribes.

In South Korea, prosecutions have almost become a political tool – a threat for the opposition to wield. It may partly explain why President Yoon took such drastic action.

Whatever his motives, Yoon’s career will struggle to recover from this. He is also facing calls to resign, and some local media reported that members of his own People Power Party were discussing expelling him from the party.

South Korea is a stable democracy – but it is a noisy one. And it refused to accept another authoritarian diktat.

President Yoon will now face the judgement of a parliament and a people after they rejected the most serious challenge to the country’s democracy since the 1980s.

Nineteen-year-old Hwang was watching the protests in Georgia on Tuesday night’s news when the images on TV suddenly changed – the spotlight was on his country after South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol announced martial law.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” said the student, who wished to be identified only by his surname.

By Wednesday afternoon, he was among the protesters standing before the National Assembly, still stunned about what had happened the night before.

“It’s important for me to be here to show that we are against what Yoon tried to do,” Hwang said.

In a little less than six hours, Yoon was forced to walk back his shock announcement after lawmakers scrambled to block it.

But those were chaotic hours, sparking protests, fear and uncertainty in the country that had elected him.

On Tuesday night, at 23:00 local time (14:00 GMT) President Yoon, seated in front of blue creaseless curtains, made an unexpected address to the nation.

He said he was imposing martial law to protect the country from “anti-state” forces that sympathised with North Korea. The embattled leader is in a deadlock over a budget bill, dogged by corruption scandals and investigations into his cabinet members.

What followed was a sleepless night for Seoul.

Shortly after Yoon’s announcement, police lined the white metal gates outside the National Assembly building in the heart of Seoul, the building that the country’s tourism authorities have framed as “the symbol of Korean democracy”.

The military then announced that all parliamentary activity was suspended under martial law. But neither that nor the heavy security presence stopped thousands from gathering in front of the assembly in concern and fury.

It is easy to forget that South Korea – now a vibrant democracy – had its last brush with authoritarianism in the not-too-distant past – it only emerged from military rule in 1987. Martial law was last imposed in 1979.

This was “a move I never expected to see in the 21st century in South Korea,” university student Juye Hong told BBC World Service’s OS programme from Seoul.

Soon after Yoon’s shock announcement, the opposition’s Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung, hosted a live stream urging people to assemble at the National Assembly and protest there.

He also asked his fellow lawmakers to make their way to the assembly to vote down the order.

Hundreds of South Koreans responded.

Tensions rose quickly as a sea of dark, puffy winter coats pushed up against lines of police in neon jackets, chanting “no to martial law”.

And as vehicles arrived with military units, crowds blocked them. One woman lay defiantly between the wheels of a vehicle.

In stark contrast, there was a façade of normalcy across the rest of Seoul. Still, confusion enveloped the city.

“The streets look normal, people here are certainly bewildered,” John Nilsson-Wright, an associate professor at the University of Cambridge, told BBC World Service from Seoul.

The policeman he spoke to was “as mystified as I am,” he added.

• The president’s gamble backfired: What was he thinking?
• What is martial law and why was it declared?
• Woman who grabbed South Korean soldier’s gun speaks to BBC
• How two hours of martial law chaos unfolded

It was a sleepless night for some. “At first I was excited at the thought of not going to school today,” 15-year-old Kwon Hoo told the BBC in Seoul on Wednesday. “But then overwhelmingly the sense of fear settled in, that kept me up all night.”

“No words can express how afraid I am that things might turn out like North Korea for our people,” a South Korean who did not want to be named told BBC OS.

Meanwhile, word was spreading that special forces had been deployed to the assembly building. Helicopters were heard overhead as they circled the skies before landing on the parliament’s roof.

Reporters jostled in the crowd outside the gates, clicking away with their cameras.

As concerns grew that the government might restrict the media, journalists in Seoul stayed in touch with one another, exchanging advice on how to stay safe.

Ahn Gwi-ryeong, the 35-year-old spokesperson for the opposition Democratic Party found herself facing down soldiers at gunpoint. A video of the moment, where she is tugging at the barrel of a soldier’s rifle, has since gone viral.

“I wasn’t thinking about anything intellectual or rational, I was just like, ‘We have to stop this, if we don’t stop this, there’s nothing else,’’ she told the BBC.

“To be honest, I was a bit scared at first when I first saw the martial law troops. I thought, ‘Is this something that can happen in 21st century Korea, especially in the National Assembly?”

“After such a storm last night, it was hard to get back to reality,” she added, recalling the previous night. “I felt like I was witnessing the regression of history.”

As Ahn was confronting the soldiers, the clock was ticking for opposition lawmakers, who rushed to get into the assembly to block the order. Once that happened, the president would have to withdraw it.

But first, MPs and their aides had to get inside. Some crawled through the legs of security forces, others shoved and screamed at armed soldiers; many frantically clambered over fences and walls.

Hong Kee-won from the Democratic Party told the BBC that he had to scale a 1.5m (4.9ft)-high fence to enter the building, with the police blocking him even after he had shown them identification that proved he was a lawmaker.

Hong said that protesters helped to hoist him over the wall. He had been asleep when Yoon made the announcement – when his wife woke him, he raced to parliament.

“Democracy is strong here,” Hong said. “The military needs to listen to us, to the constitution, and not to the president.”

Lawmakers who made it into the building huddled together, only slightly calmer than the people outside. Hastily, they barricaded the entrances with whatever they could find: cushioned benches, long tables, sofas.

Some tried to push back soldiers who had made their way into the assembly building.

By 01:00 local time, National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-sik submitted a resolution requesting martial law to be lifted.

With that, less than two hours after Yoon’s shock declaration, 190 lawmakers who gathered, including some from Yoon’s party, voted unanimously to block it.

After the vote, opposition leader Lee told reporters that this was “a decisive opportunity to break the vicious cycle and return to normal society”.

By 04:30, Yoon was back on TV, in front of the same blue curtains, saying he would withdraw martial law. But this would only be made official, he said, when he could assemble enough of his cabinet to lift the order.

The announcement was met with cheers outside the assembly. In the hours before dawn, more people emerged from the building, from behind the barricades they had haphazardly put together.

With holes in the doors and broken windows, the stately building already bears scars of the night when South Koreans saved their democracy.

Schools, local businesses and banks opened as usual on Wednesday morning – and flights continued to land uninterrupted in South Korea’s buzzing capital.

But public anger – and the political fallout – was not spent.

As the sun rose on Wednesday, thousands gathered to call for Yoon’s resignation. The president is also facing impeachment proceedings.

“We are a strong democracy…But Korean people want to be safe – President Yoon must resign or be impeached,” Yang Bu-nam, a Democratic Party politician, told the BBC.

South Korea’s president shocked the country on Tuesday night when, out of the blue, he declared martial law in the Asian democracy for the first time in nearly 50 years.

Yoon Suk Yeol’s drastic decision – announced in a late-night TV broadcast – mentioned “anti-state forces” and the threat from North Korea.

But it soon became clear that it had not been spurred by external threats but by his own desperate political troubles.

Still, it prompted thousands of people to gather at parliament in protest, while opposition lawmakers rushed there to push through an emergency vote to remove the measure.

Defeated, Yoon emerged a few hours later to accept the parliament’s vote and lift the martial law order.

Now, lawmakers will vote on whether to impeach him over what the country’s main opposition has called his “insurrectionary behaviour”.

• The president’s gamble backfired: What was he thinking?
• Woman who grabbed South Korean soldier’s gun speaks to BBC
• How two hours of martial law chaos unfolded

Yoon has acted like a president under siege, observers say.

In his address on Tuesday night, he recounted the political opposition’s attempts to undermine his government before saying he was declaring martial law to “crush anti-state forces that have been wreaking havoc”.

His decree temporarily put the military in charge – with helmeted troops and police deployed to the National Assembly parliament building where helicopters were seen landing on the roof.

Local media also showed scenes of masked, gun-toting troops entering the building while staffers tried to hold them off with fire extinguishers.

Around 23:00 local time on Tuesday (14:00 GMT), the military issued a decree banning protests and activity by parliament and political groups, and putting the media under government control.

But South Korean politicians immediately called Yoon’s declaration illegal and unconstitutional. The leader of his own party, the conservative People’s Power Party, also called Yoon’s act “the wrong move”.

Meanwhile, the leader of the country’s largest opposition party, Lee Jae-myung of the liberal Democratic Party, called on his MPs to converge on parliament to vote down the declaration.

He also called on ordinary South Koreans to show up at parliament in protest.

“Tanks, armoured personnel carriers and soldiers with guns and knives will rule the country… My fellow citizens, please come to the National Assembly.”

Thousands heeded the call, rushing to gather outside the now heavily guarded parliament. Protesters chanted: “No martial law!” and “strike down dictatorship”.

Local media broadcasting from the site showed some scuffles between protesters and police at the gates. But despite the military presence, tensions did not escalate into violence.

And lawmakers were also able to make their way around the barricades – even climbing fences to make it to the voting chamber.

Shortly after 01:00 on Wednesday, South Korea’s parliament, with 190 of its 300 members present, voted down the measure. President Yoon’s declaration of martial law was ruled invalid.

Martial law is temporary rule by military authorities in a time of emergency, when civil authorities are deemed unable to function.

The last time it was declared in South Korea was in 1979, when the country’s then long-term military dictator Park Chung-hee was assassinated during a coup.

It has never been invoked since the country became a parliamentary democracy in 1987.

But on Tuesday, Yoon pulled that trigger, saying in a national address he was trying to save South Korea from “anti-state forces”.

Yoon, who has taken a noticeably more hardline stance on North Korea than his predecessors, described the political opposition as North Korea sympathisers – without providing evidence.

Under martial law, extra powers are given to the military and there is often a suspension of civil rights for citizens and rule of law standards and protections.

Despite the military announcing restrictions on political activity and the media, protesters and politicians defied those orders. And there was no sign of the government seizing control of free media – Yonhap, the national broadcaster, and other outlets kept reporting as normal.

Yoon was voted into office in May 2022 as a hardline conservative, but has been a lame duck president since April when the opposition won a landslide in the country’s general election.

His government since then has not been able to pass the bills they wanted and have been reduced instead to vetoing bills passed by the liberal opposition.

He has also seen a fall in approval ratings – hovering around lows of 17% – as he has been mired in several corruption scandals this year, including one involving the First Lady accepting a Dior bag, and another around alleged stock manipulation.

Just last month he was forced to issue an apology on national TV, saying he was setting up an office overseeing the First Lady’s duties. But he rejected a wider investigation, which opposition parties had been calling for.

Then this week, the opposition proposed slashing a major government budget bill – which cannot be vetoed.

At the same time, the opposition also moved to impeach cabinet members and several top prosecutors- including the head of the government’s audit agency – for failing to investigate the First Lady.

The opposition Democratic Party has moved to impeach Yoon.

Parliament will have to vote by Saturday on whether to do this.

The impeachment process is relatively straightforward in South Korea. To succeed, it would require support from more than two-thirds of the 300-member National Assembly – at least 200 votes.

Once an impeachment is approved, a trial is held before the Constitutional Court – a nine-member council that oversees South Korea’s branches of government.

If six of the court’s members vote to sustain the impeachment, the president is removed from office.

If this happens, it wouldn’t be the first time that a South Korean president has been impeached. In 2016, then-President Park Geun-hye was impeached after being accused of helping a friend commit extortion.

In 2004 another president, Roh Moo-hyun, was impeached and suspended for two months. The Constitutional Court later restored him to office.

Yoon’s rash action stunned the country – which views itself as a thriving, modern democracy that has come far since its dictatorship days.

Many see this week’s events as the biggest challenge to that democratic society in decades.

Experts contend it may be more damaging to South Korea’s reputation as a democracy than even the 6 January riots in the US.

“Yoon’s declaration of martial law appeared to be both legal overreach and a political miscalculation, unnecessarily risking South Korea’s economy and security,” one expert, Leif-Eric Easley at Ewha University in Seoul said.

“He sounded like a politician under siege, making a desperate move against mounting scandals, institutional obstruction and calls for impeachment, all of which are now likely to intensify.”

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s future is hanging in the balance after a chaotic night during which he dramatically declared martial law and then withdrew it just as suddenly, plunging the country into turmoil.

Yoon, who won the top job by a whisker in 2022, was already deeply unpopular and under growing pressure since losing parliamentary elections in April, regarded as a vote of confidence on his time in office.

He’s been plagued by personal problems too. Last month he apologised in a televised address to the nation for a string of controversies surrounding his wife that included allegedly accepting a luxury Dior handbag and stock manipulation.

Now he’s facing demands that he resign and lawmakers have said they will move to impeach him.

• The president’s gamble backfired: What was he thinking?
• What is martial law and why was it declared?
• Woman who grabbed South Korean soldier’s gun speaks to BBC
• How two hours of martial law chaos unfolded

Tuesday night’s short-lived attempt to impose martial law took everyone by surprise.

It sent lawmakers scrambling to the National Assembly in Seoul to vote against the order. Outside, police had assembled as thousands of protesters gathered in fury.

The same crowd erupted in cheers when Yoon backtracked within hours and declared he would withdraw the martial law order.

That he would play such a high-stakes game, and then back off so easily, came as a surprise to South Koreans and the rest of the world.

Yoon was a relative newcomer to politics when he won the presidency. He had risen to national prominence for prosecuting the corruption case against disgraced former President Park Geun-hye in 2016.

In 2022, the political novice narrowly beat his liberal opponent Lee Jae-myung by less than 1% of the vote – the closest result the country has seen since direct elections started to be held in 1987.

At a time when South Korean society was grappling with widening divisions over gender issues, Yoon appealed to young male voters by running on an anti-feminism platform.

People had “high hopes” for Yoon when he was elected, said Don S Lee, associate professor of public administration at Sungkyunkwan University. “Those who voted for Yoon believed that a new government under Yoon will pursue such values as principle, transparency and efficiency.”

Yoon has also championed a hawkish stance on North Korea. The communist state was cited by Yoon on Tuesday night when he tried to impose martial law.

He said he needed to protect against North Korean forces and “eliminate anti-state elements”, even though it was apparent from the outset that his announcement was less about the threat from the North and more about his domestic woes.

Yoon is known for gaffes, which haven’t helped his ratings. During his 2022 campaign he had to walk back a comment that authoritarian president Chun Doo-hwan, who declared martial law and was responsible for massacring protestors in 1980, had been “good at politics”.

Later that year he was forced to deny insulting the US Congress in remarks made after meeting US President Joe Biden in New York.

He was caught on a hot mic and seen on camera seemingly calling US lawmakers a Korean word that can be translated as “idiots” or something much stronger. The footage quickly went viral in South Korea.

Yoon has had some success in foreign policy, notably improving ties in his country’s historically fraught relationship with Japan.

Yoon’s presidency has been mired in scandal. Much of it centred around his wife Kim Keon Hee, who was accused of corruption and influence peddling – most notably allegedly accepting a Dior bag from a pastor.

In November, Yoon apologised on behalf of his wife while rejecting calls for an investigation into her activities.

But his presidential popularity remained wobbly. In early November, his approval ratings tumbled to 17%, a record low since he took office.

In April, the opposition Democratic Party won the parliamentary election by a landslide, dealing a crushing defeat for Yoon and his People Power Party.

Yoon was relegated to a lame duck president and reduced to vetoing bills passed by the opposition, a tactic that he used with “unprecedented frequency”, said Celeste Arrington, director of The George Washington University Institute for Korean Studies.

This week, the opposition slashed the budget the government and ruling party had put forward – and the budget bill cannot be vetoed.

Around the same time, the opposition was moving to impeach cabinet members, mainly the head of the government audit agency, for failing to investigate the first lady.

With political challenges pushing his back against the wall, Yoon went for the nuclear option – a move that few, if any, could have predicted.

“Many observers worried in recent weeks about a political crisis because of the confrontation between the president and the opposition-controlled National Assembly,” said Dr Arrington, “though few predicted such an extreme move as declaring martial law.”

President Yoon’s declaration of martial law was a “legal overreach and a political miscalculation”, according to Leif-Eric Easley, professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

“With extremely low public support and without strong backing within his own party and administration, the president should have known how difficult it would be to implement his late-night decree,” Dr Easley told the BBC.

“He sounded like a politician under siege, making a desperate move against mounting scandals, institutional obstruction, and calls for impeachment, all of which are now likely to intensify.”

Yoon has drawn ire from politicians on both sides, as hastily-gathered lawmakers – including some from Yoon’s party – voted to lift martial law on Tuesday night. The opposition Democratic Party is trying to impeach Yoon, and even Yoon’s own party leadership has demanded the president’s withdrawal from the party. Yoon’s senior aides offered to resign en masse on Wednesday, Yonhap news agency reported.

Opposition leader Lee is projecting optimism, telling reporters that Yoon’s “illegal declaration of martial law” is a “decisive opportunity to break the vicious cycle and return to normal society”.

The repercussions of Tuesday night are set to ripple beyond South Korea’s borders. Yoon’s announcement has rattled South Korea’s allies. Officials in the US, a key ally, said they were caught off guard by Yoon’s announcement, and are urging South Korea to resolve the crisis “in accordance with the rule of law”. Japan says that it is monitoring the situation in South Korea with “exceptional and serious concerns”.

Meanwhile, North Korea, which has ratcheted up tensions with the South in recent months, may “attempt to exploit divisions in Seoul,” said Dr Easley.

Anger is still sweeping South Korea. On Wednesday protesters streamed onto the streets condemning Yoon. One of the country’s largest labour unions with over one million members is calling on workers to go on strike until he resigns.

It is unclear what Yoon plans to do. He has yet to make a public appearance since the fiasco.

“He was increasingly unpopular for the way he has dealt with the problems that have been raised with his own conduct and the conduct of the first lady,” former South Korean foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha told the BBC Newsday programme. “The ball is in the president’s court to find a way out of this corner that he has put himself in.”

But no matter how Yoon chooses to play it, his botched martial law declaration may already be shaping up to be the last straw that breaks his shaky presidency.

A chaotic night in South Korea produced scenes most thought were consigned to the nation’s history.

One in particular has caught the attention of many: a woman confronting soldiers who were sent to block lawmakers from entering the National Assembly.

Footage of Ahn Gwi-ryeong, 35, a spokesperson for the opposition Democratic Party, grabbing the weapon of a soldier during the commotion has been shared widely online.

“I didn’t think… I just knew we had to stop this,” she told the BBC Korean Service.

Ahn made her way to the assembly building as soldiers descended on it, shortly after the president declared martial law across South Korea.

Like many in South Korea’s younger generation, the word “martial law” was foreign to her. It was last declared in 1979.

When Ahn first heard the news, she admitted “a sense of panic took over”.

• Fear, fury and triumph: Six hours that shook South Korea
• The president’s gamble backfired: What was he thinking?
• What is martial law and why was it declared?
• How two hours of martial law chaos unfolded

When martial law is declared, political activities like rallies and demonstrations are banned, strikes and labour actions are prohibited, and media and publishing activities are controlled by the authorities. Violators can be arrested or detained without a warrant.

Shortly after the declaration of martial law, opposition leader Lee Jae-myung called on lawmakers to gather in the National Assembly and hold a vote to annul the declaration.

Arriving at the assembly building just past 23:00 local time, Ahn recalled turning off office lights to avoid detection as helicopters circled overhead.

By the time she reached the main building, soldiers were engaged in a stand-off with officials, aides and citizens.

She said: “When I saw the armed soldiers… I felt like I was witnessing the regression of history.”

Ahn and her colleagues were desperate to prevent the troops from entering the main building, where the vote would be held.

They locked the revolving doors from the inside and piled furniture and other heavy objects in front of the doors.

When the military began advancing, Ahn stepped forward.

“Honestly, I was scared at first,” she said, adding: “But seeing such confrontation, I thought, ‘I can’t stay silent’.”

The assembly passed the resolution calling for the lifting of martial law at around 01:00. All 190 members who were present voted to repeal it.

At 04:26, President Yoon announced he was reversing his decision.

After the chaos subsided, Ahn slept for a short time inside the assembly building.

She continued: “I was actually a little scared to go outside the assembly in the morning because there didn’t seem to be any taxis running, and after such a storm last night, it was hard to get back to reality.”

During her conversation with the BBC, Ahn was wearing the same black turtleneck and leather jacket she had been wearing in the footage from the night before.

At times, she was overcome with emotion.

“It’s heartbreaking and frustrating that this is happening in 21st century Korea,” she said.

The manhunt for a suspect who gunned down a healthcare chief executive in New York is now in its third day, with police chasing several different leads.

UnitedHealthcare boss Brian Thompson, 50, was fatally shot in the back on Wednesday morning outside the Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan.

Police say Thompson was targeted in a pre-planned killing, for which they do not yet have a motive.

Investigators are using surveillance photos, bullet casings with cryptic messages written on them, and the suspect’s movements to track him down. They are also working with the FBI and authorities in other states as the search expands beyond New York.

Here’s what we know about the suspect and the investigation.

Police are working with “a lot of leads”, said former FBI special agent Michael Tabman.

Police have put together more than 200 images of the suspect from his arrival in New York until he fled Midtown Manhattan after shooting Thompson, according to the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

On Thursday they shared two images – the clearest ones so far – of the suspect, one which shows him smiling with his black face mask pulled down.

A hostel receptionist reportedly told police that the photo was taken when she asked him to show his face, in a flirtatious moment.

The man was staying at the hostel on the Upper West Side in New York, where he reportedly used a fake New Jersey license as identification. Police say they have executed a search warrant at the hostel.

Authorities have also been doing a “full sweep” of Central Park – a 2.5 mile (4km) long and 0.5 miles (0.8km) wide area in the heart of the city – and on Friday found a backpack they believe the suspect was carrying at the time of the attack. It has been sent for forensic testing, CBS reports.

Officials are also attempting to make use of DNA evidence, including a water bottle and candy wrapper from the crime scene, as well as a Starbucks coffee cup, that they believe are linked to the suspect.

A mobile phone was also discovered in an alley along the suspect’s escape route.

So far, fingerprints found left behind have been unusable for identification, police said.

Authorities have been able to put together an incomplete timeline of his movements in the city, from his arrival on 24 November to when he fled after the attack on 4 December.

New York Police Department (NYPD) Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said on Friday that the suspect arrived in the city on a bus that originated from Atlanta, though it’s unclear where he caught the bus along its route.

He then took a cab to the vicinity of the Hilton, the hotel where he would later kill Thompson, and spent about 30 minutes there before heading to the hostel.

At the hostel he had two roommates but neither saw his face as he wore his mask while he was around them, Mr Kenny said.

The suspect left the hostel early on Wednesday, returned to the vicinity of the Hilton and stopped at a Starbucks.

Thompson was shot at around 06:45 EST (11:45 GMT).

At 06:48, the suspect entered Central Park. Shortly before 07:00 he left the park and at 07:04 took a cab to the Port Authority bus terminal.

The shooting took place in a busy part of Manhattan close to Times Square and Central Park. Thompson had been scheduled to speak at an investor conference later in the day.

According to police, the suspect – who was clad in his mask and light brown or cream-coloured jacket – appeared to be waiting for Thompson for five minutes outside the Hilton hotel where he was expected to speak.

Thompson, who arrived on foot, was shot in the back and leg, and was pronounced dead about half an hour later at a local hospital.

The NYPD said that the suspect’s weapon appeared to jam, but that he was able to quickly fix it and keep shooting.

CCTV footage appears to show the gunman had fitted a suppressor, also known as a silencer, to the weapon.

Investigators reportedly believe the firearm is a BT Station Six 9, a weapon which is marketed as tracing its roots back to pistols used in World War Two.

Police have reportedly visited gun stores in Connecticut to try to determine where the weapon was purchased.

After the shooting, video shows the suspect fleeing the scene on foot. Officials say he later got on an e-bike, which he rode toward Central Park.

Police believe he left New York, possibly on a bus headed for Atlanta, Georgia, sources familiar with the matter have told CBS News.

Atlanta police released a statement on Friday confirming they are helping New York authorities in the investigation.

Investigators have so far not identified a motive in the killing, but they are focusing in part on words written in Sharpie on bullet casings discovered at the scene of the crime.

The words “deny”, “defend” and “depose” were discovered on the casings.

Investigators believe this could be a reference to the “three D’s of insurance” – a known reference made by opponents of the industry.

The terms refer to tactics used by insurance companies to refuse payment claims by patients in America’s complicated and mostly privately run healthcare system.

The words resemble – but are not exactly the same as – the title of a book called Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.

The book, published in 2010, was written by Jay Feinman, a legal scholar at Rutgers University in New Jersey. It’s billed as an exposé of the insurance industry and a how-to guide for Americans on how to navigate the system.

Professor Feinman declined to comment when the BBC contacted him.

Thompson joined UnitedHealth, the biggest private insurer in the US, from accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2004.

He rose through the ranks and became CEO in 2021, leading the company through some very profitable years.

• Who was Brian Thompson?

In an interview with MSNBC, Thompson’s wife said that there had “been some threats” against him earlier, although she was unable to provide details.

“I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him,” she said.

According to police in Thompson’s hometown of Maple Grove, Minnesota, there had previously been one suspicious incident at his home in 2018.

The incident was cleared with no criminal activity detected. No additional details were provided.

For 12 years Sophie had been experiencing painful periods, weight gain, depression and fatigue.

She had been diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a hormonal condition that affects about one in 10 women, but she struggled to get medical help.

She felt her only option was to take her health into her own hands, and it was at this moment that Kourtney Simmang came up on her recommended page on Instagram.

Kourtney promised to treat the “root cause” of PCOS, even though researchers have not yet identified one. She offered customers laboratory tests, a “health protocol”- a diet and supplement plan – and coaching for $3,600 (£2,800). Sophie signed up, paying hundreds of dollars more for supplements through Kourtney’s affiliate links.

Dr Jen Gunter, a gynaecologist and women’s health educator, said Kourtney wasn’t qualified to order the tests she was selling, and that they had limited clinical use.

After nearly a year Sophie’s symptoms hadn’t improved, so she gave up Kourtney’s cure.

“I left the programme with a worse relationship to my body and food, [feeling] that I didn’t have the capacity to improve my PCOS,” she said.

Kourtney did not respond to requests for comment.

Medically unqualified influencers – many with more than a million followers – are exploiting the absence of an easy medical solution for PCOS by posing as experts and selling fake cures.

Some describe themselves as nutritionists or “hormone coaches”, but these accreditations can be done online in a matter of weeks.

The BBC World Service tracked the most-watched videos with a “PCOS” hashtag on TikTok and Instagram during the month of September and found that half of them spread false information.

Up to 70% of women with PCOS worldwide have not been diagnosed, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), and even when diagnosed, women struggle to find treatments that work.

“Whenever there’s a gap in medicine, predators take advantage,” said Dr Gunter.

The main false or misleading claims shared by these influencers include:

• PCOS can be cured with dietary supplements
• PCOS can be cured with a diet, such as the low-carbohydrate high-fat keto diet
• Birth control pills cause PCOS or worsen symptoms
• Mainstream medication may suppress PCOS, but doesn’t address its “root cause”

There is no evidence that highly restricted calorie diets have any positive effect, and the keto diet may make symptoms worse. Birth control pills do not cause PCOS and in fact help many women, though they don’t work for everyone. There is no known root cause for PCOS and there is no cure.

A spokesperson for TikTok said the company does not allow misleading or false content on the platform that may cause significant harm.

A spokesperson for Meta said user content on women’s health is allowed on the platform with “no restrictions”. The company said it consulted with third parties to debunk health misinformation.

• PCOS is a chronic hormonal condition that affects an estimated 8-13% of women, according to the WHO
• The NHS says symptoms include painful irregular periods, excessive hair growth and weight gain
• PCOS is one of the most common causes of infertility, the NHS says, but most women can get pregnant with treatment

The BBC has spoken to 14 women from Kenya, Nigeria, Brazil, the UK, US, and Australia who tried different products promoted by influencers.

Nearly all mentioned Tallene Hacatoryan who has more than two million followers across TikTok and Instagram.

A registered dietician, Tallene sells supplements at $219 (£172) and access to her weight loss app for $29 (£23) a month. She warns people against pharmaceuticals such as the birth control pill, or the diabetes drug, metformin, both of which have been found to be helpful for many women with PCOS.

Instead she encourages her audience to heal “naturally”, with her supplements. She puts a lot of emphasis on weight and what she calls “PCOS belly”, referring to fat around the abdomen.

Amy from Northern Ireland, decided to follow some of Tallene’s advice after struggling to get help through her GP.

“PCOS belly was exactly where my insecurities were,” she told me.

Tallene’s advice is to reduce gluten and dairy, and to follow the keto diet. But while a healthy diet can help with PCOS symptoms there is no evidence that gluten and dairy have a negative effect.

In Amy’s case, the keto diet regularly made her sick, and she found it hard to cut out gluten and dairy products.

“It makes you feel like you failed,” she said. “Looking back, I wasn’t as heavy then, but these people would make me feel worse, and you’d want to do more diets, or buy more supplements.”

Dr Gunter told the BBC influencer diet plans such as these could “absolutely create an eating disorder”.

Tallene did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

Amy said her GP had offered her hormonal birth control to manage her symptoms, but didn’t have any other ideas for treatment. She was told to come back if in future she wanted to get pregnant.

Dr Gunter said this is a vulnerable patient group that may struggle with feelings of helplessness without access to treatment. She said misinformation often caused patients to delay seeking medical help, and that this could lead to the development of further conditions, such as type 2 diabetes.

In Nigeria, Medlyn, a medical student, is trying to tackle some of the shame surrounding PCOS. After trying diets and supplements to no avail, she now encourages other women to consult with their doctors and embrace evidence-based treatment.

“When you’re diagnosed with PCOS it comes with so much stigma. People think you’re lazy, you don’t look after yourself, that we can’t get pregnant,” she said. “So nobody wants to date you, nobody wants to marry you.”

But she is now embracing some of her PCOS features. “It’s been a hard journey to accept my PCOS, my hair, my weight,” she said. “These things make me different.”

Sasha Ottey of the US-based charity PCOS Challenge said medical treatment usually enables people with the condition to get pregnant.

“Women with PCOS have the same number of children as those without,” she said. “You just might need a bit of help getting there.”

Dr Gunter said that women who aren’t getting help from a general practitioner should ask to see a specialist.

“Some women need a trusted endocrinologist or a trusted obstetrics and gynaecology specialist for that next level of management.”

Sophie and her doctors are still trying out possible treatments, looking for one that works for her.

BBC 100 Women names 100 inspiring and influential women around the world every year. Follow BBC 100 Women on Instagram and Facebook. Join the conversation using #BBC100Women.

A selection of news photographs from around the world.

Megumi and Gordon McKillop didn’t meet on a dating app, or at work, or through a mutual friend.

Instead, they met when Megumi was attempting a tricky climbing route at their local bouldering centre, and was – by her own admission – falling off the wall.

Gordon, who’d been climbing for more than 10 years, asked if Megumi wanted some advice. Then, later that day, when Megumi, a relative newbie at the sport, cut her hand on the wall, Gordon jumped in to offer her an antiseptic wipe.

That night, Gordon, now 42, decided to look Megumi, 33, up on Facebook to check how her name was spelt. But he accidentally sent her a friend request.

That was in November 2021, shortly after Megumi had relocated from Canada to Scotland. Ten months later, they moved in together. In February 2024, the couple got married – and, true to form, the wedding was dominated by climbing.

Their wedding reception was a picnic at Dumbarton Rock, a popular climbing sport in western Scotland, the photographer was one of Gordon’s climbing friends, and they spent their honeymoon in Kalymnos, a popular rock climbing destination in Greece.

To this day, they still go climbing at the Newsroom in Glasgow, the climbing wall where they met. They’ve befriended a number of other couples who met through bouldering, too.

Where people find love is always changing. Dating apps, a common way to meet a partner, have seen a significant drop in user numbers this year, says communications regulator Ofcom.

But other more traditional pathways to finding love, such as meeting someone at work or on a night out, have also seen a lot of disruption recently.

Shifting attitudes towards working from home are seen by many as good for work/life balance, but spending less time with colleagues can also mean less opportunity to meet new people. This autumn, more than 10% of Britons were working remotely and over a quarter were working hybrid patterns (a mix of home and office working), according to ONS data – significantly higher than pre-pandemic figures.

Meanwhile, NHS data shows that average weekly alcohol consumption had declined slightly in the decade to 2022 and the Night Time Industries Association warns that UK night clubs are closing at a rapid rate.

But if dating apps, offices and nightclubs are all becoming less of a feature of people’s social lives, then what replaces them?

Managers at climbing centres across the UK say their venues are one of the unlikely places people are meeting potential partners.

Sarah Moran, manager at Climbing Works in Sheffield, says that she’s been on dates with people she’s met through climbing.

“They’ve come up to me and we’ve chatted a little bit, maybe climbed a little bit together, and at the end we exchanged numbers,” she says.

The managers say the sport has boomed in popularity since the pandemic, which they mainly put down to its introduction at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, as well as British rock climber Toby Roberts’ win at the Paris 2024 Games.

About 400,000 people climb at least twice a month, according to the British Mountaineering Council. There are more than 400 climbing gyms across the UK.

Climbers say that it’s a “hyper-social” sport where you’re constantly in close proximity with other people.

Gill Peet, manager at Blackburn climbing wall Onyx, likens climbing centres to a “grown-up youth club”. She says climbers are “almost forced” to socialise because of the time spent on the mats between each climb, catching their breath, planning out their next route or asking for advice.

The socialising often continues post-workout, too, with climbers grabbing a coffee or pizza together with many climbing centres having their own cafes.

“I do more talking at the climbing wall than I do climbing,” Rose Henderson says.

Rose met her partner, Mark Garbe, in 2015 at a climbing group organised through the socialising app Meetup. The pair, both 33, quickly hit it off and now live together in Ayrshire.

Mark says their social life is “based entirely around climbing”. They’ve been on group holidays to Fontainebleau, a climbing hotspot in France, and cycled the Hebridean Way with their climbing friends. They choose their holiday destinations based on whether there are climbing centres nearby and watch climbing world cups together.

Many climbing centres host social events, including women’s and LBGT nights, where climbers of a range of abilities can get to know other people.

Kaloyan Galev, 21, met his partner Samuel Prentice, 22, at a student climbing event in early 2020. Kaloyan has taken part in multiple sports competitively but says climbing is the only one he knows of that hosts specific “LGBT nights”.

Climbing walls are “very accepting”, he says.

Millions of Brits use dating apps – about 10% of UK adults who use the internet and 4.9 million people used online dating services in May, according to a new report from Ofcom. But after soaring in popularity following the introduction of Tinder in 2014, user numbers are now falling.

The four most popular dating apps in the UK – Tinder, Hinge, Bumble and Grindr – all lost UK users between May 2023 and May 2024, says Ofcom’s report.

The number of UK adults using Tinder dropped 23% and Bumble users fell 26%. Hinge, which has the youngest user base of the mainstream dating apps, experienced a 9% drop in users.

Mariko Visserman, a psychology lecturer at the University of Sussex who studies romantic relationships, says “choice overload” is causing some people to become tired of online dating. This, combined with some users’ “very high expectations and standards”, often leads to disappointment, she says.

Before he met Kaloyan at a climbing event, Samuel had tried out dating apps.

“I find it just hard to get something going with a stranger just through an online profile,” he says. “Almost feels like squeezing water from a stone sometimes.”

Climbing, in comparison, is “such a low pressure place to meet,” Gill says. “You’re not specifically there to find someone, you’re just there to climb.”

And when you climb together, you “quickly learn a lot about someone”, says James Lister, marketing manager at Depot Climbing, a chain of climbing walls. You can see how they react when they’re frustrated at a route, happy with an achievement and socialising with a group of people, he adds.

It’s a lot of “red or green flag ticking,” he says.

“I’d find it hard to be with someone who didn’t climb,” says Kellie Burston, 35, who works as a planning and permitting manager. “I said to friends, ‘I couldn’t date someone who wasn’t a climber.'”

She’d filled her dating apps with photos of her climbing and doing outdoor activities in the hope of finding a match with similar interests but had no luck.

Kellie met her partner Jack Toon, 32, a HGV driver, at Depot Climbing in Sheffield.

They were both hooked on the sport, and “we just kept seeing each other,” Jack says.

After a while, Kellie and Jack struck up a conversation on Instagram. Their first date was climbing together – a “cheap date”, Kellie says, since they both had membership.

Kellie says she’d always hoped to meet someone this way, but thought it was a pipe dream.

The couple have now been together four years and are getting married in Las Vegas next year. They usually climb together about four times a week and live just a 15 minute drive from the wall they met at.

A new nightclub is opening this week with a strict rule that your smartphone camera must be covered with a sticker.

Amber’s in Manchester is the latest in a handful of venues in the UK to enforce the policy – but in cities like Berlin, renowned for its nightclubs, it’s the norm.

Amber’s director Jeremy Abbott told the BBC the club made the decision because “we really want the music and the experience to be front and centre”, but the issue is being debated on social media.

Some posted on Instagram concerns that clubs could suffer as social media videos of their night act as free adverts, while others welcomed the move as “partying with privacy”.

“It is the fear of being put on the internet isn’t it?” one woman told the BBC when we asked young people in Manchester how they feel about a no camera phones in clubs rule.

“Being really drunk and that embarrassing picture of you ending up on Insta, waking up and seeing the events of last night.”

Another woman said: “It does make the vibe better, because the less people [are] on their phone, engaging more with the DJ and stuff, that’s the better environment to have.”

So are Britain’s clubs at a turning point? Is now the time to get phones off the dancefloor and people’s minds back on the music?

Sacha Lord, night time economy adviser for Greater Manchester, thinks so. “These phones are killing the dancefloor, they’re killing the atmosphere,” he says.

“DJs hate it. To look out into a sea of phones and no-one’s dancing is really demoralising.”

Smokin Jo, who has been DJing since 1990, remembers when the rave and club scene was burgeoning in the late 80s and early 90s.

“Everyone’s got their hands in the air, there’s joy, there’s happiness.

“Now there’s these videos being posted of people standing still with their phone in the air. It’s so sad,” she says.

But Dr Lee Hadlington, senior lecturer in cyberpsychology at Nottingham Trent University, says for those clubbers, “part of their enjoyment is to document their night in terms of photos and memories”.

At Amber’s, phones are not banned outright but clubbers will be required to put a sticker over the camera lens to prevent photos being taken. A content team will be on hand to take and post photos online instead.

People violating the rule will be “politely asked to stop”, says Abbott. “If you are seen doing it again, you will be asked to leave the venue.”

The rule comes at a tricky time for Britain’s nightclub scene, which has struggled to recover from the numerous Covid lockdowns.

Between June 2020 and June this year, the number of clubs has fallen from 1,266 to 786, according to figures from the Night Time Industries Association and research firm NeilsenIQ.

Abbott concedes Amber’s no phones rules is a risk but says the club has been “blown away” by the response.

Lord says the policy could be a “shot in the arm” for the industry and “bring back the energy to the dancefloor”.

Graeme Park, one of Britain’s best-known DJs and a leading figure from Manchester’s legendary Hacienda nightclub, says: “I totally, totally understand and think that no smartphones on the dancefloor is a great idea.

“However, I’ve got a 20-year-old son. He makes music, he DJs, he goes clubbing and he’s like, ‘why’s your generation telling our generation we can’t use our smartphones?'”

Ben Park, Graeme’s son, says: “Personally, I’ve got nothing against phones being in clubs. I understand the whole no phone policy but at the same time people want to post pictures of them or their friends on social media, people want to promote it online.”

But he understands why some clubbers – and DJs – get annoyed by so-called TikTok ravers who “literally go to events just to show that they’ve been there and just post it on TikTok,” he says.

Cyberpsychologist Dr Hadlington says for these clubbers, it could be about a fear of missing out on social media action.

“The paradox is they’re spending more time posting about it than they’re enjoying the good time,” he says.

It might be a relatively new concept in the UK, but in Berlin, 90% of venues have a no phones on the dancefloor code, according to Lutz Leichsenring, former spokesperson for Clubcommission Berlin and co-founder of VibeLab.

He says that with more tourists coming to the German capital to enjoy the scene, “I think people really appreciated that this policy was a part of clubbing”.

And, on a personal note, he says that for him, “it is very, very weird when I’m in a club where people around me take pictures and film the whole time”.

Amber’s is adopting the same policy that London nightclub fabric has had in place since reopening in 2021 after Covid. The venue has actually been camera-free since it opened its doors in 1999 but as technology changed and smartphones became more ubiquitous it has tweaked its policy.

“When people come in at the point of search, we put a sticker on the camera lens and just really sort of invite people not to use it, that’s all it is,” says fabric’s co-founder Cameron Leslie.

He says for the most part clubbers abide by the rule. “It’s not an aggressive enforcement,” he says. “We have posters up in the club and then beyond that if people do use it and our team do see them we invite them not to.”

Smokin Jo reckons there are steps DJs can take themselves.

“Maybe DJs need to have a clause in their contract saying ‘I’ll do the gig but you need to have some sort of policy’ because we’re losing the identity of the scene and the roots of it.”

Fellow DJ Graeme Park thinks there is no easy answer to smartphones in nightclubs but says: “It is a really, really good thing that people are talking about it.

“It’s the cultural zeitgeist changing and that’s the great thing about clubbing, the attitudes change every decade or every few years.”

In the 2016 Bollywood hit Pink, a scene introducing Amitabh Bachchan’s character shows the actor emerging from his home on a winter morning into Delhi’s smog-filled streets, wearing a mask.

The mask and Delhi’s smoggy air feature in other scenes of the film but are of little relevance to its plot.

Yet, it is one of the rare examples of mainstream Indian films taking notice of the deadly air that makes many parts of India dangerous to live in every year.

The toxic air pollution and recurrent winter smog in Indian capital Delhi and other parts of northern India frequently makes headlines, becoming a matter of public concern, political debate and legal censure. But unlike disasters such as the devastating floods in Uttarakhand in 2013, Kerala in 2018 and Mumbai city in 2005 – each of which have inspired films – air pollution is largely missing from Indian pop culture.

Siddharth Singh, author of The Great Smog of India, a book on pollution, says that it is a “big failure” that air pollution is not a prevailing narrative in India’s literature and filmmaking.

Much of the writing on pollution in India remains in the realm of academia and scientific expertise, he points out.

“When you say PM2.5 or NOx or SO2 (all pollutants), what are these words? They mean nothing to [ordinary] people.”

In his 2016 book, The Great Derangement, author Amitav Ghosh, who has written extensively about climate change, observed that such stories were missing from contemporary fiction.

“People are weirdly normal about climate change,” he said in a 2022 interview.

The writer described being in India during a heatwave.

“What struck me was the fact that everything seemed to be normal and that was the most unsettling thing,” he said. “It is like we have already learnt to live with these changes.”

Ghosh described climate change as “a slow violence” which made it difficult to write about.

That certainly holds for pollution – it can have devastating health impacts over a long time, but does not lend itself to dramatic visuals.

The subject has, however, been explored in documentaries like Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes, which was nominated for the Oscars in 2022.

In the film, Sen explored climate change, pollution and the interconnected nature of human-animal relationships in Delhi’s ecosystem through the story of two brothers who treated wounded black kites that fell from the city’s smoke-filled skies.

Sen says he was interested in exploring how “something as big as the Anthropocene” (a term used to describe the current moment in time when human beings are having a profound impact on the living and physical world) or climate change were connected to petty squabbles and everyday irritability.

A scene in the film shows the two brothers arguing. One of them then points to the sky and at themselves and says, “Yeh sab jo hamare beech mein ho raha hai, ye is sab ki galti hai (What’s happening between us is the fault of all of this).”

“[The effects of climate change] actually pervade through every aspect of our life,” Sen says. “And the job of representation, be it cinema or literature, is to give it that kind of robustness in its representation.”

• Living in Delhi smog is like watching a dystopian film again and again

Environmental films that are pedantic, prescriptive, or hold audiences by the collar to make them feel bad do more disservice than good, he says.

“For me, the best films are those which are Trojan horses which are able to sneak in ideas without the audience fully knowing that they’re engaging in that conversation.”

Filmmaker Nila Madhab Panda, whose work on climate change and environment spans more than 70 films, believes art can make a difference.

Panda, who began telling stories on climate change in 2005 with his documentary Climate’s First Orphan, turned to more mainstream cinema for the message to reach wider audiences.

The filmmaker was born and raised in the Kalahandi Balangir Koraput region of the eastern state of Odisha which was prone to droughts and floods and moved to Delhi in 1995.

“It’s amazing to me that I was living in an ecosystem where you see four seasons, you drink water from the river directly. Natural wealth is free to us – air, water, fire, everything. And I come to Delhi where you buy everything. I buy water, I buy air. Every room has an air filter.”

In 2019, Panda made a short film for an anthology in which he explored the theme of Delhi’s pollution through a courtroom drama about a couple getting a divorce because they couldn’t agree on whether to continue living in the capital.

“You can’t just make anything which is not entertaining and show [it],” Panda says.

• The families fleeing Delhi to escape deadly smog

Creators also deal with the challenge of humanising difficult stories.

Singh, whose 2018 book looked at India’s air pollution crisis, says he struggled to find the people behind the statistics while writing it.

“We always read these news headlines of a million or two million people dying because of pollution every single year. But where are these people? Where are their stories?”

While themes related to the environment have often found place in India’s vast canon of regional literature, a lot of contemporary English writers, including Ghosh, have also highlighted the topic – Delhi’s Bhalswa rubbish dump features in Nilanjana S Roy’s crime novel Black River. In Gigi Ganguly’s Biopeculiar and Janice Pariat’s Everything the Light Touches, the writers explore our relationship with the natural environment.

But there is still a long way to go.

Singh says one of the reasons for the relative shortage of such stories could be that the people creating them are “insulated” due to their privilege.

“They are not the people who are by the bank of the [polluted] Yamuna river, who see the poem in it or write about the stories along its banks.”

These days it’s memes and photos on social media that have been most effective in capturing the gravity of air pollution, he says.

“One meme that was popular a few days ago said something like, ‘Sheikh Hasina [exiled Bangladesh PM who is now in Delhi] spotted on her daily morning walk’. But the accompanying image was completely grey because the joke was not being able to see her because of air pollution!”

The writer hopes such creative outlets find enough momentum to eventually “trigger a response by those who can actually make a difference”.

“I think that’s what we lack at the moment,” he says.

Ivory Coast’s national dish attiéké has gained UN cultural heritage status, along with Japanese sake, Thai prawn soup and Caribbean cassava bread. But what makes this West African staple so popular? BBC Africa correspondent Mayeni Jones grew up in Ivory Coast and is a self-professed superfan.

One of my earliest childhood memories is hearing vendors sing “Attiéké chaud! Attiéké chaud!” or “Hot attiéké!” as they strolled the streets of my neighbourhood, balancing large baskets of this national delicacy on their heads.

Fast-forward 25 years and women carrying individually wrapped portions of the fermented cassava couscous still walk across Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s biggest city, selling this now Unesco-recognised dish.

An alternative to rice, it’s hard to find any hospitality venue in the Ivory Coast that doesn’t serve attiéké. From the most basic eateries to the fanciest restaurants and even on the beach, it’s everywhere.

Attiéké’s popularity has spilled over the country’s borders, and it is now found across Africa, especially in French-speaking countries.

It’s also very popular in neighbouring Ghana and my home country Sierra Leone, where they have some fairly unorthodox serving suggestions.

The distinctive tangy taste of attiéké comes from the cassava tubers mixed with fermented cassava, which gives it its unique flavour and texture.

The cassava is grated, dried and then steamed before serving.

Filling and versatile, Ivorian chef Rōze Traore describes its texture as “fluffy yet granular, similar to couscous”.

Mr Traore adds that the slight tanginess of attiéké provides a unique depth to meals, perfectly balancing spicy or savoury sauces.

For Paule-Odile Béké, an Ivorian chef who competed on the UK TV programme Masterchef: The Professionals, “sour, zingy and sweet” are the words that come to mind when she describes the taste of attiéké.

Gluten-free and available in different grain sizes, the finest is often the most expensive. Some places even sell red attiéké, which has been soaked in palm oil.

Eaten with a variety of dishes, the most popular version is with chargrilled chicken or fish, a simple, spicy tomato-based sauce and a salsa of chopped tomatoes and onions.

It was one of the first dishes I cooked for my husband when we met 15 years ago. He liked it so much, he suggested we open a restaurant serving just that.

Attiéké is unpretentious, although traditionally reserved for special occasions like weddings and birthdays, people now eat it every day.

Ms Béké, who comes from a family of attiéké-makers, explained some nuances.

“Our attieke will be a bit more yellow than some other regions due to the proximity of the sea,” she said.

A native of Jacqueville, a small coastal town where attiéké is made, she features it heavily in the menu of her New York supper clubs.

Although I left Ivory Coast at the age of 14 as civil unrest broke out, I have never been able to let go of attiéké.

In London, I’d travel miles to Congolese shops to excavate bags of attiéké from the permafrost at the bottom of a chest freezer, stockpiling it for dinner guests I could evangelise.

When I moved to Nigeria, I mandated relatives to bring me care packages from Abidjan or Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital.

It was one of the first things I looked for when I moved to Johannesburg in South Africa three months ago.

Where to find it is always one of the first questions I have for any Ivorians I meet outside Ivory Coast.

Obviously it tastes delicious, but it’s hard to describe what makes attiéké so special.

Ivorian chef Charlie Koffi says “attiéké is a dish that symbolizes togetherness”.

Like injera, the fermented Ethiopian pancake, or thieboudienne, Senegal’s rice-and-fish dish, attiéké is best enjoyed in a group.

Across Ivory Coast, friends and family will gather around a big plate, eating with their hands and washing it down with a cold beer or soft drink.

For me, it’s also a reminder of a childhood which was cut short. I was just 13 years old when on Christmas Eve 1999, as I waited for my friends to come round for a play date, a military coup rocked Ivory Coast.

As soldiers drove through the city shooting in the air and telling people to head indoors, my little sister and I clung to each other in a hallway, the only windowless space in our house.

Our mum was stuck in town, unable to join us.

Six months later, my mum sent us to the UK to live with our grandmother, fearing the rising political tension in the run-up to the 2000 presidential elections would result in further unrest.

Just two years later, the country’s first civil war would break out, and it would be another 15 years before I was able to return to my childhood home.

But even when I couldn’t return to Babi (Abidjan’s nickname), attiéké was always a way to connect to the place we had left behind.

Even though I’m not Ivorian, like many of the expatriates and economic migrants who moved to the country during the prosperous 1990s, Ivory Coast is home.

We all speak Nouchi, the French slang that peppers Ivorian music and the streets of its cities, and we all eat attiéké.

Ivory Coast has a way of making people feel at home, and attiéké is part of that.

When I finished university, I returned to Ivory Coast for a year to work for an international NGO.

On our way back from one of our assignments in the west of the country, an Ivorian colleague explained that traditionally, attiéké was mostly eaten with kedjenou, a rich, smoky stew made with tomatoes, onions, and chillies.

This is slow-cooked with local chicken or game in a clay pot over a wood fire, infusing the dish with a deep, flavourful essence.

He claimed that it was only after the French arrived that Ivorians started serving attiéké with grilled fish and chicken.

This is not something that I’ve been able to confirm, but it always rang true.

Ivorians, although fiercely proud of their culture, have always been open to foreign influences in their cuisine and many regional dishes have become local staples.

Now that attiéké has been added to the list of intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding, perhaps more people outside the region will become aware of this delicious treat.

• Attieke – Ivory Coast’s answer to champagne
• Congolese rumba wins Unesco protected status
• West Africa’s Michelin-starred cuisine wows London
• Nigerians turn to ‘throw-away’ rice for food

A Boeing plea deal intended to resolve a case related to two fatal crashes of its planes has been rejected by a US judge.

The plane maker agreed with the US government in July to plead guilty to one count of criminal fraud, face independent monitoring and pay a $243m (£191m) fine.

However, Judge Reed O’Connor struck down the agreement on Thursday, saying it undermined the court and that diversity requirements for hiring the monitor were “contradictory”.

Family members of the 346 people killed in the crashes welcomed the ruling, describing the plea deal as a “get-out-of-jail-free card for Boeing”.

The Department of Justice said it was reviewing the decision. Boeing did not immediately comment.

In his decision, Judge O’Connor said the government’s previous years of overseeing the firm had “failed”.

“At this point, the public interest requires the court to step in,” he wrote.

He said the proposed agreement did not require Boeing to comply with the monitor’s recommendations and gave the company a say in selecting a candidate.

Those issues had also been raised by some families of those killed on the flights, who had criticised it as a “sweetheart” arrangement that did not properly hold the firm to account for the deaths.

Judge O’Connor also focused on the deal’s requirements that race be considered when hiring the monitor, which he said would undermine confidence in the person hired.

“In a case of this magnitude, it is in the utmost interest of justice that the public is confident this monitor selection is done based solely on competency,” he wrote.

“The parties’ DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] efforts only serve to undermine this confidence in the government and Boeing’s ethics and anti-fraud efforts.”

Ike and Susan Riffel of California, who lost their two sons, Melvin and Bennett, said the judge had done “the right thing” in rejecting the proposed agreement.

“This deal didn’t hold anyone accountable for the deaths of 346 people and did nothing to protect the flying public,” they said in a statement supplied by their lawyer.

They said they hoped the ruling would pave the way for “real justice”.

Boeing and the Department of Justice have 30 days to develop a new plan in response to the ruling.

The plane maker has been struggling to emerge from the shadow cast by two, near-identical crashes of its 737 Max planes in 2018 and 2019.

The aerospace giant faced fresh crisis in January when a door panel on a new Boeing plane operated by Alaska Airlines blew out soon after take-off.

The incident reignited questions about what Boeing had done to improve its safety and quality record since the accidents, which were tied to the company’s flight control system.

The door panel malfunction happened shortly before the end of a three-year period of increased monitoring and reporting.

Boeing had agreed to the monitoring as part of a 2021 plea deal to resolve a charge it had deceived regulators over the flight control system.

In May, the Department of Justice said Boeing had violated the terms of that agreement, opening up the possibility of prosecution.

Instead, the two sides struck another deal, angering families who had hoped to see the company brought to trial.

In the ruling, Judge O’Connor wrote it was “not clear what all” Boeing had done to breach the 2021 agreement.

Nonetheless, he wrote, “taken as true that Boeing breached the [deal], it is fair to say that the government’s attempt to ensure compliance has failed”.

Erin Appelbaum, partner at Kreindler & Kreindler, which represents some families of those killed on the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, called Thursday’s ruling an “excellent decision and a significant victory” for the victims’ families.

“We anticipate a significant renegotiation of the plea deal that incorporates terms truly commensurate with the gravity of Boeing’s crimes,” she said.

“It’s time for the [Department of Justice] to end its lenient treatment of Boeing and demand real accountability.”

A gunman in the US state of California who shot and injured two children aged six and five at a school before fatally shooting himself used a “guise” to gain access to the school.

The children are in critical but stable condition and were being treated at a trauma centre, officials said on Thursday.

The attack happened on Wednesday at a school affiliated with the Seventh-Day Adventist Church near Oroville, California, about 55 miles (89km) from Sacramento.

Investigators said they believe the gunman targeted the school because of its affiliation with the church and was motivated as a response to the war in Gaza.

The sheriff on Thursday said a note was found detailing the gunman’s motive. The note said he sought to carry out the “child executions” as a “response to America’s involvement with Genocide and Oppression of Palestinians along with the attacks towards Yemen”.

Authorities said the gunman had a lengthy mental health and criminal history, which included charges of theft, fraud and forgery over the years.

The shooting occurred shortly after 13:00 local time (21:00 GMT) at the Feather River School of Seventh-Day Adventists.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said the gunman, Glenn Litton, 56, had scheduled a meeting with a school administrator to discuss enrolling a student – the ruse police say he used to get into the school.

The meeting was seemingly cordial and Litton went on a tour, Sheriff Honea said, but things took a turn when the gunman walked towards a bathroom and started opening fire. The gunfire hit students outside a classroom, striking two kindergarten-aged children.

The gunman then turned the handgun on himself, police said. He was found dead by first responders with the firearm near his body.

The school’s remaining 35 children were later transferred to a church, where they were reunited with their families.

Sheriff Honea said on Wednesday that the young victims had “very, very serious” injuries.

“I’m thankful that they are still alive but they have a long road ahead of them.”

Sheriff Honea previously said investigators “have received some information that leads us to believe that the subject responsible for the shooting targeted this school because of its affiliation with the Seventh-Day Adventist Church”.

He previously noted authorities believed the shooting was an isolated incident, but a state-wide alert was sent to other schools affiliated with the Seventh-Day Adventist Church out of an abundance of caution.

The church is a Protestant Christian denomination with over 21 million members worldwide. There are one million members of the church in North America, according to the North American Division of Seventh-Day Adventists.

Japanese actor Miho Nakayama was found dead in a bathtub in her Tokyo home on Friday. She was 54.

Ms Nakayama found success as a singer in the 1980s and 90s – at the height of J-pop’s influence – but was best known for starring in the 1995 film Love Letter.

An acquaintance discovered Ms Nakayama on Friday after she failed to show up for work. They called the paramedics, who confirmed her death at the scene, local media reported.

The cause of her death is under investigation.

Ms Nakayama had originally been scheduled to perform a Christmas show in Osaka on Friday, but cancelled her appearance, citing poor health.

A statement on her website, published by her agency, confirmed her death on Friday.

“We are stunned by the sudden occurrence of this event,” the statement said, adding that her cause of death was not confirmed.

Ms Nakayama, who was one of Japan’s most popular teen idols in the 1980s, also enjoyed an illustrious acting career – most notably as the lead actor in Love Letter, a 1995 film about a grieving widow’s letters with a stranger.

The film became a massive box office hit and garnered critical acclaim both domestically and internationally. Ms Nakayama’s performance earned her several best actress awards.

Ms Nakayama leaves behind a son, who is in the custody of her ex-husband, musician Hitonari Tsuji.

Iceland has authorised whale hunting for the next five years, despite welfare concerns.

Under the new permits, 209 fin whales and 217 minke whales can be caught during each year’s whaling season, which runs from June to September.

Animal rights and environmental groups have denounced the move by Iceland’s outgoing conservative government.

But an official notice for the permits said the licences ensured “some predictability” for the industry, while limits to the number of whales that can be hunted had been set based on advice.

The country is one of only three in the world that still allows whaling – where whales are hunted for their meat, blubber and oil – along with Japan and Norway.

Only fin and minke whales are allowed to be hunted off Iceland, while other whale populations are protected.

Permits are normally delivered for five-year periods, but the previous ones expired in 2023.

The shortened 2023 season, which lasted three weeks, saw 24 fin whales killed. The quota covered a total of 209 whales.

• What is whaling and why’s it controversial?
• Whale hunting resumes in Iceland under strict rules

In the same year, whaling was suspended in Iceland for two months after a government-commissioned inquiry concluded the methods used did not comply with animal welfare laws.

Monitoring by the government’s veterinary agency showed that explosive harpoons were causing whales prolonged agony.

The Hvalur, Iceland’s only remaining active whaling ship, had instead been reliant on licence renewals on an annual basis.

Iceland’s environment association said the issuing of news permits “violates the interests of the climate, of nature and of the well-being of animals”.

Sharon Livermore, director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare’s marine conservation programmes, said: “The few wealthy whalers of the country continue to exert their influence even in the dying hours of this interim government.

“This government should simply be holding the fort, but instead it has made a highly controversial and rushed decision.”

Iceland’s ruling Independence Party lost out to the centre-left Social Democratic Alliance in snap elections on Saturday.

The Icelandic government notice said the total allowable catch followed advice from Iceland’s Marine and Freshwater Research Institute “which is based on sustainable use and a precautionary approach”.

The “brazen and targeted” killing of a health insurance executive outside a New York hotel this week shocked America. The reaction to the crime also exposed a simmering rage against a trillion-dollar industry.

“Prior authorisation” does not seem like a phrase that would generate much passion.

But on a hot day this past July, more than 100 people gathered outside the Minnesota headquarters of UnitedHealthcare to protest the insurance firm’s policies and denial of patient claims.

“Prior authorisation” allows companies to review suggested treatments before agreeing to pay for them.

Eleven people were arrested for blocking a road during the protest.

Police records indicate they came from around the country, including Maine, New York, Texas and West Virginia, to the rally organised by the People’s Action Institute.

Unai Montes-Irueste, media strategy director of the Chicago-based advocacy group, said those protesting had personal experience with denied claims and other problems with the healthcare system.

• What we know about NYC killing of healthcare executive
• Who was Brian Thompson?

“They are denied care, then they have to go through an appeals process that’s incredibly difficult to win,” he told the BBC.

The latent anger felt by many Americans at the healthcare system – a dizzying array of providers, for profit and not-for-profit companies, insurance giants, and government programmes – burst into the open following the apparent targeted killing of health insurance executive Brian Thompson in New York City on Wednesday.

Thompson was the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, the insurance unit of health services provider UnitedHealth Group. The company is the largest insurer in the US.

Police are still on the hunt for the suspected killer, whose motivation is unknown, but authorities have revealed messages written on shell casings found at the scene.

The words “deny”, “defend”, and “depose” were discovered on the casings, which investigators believe could refer to tactics used by insurance companies to deny coverage and increase profits.

A scroll through Thompson’s LinkedIn history reveals that many were angry about denied claims.

One woman responded to a post the executive had made boasting of his firm’s work on making drugs more affordable.

“I have stage 4 metastatic lung cancer,” she wrote. “We’ve just left [UnitedHealthcare] because of all the denials for my meds. Every month there is a different reason for the denial.”

Thompson’s wife told US broadcaster NBC that he had received threatening messages before.

“There had been some threats,” Paulette Thompson said. “Basically, I don’t know, a lack of [medical] coverage? I don’t know details.”

“I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him.”

A security expert says that frustration at high costs across a range of industries inevitably results in threats against corporate leaders.

Philip Klein, who runs the Texas-based Klein Investigations, which protected Thompson when he gave a speech in the early 2000s, says that he’s astonished the executive didn’t have security for his trip to New York City.

“There’s lot of anger in the United States of America right now,” Mr Klein said.

“Companies need to wake up and realise that their executives could be hunted down anywhere. I would not allow any of my clients to go into New York City right now.”

Mr Klein says he’s been inundated with calls since Thompson was killed. Top US firms typically spend millions of dollars on personal security for high-level executives.

In the wake of the shooting, a number of politicians and industry officials expressed shock and sympathy.

Michael Tuffin, president of insurance industry organistion Ahip, said he was “heartbroken and horrified by the loss of my friend Brian Thompson”.

“He was a devoted father, a good friend to many and a refreshingly candid colleague and leader.”

In a statement, UnitedHealth Group said it had received many messages of support from “patients, consumers, health care professionals, associations, government officials and other caring people”.

But online many people, including UnitedHealthcare customers and users of other insurance services, reacted differently.

Those reactions ranged from acerbic jokes (one common quip was “thoughts and prior authorisations”, a play on the phrase “thoughts and prayers”) to commentary on the number of insurance claims rejected by UnitedHealthcare and other firms.

At the extreme end, critics of the industry pointedly said they had no pity for Thompson. Some even celebrated his death.

The online anger seemed to bridge the political divide.

Animosity was expressed from avowed socialists to right-wing activists suspicious of the so-called “deep state” and corporate power. It also came from ordinary people sharing stories about insurance firms denying their claims for medical treatments.

Mr Montes-Irueste of People’s Action said he was shocked by the news of the killing.

He said his group campaigned in a “nonviolent, democratic” way – but he added he understood the bitterness online.

“We have a balkanised and broken healthcare system, which is why there are very strong feelings being expressed right now by folks who are experiencing that broken system in various different ways,” he said.

The posts underlined the deep frustration many Americans feel towards health insurers and the system in general.

“The system is incredibly complicated,” said Sara Collins, a senior scholar at The Commonwealth Fund, a healthcare research foundation.

“Just navigating and understanding how you get covered can be challenging for people,” she said. “And everything might seem fine until you get sick and need your plan.”

Recent Commonwealth Fund research found that 45% of insured working-age adults were charged for something they thought should have been free or covered by insurance, and less than half of those who reported suspected billing errors challenged them. And 17% of respondents said their insurer denied coverage for care that was recommended by their doctor.

Not only is the US health system complicated, it’s expensive, and huge costs can often fall directly on individuals.

Prices are negotiated between providers and insurers, Ms Collins says, meaning that what’s charged to patients or insurance companies often bears little resemblance to the actual costs of providing medical services.

“We find high rates of people saying that their healthcare costs are unaffordable, across all insurance types, even (government-funded) Medicaid and Medicare,” she said.

“People accumulate medical debt because they can’t pay their bills. This is unique to the United States. We truly have a medical debt crisis.”

A survey by researchers at health policy foundation KFF found that around two-thirds of Americans said insurance companies deserve “a lot” of blame for high healthcare costs.

Christine Eibner, a senior economist at the nonprofit think tank the RAND Corporation, said that in recent years insurers have been increasingly issuing denials for treatment coverage and making use of prior authorisations to decline coverage.

She said premiums are about $25,000 (£19,600) per family.

“On top of that, people face out-of-pocket costs, which could easily be in the thousands of dollars,” she said.

UnitedHealthcare and other insurance providers have faced lawsuits, media investigations and government probes over their practices.

Last year, UnitedHealthcare settled a lawsuit brought by a chronically ill college student whose story was covered by news site ProPublica, who says he was saddled with $800,000 of medical bills when his doctor-prescribed drugs were denied.

The company is currently fighting a class-action lawsuit that claims it uses artificial intelligence to end treatments early.

The BBC contacted UnitedHealth Group for comment.

South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol has apologised for declaring martial law earlier this week and has said there will not be another such order.

The embattled leader is facing potential impeachment following Tuesday night’s declaration, which was quickly overturned in the National Assembly.

In response to the president’s address, the leader of his ruling People Power Party (PPP) told reporters that it had become impossible for Yoon to continue his normal duty.

“His early resignation is inevitable,” said Han Dong-hoon.

“I am very sorry and would like to sincerely apologise to the people who were shocked,” Yoon said in his brief televised speech.

“Regarding the declaration of martial law, I will not avoid any legal or political responsibility.”

It had been speculated that he would use the address to the nation – his first since declaring martial law – to resign but he did not do so, instead saying that he would delegate the work of stabilising the situation to his ruling party.

He also did not mention impeachment.

The opposition is pushing for a vote on the motion to impeach Yoon on Saturday. It needs at least eight members of Yoon’s party to vote in favour for the motion to pass with a two-thirds majority in the 300-seat parliament.

Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung said he was disappointed with President Yoon’s comments on Friday and that they would only increase the public’s sense of anger and betrayal.

Lee added that he would do his best to remove the president from office.

“The greatest risk facing South Korea right now is the very existence of the president.”

It is not only politicians who have been outraged by Yoon’s actions.

Yang Soonsil, 50, is a seafood shop owner at Namdaemun market in the South Korean capital, Seoul. She told the BBC that she had felt fear and disbelief when martial law was declared.

“I have lost complete trust in him [Yoon] as a president, I don’t think he’s my president any more,” she said.

“We need to fight until the end, we can’t let him maintain his position as a president.”

At the same market was shopper Han Jungmo, who said that Yoon’s apology was not enough.

“He must either step down voluntarily or be impeached, if he’s not willing to,” he said, adding that the president had broken trust with the people.

“If he continues to insist on being president, then it would be a very hopeless situation because I believe for this president, this martial law is not the only misdeed he has conducted.”

South Korea was plunged into political turmoil late on Tuesday night when Yoon made the shock martial law declaration.

He cited threats from “anti-state forces” and North Korea. However, it soon became clear that his move had been spurred not by external threats but by his own domestic political troubles.

Some lawmakers jumped over barricades and fences to get past security forces in order to convene in parliament and void Yoon’s decree.

Yoon rolled back the declaration six hours later after MPs voted it down but there had been concern he would attempt to make a second decree. Some lawmakers had been staying near the National Assembly to make sure they were there ready to void it.

Before his attempt to place the country under military rule, Yoon had been beset by low popularity ratings, corruption allegations and an opposition-led legislature that reduced him to a lame-duck leader.

As 2024 draws to a close, and winter arrives, Russian forces are continuing to push their Ukrainian opponents back.

In total, Russia has captured and retaken about 2,350 sq km of territory (907 sq miles) in eastern Ukraine and in Russia’s western Kursk region.

But the cost in lives has been horrendous.

Britain’s defence ministry says that in November Russia suffered 45,680 casualties, more than during any month since its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

According to the latest UK Defence Intelligence estimate, Russia lost a daily average of 1,523 men, killed and wounded.

On 28 November, it says, Russia lost more than 2,000 men in a single day, the first time this has happened.

“We’re seeing the Russians grinding out more advances,” one official said, on condition of anonymity. “But at enormous cost.”

Officials said the casualty figures were based on open-source material, sometimes cross-referenced with classified data.

All in all, Russia is estimated to have lost about 125,800 soldiers over the course of its autumn offensives, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Russia’s “meat-grinder” tactics, the ISW says, mean that Moscow is losing more than 50 soldiers for each square kilometre of captured territory.

Ukraine does not allow publication of its own military casualties, so there are no official estimates covering the last few months.

The Russian defence ministry says more than 38,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been lost (killed and wounded) in Kursk alone – a number that is impossible to verify.

Yuriy Butusov, a well-connected but controversial Ukrainian war correspondent, says that 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since February 2022, with another 35,000 missing.

Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denied US media reports that as many as 80,000 Ukrainian troops had died, saying it was “much less”.

He did not offer his own figure.

But taken together, the Russian and Ukrainian casualty figures point to the terrifying intensity of fighting going on in Kursk and Ukraine’s eastern regions.

Western officials see no sign of this changing.

“The Russian forces are highly likely to continue to attempt to stretch Ukrainian forces by using mass to overwhelm defensive positions and achieve tactical gains,” one said.

The pace of Russia’s advance has increased in recent weeks (while still nothing like the speed of its rapid advances in the first months of the war), stemmed only by a significant change in the ratio of artillery fire between the two sides.

Where once Russia was able to fire as many as 13 shells for every one Ukraine fired back, the ratio is now around 1.5 to 1.

This dramatic turnaround is partly explained by increased domestic production, as well as successful Ukrainian attacks on depots containing Russian and North Korean ammunition.

But artillery, while important, no longer plays such a decisive role.

“The bad news is that there’s been a massive increase in Russian glide bomb use,” one Western official said, “with devastating effects on the front line.”

Russia’s use of glide bombs – launched from jets flying well inside Russian-controlled airspace – has increased 10-fold over the past year, the official said.

Glide bombs and drones have transformed the conflict, as each side races to innovate.

“We’re at the point where drone warfare made infantry toothless, if not obsolete,” Serhiy, a front line soldier told me via WhatsApp.

As for manpower, both Ukraine and Russia continue to experience difficulties, but for different reasons.

Ukraine has been unwilling to reduce its conscription age below 25, depriving it of all 18- to 24-year-olds – except those who volunteer.

Russia, meanwhile, is still able to replace its losses, although President Vladimir Putin’s reluctance to conduct a fresh round of mobilisation points to a number of domestic considerations.

Soaring inflation, overflowing hospitals and problems with compensation payments to bereaved families are all factors.

In some regions of Russia, bonuses offered to volunteers willing to sign up for the war in Ukraine have risen as high as three million roubles (about £23,500; $30,000).

“I’m not suggesting that the Russian economy is on the brink of collapse,” the official said. “I’m just saying that pressures continue to mount there.”

Recent events in Syria could add to Moscow’s woes, as the Kremlin decides what resources it can afford to devote to its defence of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

But with the situation in Syria developing rapidly, officials say it’s too early to know what impact events there will have on the war in Ukraine.

“There’s certainly potentially longer-term prioritisation dilemmas for Russia,” one official said.

“It depends how the situation in Syria goes.”

Rebel forces in southern Syria have reportedly captured most of the Deraa region – the birthplace of the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

A UK-based war monitor reports that the “local factions” were able to take control of many military sites there following “violent battles” with government forces.

According to the Reuters news agency, rebel sources saying they had reached a deal for the army to withdraw and for military officials to be given safe passage to the capital, Damascus – roughly 100km (62 miles) away.

The BBC has been unable to independently verify these reports, which come as Islamist-led rebels in northern Syria claimed to have reached the outskirts of the city of Homs.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based war monitor, said on Friday that the rebels in the south now control more than 90% of the Deraa region and that only the Sanamayn area is still in government hands.

Deraa city has both strategic and symbolic importance. It is a provincial capital and is close to the main crossings on the Jordanian border, while also being where pro-democracy protests erupted in 2011 – sparking the country’s ongoing civil war, in which more than half a million people have been killed.

Jordan’s interior minister said the country had closed its side of the border as “a result of the surrounding security conditions in Syria’s south”.

Elsewhere, Kurdish-led forces say they have taken the city of Deir Ezzor, the government’s main foothold in the vast desert in east of the country.

• What is happening in north-western Syria and why now?
• Syria in maps: Where have anti-Assad rebels taken control?

It has been just over a week since rebels in the north launched their lightning offensive – the biggest against the Syrian government in years, which has exposed the weakness of the country’s military.

At least 370,000 people are thought to have been displaced so far as a result of the rebel offensive, according to the UN, which has said the fighting is also “worsening an already horrific situation for civilians in the north of the country”.

Some civilians are trapped in front-line areas unable to reach safer locations.

SOHR says more than 820 people, including 111 civilians, have been killed across the country since the Islamist-led rebels began their offensive last week.

They seized Hama, to the north of Homs, on Thursday – a second major blow to President Assad, who lost control of Aleppo last week.

The leader of the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, told residents of Homs “your time has come”.

The rebels have been advancing south, and Homs would be the next stop on the road to the Damascus.

Terrified members of President Assad’s Alawite minority community are rushing to leave Homs, with video footage showing roads jammed with cars.

“Our forces have liberated the last village on the outskirts of the city of Homs and are now on its walls,” the Syrian faction leading the assault said on Telegram.

The BBC has not been able to verify these movements, but SOHR earlier reported that rebels were within a few kilometres of the city.

The SOHR said Russian warplanes had bombed a bridge in nearby Rastan to try and slow the rebel advance.

After the Syrian military lost control of Hama following days of fighting, it is not clear whether it will be able to defend Homs.

The defence ministry has denied claims it had withdrawn troops from the strategic city, which links the capital Damascus to the Alawite heartland on the Mediterranean coast.

The Alawites are a minority sect of Shia Muslims from which the Assad family originates.

They have long formed a major support base for Assad rule, and are key to the president’s grip on power.

Assad has vowed to “crush” the rebels and accused Western powers of trying to redraw the map of the region.

But analysts say his forces are demoralised, dealing with low pay and corruption in the ranks. He announced a 50% pay rise in recent days, according to state news agency SANA.

Russia and Iran, the regime’s most important allies, have declared continued support for Assad,

But they have not provided the kind of military assistance that so far has been propping up his rule, and Moscow is now urging Russian nationals to leave the country.

The US on Friday also advised its citizens to leave Syria “while commercial options remain available in Damascus”.

The Kremlin is preoccupied with its war in Ukraine, and Iran has been weakened by Israel’s punishing campaign against its most powerful allied militia, Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, whose fighters had been key to holding regime territory in Syria, are now largely absent from the battlefield, although reports in the Lebanese and Israeli press say small numbers have crossed the border to shore up Homs’ defence.

Russian and Iranian officials are expected to meet with their Turkish counterparts at the weekend to discuss a response to this upsurge in Syria’s civil war.

Turkey backs some of the rebel groups and its president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has for months pressed Mr Assad to reach a political solution with the opposition.

He has voiced support for the rebels’ recent advances, and said the offensive would not have happened if Assad had responded to his calls.

Analysts say it almost certainly could not have happened without Ankara’s knowledge and approval.

For his part, the leader of HTS, Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, has been making public remarks to soften his image and reassure both Syrians and foreign leaders.

He has emphasized his split years ago from Islamic State and Al Qaeda, presenting himself as a nationalist opposed to attacks outside Syria, and promising protection for minority communities.

In an interview with CNN, al-Jawlani said the goal of the rebel forces was to overthrow the Assad regime and install a government that represents all Syrians.

Earlier, HTS fighters and their allies took over Hama and released inmates from its central prison amid fierce battles, while the military said it had redeployed troops outside the city.

Hama is home to one million people and is 110km south of Aleppo, which the rebels captured last week.

In Aleppo, a city of two million people, some public services and critical facilities – including hospitals, bakeries, power stations, water, internet and telecommunications – are disrupted or non-functional because of shortages of supplies and personnel.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged “all those with influence to do their part” to end the civil war.

Rebels have launched a major offensive against the government in Syria, seizing cities in a lightning advance that has expanded the territory under their control.

The rebels captured the city of Hama on Thursday in a significant new blow to President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies.

Seizing Hama gives them control of the strategically located central city for the first time since a rebellion against Assad descended into civil war 13 years ago.

Syria’s key ally Russia is carrying out air strikes against the rebels led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) but it is unclear how – or if – Assad will be able to stop an advance that could threaten his government’s survival.

• Analysis: Damascus and Assad now in Syrian rebels’ sights
• What is happening in north-western Syria and why now?
• Follow live updates on this story

Syria, a country with a population of about 22 million people, is located on the east coast of the Mediterranean sea. It borders Turkey to the north, Lebanon and Israel to the west and southwest, Iraq to the east and Jordan to the south.

Turkey, Western powers and several Gulf Arab states have backed varying elements of the Syrian opposition to varying degrees during the conflict.

The Lebanon-based Hezbollah movement, backed by Iran, has fought alongside the Syrian regime army but has been severely weakened by its conflict with Israel.

Israel, concerned by what it calls Iran’s “military entrenchment” in Syria, has launched air strikes against Syria’s military.

After years locked behind frozen frontlines, the rebels have swept south from what was the last remaining territory under their control in Aleppo and Idlib provinces, which border Turkey, to mount the swiftest battlefield advance by either side in the civil war.

Hama lies a third of the way down the 330km (205 mile) road that links Aleppo and Damascus.

Its capture will hamper any swift attempt by Assad and his allies to launch a counteroffensive against rebel gains of the past week.

The arrival of rebel fighters in Hama came just over a week after the start of a sweeping offensive that has captured Aleppo and broken a years-long stalemate.

The insurgents had been fighting to reach Hama since Tuesday, to encircle the city from the north, east and west, where they clashed with the Syrian army.

Hama’s capture could clear a path for a further rebel push on the centrally-located crossroads of Homs and further southwards, including the capital Damascus.

The insurgents have said they are ready to march on south towards Homs, a crossroads city that links the capital Damascus to the north and to the coast.

A rebel advance on Homs, 40 km (24 miles) south of Hama, could cut Damascus off from the coastal region, an area where Assad has support and where his Russian allies have a naval base and airbase in Latakia.

The rebels have been advancing along the key road which links Aleppo to Damascus, shown in the map below.

The road is hugely important to the rebels as it allows its fighters, who usually travel in convoys of small vehicles and motorbikes, to move easily and at speed to their next targets – and ultimately, Damascus itself.

Assad has vowed to “crush” the rebels and accused Western powers of trying to redraw the map of the region.

Koh Jae-hak can still vividly remember when he saw soldiers gunning down a group of young women in cold blood.

It was April 1960. Students had launched protests calling for the resignation of the dictatorial president Syngman Rhee. Mr Koh was working in a government building when he looked out of the window and saw protesters clashing with police.

“There were demonstrations from various universities, and they all gathered in front… that’s when shots were fired,” the 87-year-old said. Days later, martial law was declared.

South Korea is widely considered a peaceful beacon of democracy in Asia, but that wasn’t always the case. This is a country that saw 16 bouts of martial law during its first four decades ruled largely by dictators.

It is why democracy is now deeply treasured by South Koreans as a hard-won right. It is also why President Yoon Suk-yeol’s declaration of martial law this week – the first to happen in 45 years and during democratic rule – was particularly triggering and prompted such a visceral response.

Almost immediately, lawmakers jumped out of bed and rushed to the national assembly, clambering over fences to reverse martial law.

Hundreds of ordinary citizens gathered to hold back troops who had been ordered to throw out MPs.

Some soldiers, apparently unwilling to carry out their orders, reportedly dragged their feet in clearing the crowd and entering the building.

When Yoon declared martial law on Tuesday night, he said it was necessary to get rid of “pro-North anti-state” forces. Initially, it caused confusion with some South Koreans who believed there was a genuine threat from the North.

But as they continued watching Yoon’s televised announcement, many grew sceptical. He gave no evidence of such forces at work, nor explained who they were. As Yoon had previously used similar language to describe the opposition that had been stymying his reforms, the public concluded he was actually trying to crush his political foes.

Previous periods of martial law had also been justified by leaders as necessary to stabilise the country, and sometimes stamp out what they alleged were communist subversives planted by North Korea.

They curtailed freedom of press and freedom of movement. Night curfews and arrests were common.

Violent clashes sometimes took place, most indelibly in 1980, when then President Chun Doo-hwan extended martial law to deal with student protesters calling for democracy in the southern city of Gwangju. A brutal military crackdown was launched, and it has since been labelled a massacre – while the official death toll is 193, some experts believe hundreds more died.

South Korea eventually transitioned to democracy in 1988, when the government held its first free and fair presidential election following mounting public pressure. But the preceding decades had permanently and profoundly shaped the nation’s consciousness.

“Most Koreans have trauma, deep trauma, about martial law,” said Kelly Kim, 53, an environmental activist. “We don’t want to repeat the same thing over and over.”

Ms Kim was a young child when martial law was last in place and has little memory of it. Still, she shudders at the thought of it returning.

“The government would control all the media, our normal activities. I’m working in civil society, so all our activities, like criticising the government, would not be possible under the martial law. So that’s really horrible.”

The freedoms afforded by democracy have not just led to a thriving civil society.

In the more than 35 years since that first democratic election, South Korea’s creative industries have flourished, with its dramas, TV shows, music and literature becoming world famous. Those creative industries have turned their own lenses onto the country’s past, bringing history to life for those too young to remember.

The country has seen a proliferation of shows about its dictatorship past, immortalising incidents such as the Gwangju uprising in popular culture.

Some were blockbusters featuring South Korea’s biggest stars, such as last year’s 12.12 The Day, a historical drama starring popular actor Hwang Jung-min. The movie depicts the political chaos that took place in 1979 as martial law was declared following the assassination of then president Park Chung-hee.

“As soon as I saw the images [of Yoon’s declaration of martial law], it reminded me of that movie… it made me question, are we about to repeat that history now?” said Marina Kang, a 37-year-old web designer.

“Korea’s got a wealth of visual representational works [of that era] in films and documentaries. Though we only have indirect experience of the horrific past through these works… that still makes me feel very strongly that such events should not happen again.”

Among younger citizens, there is a sense of disbelief that it could have returned. Despite never knowing life under martial law, they have been taught by their parents and older relatives to fear it.

“At first [when I heard Yoon’s announcement], I was excited at the thought of getting a day off from school. But that joy was fleeting, and I was overwhelmed by the fear of daily life collapsing. I couldn’t sleep,” said 15-year-old Kwon Hoo.

“My father was concerned that under martial law, he wouldn’t be able to stay out late even though his work required him to… when he heard the news about the possibility of a curfew being imposed again, he started swearing while watching the news.”

Not all South Koreans feel this way about their past.

“The vast majority of Koreans appreciate democracy enormously and regret the authoritarianism of the post-war period,” said Mason Richey, associate professor of international politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul.

But, he added, “the country remains very divided regarding numerous aspects of the authoritarian past, notably how justified certain repressive measures were in order to prevent communist subversion.”

There is the view among a significant portion of the population, especially among older folk, that martial law was necessary in the past for stability and democracy.

“Back then, it was a time defined by ideological warfare between democracy and communist socialism,” said Kang Hyo-san, 83. He was sitting next to his friend Mr Koh in a cafe at Gwanghwamun, Seoul’s main square and focal point for the city’s protest rallies.

The competing ideologies would lead to clashes and “when the military intervened, the situation would stabilise… it was a process to restore order and properly establish free democracy.

“Given the circumstances, we couldn’t help but view it positively,” he said, adding that he felt each period of martial law left the country in a more “favourable” position. Martial law in South Korea “fundamentally differed” from other nations, where it “wasn’t about killing people or senseless violence”, he insisted.

But this time, it’s different. Both octogenarians felt that Yoon’s declaration of martial law was unacceptable. “Even though we’ve experienced martial law many times throughout our lives, this time there’s no justification for its declaration,” said Mr Koh.

Like them, Ms Kim, the environmental activist, was glad Yoon did not succeed and democracy prevailed in the end. “Because we fought so hard to get it, right? We don’t want to lose it again.

“Without democracy and freedom of living, what is life?”

Around three million people in parts of Wales and south-west England have been sent an emergency alert from the government as Storm Darragh approaches the UK.

It is the largest use of the warning system yet and has been sent to the mobile phones of people in areas covered by the Met Office red weather warning for the storm.

The alert made a loud siren-like sound when it was delivered to devices, even if they were set on silent, and lasted for around 10 seconds.

The Met Office issued a rare red warning – the most serious type – earlier on Friday for wind. It is in place from 03:00 to 11:00 GMT on Saturday.

The Met Office only issues red warnings when meteorologists believe that dangerous, potentially life-threatening weather is expected imminently.

Western and southern coastal regions of Wales, as well as the Bristol Channel including parts of Bristol and Cardiff are all covered by the warning.

The areas are forecast wind gusts of 90mph (144kmph) or more, the Met Office said.

The government alert was sent to every compatible mobile phone in impacted areas, containing information about the warning and guidance on how to stay safe into Saturday.

It said Storm Darragh was expected to cause “significant disruption”, warning that strong winds can cause flying debris, falling trees and large waves, “all of which can present a danger to life”.

“Stay indoors if you can,” the alert said. “It is not safe to drive in these conditions.”

The alert said the storm may cause power cuts and disruption to mobile phone coverage, and told people to “consider gathering torches, batteries, a mobile phone power pack and other essential items you already have at home”.

Outside of test scenarios, the alert system has been used twice before, though both times on a smaller scale.

The last Met Office red warning was issued in January for winds in north-east Scotland.

• Red warning in place as Storm Darragh hits Wales
• Christmas events cancelled as NI braced for Storm Darragh
• Warning of 80mph Storm Darragh winds in Scotland
• Red wind warning sees events cancelled across the west of England
• Plymouth & Cardiff games off amid Storm Darragh warnings

Late on Friday evening, winds were beginning to pick up across Wales and south-west England, with the highest gusts reaching 74mph in north-west Wales.

Amber warnings covering Northern Ireland, Wales and the west coast of England are in place on Saturday morning, as well as less serious yellow warnings for large parts of the rest of the UK.

The winds are also expected to cause large waves, power cuts affecting mobile phone services, as well as damage to buildings and homes. Transport networks are also anticipated to be affected.

The Met Office said the strongest winds would subside by late Saturday morning, but that it would remain very windy until the evening, with amber warnings remaining in place until then.

Amber and yellow rain warnings, indicating a risk of flooding, is also in place in parts of the western UK.

In the north of Scotland, a yellow warning for snow is in place, with areas above 400m (1,300ft) getting up to 20cm (8in) of snow.

The Irish Meteorological Service has also issued a red warning for wind from 22:00 GMT on Friday across parts of counties Donegal, Leitrim and Sligo.

In Wales, all domestic football and rugby matches scheduled for Saturday have been cancelled, as has Cardiff City’s Championship fixture against Watford which had been due to kick off at 15:00 GMT.

Other postponed Saturday football matches include Newport County v Carlisle United in League Two and Plymouth v Oxford United in the Championship.

Meanwhile, Welsh Rugby Union has postponed all community rugby fixtures.

As the weather worsened on Friday evening, shops and cafes in Welsh towns made the decision to close on Saturday the run-up to the festive period.

For many businesses, this could mean a significant loss of earnings on one of the busiest shopping days of the season.

Across the Bristol Channel in Somerset’s Weston-super-Mare, another area covered by the red warning, businesses along the seafront have secured their outdoor furniture and plan to open later on Saturday morning.

Across the UK, there have also been widespread cancellations of winter events and Christmas markets scheduled for the weekend.

In London, all of the Royal Parks will close on Saturday which includes the popular Winter Wonderland attraction in Hyde Park.

Belfast City Council said the city’s Christmas market would close on Saturday due to the weather warnings, while the Enchanted Winter Garden events at Antrim Castle Gardens had been cancelled for Friday and Saturday.

Longleat Safari Park in Wiltshire said on its website it would not open on Saturday for safety reasons due to the weather.

Travel providers have warned of cancellations and disruption this weekend.

Cardiff Airport said its runway will be closed between 03:00 and 11:00 GMT on Saturday and advised those due to travel to contact their airline or tour operator.

Bristol Airport has also warned passengers that “disruption is expected” this weekend and they should check with their airline before travelling.

Train operators CrossCountry and Chiltern Railways told passengers to only travel if “absolutely necessary”, while Great Western Railway advised customers due to travel this weekend to “change plans if possible”.

South Western Railway said high wind speeds meant some services had been changed for Saturday, while London Northwestern Railway and West Midlands Railway said there may be disruption over the weekend.

Ferry crossings between Newcastle and Amsterdam have been cancelled until Sunday due to “adverse weather conditions”, operator DFDS said.

Stena Line ferries said some services across the Irish Sea on Saturday would be cancelled, while the Scottish CalMac operator said some routes could face disruption at short notice.

Storm Darragh is the fourth named storm of the year, after Ashley, Bert and Conall.

Some parts of the UK are still recovering from Storm Bert, which caused extreme flooding and led to the deaths of five people in November.

Scientists say as the Earth’s climate warms, extreme weather events will become more frequent. For every 1C rise in average temperature, the atmosphere can hold up to around 7% more moisture.

Globally, heavy rainfall events have become more frequent and intense over most land regions, according to the UN’s climate body, which says the pattern will intensify with further warming.

TikTok’s bid to overturn a law which would see it banned or sold in the US from early 2025 has been rejected.

The social media company had hoped a federal appeals court would agree with its argument that the law was unconstitutional because it represented a “staggering” impact on the free speech of its 170 million US users.

But the court upheld the law, which it said “was the culmination of extensive, bipartisan action by the Congress and by successive presidents”.

TikTok says it will now take its fight to the US Supreme Court, the country’s highest legal authority.

The US wants TikTok sold or banned because of what it says are its owners links to the Chinese state – links TikTok and parent company Bytedance have always denied.

The court agreed the law was “carefully crafted to deal only with control by a foreign adversary, and it was part of a broader effort to counter a well-substantiated national security threat posed by the PRC (People’s Republic of China).”

But TikTok said it was not the end of its legal fight.

“The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement.

They added that the law was based on “inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information” and a ban would censor US citizens.

Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 US Presidential Election may also present a lifeline for the app.

Despite unsuccessfully attempting to ban TikTok during his first term in 2020, he said in the run-up to the November elections he would not allow the ban on TikTok to take effect.

Trump will be inaugurated on 20 January – the day after the law says TikTok must be be banned or sold.

However, it remains to be seen whether he will follow through on his pre-election vow.

Professor James Grimmelmann of Cornell University said the president-elect would be “swimming upstream to give TikTok a reprieve”.

“The anti-China sentiment in the US Congress is very strong, so there are now substantial constituencies in both parties that want TikTok to be restricted from the US market,” he told BBC News.

The court case has been closely watched both by those who use TikTok- and the app’s rivals.

Tiffany Cianci, a small business advocate and TikTok creator, said she was “not shocked” by Friday’s decision – but told BBC News she would not be shifting her TikTok content or presence to the platform’s rivals, such as Instagram.

“I’m not going to do what they want and take my content to their platforms where it’s not as successful where it’s more likely to be censored, where I am more likely to have less control over my audience,” she said.

Nonetheless, other platforms are positioning themselves for a post-TikTok social media landscape.

Meta, which owns Facebook as well as Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, has sought to build rivals to TikTok’s short form videos within its own apps, and made changes that users have likened to TikTok amid questions over the app’s US future.

Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at eMarketer, said there would be “major upheaval” if a TikTok appeal were to fail at the Supreme Court and a ban was enforced.

She said this would be “benefitting Meta, YouTube and Snap, while hurting content creators and small businesses that rely on the app to make a living.”

But TikTok won’t be easily recreated, said Cory Johnson, Chief Market Strategist at Epistrophy Capital Research. Johnson said deep learning models power TikTok’s recommendation engine.

“Enabling such complex AI and big data processing at TikTok’s immense scale requires a colossal and expensive technical infrastructure,” Johnson said.

He said TikTok’s hyper-targeting and China’s data laws pose significant risks, and pointed to Elon Musk’s alterations to algorithms at his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, as a cautionary tale.

In the run-up to the U.S. election, Musk’s political posts received more views than all U.S. political campaign ads on X’s disclosure dataset, Johnson said.

“We have very real and very recent experience in America with a social media network tweaking its algorithms to favor certain voices,” he added.

A new nightclub is opening this week with a strict rule that your smartphone camera must be covered with a sticker.

Amber’s in Manchester is the latest in a handful of venues in the UK to enforce the policy – but in cities like Berlin, renowned for its nightclubs, it’s the norm.

Amber’s director Jeremy Abbott told the BBC the club made the decision because “we really want the music and the experience to be front and centre”, but the issue is being debated on social media.

Some posted on Instagram concerns that clubs could suffer as social media videos of their night act as free adverts, while others welcomed the move as “partying with privacy”.

“It is the fear of being put on the internet isn’t it?” one woman told the BBC when we asked young people in Manchester how they feel about a no camera phones in clubs rule.

“Being really drunk and that embarrassing picture of you ending up on Insta, waking up and seeing the events of last night.”

Another woman said: “It does make the vibe better, because the less people [are] on their phone, engaging more with the DJ and stuff, that’s the better environment to have.”

So are Britain’s clubs at a turning point? Is now the time to get phones off the dancefloor and people’s minds back on the music?

Sacha Lord, night time economy adviser for Greater Manchester, thinks so. “These phones are killing the dancefloor, they’re killing the atmosphere,” he says.

“DJs hate it. To look out into a sea of phones and no-one’s dancing is really demoralising.”

Smokin Jo, who has been DJing since 1990, remembers when the rave and club scene was burgeoning in the late 80s and early 90s.

“Everyone’s got their hands in the air, there’s joy, there’s happiness.

“Now there’s these videos being posted of people standing still with their phone in the air. It’s so sad,” she says.

But Dr Lee Hadlington, senior lecturer in cyberpsychology at Nottingham Trent University, says for those clubbers, “part of their enjoyment is to document their night in terms of photos and memories”.

At Amber’s, phones are not banned outright but clubbers will be required to put a sticker over the camera lens to prevent photos being taken. A content team will be on hand to take and post photos online instead.

People violating the rule will be “politely asked to stop”, says Abbott. “If you are seen doing it again, you will be asked to leave the venue.”

The rule comes at a tricky time for Britain’s nightclub scene, which has struggled to recover from the numerous Covid lockdowns.

Between June 2020 and June this year, the number of clubs has fallen from 1,266 to 786, according to figures from the Night Time Industries Association and research firm NeilsenIQ.

Abbott concedes Amber’s no phones rules is a risk but says the club has been “blown away” by the response.

Lord says the policy could be a “shot in the arm” for the industry and “bring back the energy to the dancefloor”.

Graeme Park, one of Britain’s best-known DJs and a leading figure from Manchester’s legendary Hacienda nightclub, says: “I totally, totally understand and think that no smartphones on the dancefloor is a great idea.

“However, I’ve got a 20-year-old son. He makes music, he DJs, he goes clubbing and he’s like, ‘why’s your generation telling our generation we can’t use our smartphones?'”

Ben Park, Graeme’s son, says: “Personally, I’ve got nothing against phones being in clubs. I understand the whole no phone policy but at the same time people want to post pictures of them or their friends on social media, people want to promote it online.”

But he understands why some clubbers – and DJs – get annoyed by so-called TikTok ravers who “literally go to events just to show that they’ve been there and just post it on TikTok,” he says.

Cyberpsychologist Dr Hadlington says for these clubbers, it could be about a fear of missing out on social media action.

“The paradox is they’re spending more time posting about it than they’re enjoying the good time,” he says.

It might be a relatively new concept in the UK, but in Berlin, 90% of venues have a no phones on the dancefloor code, according to Lutz Leichsenring, former spokesperson for Clubcommission Berlin and co-founder of VibeLab.

He says that with more tourists coming to the German capital to enjoy the scene, “I think people really appreciated that this policy was a part of clubbing”.

And, on a personal note, he says that for him, “it is very, very weird when I’m in a club where people around me take pictures and film the whole time”.

Amber’s is adopting the same policy that London nightclub fabric has had in place since reopening in 2021 after Covid. The venue has actually been camera-free since it opened its doors in 1999 but as technology changed and smartphones became more ubiquitous it has tweaked its policy.

“When people come in at the point of search, we put a sticker on the camera lens and just really sort of invite people not to use it, that’s all it is,” says fabric’s co-founder Cameron Leslie.

He says for the most part clubbers abide by the rule. “It’s not an aggressive enforcement,” he says. “We have posters up in the club and then beyond that if people do use it and our team do see them we invite them not to.”

Smokin Jo reckons there are steps DJs can take themselves.

“Maybe DJs need to have a clause in their contract saying ‘I’ll do the gig but you need to have some sort of policy’ because we’re losing the identity of the scene and the roots of it.”

Fellow DJ Graeme Park thinks there is no easy answer to smartphones in nightclubs but says: “It is a really, really good thing that people are talking about it.

“It’s the cultural zeitgeist changing and that’s the great thing about clubbing, the attitudes change every decade or every few years.”

The Princess of Wales has hosted her annual Christmas carol service at Westminster Abbey – the biggest event in her return to royal duties after ending her chemotherapy.

It was a candle-lit, festive occasion, but also with some poignancy – as it came at the end of a year of health problems for Catherine and for some of the guests who have faced very difficult times.

Among the 1,600 guests were families affected by the Southport knife attack, and a candle was lit by Olympic cyclist Sir Chris Hoy, who had a cancer diagnosis.

The Prince of Wales joined Catherine at the service, along with the couple’s three children – Prince George, Prince Louis and Princess Charlotte.

It was an atmospheric occasion in the medieval Abbey, which was richly decorated in winter colours of red and green, with Christmas trees dotted around the ancient tombs and monuments.

“I didn’t know this year was going to be the year that I’ve just had… But lots of people have had challenging times,” Catherine said to singer Paloma Faith.

Catherine wore a bright red coat – and when she saw the singer also wearing the same colour, she said: “It’s a celebration, everybody’s wearing red.”

Prince George and Prince Louis were both seen wearing red ties to match their mother’s coat.

The Together at Christmas service was a mix of traditional carols, music and readings, with Catherine looking relaxed and greeting the performers when she arrived at the Abbey.

The Prince of Wales read a lesson from the Bible, and actor Richard E Grant performed a passage from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

There were songs and carols from Paloma Faith, Olivia Dean and Gregory Porter, in an event that will be broadcast by ITV on Christmas Eve.

Catherine spoke to singer Olivia Dean about her own memories and emotional associations with the Abbey, including being married there.

Many in the congregation had been invited to thank them for their work in helping others in their communities.

They included 18-year-old Olivia Bowditch from Dorset, who volunteers for a charity that sends letters to cancer patients at risk of being lonely and isolated.

Also there was Diven Halai from London, who has a serious lung condition but ran the London Marathon with an oxygen machine, in a charity fundraiser.

There were four World War Two veterans attending, including Bernard Morgan from Crewe, aged 100, who landed in Normandy on D-Day.

He’s now an ambassador for the Royal British Legion and gives talks to schools about his wartime experiences.

The theme of the service was the importance of kindness and empathy and the congregation heard readings and prayers linking it to the story of Christmas.

Prominently displayed in the nave of the Abbey was a large nativity scene, with figures of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the shepherds.

Guests received a letter from Catherine, which said that the Christmas message was about promoting “love, not fear”.

“Love is the light that can shine bright, even in our darkest times,” the princess wrote, at the end of what has been a difficult year for her and her family.

The Order of Service conveyed the same message of empathy, with a specially commissioned illustration by Charlie Mackesy.

The illustration said: “How did I help?” with the answer: “You were by my side, which was everything”. This sentiment expresses the carol concert’s message of showing solidarity for those in need.

Prince William has also been helping others this week, with a visit to the Passage homelessness charity in Westminster.

The prince, who has been associated with the charity since going there first with his mother Diana, helped prepare the Christmas dinner for the charity’s clients.

Leo Scanlon, who was at the dinner, praised the prince for how he talked to people and for the questions he asked: “He clearly has a great understanding of homelessness and the issues around it.”