A US man, detained for months in a Syrian prison after entering the country on foot, has described being freed by hammer-wielding men as rebels overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

The man – who later identified himself as Travis Timmerman to the BBC’s US news partner CBS – was found by residents near the capital Damascus.

It comes as rebels say they intend to close Assad’s notoriously harsh prisons and track down those involved in torturing or killing detainees.

“We will pursue them in Syria, and we ask countries to hand over those who fled so we can achieve justice,” said rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.

Footage posted on social media showed Mr Timmerman lying on a sofa as residents spoke to local reporters.

He said he had been arrested upon entering the country seven months ago.

The American was reported as missing in May, having last been seen in the Hungarian capital Budapest, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Hungarian authorities.

On Monday, a day after rebels took control of Damascus and toppled Assad, Mr Timmerman said two men armed with a hammer broke open his prison door.

It was “busted down, it woke me up”, he said.

“I thought the guards were still there, so I thought the warfare could have been more active than it ended up being… Once we got out, there was no resistance, there was no real fighting.”

The 30-year-old said he left prison with a large group of people and had been attempting to make his way to Jordan.

He said he “had a few moments of fear” when he left the prison, adding that he had since been more worried about finding somewhere to sleep.

However local people had been receptive to his requests for food and assistance, he told reporters.

“They were coming to me, mostly,” Mr Timmerman said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday that Washington was “working to bring [Mr Timmerman] home”.

Blinken, speaking during a visit to Jordan, added that he could not give any details about “exactly what’s going to happen”.

Thousands of prisoners have been released since the fall of Assad over the weekend.

Footage has shown men, women and in some cases children emerging from overcrowded windowless cells, often disorientated and unaware of events that had taken place outside.

However, Mr Timmerman appears to have been relatively well-treated, telling CBS: “I’m feeling well. I’ve been fed and I’ve been watered, so I’m feeling well.”

He added that he had had the use of a mobile phone during his detention and had spoken to his family three weeks ago.

Speaking to fellow US outlet NBC, Mr Timmerman said he had crossed the mountains between Lebanon and Syria on a “pilgrimage” and had “been reading the scripture a lot”.

He declined the opportunity to be put in touch with American officials.

On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the US had asked Syria’s main rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) to help locate and free US journalist Austin Tice.

A freelance journalist, Mr Tice is thought to have been taken captive close to Damascus on 14 August 2012 while he was covering the country’s civil war.

He was last seen in a video, blindfolded and in apparent distress – posted online weeks after his capture. The US believes he was being held by the Assad regime.

President Joe Biden has said the US believes Mr Tice is alive, but they must pinpoint his location.

The Assad regime was notorious for its extremely harsh prisons, where the UK-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates almost 60,000 people were tortured and killed.

Across Syria this week, families desperate to find loved ones have been streaming into these dark prison sites.

The Syrian Civil Defence Organisation, known as the White Helmets, has been helping the search – including in the infamous Saydnaya prison complex, described by human rights groups as the “human slaughterhouse”.

“We’re looking for secret prisons in several areas of Damascus,” Raed Saleh, director of The White Helmets told the BBC.

“We can’t say too much about this, but we’re looking.”

The White Helmets, known for pulling survivors from the rubble during Syria’s devastating civil war, say they helped recover thousands of detainees from the prisons.

But many families are still searching in vain.

“What took place in Saydnaya is very painful for the families who were waiting for their loved ones,” Saleh acknowledged.

“Our inability to reach anyone else in Saydnaya after the initial release of prisoners means that those people who were there are either dead or in another place.

“We have at least two teams looking for prisoners.

“One team with police sniffer dogs is looking for survivors. Another team is specialised in lock breaking and entering cells.”

US President Joe Biden has issued presidential pardons to 39 Americans convicted of non-violent crimes, and commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 other people.

The White House described it as the most acts of presidential clemency issued in a single day. It has not given the names of the people involved.

The US Constitution decrees that a president has the broad “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment”.

Earlier this month, Biden issued a controversial pardon to his son Hunter, which continued a recent trend of presidents pardoning people close to them.

Announcing the move, Biden said those pardoned had “shown successful rehabilitation and have shown commitment to making their communities stronger and safer”. Their non-violent convictions included drug offences.

The commuted sentences were for hundreds of people who were placed in home confinement during the Covid-19 pandemic, and who were facing sentences which Biden deemed to be too long under outdated laws.

They have “shown that they deserve a second chance”, Biden said.

Giving further details of the move, the White House said those receiving relief included a decorated military veteran and pilot who helped fellow church members, a nurse who helped with the Covid vaccine rollout, and an addiction counsellor.

Biden promised “more steps in the weeks ahead”.

The president will leave the White House on 20 January 2025, when his successor Donald Trump is inaugurated.

Biden previously had a record of pardoning fewer people than most presidents in modern US history.

He had issued a few categorical pardons in the past, however. These are pardons given to a sweeping number of people who fall under a category outlined by the president.

In October 2022, Biden issued a full pardon for those who had been convicted of simple possession of marijuana, and later expanded that to include other marijuana-related offenses.

Earlier this year, Biden issued another full pardon to military personnel and veterans who were convicted of an offence based on their sexual orientation.

Trump granted 237 acts of clemency during his first term in the White House, according to the Pew Research Center. These included 143 pardons and 94 commuted sentences.

Many were in a flurry before he left office.

Biden’s decision earlier this month to pardon his son, Hunter, continued a trend of presidents on both sides of the US political divide – including Trump – granting clemency to people close to them.

Biden Jr was facing sentencing for two criminal cases.

The move has proven controversial, since the outgoing president previously ruled out doing it. But he claimed the cases against his son were politically motivated.

Biden has also weighed issuing pre-emptive pardons for prominent critics of his successor Trump in a bid to shield them from retribution after the president-elect takes office, but has reportedly been concerned about the precedent it would set.

Indian teenager Gukesh Dommaraju has become the youngest-ever world chess champion after defeating defending champion China’s Ding Liren in a dramatic turn on Thursday.

Dommaraju, at age 18, is four years younger than Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov was when he won the title in 1985 at age 22.

The Chennai prodigy has long been a superstar in the chess world, having attained the status of chess grandmaster at the age of 12.

But he was seen as the challenger going into the final of the FIDE World Chess Championship match held in Singapore this year.

Playing on black, Dommaraju won the game after an under-pressure Ding stumbled made a rare mistake while in a solid position, game commentators observed.

The 18-year-old clinched victory with a final championship score of 7.5-6.5 – bringing an end to a fortnight of the two players’ matches being closely followed by chess fans worldwide.

Ding, China’s first world chess champion, had faced pressure over his form all year, ever since winning the 2023 title.

The Chinese player had not won a long-format “classical” game since January and was seen to be avoiding other top-level competitions.

But he had put in a strong opening game and won the last match against Dommaraju, suggesting momentum.

Both players had two victories apiece and eight draws going into the final game on Thursday.

After hours of tight play, Ding on move 55 moved his rook to a fatally weak position that gave Dommaraju opportunity to capitalise.

Immediately recognising his mistake Ding slumped on the table.

“Ding seemed to have a risk-free chance to push for a win but instead liquidated into a pawn-down endgame,” Chess.com wrote in its post-game summary. “It should have been drawn, but Ding blundered as the pressure grew.”

It was endgame from there on. Ding resigned three moves later.

Dommaraju promptly burst into tears as the room erupted with cheers from spectators.

“I probably got so emotional because I did not really expect to win that position,” he said according to reports.

At age 18, he is also only the second Indian player to become world chess champion, after five-time world chess champion Viswanathan Anand.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Narendra Modi was among the first to sound his praises.

“Historic and exemplary!” he wrote on X. “Congratulations to Gukesh D on his remarkable accomplishment. This is the result of his unparalleled talent, hard work and unwavering determination.”

The FIDE World Chess Championship carries a $2.5m (£1.96m) prize fund.

Selena Gomez has revealed she is engaged to songwriter Benny Blanco.

The actress and singer posted a picture of a large engagement ring on Instagram, with the caption “forever begins now”.

It comes after the couple confirmed their relationship last year.

Pop star Taylor Swift was among the famous figures to offer congratulations.

Two-time Grammy-nominated Gomez posted further pictures of her beaming, wearing the ring, and one of Blanco embracing her in what appears to be a closet.

“Hey wait… that’s my wife,” Blanco commented on the post.

Swift replied: “Yes I will be the flower girl.”

Rapper Cardi B, actresses Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston and Suki Waterhouse, and singer Lil Nas X also sent well wishes.

In an Instagram Story shared with her 423 million followers, the most-followed woman on the app also revealed a video showing her ring to loved ones on the phone.

“Yes to this,” she can be heard saying, evoking screams on the other end of the video call.

Gomez and record producer Blanco had collaborated on songs I Can’t Get Enough in 2019 and Single Soon in 2023, before announcing their relationship.

Blanco, who has also worked with the likes of Rihanna, Calvin Harris and Justin Bieber, was effusive about his love on the Drew Barrymore Show back in May.

“She’s just like the best, most genuine person,” he said on the chat show.

“Everything is completely real. Everyday when I wake up, I, like, walk by the mirror as I’m, like, walking to her and I ask myself, ‘How did I get here’…

“She’s one of the sweetest, one of the most charming, one of the most humble people I’ve ever met.”

Come & Get It singer Gomez was previously in a high profile on-and-off relationship with fellow singer Justin Bieber. She also dated singer The Weeknd in 2017.

The Texas-born star rose to fame as a child actress on Barney and Disney Channel, before forging a career as a singer and in acting.

This year she joined the billionaire celebrity rich list, according to Bloomberg, amassing a $1.3bn (£1bn) fortune – mainly deriving from her Rare Beauty make-up company.

On Monday, she received two Golden Globe nominations – one in the best supporting actress category for her role in operatic musical Emilia Pérez and the other for best actress in a TV series, musical or comedy, for her recurring role in Only Murders in the Building.

Amid the shattered glass and trampled flags, posters of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lie ripped on the floor of the Iranian embassy in Damascus. There are torn pictures too of the former leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air strike in Beirut in September.

Outside, the ornate turquoise tiles on the embassy’s façade are intact, but the defaced giant image of Iran’s vastly influential former military Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani – killed on the orders of Donald Trump during his first presidency – is a further reminder of the series of blows Iran has faced, culminating on Sunday in the fall of a key ally, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

So, as the Islamic Republic licks its wounds, and prepares for a new Donald Trump presidency, will it decide on a more hardline approach – or will it renew negotiations with the West? And just how stable is the regime?

In his first speech after the toppling of Assad, Khamenei was putting a brave face on a strategic defeat. Now 85 years old, he faces the looming challenge of succession, having been in power and the ultimate authority in Iran since 1989.

“Iran is strong and powerful – and will become even stronger,” he claimed.

He insisted that the Iran-led alliance in the Middle East, which includes Hamas, Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and Iraqi Shia militias – the “scope of resistance” against Israel – would only strengthen too.

“The more pressure you exert, the stronger the resistance becomes. The more crimes you commit, the more determined it becomes. The more you fight against it, the more it expands,” he said.

But the regional aftershocks of the Hamas massacres in Israel on 7 October 2023 – which were applauded, if not supported, by Iran – have left the regime reeling.

Israel’s retaliation against its enemies has created a new landscape in the Middle East, with Iran very much on the back foot.

“All the dominoes have been falling,” says James Jeffrey, a former US diplomat and deputy national security advisor, who now works at the non-partisan Wilson Center think-tank.

“The Iranian Axis of Resistance has been smashed by Israel, and now blown up by events in Syria. Iran is left with no real proxy in the region other than the Houthis in Yemen.”

Iran does still back powerful militias in neighbouring Iraq. But according to Mr Jeffrey: “This is a totally unprecedented collapse of a regional hegemon.”

The last public sighting of Assad was in a meeting with the Iranian Foreign Minister, on 1 December, when he vowed to “crush” the rebels advancing on the Syrian capital. The Kremlin has said he is now in Russia after fleeing the country.

Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, described Assad as the “front end of the Axis of Resistance”. Yet, when the end came for Bashar al-Assad, a weakened Iran – shocked by the sudden collapse of his forces – was unable and unwilling to fight for him.

In a matter of days, the only other state in the “Axis of Resistance” – its lynchpin – had gone.

Iran had spent decades building its network of militias to maintain influence in the region, as well as deterrence against Israeli attack. This dates back to the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

In the war with Iraq that followed, Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez, supported Iran.

The alliance between the Shia clerics in Iran and the Assads (who are from the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam) helped cement Iran’s powerbase in a predominantly Sunni Middle East.

Syria was also a crucial supply route for Iran to its ally in Lebanon, Hezbollah, and other regional armed groups.

Iran had come to Assad’s aid before. When he appeared vulnerable after a popular uprising in 2011 had morphed into a civil war, Tehran provided fighters, fuel and weapons. More than 2,000 Iranian soldiers and generals were killed there while ostensibly serving as “military advisers”.

“We know that Iran spent $30bn to $50bn [£23.5bn to £39bn] in Syria [since around 2011],” says Dr Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at think tank Chatham House.

Now the pipeline through which Iran might have tried, in the future, to resupply Hezbollah in Lebanon – and from there, potentially, others – has been cut.

“The Axis of Resistance was an opportunistic network designed to provide Iran with strategic depth and protect Iran from direct strike and attack,” Dr Vakil argues. “This has clearly failed as a strategy.”

Iran’s calculation of what to do next will be affected not just by the demise of Assad but also by the fact that its own military came off far worse than Israel in the first ever direct confrontations between the two countries earlier this year.

Most of the ballistic missiles that Iran launched at Israel in October were intercepted, although some caused damage to several airbases. Israeli strikes caused serious damage to Iran’s air defences and missile production capabilities. “The missile threat has proven to be a paper tiger,” says Mr Jeffrey.

The assassination in Tehran of the former Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in July was also a profound embarrassment for Iran.

The chief priority of the Islamic Republic from here on in is its own survival. “It will be looking to reposition itself, reinforce what’s left of the Axis of Resistance and re-invest in regional ties in order to survive the pressure that Trump is likely to bear,” says Dr Vakil.

Dennis Horak spent three years in Iran as Canadian charge d’affaires. “It’s a pretty resilient regime with tremendous levers of power, and a lot more they could unleash,” he says.

It still possesses serious firepower, he argues, which could be used against Gulf Arab countries in the event of a confrontation with Israel. He cautions against any view of Iran as a paper tiger.

It has however, been profoundly weakened internationally – with an unpredictable Donald Trump about to assume the presidency in the US, and Israel having demonstrated its ability to pick off its enemies.

“Iran will certainly be re-evaluating its defence doctrine which was primarily reliant on the Axis of Resistance,” says Dr Vakil.

“It will also be considering its nuclear programme and trying to decide if greater investment in that is necessary to provide the regime with greater security.”

Iran insists that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful. But it has advanced considerably since Donald Trump abandoned a carefully-negotiated deal struck in 2015, which limited its nuclear activities in return for the lifting of some economic sanctions.

Under the agreement, Iran was permitted to enrich uranium up to a purity of 3.67%. Low-enriched uranium can be used to produce fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says Iran is now significantly increasing the rate at which it can produce uranium enriched to 60%.

Iran has said it is doing this in retaliation for the sanctions that Trump reinstated and which remained in place as the Biden administration tried and failed to revive the deal.

Weapons-grade uranium, which is needed for a nuclear bomb, is 90% enriched or more.

The IAEA head, Rafael Grossi, has suggested what Iran is doing may be a response to the country’s regional setbacks.

“It’s a really concerning picture,” says Darya Dolzikova, expert on nuclear proliferation at the Royal United Services Institute think tank. “The nuclear programme is in a completely different place to where it was in 2015.”

It has been estimated that Iran could now enrich enough uranium for a weapon within about a week, if it decided to, though it would also need to construct a warhead and mount a delivery system, which experts say would take months or possibly as long as a year.

“We don’t know how close they are to a deliverable nuclear weapon. But Iran has gained a lot of knowledge that will be really hard to roll back,” adds Ms Dolzikova.

Western countries are alarmed.

“It’s clear that Trump will try to re-impose his ‘maximum pressure’ strategy on Iran,” says Dr Raz Zimmt, senior researcher at the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies and Tel Aviv University.

“But I think he’ll also try to engage Iran in renewed negotiations trying to convince Iran to roll back its nuclear capabilities.”

Despite Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stated desire for regime change, Dr Zimmt believes the country will bide its time, waiting to see what Donald Trump does and how Iran responds.

Iran is unlikely to want to provoke a full-scale confrontation.

“I think Donald Trump – as a businessman – will try to engage Iran and make a deal,” says Nasser Hadian, professor of political science at Tehran University.

“If that doesn’t happen, he’ll go for maximum pressure in order to bring it to the table.”

He believes a deal is more likely than conflict, but he adds: “There is a possibility that, if he goes for maximum pressure, things go wrong and we get a war that neither side wants.”

The Islamic Republic faces a host of domestic challenges too, as it prepares for the succession of the Supreme Leader.

“Khamenei goes to bed worrying about his legacy and transition and is looking to leave Iran in a stable place,” according to Dr Vakil.

The regime was badly shaken by the 2022 nationwide protests that followed the death of a young woman, Mahsa Jina Amini, who had been accused of not wearing the hijab properly.

The uprising challenged the legitimacy of the clerical establishment and was crushed with brutal force.

There is still widespread, simmering fury at a regime that has poured resources into conflicts abroad while many Iranians face unemployment and struggle with high inflation.

And Iran’s younger generation, in particular, is increasingly estranged from the Islamic Revolution, with many chafing at the social restrictions imposed by the regime. Every day, women still defy the regime, risking arrest by going out without their hair covered.

However, that’s not to say that there will be a collapse of the regime similar to that in Syria, say Iran watchers.

“I don’t think the Iranian people are going to rise up again because Iran has lost its empire, which was very unpopular anyway,” says Mr Jeffrey.

Mr Horak believes its tolerance of dissent will be lowered still further as it tries to shore up its internal security. A long-planned new law that strengthens punishments for women who do not wear the hijab is due to come in imminently. But he doesn’t believe the regime is currently at risk.

“Millions of Iranians don’t support it, but millions still do,” he says. “I don’t think it’s in danger of toppling anytime soon.”

But as it navigates anger at home, the loss of its lynchpin in Syria – after so many other blows to its regional clout – has made the job of Iran’s rulers a lot more tricky.

Embattled South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has defended his shock decision to declare martial law last week, saying he did it to protect the country’s democracy.

In a surprise televised address on Thursday, he said the attempt was a legal decision to “prevent the collapse” of democracy and counter the opposition’s “parliamentary dictatorship”.

Yoon has suggested that he would not step down ahead of a second vote to impeach him in parliament on Saturday.

“I will stand firm whether I’m impeached or investigated,” he said. “I will fight to the end”.

The president and his allies are facing investigations on insurrection charges, and he and several of them have been banned from leaving South Korea.

On Thursday, the opposition-led parliament voted to impeach police chief Cho Ji-ho and justice minister Park Sung-jae. The two officials have been immediately suspended.

Unlike impeachment motions against presidents, which require 200 votes in the 300-strong National Assembly to be passed, other officials can be impeached with 150 votes.

In his address, his first since his apology over the weekend, Yoon denied that his martial law order was an act of insurrection, claiming that his political rivals were creating “false incitement” to bring him down.

Yoon repeated many of the same arguments that he used on the night he declared martial law: that the opposition was dangerous, and that by seizing control, he had been trying to protect the public and defend democracy.

However, Yoon added that he would not avoid his “legal and political responsibilities”.

Last Saturday, an attempt by opposition lawmakers to impeach the president failed after members of his own ruling People Power Party (PPP) boycotted the vote. But opposition members are set to hold another impeachment vote this weekend and have vowed to hold one every Saturday until Yoon is removed from office.

The floor leader of the PPP, Choo Kyung-ho, stepped down after the failed impeachment attempt, and on Thursday the party elected Kwon Seong-dong, a Yoon loyalist, as his replacement.

Kwon told reporters on Thursday that he would hold discussions with PPP lawmakers on whether they should continue opposing Yoon’s impeachment.

Yoon’s party had been hoping to convince the president to leave office early, rather than force him out.

Minutes before Yoon spoke, his party leader Han Dong-hoon appeared on television saying it had become clear that the president was not going to step aside. Han then urged members of the party to vote to remove him from office this Saturday.

The opposition tabled another impeachment motion on Thursday, setting the stage for a vote at 17:00 local time (09:00 GMT) Saturday.

If South Korea’s parliament passes the impeachment bill, a trial would be held by the Constitutional Court. Two-thirds of that court would have to sustain the majority for Yoon to be removed from office permanently.

Yoon has been a lame duck president since the opposition won the April general election by a landslide – his government has not been able to pass the laws it wanted and has been reduced to vetoing bills proposed by the opposition.

Yoon also accused North Korea sympathisers of trying to undermine his government when he declared martial law on the night of 3 December.

The announcement plunged the country into political turmoil. Protesters faced off against security forces in front of the National Assembly building while lawmakers scrambled to vote down Yoon’s order.

Yoon withdrew his martial law order hours after it was blocked by lawmakers.

Since then, the country has remained on edge. There have been huge protests and strikes calling for Yoon’s impeachment, and the presidential office was raided on Wednesday as Yoon faces multiple investigations on charges of insurrection and treason.

Meanwhile, ex-defence minister Kim Yong-hyun, who resigned and took responsibility for announcing martial law, attempted suicide while in detention on Tuesday, officials said. He is in a stable condition.

The Australian state of Queensland has passed laws which will see children as young as 10 subject to the same penalties as adults if convicted of crimes such as murder, serious assault and break-ins.

The government says the harsher sentencing rules are in response to “community outrage over crimes being perpetrated by young offenders” and will act as a deterrent.

But many experts have pointed to research showing that tougher penalties do not reduce youth offending, and can in fact exacerbate it.

The United Nations has also criticised the reforms, arguing they disregard conventions on the human rights of children and violate international law.

The Liberal National Party (LNP) – which won the state election in October – made the rules a hallmark of its campaign, saying they put the “rights of victims” ahead of “the rights of criminals”.

“These laws are for every Queenslander who has ever felt unsafe and been a victim of youth crime across our state,” Premier David Crisafulli said after parliament passed the bill on Thursday.

Leading up to the vote, both sides of politics had claimed that Queensland was in the grips of a youth crime wave, and that a more punitive approach was necessary to combat the issue.

But data from the Australian bureau of statistics, shows that youth crime has halved in Queensland across the past 14 years, that it hit its lowest rate in recorded history in 2022, and has remained relatively steady since.

Figures from the Queensland Police Service and the Australian Institute of Criminology also demonstrate a clear downward trend.

Dubbed by the government as “adult crime, adult time”, the new laws list 13 offences which will now be subject to harsher prison sentences when committed by youths, including mandatory life detention for murder, with a non-parole period of 20 years.

Previously, the maximum penalty for young offenders convicted of murder was 10 years in jail, with life imprisonment only considered if the crime was “particularly heinous”.

The laws also remove “detention as a last resort” provisions – which favour non-custodial orders, such as fines or community service, for children rather than incarceration – and will make it possible for judges to consider a child’s full criminal history when sentencing.

The Queensland Police Union has called the changes “a leap forward in the right direction”, while Queensland’s new Attorney-General Deb Frecklington says it will give courts the ability to “better address patterns of offending” and “hold people accountable for their actions”.

But in a summary, Frecklington also noted the changes were in direct conflict with international standards, that Indigenous children would be disproportionately impacted and that more youngsters were likely to be held in police cells for extended periods because detention centres are full.

Queensland already has more children in detention than any other Australian state or territory.

Premier Crisafulli said on Thursday that although there may be “pressure in the short-term” his government had a long-term plan to “deliver a raft of other detention facilities and different options”.

Australia’s commissioner for children, Anne Hollonds, described the changes as an “international embarrassment”.

She also accused Queensland’s government of “ignoring evidence” which suggests “the younger a child comes into contact with the justice system, the more likely it is that they will continue to commit more serious crimes”.

“The fact that [the bill’s] provisions are targeting our most at-risk children makes this retreat from human rights even more shocking,” she said in a statement on Wednesday.

Other legal experts, who gave evidence to a parliamentary hearing on the bill last week, said the laws could have unintended consequences for victims, with children being less likely to plead guilty given the tougher sentences, resulting in more trials and longer court delays.

Time Magazine has named Donald Trump as their person of the year for the second time.

“For marshaling a comeback of historic proportions, for driving a once-in-a- generation political realignment, for reshaping the American presidency and altering America’s role in the world, Donald Trump is TIME’S 2024 Person of the Year,” Time Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs said in a letter to readers.

The Republican president-elect is set to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday to commemorate the honour alongside several of his family members.

Trump was first named person of the year in 2016 after winning the US presidential election.

The magazine’s tradition – which started in 1927 as “Man of the Year” – recognises a person or movement that “for better or for worse… has done the most to influence the events of the year”.

Other previous winners include climate change activist Greta Thunberg, former President Barack Obama, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Pope Francis and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Time Magazine editors ultimately decide who wins the award.

The outlet was considering 10 people for the person of the year award, including Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Princess of Wales and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, now a close confidante of Trump set to lead an advisory board called the Department of Government Efficiency.

In a description of Trump for the list of finalists, Time said he had won the 2024 election “in a stunning political comeback”.

“He has reshaped the American electorate, activating young male voters who propelled him to a decisive victory that saw him win the popular vote for the first time and turn every swing state red,” the outlet said.

“His 2024 win is history-making in multiple ways: he will be the oldest President in U.S. history, and he was convicted earlier this year by a New York jury of 34 counts of fraud, making him the first convicted felon to be elected President.”

Trump sat for interviews with the magazine in April this year during the campaign season. During the wide-ranging discussions, Trump talked about his plans for a second term, including his goals of reforming the US immigration system and deporting millions of people.

Trump complained in 2015 when he was not chosen for the magazine cover during his first run for office, when the award went to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

But after he was named person of the year following his election win, he called it a “great honor”.

“It means a lot, especially me growing up reading Time magazine. And, you know, it’s a very important magazine,” he said at the time.

He has, however, continued to criticise the magazine’s choices since winning, including the selection of Taylor Swift as Time’s person of the year in 2023.

Prosecutors in Sweden have closed an inquiry into a case of alleged rape, which Swedish media had linked to French football captain Kylian Mbappé.

Marina Chirakova, of the Swedish Prosecution Authority, said the investigation into an alleged attack reported to have taken place in Stockholm had ended due to a lack of evidence.

The Real Madrid player, one of football’s most high-profile stars, was never formally named by Swedish prosecutors or notified by them of being under suspicion of a crime.

In October, when the allegations surfaced, Mbappé’s lawyer said her client was preparing to clear his name with a claim for defamation. Mbappé previously described the reports as “fake news”.

• Mbappé shocked by Swedish rape inquiry, lawyer says

Senior prosecutor Ms Chirakova, who headed the preliminary investigation, deemed the evidence “not sufficient to proceed further, and the investigation is therefore closed”.

The alleged rape and two cases of sexual harassment reportedly took place in a hotel in the Swedish capital on 10 October.

Several Swedish media outlets, including newspapers Aftonbladet and Expressen, and public broadcaster SVT, named Mbappé as a suspect.

He had been visiting Stockholm at the time.

Police were seen visiting the Bank hotel where he had stayed, with officers later leaving with bags. One report said they had taken clothing from the hotel in evidence.

On Sunday, speaking for the first time about the case on French TV show Clique, Mbappé said he was “not involved”.

“I haven’t received anything, no summons… I’m not involved.”

His lawyer previously condemned the Swedish media reports as defamatory and said that nothing was known of the complaint.

“[Mbappé] is never alone. He is never put in a position where he ends up in a situation that would lead to him taking a risk,” Marie-Alix Canu-Bernard said.

The Real Madrid forward this week scored his 50th Champions League goal. He transferred from Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) earlier this year.

He won the World Cup as a teenager, in 2018, in Russia and scored a hat-trick in the 2022 final in Qatar – which France lost on penalties to Lionel Messi’s Argentina.

At PSG, he was part of a superstar trio with Messi and Brazilian forward Neymar.

Last year, the Paris-born star finished in third place for the Ballon d’Or and Best FIFA Men’s Player prizes.

The rate of medical assistance in dying – also known as euthanasia – has grown in Canada for the fifth straight year, albeit at a slower pace.

The country released its fifth annual report since legalising assisted dying in 2016, which for the first time included data on the ethnicity of those seeking euthanasia.

Around 15,300 people underwent assisted dying last year, accounting for 4.7% of deaths in the country. Canada lawmakers are currently seeking to expand access to euthanasia to cover people with mental illnesses by 2027.

Canada is among a few countries that have introduced assisted dying laws in the past decade. Others include Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Austria.

The figures released on Wednesday by Health Canada show that the rate of assisted dying in Canada increased by nearly 16% in 2023. This number is a sharp drop from the average increase of 31% in previous years.

The report cautioned that it is too early to determine what caused the rate to slacken.

Nearly all of those who requested assisted dying – around 96% – had a foreseeable natural death. The remaining 4% were granted euthanasia due to having a long-term chronic illness and where a natural death was not imminent.

The average age of those seeking assisted dying was around 77 years old, with cancer being the most frequent underlying medical condition.

For the first time, the report delved into race and ethnic data of those who died by euthanasia.

Around 96% of recipients identified as white people, who account for about 70% of Canada’s population. It is unclear what caused this disparity.

The second most reported ethnic group was east Asians (1.8%), who account for about 5.7% of Canadians.

Assisted dying continued to have the highest usage rate in Quebec, which accounted for nearly 37% of all euthanasia deaths, despite the province holding just 22% of Canada’s population.

Quebec’s government launched a study earlier this year to examine why its euthanasia rate was so high.

While the number of assisted deaths in Canada is growing, the country still falls behind the Netherlands, where euthanasia accounted for around 5% of total deaths last year.

UK MPs voted late last month to pass a similar bill that gives terminally ill adults in England and Wales the right to have an assisted death, though it will face months of further scrutiny before it could become law.

As British MPs debated the legislation, Canada was cited by some as a cautionary tale due to its perceived lack of safeguards.

Like the UK, Canada initially only legalised assisted dying for those whose death was “reasonably foreseeable”.

However, Canada expanded access in 2021 to people who may not have a terminal diagnosis, but want to end their life because of a chronic, debilitating condition.

It was set to broaden access once again to people with mental illnesses earlier this year.

But that was delayed for the second time after concerns were raised by Canadian provinces, which oversee healthcare delivery, about whether the system could cope with such an expansion.

On Wednesday, Health Canada defended the procedure, saying that the criminal code sets out “strict eligibility” criteria.

But Cardus, a Christian think tank, said the latest figures were “alarming” and showed Canada has one of the fastest growing euthanasia programmes in the world.

A report released in October by Ontario – Canada’s most populous province – has since shed some light on controversial cases where people were granted assisted dying when they were not nearing their natural death.

One example included a woman in her 50s with a history of depression and suicidal thoughts who had a severe sensitivity to chemicals.

Her request for euthanasia was granted after she failed to secure housing that could have met her medical needs.

Another case made headlines in recent months of a Nova Scotia cancer patient who said she was asked if she was aware of assisted dying as an option twice as she underwent mastectomy surgeries.

The question “came up in completely inappropriate places”, she told the National Post.

Canadian news outlets have also reported on cases where people with disabilities have considered assisted dying due to lack of housing or disability benefits.

At least 35 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza, including 12 guarding incoming aid lorries, local medics and the Hamas-run Civil Defence authority say.

Seven guards were killed in a strike in Rafah while protecting aid lorries from violent armed theft, which UN workers say is the main obstacle to getting supplies into southern Gaza. Another attack left five guards dead in Khan Younis.

The Israeli military said it “conducted precise strikes on armed Hamas terrorists” who had planned to hijack the lorries.

In a separate Israeli attack, 15 people were killed near Nuseirat refugee camp, the Civil Defence said.

“The occupation once again targeted those securing the aid trucks,” Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Basal told the AFP news agency.

He added that around 30 people, most of them children, were also wounded in the two strikes.

The lorries were carrying flour to warehouses belonging to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), Mr Basal said.

Recently – amid severe food shortages – UN workers say violent armed thefts have been the main obstacle to getting aid into the southern part of Gaza. Civilians, as well as remnants of Hamas police, have mobilised to try to counter the gangs.

Hamas says Israeli military strikes have killed at least 700 police tasked with securing aid lorries in Gaza since the latest war began on 7 October 2023.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said: “Overnight, following intelligence information indicating the presence of Hamas terrorists, the IDF conducted precise strikes on armed Hamas terrorists gathered at two different meeting points in southern Gaza.”

It added that “all of the terrorists that were eliminated were members of Hamas and planned to violently hijack humanitarian aid trucks and transfer them to Hamas”.

Separately, Israeli air strikes on two homes near Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza, and Gaza City, in the north, killed 21 more people, the Civil Defence said.

At least six children were among the 15 people killed in Nuseirat, while the bodies of six other people were found after a strike on an apartment in Gaza City, Mr Basal said.

Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the Palestinian group’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

More than 44,800 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

After months of failed international efforts to end the war, Israel’s defence minister has told his US counterpart there is a chance for a new deal that would allow the return of all of the remaining hostages, including American citizens.

Other reports have suggested a limited deal with Hamas is being discussed.

Seventeen years after Romania and Bulgaria joined the European Union, they have been given the green light to become members of its border-free Schengen travel zone.

The decision by fellow EU member states means that from 1 January 2025, it will be possible to drive all the way to France, Spain or Norway without a passport.

It’s a moment of huge relief for the 25 million people who live in Romania and Bulgaria, and who will finally feel accepted as full members of the EU. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said it was a “day of joy”.

Although border checks were lifted on travel by air and sea for the two countries last March, it was only last month that Austria lifted its resistance to ending border checks by land.

But for truck drivers, the border bureaucracy is not over yet.

Hungary looks set to continue inspecting each truck and its documents for at least six months at the main Romania-Hungary border crossing at Nadlac.

Bulgaria has built a new truck park and electronic barrier at Ruse, beside the bridge across the Danube to Romania, charging €25 (£20) per truck.

And “temporary” border controls have been imposed across the continent, by countries afraid of a spike in illegal migration.

The Schengen zone first became a reality in 1985 and now includes most EU nations, as well as some non-EU countries, including Norway and Switzerland.

The UK has never been in Schengen, although visitors from the UK can currently visit the zone without a visa for up to 90 days every 180 days.

Hungarian and Romanian border police were coy when I crossed from Hungary into Romania hours before the EU’s announcement.

“We’ll find out the details tomorrow,” said a Hungarian official with a grin.

And it is the devil that may lie in the details.

• Neighbours criticise German move on temporary border controls

Ovidiu Dabija headed for the border at dawn after manoeuvring his SUV with a 31ft-long Sterk powerboat out of a yard in Timisoara, the main city in western Romania.

He drives the powerboat from its home in Germany to one boat show after another. Last week he was in Athens. Next week he will head to the manufacturer’s base near Nuremberg.

“Romania joining Schengen is going to save me hours at each border crossing,” he tells me in a lay-by beside the Nadlac crossing.

“Our drivers lose at least 12 hours at each border crossing,” says Radu Dinescu, head of the Romanian Road-Haulers’ Association. “The worst wait was five days at the Hungary-Romania border.”

He estimates that the Romanian road transport industry lost €19bn between 2012 and 2023 because of delays at the borders. That pushed up prices which consumers ended up paying.

“The main beneficiaries from 1 January will be the cars and private persons,” says Dinescu, although even they will still be subject to random controls.

For trucks, he does not believe there will be much immediate difference.

The big problem for truck drivers, he says, is that all truck inspections take place at the border, from weighing to permits and load-checking, sanitary and environmental examinations, as well as the search for illegal migrants.

In other countries already inside the Schengen zone, such checks take place more swiftly and efficiently in dedicated motorway vehicle parks far from the border.

Radu Dinescu blames successive governments in Romania for failing to negotiate new arrangements with the country’s neighbours, to take the pressure off the borders.

He cites an EU regulation from 2008 that calls for the control of the weight and dimensions of trucks to be removed from border crossings between EU members states.

That has never been implemented on the Romanian border with Hungary or on the Romanian border with Bulgaria, because of competition between rival inspectorates.

It’s not just about trade, but also investment, says the head of the Romanian Road-Haulers’ Association.

When BMW was trying to choose between Hungary and Romania as a site for a new car factory, the wait at the Romania-Hungary border mysteriously increased.

BMW subsequently chose the Hungarian city of Debrecen.

Dacia Renault, Romania’s biggest carmaker, faces constant delays in getting parts delivered across Schengen borders. “I don’t want to underestimate the value of our land borders joining Schengen, but there is still some work to be done,” says Dinescu.

In Timisoara, Philip Cox of Romania’s biggest wine exporter, Cramele Recas, is more optimistic.

“Border controls will take a while to wither away,” he believes, “but it will happen, perhaps in six months, because it’s in everyone’s interest.”

And that will make his wines more competitive in Europe’s western and northern markets, he believes.

Ethiopia and Somalia have agreed to end their bitter dispute over Addis Ababa’s plans to build a port in the breakaway republic of Somaliland following talks in Turkey.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomed the “historic agreement”, which he said would eventually ensure landlocked Ethiopia’s access to the sea.

At the press conference he held hands with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who both agreed to respect one another’s “sovereignty”.

The two neighbours have been at loggerheads since January when Ethiopia signed a maritime deal with Somaliland – which Somalia considers as part of its territory.

It prompted fears of a wider regional conflict as Egypt has been backing Somalia – largely due to its anger with Ethiopia for building a dam on the River Nile.

Turkey has in recent years become an important geopolitical player in the Horn of Africa as it has close economic ties with Addis Ababa and security deals with Mogadishu.

• Ethiopia-Somaliland deal: Can the Horn of Africa rift be healed?
• Ethiopia warns against invasion amid regional tensions
• Why Ethiopia is so alarmed by an Egypt-Somalia alliance

Erdogan said the agreement – announced on Wednesday night in the Turkish capital, Ankara – was “the first step towards a new beginning”.

“I congratulate both my brothers for reaching to this historic reconciliation with devotion and thank them for their constructive attitude,” he said.

President Mohamud said his country was “ready to work with the Ethiopian leadership and the Ethiopian people”.

While Prime Minister Abiy insisted Ethiopia’s efforts to secure and reliable access to the sea did not threaten Somalia and the two had “addressed the misunderstandings that have occurred over the past year”.

The feud began on New Year’s Day, when Abiy signed a controversial deal with Somaliland to lease a 20km (12-mile) section of its coastline for 50 years to set up a naval base.

In exchange, Ethiopia – the world’s most-populous landlocked nation – was to reportedly recognise Somaliland as an independent country, although Addis Ababa never explicitly confirmed this.

Somaliland, which broke away from Somalia more than 30 years ago, has long been pushing for recognition – but Mogadishu described the move as an act of “aggression”.

According to the Ankara joint declaration, the two Horn of Africa neighbours are to reconvene in February to hold “technical talks”.

In the interim they will strive to reach “mutually beneficial commercial arrangements” to ensure Ethiopia gains access to the sea “under Somalia’s sovereignty”.

It is not clear if Ethiopia has discarded the deal it signed with Somaliland – something demanded by Somalia at earlier mediation efforts.

Last month, Somaliland elected a new president – former opposition leader Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi – who promised to “review” the maritime deal.

During his inauguration speech on Thursday morning he made no mention of it.

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

• Turkey and Africa: Drones, deals and drama
• Why is Egypt worried about Ethiopia’s dam on the Nile?
• A quick guide to Somaliland

Syrian rebel forces have said they plan to close the notoriously harsh prisons run by ousted president Bashar al-Assad and hunt those involved in the killing or torture of detainees.

Rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, also said he would dissolve the security forces of the former regime, in a statement seen by the Reuters news agency.

Videos showing thousands of prisoners being freed from Saydnaya prison – referred to as a “human slaughterhouse” by rights groups – surfaced after the collapse of the Assad government on Sunday.

Almost 60,000 people were tortured and killed in the prisons run by Assad, UK-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Jolani’s Islamist militant group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led other Syrian rebel factions in a lightning offensive that toppled the Assad dynasty’s 54-year-rule.

Assad fled to Russia in the early hours of Sunday, where he and his family have been given asylum, after rebels captured the capital Damascus.

In a separate statement, Jolani said pardons for those who took part in the torture or killing of prisoners were out of the question.

“We will pursue them in Syria, and we ask countries to hand over those who fled so we can achieve justice,” he said.

Since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad Syrians have rushed to the regime’s infamous prisons, desperately searching for their loved ones. In a 2022 report, the Turkey-based Association of Detainees and The Missing in Saydnaya Prison (ADMSP) said Saydnaya “effectively became a death camp” after the start of the civil war in 2011.

Jolani also said he would dissolve the former Assad regime’s security forces. It is not clear how quickly they could be reconstituted by rebel fighters amid concerns about Israeli strikes on the country’s military infrastructure.

In the statement seen by Reuters, Jolani said his group was working with international organisations to secure possible chemical weapons sites.

When asked about the Reuters report, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said the US “welcomed” Jolani’s words but said they needed to be met with actions.

“Our focus is that these chemical weapons do not fall into the wrong hands”, she added.

This comes after Israel carried out hundreds of strikes across Syria and seized a number of military assets.

One of the attacks targeted a research centre with suspected links to chemical weapon production, according to local media reports.

Israel says it is acting to stop weapons falling “into the hands of extremists”.

A chemical weapon is described by the UN’s chemical watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), as a chemical used to cause intentional death or harm through its toxic properties.

Their use is prohibited under international humanitarian law.

Between 2013 to 2018, Human Rights Watch documented at least 85 chemical weapons attacks in Syria, accusing the ousted government of being responsible for most of them.

Assad’s government denied ever using chemical weapons.

Syria signed the OPCW’s Chemical Weapons Certificate in 2013, a month after a chemical weapons attack on suburbs of Damascus left more than 1,400 people dead.

It is not known how many chemical weapons Syria has, but it’s believed Assad kept stockpiles and that the declaration he had made was incomplete.

Victims of chemical attacks in Syria have recently spoken to the BBC about the devastating impacts they’ve experienced.

Meanwhile, European foreign ministers are meeting in Berlin on Thursday to hold critical talks on Syria and Ukraine.

A day later, leaders of the G7 countries will also discuss the latest developments in Syria at a virtual meeting, the White House said.

After launching hundreds of air strikes on Syrian military assets and seizing positions including the summit of a mountain with an uninterrupted sightline to the capital Damascus, Israel appears to be taking advantage of what it sees as a unique moment of opportunity.

Syrian command structures were in disarray, with key positions apparently left unmanned after the fall of the Assad regime.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says its air force and navy have conducted more than 350 strikes since Saturday night, taking out an estimated 70-80% of Syrian strategic military assets from Damascus to Latakia.

They included fighter aircraft, radar and air defence sites, and naval ships, as well as weapons stockpiles, the IDF said.

“The navy operated last night to destroy the Syrian fleet with great success,” said Defence Minister Israel Katz.

The IDF has also moved ground forces east from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights into a demilitarised buffer zone in Syria and, it now admits, just beyond.

Katz said he had told the military to “establish a sterile defence zone free of weapons and terrorist threats in southern Syria, without a permanent Israeli presence”.

One Israeli commentator said the past 72 hours had “stood out even for people who thought they had already seen everything”.

“It didn’t strip the Syrian military of specific capabilities only – it sent it back to the starting line, bereft of any significant strategic capabilities,” wrote Yoav Limor in the Israel Hayom newspaper.

“The IDF operation to destroy Syria’s military capabilities is the largest it has ever undertaken,” commented Udi Etzion on the Walla news site.

Former Israeli Air Force officers commented in online posts that some of the attacks carried out as part of this operation were based on plans drawn years ago.

One military analyst said that some targets were already identified by Israel in the mid-1970s.

Meanwhile, troops have taken control of positions in the Golan, including the top of Mt Hermon, according to Israeli media. In Arabic, the mountain is known as Jabal al-Sheikh.

“The territory guarantees strategic control over the whole southern Syrian arena, which generates an immediate threat to Israel,” the Ynet news website quoted Kobi Michael, a researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), as saying. “There is no higher vantage point than the Syrian part of the Golan.”

• Follow live coverage
• What is the Golan heights?

Officials stress that Israel has been acting in its own national security interests following the collapse of the Assad regime.

They say the aim is to stop weapons that the regime held falling into the wrong hands – whether Syrian extremist factions or its old foe, the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah. Hezbollah and its backer, Iran, were close allies of Assad, helping him to prop him up in office during the long civil war in Syria.

“We will not allow an extreme Islamic terrorist entity to act against Israel beyond its border, putting its citizens at risk,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video message on Tuesday.

Syria and Israel fought against each other in the Middle East Wars of 1948, 1967 and 1973 and formally regard each other as enemy states.

Under Bashar al-Assad, Syria was a significant regional military power. Israel had attacked it in recent years in hundreds of strikes that were rarely openly acknowledged. Israel’s calculation included a sphere of deniability for itself but also for Assad so he would not feel forced to respond.

These had focused on preventing transfer of weapons to Hezbollah, as the main transport route was overland from Syria to Lebanon, arms manufacturing, and Syrian air defence systems, which posed a threat to Israeli warplanes sent on missions.

Israel avoided major attacks that could have led to wider war and sought to avoid conflict with Russia, after it became Assad’s biggest supporter in recent years.

Some defence analysts suggest that Israel wanted to avoid weakening the Syrian regime for fear of triggering the chaos that could follow if its opponents seized power. Over the years, Israel and Syria – under its secular, Baathist regime – stuck to well-defined red lines; it was a known adversary.

But the speedy advance of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) prompted a hastily developed new Israeli strategy.

UN peacekeepers remain in the buffer zone established in Syrian territory following the 1973 Middle East War and have stressed that by moving its ground forces in, Israel is now in violation of the ceasefire agreement which set it up.

Israeli officials argue that the ceasefire agreement has now collapsed, as the other party to the agreement ceased to exist, and that its moves are temporary and limited for self-defence.

A UN peacekeeping spokesperson said peacekeepers were “unable to move freely within the buffer zone following recent events”, adding that it was “imperative that the UN peacekeepers are allowed carry out their mandated tasks without hindrance”.

“We’re against these types of attacks. I think this is a turning point for Syria. It should not be used by its neighbours to encroach on the territory of Syria,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Iraq and the Arab League have all issued official statements, with several presenting it as a land grab made by taking advantage of recent events, and a violation of Syria’s sovereignty and international law.

France and Germany have also criticised Israeli actions, with France demanding Israel withdraw troops from the buffer area and Germany warning Israel along with Turkey to Syria’s north not to jeopardise the chances of a peaceful transition in Syria.

“We must not allow the internal Syrian dialogue process to be torpedoed from the outside,” said Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

The US has urged Israel to ensure its incursion is “temporary”.

Among Israelis however there has been broad public support for the country’s pre-emptive actions.

Several media outlets are stressing the potential danger posed by Syria’s new Islamist leaders, with HTS still widely designated as a terrorist organisation.

In the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, Amihai Attali congratulated Israel’s military and political establishments, saying they had learnt a valuable lesson from the deadly Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, which caught the country off guard.

“One of the most important lessons of the invasion, massacre and mass-kidnappings is that we cannot afford the privilege of trying to interpret enemy intentions,” he wrote.

“We can’t afford to make mistakes on that front. We don’t have the margin of error for that.”

Russian naval vessels appear to have temporarily left their main port in Syria, satellite images reviewed by BBC Verify show, amid continuing uncertainty about Moscow’s military future in the country after the fall of its ally, Bashar al-Assad.

Images taken by Maxar on 10 December show some ships have left Tartous naval base since Sunday and are currently sitting offshore in the Mediterranean Sea.

Meanwhile, other photos taken on the same day show activity continuing at Russia’s main airbase in Syria, Hmeimim, with jets clearly visible on the tarmac.

On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would enter talks with incoming authorities about Russia’s future military presence.

“Everything possible is now being done to get in touch with those involved in ensuring security and, of course, our military is also taking all the necessary precautions,” he told reporters in Moscow.

He previously warned that it was “premature” to speculate on the bases’ future.

“You know that, of course, we maintain contacts with those who control the situation in Syria now. This is necessary because we have our bases there and our diplomatic office [embassy]. And of course, ensuring the safety and security of our facilities are of utmost importance,” he told reporters.

The Tartous naval facility houses elements of the Black Sea Fleet and is Russia’s only repair and replenishment hub in the Mediterranean. Established by the Soviet Union in the 1970s, it was expanded and modernised by Russia in 2012 as the Kremlin began to increase its support for President Assad’s regime.

It allows Russian vessels to remain in the Mediterranean without having to return to ports in the Black Sea via the Turkish Straits. It is also a deep-water port, meaning it can host submarines from Moscow’s nuclear fleet, according to the US Naval Institute.

The new satellite images show Moscow has at least temporarily brought its ships out of the port, with two guided missile frigates moored about 13km (eight miles) off the Syrian coast. It is unclear where the remainder of the fleet – pictured in earlier images – currently is.

It is also unclear whether their departure is part of a permanent withdrawal from Tartous. In recent weeks, satellite images have repeatedly shown naval vessels coming and going from the port.

Mike Plunkett from the open-source defence intelligence analysts at Janes organisation noted that the Russian movements appeared to have been “conducted to ensure that their ships are not vulnerable to attack”.

“Whether they are worried about attack from the Syrian rebels or collateral damage from any Israeli strike on Syrian assets in Tartus is unknown,” he added.

Frederik Van Lokeren, a former Belgian navy lieutenant and analyst, told BBC Verify that it appeared the Russian vessels were now in a holding pattern while Moscow deliberated on its next move.

“They’re effectively in limbo at the moment, because they don’t quite know what’s going to happen,” Mr Van Lokeren said.

“Obviously, since they’re lingering there, it seems that Russia is not willing to withdraw all its naval vessels out of the area just yet, which might be an indication that they’re negotiating with regional partners to see where they can redeploy these vessels.”

Analysts have speculated that if Russia is forced to close the Tartous naval facility, it could redeploy its presence to Tobruk in Libya. The region is controlled by the Kremlin-backed Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and already hosts some Russian airbases.

But withdrawing from Tartous would be immensely costly, and Mr Van Lokeren noted that the move would also bring Russian vessels closer to Nato bases, making them easier to track. For now, he said, there is no indication that Russia is moving the necessary naval assets to remove equipment from Tartous.

• Syria rebels burn tomb of Bashar al-Assad’s father
• Syria’s new transitional PM calls for stability and calm
• Israel confirms attack on Syrian naval fleet

Meanwhile, since 2015 the Hmeimim air base has been a key part of Russia’s operations across the Middle East and Africa. It has been used to launch devastating air strikes on cities across Syria in support of the Assad regime, while also using it to fly military contractors to Africa.

Satellite images reviewed by BBC Verify showed at least two large jets – identified by Janes as IL-76 transport aircraft – still sitting on the tarmac at the base on 10 December. Helicopters could also be seen at the base in the images.

Janes also notes that air defence systems deployed at the site remain visible in the north-western corner of the image.

Dara Massicot, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said on X on Sunday that an evacuation of the airbase would involve a massive airlift requiring far more jets than those visible in the satellite images, suggesting that Moscow does not plan to evacuate imminently.

“When Russian forces deployed to Syria in 2015, they flew almost 300 sorties in two weeks, and that was before base expansion,” she wrote on X.

“A change signifying a major evacuation will be clear,” she added.

Despite the current holding pattern Russian forces appear to be displaying, the fall of the Assad regime represents a major blow to the Kremlin’s ambitions in the region. During a 2017 visit to Khmeimim air base, President Vladimir Putin made clear that he intended for Moscow’s presence to be a long-term project.

Reflecting on the situation, an influential pro-Kremlin military blogger Rybar warned on Telegram that Russia’s power-projection exercise in the region was in serious danger.

“Russia’s military presence in the Middle East region is hanging by a thread,” he concluded.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

Papua New Guinea (PNG) will join Australia’s national rugby league competition, after signing a deal that obligates them to shun security ties with China.

The Pacific nation has produced many stars of Australia’s National Rugby League (NRL) and has long been lobbying to join the franchise.

Australia will provide A$600m (£301m, $384m) over ten years to set up the team – which will be based in Port Moresby and compete from 2028 – and help develop the game at a grassroots level across the Pacific region.

In exchange, PNG signed a separate pact which it says reaffirms its commitment to Australia as its major security partner.

The precise terms of the dual deals are confidential, but the BBC understands they allow Australia to withdraw funding if PNG enters a security agreement with a nation outside the so-called “Pacific family”. That term is widely accepted to exclude China, despite Beijing’s efforts to gain a foothold in the region.

If Canberra pulls out, the NRL is then obligated to drop the PNG team.

Announcing the agreement in Sydney on Thursday, PNG Prime Minister James Marape said it was a “monumental” opportunity for his country, and one aimed at fostering “unity” – not only between the 830 language groups in PNG, but also between the nation at large and its closest neighbour.

“For us, it’s not just sport and sport commerce, it is [about]… uniting the most diverse nation on the face of planet Earth and also uniting PNG-Australia together in ways that matter most, people to people,” he told reporters.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared it was a “great day” for both countries, and said PNG – the only country in the world where rugby league is the national sport – “deserves” a spot in the league.

“The new team will belong to the people of Papua New Guinea… And I know it will have millions of proud fans barracking for it from day one,” Albanese said.

It is a big milestone for the NRL too. This is the first time the competition, which is trying to lure international audiences, has expanded overseas. The only other foreign team, the New Zealand Warriors, has been a part of the competition since its inception almost three decades ago.

NRL boss Peter V’landys had been championing the PNG bid, arguing it was a huge opportunity for the league, as well as for PNG’s economic development.

A name and uniform for the new team will be decided at a later point.

Stuart Murray, an Associate Professor of International Relations, told the BBC that while Australia’s use of sport as a diplomatic strategy is nothing new, this agreement is unprecedented.

The country has over the past decade been “thinking innovatively about how you can marry sport with policy to counter classical security threats” said Dr Murray, from Bond University.

In this case, he added, “the scale, the size, the scope and the funding, and the fact that it’s being endorsed at such a high level with both prime ministers – that’s never been done before”.

“Basically, through this one channel, we will open up 20 or 30 other channels – for business, trade, policing, educational exchange, gender work, climate change… I think it is fantastic.”

Australia and China have each been vying for greater influence in the Pacific in recent years. After Beijing inked a major policing deal with the Solomon Islands in 2022, Australia has spent years trying to forge exclusive security pacts with countries across the region – including a policing agreement with Tuvalu last year, and a treaty with Nauru unveiled earlier this week.

Some have lauded the pact with PNG – which declared independence from Australia in 1975 – as another major strategic win for Australia.

“Over the past couple of years, with the heightened geopolitical interest and engagement in the Pacific, something a lot of other middle powers and major powers have struggled to do is to get PNG on a deal of exclusivity for security partnerships,” said Oliver Nobetau, a PNG government lawyer turned policy analyst at the Lowy Institute think tank.

Both prime ministers have sought to downplay the security aspect of the deals, framing them instead as a boon to what Mr Nobetau says has been a “thinning” relationship between the two countries.

Marape made a point to say the agreement “doesn’t stop us from relating with any nation, especially our Asian neighbours”.

“We relate with China, for instance, a great trading partner, a great bilateral partner,” he said. “But in security, closer to home… our shared territory needs to be protected, defended, policed… together.”

Government sources say the deals do not give Australia veto power over PNG security agreements. But their framing does have the effect of eliminating almost every other potential partner – and Mr Nobetau said the announcement could be seen by some in PNG as “an exertion of Australian power over PNG sovereignty”.

Both he and Dr Murray also note, however, that the dual deals speak to an emerging “transactional” dynamic in Pacific relations.

“People that talk about goodwill and who say sport and politics don’t mix, that’s the 20th century view,” Dr Murray said. “For us, there’s no way we’re going to give away one of our prize cultural assets for nothing. That doesn’t happen in diplomacy.”

Dr Murray and Mr Nobetau also both agree that the deals mark a significant moment in bilateral relations between the two countries – and are a likely indicator of how Australia is going to continue to pursue its agenda across the region.

“China puts in a lot of money into sport infrastructure… which is sort of what China is good at… [but] China is not going to be offering any alternatives in this space,” Mr Nobetau said.

“It’s something that other countries can’t do,” Dr Murray added. “We need to use it, especially in a very, very contested region such as the Pacific.”

India’s top court is hearing a number of petitions challenging a decades-old law that preserves the character and identity of religious places as they existed at the time of the country’s independence in 1947.

The law, introduced in 1991, prohibits converting or altering the character of any place of worship and prevents courts from entertaining disputes over its status, with the exception of the Babri Masjid case, which was explicitly exempted.

The Babri Masjid, a 16th-Century mosque, was at the heart of a long-standing dispute, culminating in its demolition by a Hindu mob in 1992. A court verdict in 2019 awarded the site to Hindus for the construction of a temple, reigniting debates over India’s religious and secular fault lines.

The current petitions, including one from a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), argue that the 1991 law infringes on religious freedom and constitutional secularism.

The hearing comes against a backdrop of Hindu groups filing cases to challenge the status of many mosques, claiming they were built over demolished Hindu temples.

• Why India’s tallest minaret landed in the courts

Many, including opposition leaders and Muslim groups, have defended the law, saying it is crucial to safeguard the places of worship of religious minorities in a Hindu-majority India. They also question the nature of historical evidence presented by the petitioners in support of their claims.

They say that if the law is struck down or diluted, it could open the floodgates for a slew of similar challenges and inflame religious tensions, especially between Hindus and Muslims.

The law says that the religious character of any place of worship – temples, mosques, churches and gurdwaras – must be maintained as it was on 15 August 1947, when Indian became independent.

The Place of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 was brought in by the then-Congress party government while a movement – led by members of the Hindu nationalist BJP – to build a temple at the site of the Babri Masjid in the northern town of Ayodhya was getting stronger. The aggressive campaign triggered riots in several parts of the country and, according to some estimates, left hundreds dead.

The violence was a painful reminder of the religious strife India had witnessed during partition in 1947.

While introducing the bill in parliament, then home minister SB Chavan expressed anxiety about “an alarming rise of intolerance propagated by certain sections for their narrow vested interests”.

These groups, he said, were resorting to “forcible conversion” of places of worship in an attempt to create new disputes.

The BJP, then in the opposition, strongly opposed the bill, with some lawmakers walking out of parliament. An MP from the party said he believed the bill was brought in to appease the minorities and would only increase the rift between Hindus and Muslims.

Apart from archaeological sites – whether religious or not – the only exception to the law was the Babri Masjid, as a legal challenge against the structure existed even before independence.

Hindu mobs, however, demolished the mosque within months of the enactment of the law. In 2019, while awarding the disputed land to Hindu groups, India’s Supreme Court said that the demolition of the mosque was an illegal act.

The Supreme Court’s ruling on the law will be crucial to the fate of dozens of religious structures, especially those of Muslims, that are contested by Hindu groups. These include Gyanvapi and Shahi Eidgah, two disputed mosques in the holy cities of Varanasi and Mathura.

While the hearing is being closely watched, the law also makes news whenever there is a fresh development in cases challenging mosques.

Two weeks ago, a court in Rajasthan issued notices to the government after admitting a petition claiming that the revered Ajmer Sharif dargah – a 13th-Century Sufi shrine that attracts thousands of visitors every day – stood over a Hindu temple.

And last month, four people were killed in Sambhal town in Uttar Pradesh state when violence broke out during a court-ordered survey of a 16th-Century mosque. Muslim groups have contested the survey in the Supreme Court.

There have been tensions over other court-ordered surveys earlier, including in the case of the Gyanvapi mosque. Hindu groups said the 17th-Century mosque was built by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb on the partial ruins of the Kashi Vishwanath temple. Muslim groups opposed the survey ordered by a local court, saying it violated the 1991 law.

But in 2022, a Supreme Court bench headed by then chief justice DY Chandrachud did not stop the survey from going ahead. He also observed that the 1991 law did not prevent investigations into the status of a place of worship as of 15 August 1947, as long as it did not seek to alter it.

Many have criticised this since then, with former civil servant Harsh Mander saying that it “opened the floodgates for this series of orders by courts that run contrary to the 1991 law”.

“If you allow the survey of a mosque to determine if a temple lay below it, but then prohibit actions to restore a temple at that site, this is a surefire recipe for fostering resentment, hate and fear that could detonate for years in bitter feuds between people of diverse faiths,” Mr Mander wrote.

Critics also point out that the historical nature of the sites will make it hard to conclusively establish divergent claims, leaving scope for bitter inter-religious battles and violence.

A man armed with an AK-47 assault rifle waves us down an alley. We’re in a small village in eastern Pakistan, to meet someone who says he can tell us how Sara Sharif’s family managed to hide from police for more than four weeks during an international police hunt.

He was the one who hid them, he tells us.

For nearly a month, police searched for the family of eight – Sara’s father Urfan Sharif, her stepmother Beinash Batool and uncle Faisal Malik, along with five of her siblings.

They had flown to Pakistan on 9 August 2023 – a day before 10-year-old Sara’s battered and lifeless body was found in a bedroom at their home in Woking, Surrey.

Having received a notice from Interpol to locate Sharif, Batool and Malik, police started a high profile search for the family across Pakistan, deploying multiple teams.

They suspected Rasikh Munir, a relative of Urfan Sharif’s, of helping them. But during multiple raids on his property, they failed to find the family.

The children were later found at another relative’s home. Mr Munir told us that was the moment Sharif, Batool and Malik decided to fly back to England, where they were finally arrested on 13 September 2023.

The BBC has followed the story in Pakistan since the first media reports of Sara’s death broke.

We met Rasikh Munir before Sara’s father, uncle and stepmother were put on trial for her murder in London, before the jury heard horrific details of the injuries that Sara had sustained – bite marks, iron burns and injuries caused by hot liquid.

He told us he had believed Sharif was innocent and that he’d taken the family in to protect the children. He also revealed extraordinary details: about how the family had hidden in corn fields when police raided his home at night and how he’d driven them around the local area, buying ice creams and even visiting hairdressers while detectives searched for them.

And remarkably, he said Sharif, Batool and Malik had been hiding in a neighbouring house just metres away from us as we spoke to Sara’s grandfather shortly after her siblings had been taken away by police.

A jury at London’s Old Bailey has now found Sharif and Batool guilty of murdering Sara. Malik was cleared of murder but has been found guilty of causing or allowing her death.

We meet Rasikh Munir on the outskirts of Sialkot, an industrial district in Punjab, surrounded by rice fields and corn crops.

There is barbed wire above the gate to his house and a security camera is trained on us. He welcomes us in, wearing a tracksuit and sliders.

Before we met, Mr Munir told me he’d done nothing wrong in hiding the family. There was no Interpol request for their arrest when he hid them, but he knew police wanted to speak to the family about Sara’s death.

When we come face-to-face, I wonder if he’ll be coy about his involvement, yet within minutes of entering the house, his tour begins.

More on this story

• Follow live updates from the Old Bailey
• Sara Sharif trial: Dad and stepmum found guilty of murder
• Smiles, songs and dreams of X Factor
• Behind Sara’s smile was a life of violence and torture
• Listen to the 999 call Urfan Sharif made to Surrey Police

“This was Urfan’s room,” he says, showing me a dark bedroom with the curtains closed and a white bed frame with a yellow patterned sheet. “They [Sharif and Malik] used to sleep here, they used this table for food.”

He points to a red plastic table and blue sofa. “They used to sit here with Beinash to contact the lawyer and discuss how they should talk to police in the UK.”

He takes me through to a second bedroom, hung with dark red curtains and a double bed squeezed beside a wooden wardrobe. This, he says, is where Batool and the children used to sleep – some on the bed, some on mattresses on the floor.

As we talk, I notice the outline of a gun tucked in his waistband. When we ask about the weapons, we are told they are for protection from thieves.

We climb out onto an open, flat roof, strung with an empty washing line. “From this roof, you could see the police from all four sides,” Mr Munir says pointing across the open fields.

Bar a few one-storey buildings and a scattering of trees, the view is nearly clear to the main road.

Police came to the property on several occasions at night. Mr Munir tells us the family hid from officers in a thick field of corn, a few metres away from the house – the adults and all five children hiding in the dark, in hot, humid conditions.

“No police ever checked this area. The kids had just one bag, they didn’t have many clothes with them. Most of their stuff was in my car, which I used to park in a safe place,” he says.

“The younger ones didn’t know what was happening,” he says. “They were scared, they couldn’t understand.”

This was not the first time the family had visited the house. Last time, Sara had been there too. “She was a very nice girl,” Mr Munir remembers.

During the international police hunt, he says the family stayed with him for several weeks, but they weren’t in permanent hiding.

He tells us he drove them back and forth between his house in Sialkot and the city of Jhelum, two hours away, where Sara’s grandfather lived. He took them to have haircuts in town and sometimes for ice cream and pizza.

Before the police hunt intensified, he says the family was able to pass through police checkpoints without incident.

But then the net began to tighten.

Just over three weeks into the search, police found Sara’s siblings at their grandfather’s home. The BBC spoke to him minutes after the raid.

“The police have taken away all the children,” Muhammad Sharif told us. “They were safe with me.” He said Sharif and Batool weren’t there during the raid, but the police took all five of the children.

We were the first journalists inside the house after the raid. The neon plastic toys the children had been playing with were still on the beds. The smashed door was freshly splintered.

Now, Mr Munir tells us something incredible.

As we’d been filming that day, Sara’s father, stepmother and uncle had been hiding in the house next door – just metres away.

He says police only had permission to go into the grandfather’s house, so couldn’t check other nearby properties.

Cameras had been installed, attached to a big LCD screen, so the family could see when the police were coming.

The night the police closed in, Mr Munir says Sara’s father, uncle and stepmother “ran away”. They called him and he went to pick them up.

He says the family realised the game was up the following day. A court instructed that the children be placed in a children’s home in Pakistan.

We attended the hearing. The eldest of the five children carried the youngest through a crowd of police officers and local journalists, trying to protect their faces from camera flashes.

Mr Munir says the loss of the children and the growing police pressure prompted the adults to return to the UK. He said Sharif, Batool and Malik then contacted a UK lawyer and Surrey Police to say they’d be back within days.

He told us he booked flights in their names, even though there was an Interpol notice to find them. Mr Munir said he drove the trio to the airport and that Urfan even called him from the departure lounge to say they had cleared airport security.

When they arrived at Gatwick Airport, all three were arrested for Sara’s murder. The following month, a court allowed all the siblings to stay temporarily with a relative in Pakistan. Surrey County Council is still trying to bring them back to the UK. Their family in Pakistan is fighting to keep them there.

It is difficult to confirm every aspect of Mr Munir’s story. He has no photos of the time the family was with him – his phone was taken by the police, he tells us.

He has remained consistent and detailed in his story. He didn’t come to us. After several months of searching, we found him. We also know the police raided his property and were suspicious of his involvement from early on.

Throughout our conversation I was curious why he was happy to speak to us.

“One should tell what has happened,” he says. “The person who hides reality is not a good person.”

But when Mr Munir took the family in, he knew the 10-year-old girl he had met several summers before had been found dead and that police wanted to speak to the three adults hiding in his house.

The murder trial in London has since heard how Sara’s body was found with dozens of injuries. She had been hooded, burned and beaten during more than two years of horrific abuse.

Mr Munir was clear, even before the trial, there should be consequences for her brutal death. “Whoever has done this to Sara should be punished because they have done a great injustice,” he says.

It seems a contradictory response from someone who knowingly hid the three adults.

I kept pressing Mr Munir on whether he felt he had done anything wrong in hiding the adults and why he had helped the family.

“The case was in the UK, it had nothing to do with Pakistan,” he says. “Had it been a matter in Pakistan then maybe I wouldn’t have taken such a big risk.

“I helped Urfan and the young children. If I hadn’t helped them, they would have been completely helpless. I helped them to look after the kids, I felt sympathy for them.

“They were my people. Had I not stood by them and something bad had happened to them who would have been responsible for them?”

Sara’s grandfather and other members of the family have repeatedly lodged complaints in court that their family members were picked up by police to apply pressure on them to give up their whereabouts.

Police in Pakistan deny this. They say, since the hunt, all the cases against the family have been dropped.

But the consequences of the decision to bring the five children to Pakistan are not over.

All five, who until that point had spent their lives in the UK, are still in Pakistan. For now, their future is still uncertain.

A shopkeeper has revealed how he turned detective to track down a shoplifter after discovering goods stolen from his business for sale online.

Charlie Groves, who runs a garden centre in Bridport, Dorset, says he watched CCTV recordings of a woman concealing Jellycat toys in a pram carrying her child, before leaving the store without paying and getting into her car.

Mr Groves says he was able to piece together the woman’s identity by scouring resale websites, deciphering her car’s personalised number plate, and eventually finding her Facebook profile.

When he traced a seller on Vinted he suspected of selling on the stolen goods, Mr Groves discovered the man the account belonged to is married to the woman who had shoplifted the cuddly toys.

The National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) advises online shoppers to think carefully about whether something which appears to be a bargain is “too good to be true”.

Vinted says it is “constantly mobilised to detect and counter new malicious behaviour”, and reviews and improves processes when needed.

After realising a large Jellycat hedgehog toy worth £59 was missing from his garden centre shop in October, Charlie Groves decided to look for answers by reviewing the store’s CCTV recordings.

At one point, he saw a woman taking one of the stuffed toys from the shelves and handing it to her child to pacify them, before picking up one of the largest items on display and stuffing it into the bottom of her pram.

Security cameras also captured the woman in the garden centre car park, driving a car with a personalised number plate that appeared to reference a woman’s name.

In the days after the theft Mr Groves went online and found a Jellycat hedgehog like the one stolen from him being sold on resale site Vinted.

“It’s heartbreaking to find these things you’ve been displaying being sold online,” he told the BBC.

Mr Groves tracked down the Vinted account owner on Facebook and discovered he was married to a woman who looked like the same person he’d seen on the Groves Garden Centre CCTV footage stealing toys. The woman’s name on Facebook was very similar to the personalised number plate on the shoplifter’s car.

Mr Groves estimates the woman may have stolen eight Jellycats worth up to £400 from his shop that day. He says he has passed the information he gathered about the theft and resale of the stuffed animals to the police.

Dorset Police told the BBC it has reviewed the CCTV footage and further enquiries are ongoing, including liaising with neighbouring forces, but no arrests have been made.

“It’s quite frustrating,” Mr Groves says, “you do all this work – track them down – but you don’t get anything back.

“It would be good to have at least a deterrent to stop people coming in and being quite so brazen. It happens because the people doing the shoplifting know nothing is going to happen.”

The BBC tracked down the woman seen shoplifting in the CCTV footage to Bristol. She confirmed she is the owner of the vehicle seen in the store’s CCTV, but denied being involved in shoplifting cuddly toys from Groves Garden Centre to sell online.

The woman’s husband denies knowing any stolen items were being advertised for sale on his Vinted account.

At another garden centre in Horsham, Sussex, Jellycat toys were also regularly being stolen and staff now display them in glass cabinets to prevent further thefts.

Old Barn Garden Centre’s head of security, Chris Hoare, believes proofs of purchase should be a requirement for people selling goods through online marketplaces.

“They need to have an accountability for how this stuff is resold on their sites,” Mr Hoare says.

Without that, he adds, online marketplaces are “part of the problem, rather than part of the solution”.

Shoplifting is at record levels with 469,788 offences recorded in England and Wales in the year to June 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The Centre for Retail Research has estimated shoplifting adds £133 onto the cost of an average UK household’s shopping bill each year.

Retail trade bodies warn stolen goods being sold through online marketplaces like Vinted, eBay and Facebook Marketplace are a growing problem – which is helping fuel an increase in shoplifting

The British Independent Retailers Association (BIRA) estimates at least three in five items shoplifted from its members end up being sold online.

“The industrial scale of this is worrying and is definitely fuelled by the availability and expediency and lack of control in online marketplaces,” BIRA’s chief executive Andrew Goodacre says.

The NPCC told the BBC it wants owners of online marketplaces to take more steps to ensure people are unable to sell goods through their sites anonymously, and it would support the introduction of new laws to force platforms to verify a seller’s identity. The NPCC also advises bargain-hunting online shoppers to be cautious.

“If you see something that is a huge reduction or is cheaper than you could buy it in your local store then you’ve got to be questioning to yourself,” says Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman. “Think about what you’re doing and who you’re purchasing off. If you’re unsure report it to us and let us know.”

Facebook, eBay and Vinted told the BBC it is prohibited to sell stolen items on their platforms – and they work closely with law enforcement to support investigations.

The Home Office told the BBC it will continue to work with police to understand the routes used to sell stolen goods. It also said it would work with online marketplaces to inform what more can be done to tackle the stolen goods market.

In the run up to Christmas, Charlie Groves says shoplifting remains a “massive problem” for his Dorset garden centre business, when gift-related items can easily be sold online.

“It’s not the back of van anymore.”

Forensic and ballistic evidence that police say ties the accused murderer of healthcare insurance CEO Brian Thompson to the crime scene will make it difficult for his lawyers to mount a defence, former prosecutors and other legal experts say.

Luigi Mangione, 26, was arrested in Pennsylvania on Monday after a days-long, multi-state manhunt ended at a McDonalds in the town of Altoona.

New York authorities say fingerprints and shell casings link him to the crime scene.

His lawyer, Thomas Dickey, earlier told local media he had not “seen any evidence yet” implicating his client.

He said Mr Mangione would plead not guilty to the charges he faces in Pennsylvania, including firearms charges.

In New York, he has been charged with second-degree murder over Mr Thompson’s killing and it is not clear how he would plead. He is currently being held in a state prison in Pennsylvania where he is fighting extradition to face that murder charge. The legal battle over his extradition could potentially take more than a month to resolve, officials said.

But legal experts told the BBC that his efforts to contest his extradition to New York are unlikely to be successful. They could, however, provide his defence with a glimpse into the state’s evidence against him.

“I don’t even know if this is him,” his lawyer, Mr Dickey, said in a recent interview with US media outlet NewsNation, referring to images of Mr Thompson’s killer.

“We’re going to test those waters and give the government a chance to bring some evidence forward,” he said.

• How the six-day manhunt unfolded
• What is a ghost gun, the weapon allegedly used in shooting?
• Who is the CEO shooting suspect?
• Who was UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson?

If he is extradited to New York to face the murder charge, Mitchell Epner, a New York-based lawyer and former prosecutor, told the BBC that there are, broadly, two approaches that Mr Mangione could take if he pleads not guilty.

“Defence number one is ‘it wasn’t me’ and defence number two is ‘it was me, but I shouldn’t be punished’ because of X,” he said.

According to New York police, Mr Mangione was found with a gun similar to the murder weapon, a silencer and a fake ID, as well as three handwritten pages which they believe suggest a potential motive.

Mr Epner said that the publicly known evidence so far means denying responsibility is “out the window”.

Another New York-based lawyer, criminal defence attorney and Professor Dmitriy Shakhnevich, said Mr Mangione’s attorney could also, in theory, argue that an impaired “mental status” makes him unfit to stand trial.

“If a judge makes a determination that he’s misunderstanding, or not understanding, what’s happening in court, then essentially the case won’t go forward,” he said.

“He’ll be institutionalised for a period of time until he’s deemed to be fit, which may be never.”

That defence, Mr Shakhnevich added, is different to a plea of insanity, in which his lawyers could argue that “he’s not responsible for his actions because of some mental defect”.

“That could also deem him not guilty, because you won’t satisfy the elements of the offence,” he said. “But then again, he doesn’t go free. He would be institutionalised for a period, assuming that defence is successful.”

The start of Mr Mangione’s legal battles has prompted anonymous donors to chip in thousands of dollars towards his defence through online fundraisers.

It comes as some online have shared support for the suspect and anger at the health insurance industry. The New York City Police Department has also warned some healthcare executives are potentially in danger because of a “hit list” posted online after Mr Thompson’s murder.

In a bulletin, the NYPD said several viral posts included the names and salaries of other insurance executives. Mocked-up wanted signs featuring some executives have also been posted in Manhattan.

Mr Mangione allegedly had grievances with the wider industry.

Timothy Gallagher, a former FBI agent and the managing director of Nardello and Co, a global investigations firm, said the current climate means the “threat of a copycat is real”.

“There are people out there who have grievances and are observing the amount of press and attention that is being given to the accused,” he said.

Mr Gallagher said that there has been an “outpouring of support from dark corners of the internet” for anti-corporate causes.

“I’m afraid that may fuel follow-on attacks,” he said.

Nasa’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has for the first time captured an image of what our galaxy likely looked like just as it was forming – and it’s got space scientists feeling very Christmassy.

“I just love the sparkle galaxy with its Christmas lights shining as it was when the Universe was just 600 million years old,” Prof Catherine Heymans, Scotland’s Astronomer Royal, told BBC News.

The image shows ten balls of stars of different colours, appearing like Christmas tree baubles hanging in the cosmos.

It’s the first time that scientists have witnessed clumps of stars assembling to form a galaxy like our own Milky Way and holds clues as to how the Universe was formed.

Scientists have named the distant galaxy Firefly Sparkle, because it also looks like a swarm of multi-coloured fireflies.

From its orbit in space unhindered by Earth’s atmosphere, the most powerful telescope ever built has already shown us more distant and therefore older galaxies, but not one like our own in the early stages of forming and not in such detail.

“The data of what happened at this stage of the Universe is very sparse,” according to Dr Lamiya Mowla of Wellesley College in Massachusetts, who co-led the research.

“But here, we are actually watching a galaxy as it is being formed brick by brick. The galaxies we normally see around us are already formed so this is the first time we have seen this process,” she told BBC News.

Prof Heymans, Scotland’s Astronomer Royal, who is independent of the research team, described the discovery as “gorgeous, scientifically important and extremely festive”.

“I find it amazing that humans have built a telescope that allows us to peer so far back in time and that we can see these very nascent phases of the galaxy in such a beautifully festive way.”

The star clusters are of different colours because they are at different stages in their formation, according to Dr Mowla.

“It is so beautiful because the early life of a galaxy is extremely active,” she said.

“There is so much happening, there are new stars being born, there are massive stars dying, there is a lot of gas and dust around it and there is nitrogen and oxygen and because of the state they are in, you have these lovely colours.

“We are able to tell something about the ages of each cluster, the composition of their elements and the temperatures at which they formed.”

When Dr Mowla came across the galaxy, she had never seen clumps of stars in such vivid and varying colours. It led her to believe that there was something different about this system, so she checked how far away it was.

To her surprise it turned out to be more than 13 billion light years away.

The light from Firefly Sparkle is from not long after the creation of the Universe and so has taken more than 13 billion years to reach us. It is so small and so far away that not even JWST would have been able to see it, were it not for an extremely lucky cosmic coincidence.

There was a cluster of galaxies exactly between Firefly Sparkle and the JWST, which distorted spacetime to stretch the light from the faraway galaxy and effectively act as a gigantic magnifying glass.

Astronomers call this process gravitational lensing, which in this instance enabled the research co-lead Dr Kartheik Iyer of Columbia University in New York, and other members of the team, to see for the first time, incredible details of how the first galaxies like our own Milky Way formed.

“It takes the light coming from the firefly and bends it and amplifies it so we can see it in glorious detail,” he told BBC News.

“Our reconstruction shows that clumps of actively forming stars are surrounded by diffuse light from other stars. This galaxy is literally in the process of assembling.”

“When it does all this and we are able to see this incredible faraway galaxy, it is a very humbling, magical feeling.”

The research has been published in the journal Nature.

Embattled South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has defended his shock decision to declare martial law last week, saying he did it to protect the country’s democracy.

In a surprise televised address on Thursday, he said the attempt was a legal decision to “prevent the collapse” of democracy and counter the opposition’s “parliamentary dictatorship”.

Yoon has suggested that he would not step down ahead of a second vote to impeach him in parliament on Saturday.

“I will stand firm whether I’m impeached or investigated,” he said. “I will fight to the end”.

The president and his allies are facing investigations on insurrection charges, and he and several of them have been banned from leaving South Korea.

On Thursday, the opposition-led parliament voted to impeach police chief Cho Ji-ho and justice minister Park Sung-jae. The two officials have been immediately suspended.

Unlike impeachment motions against presidents, which require 200 votes in the 300-strong National Assembly to be passed, other officials can be impeached with 150 votes.

In his address, his first since his apology over the weekend, Yoon denied that his martial law order was an act of insurrection, claiming that his political rivals were creating “false incitement” to bring him down.

Yoon repeated many of the same arguments that he used on the night he declared martial law: that the opposition was dangerous, and that by seizing control, he had been trying to protect the public and defend democracy.

However, Yoon added that he would not avoid his “legal and political responsibilities”.

Last Saturday, an attempt by opposition lawmakers to impeach the president failed after members of his own ruling People Power Party (PPP) boycotted the vote. But opposition members are set to hold another impeachment vote this weekend and have vowed to hold one every Saturday until Yoon is removed from office.

The floor leader of the PPP, Choo Kyung-ho, stepped down after the failed impeachment attempt, and on Thursday the party elected Kwon Seong-dong, a Yoon loyalist, as his replacement.

Kwon told reporters on Thursday that he would hold discussions with PPP lawmakers on whether they should continue opposing Yoon’s impeachment.

Yoon’s party had been hoping to convince the president to leave office early, rather than force him out.

Minutes before Yoon spoke, his party leader Han Dong-hoon appeared on television saying it had become clear that the president was not going to step aside. Han then urged members of the party to vote to remove him from office this Saturday.

The opposition tabled another impeachment motion on Thursday, setting the stage for a vote at 17:00 local time (09:00 GMT) Saturday.

If South Korea’s parliament passes the impeachment bill, a trial would be held by the Constitutional Court. Two-thirds of that court would have to sustain the majority for Yoon to be removed from office permanently.

Yoon has been a lame duck president since the opposition won the April general election by a landslide – his government has not been able to pass the laws it wanted and has been reduced to vetoing bills proposed by the opposition.

Yoon also accused North Korea sympathisers of trying to undermine his government when he declared martial law on the night of 3 December.

The announcement plunged the country into political turmoil. Protesters faced off against security forces in front of the National Assembly building while lawmakers scrambled to vote down Yoon’s order.

Yoon withdrew his martial law order hours after it was blocked by lawmakers.

Since then, the country has remained on edge. There have been huge protests and strikes calling for Yoon’s impeachment, and the presidential office was raided on Wednesday as Yoon faces multiple investigations on charges of insurrection and treason.

Meanwhile, ex-defence minister Kim Yong-hyun, who resigned and took responsibility for announcing martial law, attempted suicide while in detention on Tuesday, officials said. He is in a stable condition.

Gunmen in Mexico have shot dead a judge outside a courthouse in the city of Acapulco.

Judge Edmundo Román Pinzón was hit by at least four bullets as he was driving out of the courthouse car park on Wednesday afternoon, local time.

He was a senior judge who had been president of the highest court in the state of Guerrero, where Acapulco is located.

The murder comes amid a surge in deadly attacks on officials in the violence-wracked southern state.

Police have been speaking to witnesses and been gathering CCTV footage from the murder scene, but so far no arrests have been made in connection with the case.

The security forces have also stepped up their activities in the resort town in order to catch those responsible.

According to local paper El Sol de Acapulco, the judge had been in charge of the court which dealt with murders, kidnappings and car thefts.

It is not yet known what the possible motive behind the murder may have been.

The governor of Guerrero state said the crime demanded “immediate justice”.

The killing of the judge is the latest in a string of extremely violent attacks in Guerrero over the past weeks.

Last month, the bodies of 11 people, including two children, were found inside a vehicle in the town of Chilpancingo, 100km (62 miles) north of Acapulco.

Acapulco, once a popular beach resort, has not been spared, with rival gangs battling for control of the city’s drugs market – and at times leaving mutilated bodies on beaches.

An Indian beauty service start-up has found itself in the eye of the storm for a publicity campaign aimed at highlighting workplace stress.

A few days ago, an internal email from Yes Madam went viral on social media, in which employees were informed that the company had decided to “part ways” with those who had reported feeling stressed at work.

But on Tuesday, the start-up clarified that it hadn’t fired anyone and that the social media posts were part of a “planned effort to highlight the serious issue of workplace stress”.

The campaign has sparked mixed reactions online, with some praising it for drawing attention to an important topic and others criticising the company for misleading people and “toying” with their emotions.

Some users also pointed out that the campaign had succeeded in propelling an almost unheard of brand into the limelight in a matter of hours.

“Free promotion done right, huh? Who needs a marketing budget when you have outrage as your social media manager?” one user posted on LinkedIn.

This isn’t the first time that a start-up has courted controversy for indulging in a questionable publicity campaign.

Last month, the founder of an Indian food delivery platform received bouquets and brickbats after he posted a job opening for the position of “chief of staff” but said that the candidate would not be paid for a year and would instead have to donate two million rupees to the company’s non-profit venture that aims to provide food to the poor.

He later claimed that more than 10,000 people had applied for the job but didn’t mention if anyone had actually been hired for the post.

In February, a celebrity faced massive backlash online after she feigned her death to draw attention to cervical cancer. Many users said that the publicity stunt was deeply traumatising to those who had actually lost friends and family to the illness.

The marketing agency responsible for the campaign later apologised, but these controversies haven’t stopped brands from pushing the limits of advertising to bizarre levels.

• Fake cancer death of India actress sparks ethics debate

Brand experts say that while such marketing gimmicks might help a brand shoot into the limelight, it does not necessarily boost the longevity or success of the company.

On the contrary, it might do it more harm than good.

Brands need to understand the difference between exaggeration and telling a blatant lie, says Karthik Srinivasan, a branding and communications consultant.

“Exaggeration is an accepted and successful advertising strategy, where a brand uses creative licence to push the limits of the truth to make a point,” he says. “But the exaggeration is so obvious or conspicuous that a consumer isn’t likely or expected to believe it,” he adds.

He gives the example of the Axe deodorant ads, which would often show a scrawny-looking man transforming into a magnet for women as soon as he sprays himself with the deodorant.

Then there was rapper Snoop Dogg, who made headlines last year for announcing that he would be “giving up smoke”, only to reveal that he was actually talking about using a smokeless fire pit of a particular brand.

In both instances, the exaggerations are so extreme that they are almost comically unrealistic.

“But telling a blatant lie has no place in ethical advertising,” Mr Srinivasan says.

Brands engage in such extreme campaigns because they can garner massive publicity while using little to no funds. The idea is to pick topics that are likely to evoke strong opinions, thereby ensuring that people engage with the campaign, whether they like it or not, Mr Srinivasan says.

In the case of the viral campaign by the beauty start-up, the company’s email touched a chord with many professionals, who then shared it on their LinkedIn or X (formerly Twitter) profiles, criticising the company for its insensitivity and lack of care towards its employees.

“Firing someone for being stressed at work is a serious issue and was definitely going to evoke strong reactions,” Mr Srinivasan explains.

But such campaigns can damage a brand or a company’s reputation in the eyes of its employees and consumers, he adds. “Credibility and trust take time to build and a brand will find it hard to shake off the negative publicity that comes with an insensitive ad campaign.”

Mayank Sehgal, a marketing consultant, echoes a similar view.

“It’s crucial for brands to prioritise ethical marketing practices and avoid using people’s emotions as a tool for self-promotion,” he says.

“While attention-grabbing tactics may work in the short term, they ultimately erode trust and damage brand reputation.”

A 12-year-old Israeli boy has been killed in a Palestinian shooting attack on a bus in the south of the occupied West Bank, Israeli authorities say.

The Israeli military said the gunman opened fire at the bus in the al-Khader Junction area as it travelled from the settlement of Beitar Illit to Jerusalem.

The victim was named as Yehoshua Aharon Tuvia Simha. Paramedics said a woman and two men were also wounded.

The attacker fled the scene but later turned himself in to Israeli security forces following searches in the nearby Bethlehem area, the military added.

Israeli media identified him as Ezzedine Malluh from Beit Awwa.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog described the attack as “a very painful and sad moment for the people of Israel”.

A Hamas official called it “heroic” without saying the group was behind it.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian health ministry said a Palestinian man was shot and killed by Israeli forces in the northern West Bank town of Qalqilya on Wednesday morning.

Palestinian news agency Wafa cited local sources as saying that Israeli troops opened fire at a car in which Mohammed Brahma, 25, was travelling, and then took away his body.

There has been a surge in violence in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’s deadly attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed as Israeli forces have intensified their raids, saying they are trying to stem Palestinian attacks that have killed Israelis in the West Bank and Israel.

A man who tried to set fire to a hotel housing asylum seekers has been jailed for nine years, the joint-longest prison sentence in connection with the UK’s summer of riots.

Levi Fishlock smashed windows and stoked a flaming bin at the Holiday Inn Express in Manvers, Rotherham, during a spate of disorder on 4 August.

Fishlock, 31, of Sheffield Road, Barnsley, initially denied violent disorder and arson with intent to endanger life but later pleaded guilty to the charges.

Jailing him, the Recorder of Sheffield, Judge Jeremy Richardson KC, said: “This is one of the worst cases of its kind stemming from the Rotherham disorder.”

Fishlock’s sentence, which also includes a five-year licence period after he is released from jail, is the same as that of Thomas Birley, who was also part of the 400-strong crowd, some of whom attempted to torch the hotel in South Yorkshire.

Large-scale disorder saw more than 60 police officers injured as rioters, many armed with weapons, circled the hotel.

During the violence, security staff and people inside the hotel were told by police to hide in bedrooms and lock the doors to protect themselves.

The two-day sentencing hearing at Sheffield Crown Court was told Fishlock had been wearing “a very identifiable” purple T-shirt as he smashed the hotel’s windows by throwing bricks and broken paving slabs.

Fishlock, whose shirt bore the name Bellingham and the number 10 on the back, told arresting officers that throwing missiles and stoking the fire was for a “good cause” despite about 200 asylum seekers plus hotel staff being trapped in the besieged building.

He also used fencing slats and metal poles “as weapons against officers” and was seen “smashing up” an air conditioning unit outside the hotel.

Fishlock also grasped a “sharp-edged object” while making threatening gestures towards those in the hotel as well as setting fire to makeshift barricades, the court heard.

Alisha Kaye, prosecuting, said: “In his pre-sentencing report he stated he just came upon the incident and had no intention to go there deliberately.

“It’s remarkable coincidence that he was wearing an England shirt. He is deliberately tapping his England badge [on footage].”

Father-of-one Fishlock had no previous convictions but was reprimanded in 2007 for violent disorder and given a caution in 2010 for assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

Judge Richardson told him: “You were a prominent participant. You played a part in almost every aspect of the racist mob violence on that terrible day in August in Rotherham.

“You and many like you were intent on spreading a hateful message of violence and racism.

“From first to last, the venom of racism infected the entirety of what occurred.”

Benn Robinson, mitigating, told the court Fishlock had a “problematic relationship with drugs in various junctures of his life” following his brother’s death in his teenage years.

He said his client struggled with anxiety and depression and had, upon reflection, felt “genuine shame and remorse” over his conduct in Manvers.

BBC research suggests that Fishlock is the 80th person sentenced for their part in the trouble in and around the hotel.

Chris Hartley, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said Fishlock’s prominent part in the riot “terrified the residents and staff of the hotel and caused significant amounts of physical damage.”

He said: “Highly experienced police officers described the disorder as the worst they had ever seen in their careers.

“The violence had left them in fear for their lives.”

Mr Hartley said the tough sentence imposed should “serve as a lesson for anyone considering taking part in this type of disorder in future.”

South Yorkshire on BBC Sounds

Australia’s government says it will create new rules to force big tech companies to pay local publishers for news.

The long-awaited decision sets out a successor to a world-first law that Australia passed in 2021, which was designed to make giants like Meta and Google pay for hosting news on their platforms.

Earlier this year Meta – which owns Facebook and Instagram – announced it would not renew payment deals it had in place with Australian news organisations, setting up a standoff with lawmakers.

The new rules, announced on Thursday, will require firms that earn more than A$250m ($160m; £125m) in annual revenue to enter into commercial deals with media organisations, or risk being hit with higher taxes.

The design of the scheme is yet to be finalised but it will apply to sites such as Facebook, Google and TikTok.

In a statement, Meta said it was concerned that the government was “charging one industry to subsidise another”.

Unlike the previous model, the new framework – called the News Bargaining Incentive – will require tech firms to pay even if they do not enter deals with publishers.

“Digital platforms receive huge financial benefits from Australia and they have a social and economic responsibility to contribute to Australians’ access to quality journalism,” Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones said on Thursday.

The previous News Media Bargaining Code saw news organisations negotiate commercial deals with tech giants, while also committing firms like Facebook and Google to invest millions of dollars in local digital content.

That code aimed to address what the government called a power imbalance between publishers and tech companies, while offsetting some of the losses traditional media outlets have faced due to the rise of digital platforms.

As deals brokered under that arrangement neared expiry, Meta said that it would not be renewing them, leading to a roughly A$200m loss in revenue for Australian publishers.

Instead, Meta said it would phase out its dedicated news tab – which spotlights articles – on Facebook in Australia, and reinvest the money elsewhere.

“We know that people don’t come to Facebook for news and political content… news makes up less than 3% of what people around the world see in their Facebook feed,” it said in a statement in February.

The announcement prompted a strong response from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government, which described the move as “a fundamental dereliction” of Meta’s “responsibility to its Australian users”.

“The risk is that misinformation will fill any vacuum created by news no longer being on the platform,” Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said at the time.

The new taxation model begins in January 2025 and will be cemented into law once parliament returns in February.

The government says it will be designed to make tech companies fund Australian journalism in exchange for tax offsets, not to raise revenue.

A US man, detained for months in a Syrian prison after entering the country on foot, has described being freed by hammer-wielding men as rebels overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

The man – who later identified himself as Travis Timmerman to the BBC’s US news partner CBS – was found by residents near the capital Damascus.

It comes as rebels say they intend to close Assad’s notoriously harsh prisons and track down those involved in torturing or killing detainees.

“We will pursue them in Syria, and we ask countries to hand over those who fled so we can achieve justice,” said rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.

Footage posted on social media showed Mr Timmerman lying on a sofa as residents spoke to local reporters.

He said he had been arrested upon entering the country seven months ago.

The American was reported as missing in May, having last been seen in the Hungarian capital Budapest, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol and the Hungarian authorities.

On Monday, a day after rebels took control of Damascus and toppled Assad, Mr Timmerman said two men armed with a hammer broke open his prison door.

It was “busted down, it woke me up”, he said.

“I thought the guards were still there, so I thought the warfare could have been more active than it ended up being… Once we got out, there was no resistance, there was no real fighting.”

The 30-year-old said he left prison with a large group of people and had been attempting to make his way to Jordan.

He said he “had a few moments of fear” when he left the prison, adding that he had since been more worried about finding somewhere to sleep.

However local people had been receptive to his requests for food and assistance, he told reporters.

“They were coming to me, mostly,” Mr Timmerman said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday that Washington was “working to bring [Mr Timmerman] home”.

Blinken, speaking during a visit to Jordan, added that he could not give any details about “exactly what’s going to happen”.

Thousands of prisoners have been released since the fall of Assad over the weekend.

Footage has shown men, women and in some cases children emerging from overcrowded windowless cells, often disorientated and unaware of events that had taken place outside.

However, Mr Timmerman appears to have been relatively well-treated, telling CBS: “I’m feeling well. I’ve been fed and I’ve been watered, so I’m feeling well.”

He added that he had had the use of a mobile phone during his detention and had spoken to his family three weeks ago.

Speaking to fellow US outlet NBC, Mr Timmerman said he had crossed the mountains between Lebanon and Syria on a “pilgrimage” and had “been reading the scripture a lot”.

He declined the opportunity to be put in touch with American officials.

On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the US had asked Syria’s main rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) to help locate and free US journalist Austin Tice.

A freelance journalist, Mr Tice is thought to have been taken captive close to Damascus on 14 August 2012 while he was covering the country’s civil war.

He was last seen in a video, blindfolded and in apparent distress – posted online weeks after his capture. The US believes he was being held by the Assad regime.

President Joe Biden has said the US believes Mr Tice is alive, but they must pinpoint his location.

The Assad regime was notorious for its extremely harsh prisons, where the UK-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates almost 60,000 people were tortured and killed.

Across Syria this week, families desperate to find loved ones have been streaming into these dark prison sites.

The Syrian Civil Defence Organisation, known as the White Helmets, has been helping the search – including in the infamous Saydnaya prison complex, described by human rights groups as the “human slaughterhouse”.

“We’re looking for secret prisons in several areas of Damascus,” Raed Saleh, director of The White Helmets told the BBC.

“We can’t say too much about this, but we’re looking.”

The White Helmets, known for pulling survivors from the rubble during Syria’s devastating civil war, say they helped recover thousands of detainees from the prisons.

But many families are still searching in vain.

“What took place in Saydnaya is very painful for the families who were waiting for their loved ones,” Saleh acknowledged.

“Our inability to reach anyone else in Saydnaya after the initial release of prisoners means that those people who were there are either dead or in another place.

“We have at least two teams looking for prisoners.

“One team with police sniffer dogs is looking for survivors. Another team is specialised in lock breaking and entering cells.”

US President Joe Biden has issued presidential pardons to 39 Americans convicted of non-violent crimes, and commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 other people.

The White House described it as the most acts of presidential clemency issued in a single day. It has not given the names of the people involved.

The US Constitution decrees that a president has the broad “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment”.

Earlier this month, Biden issued a controversial pardon to his son Hunter, which continued a recent trend of presidents pardoning people close to them.

Announcing the move, Biden said those pardoned had “shown successful rehabilitation and have shown commitment to making their communities stronger and safer”. Their non-violent convictions included drug offences.

The commuted sentences were for hundreds of people who were placed in home confinement during the Covid-19 pandemic, and who were facing sentences which Biden deemed to be too long under outdated laws.

They have “shown that they deserve a second chance”, Biden said.

Giving further details of the move, the White House said those receiving relief included a decorated military veteran and pilot who helped fellow church members, a nurse who helped with the Covid vaccine rollout, and an addiction counsellor.

Biden promised “more steps in the weeks ahead”.

The president will leave the White House on 20 January 2025, when his successor Donald Trump is inaugurated.

Biden previously had a record of pardoning fewer people than most presidents in modern US history.

He had issued a few categorical pardons in the past, however. These are pardons given to a sweeping number of people who fall under a category outlined by the president.

In October 2022, Biden issued a full pardon for those who had been convicted of simple possession of marijuana, and later expanded that to include other marijuana-related offenses.

Earlier this year, Biden issued another full pardon to military personnel and veterans who were convicted of an offence based on their sexual orientation.

Trump granted 237 acts of clemency during his first term in the White House, according to the Pew Research Center. These included 143 pardons and 94 commuted sentences.

Many were in a flurry before he left office.

Biden’s decision earlier this month to pardon his son, Hunter, continued a trend of presidents on both sides of the US political divide – including Trump – granting clemency to people close to them.

Biden Jr was facing sentencing for two criminal cases.

The move has proven controversial, since the outgoing president previously ruled out doing it. But he claimed the cases against his son were politically motivated.

Biden has also weighed issuing pre-emptive pardons for prominent critics of his successor Trump in a bid to shield them from retribution after the president-elect takes office, but has reportedly been concerned about the precedent it would set.

Selena Gomez has revealed she is engaged to songwriter Benny Blanco.

The actress and singer posted a picture of a large engagement ring on Instagram, with the caption “forever begins now”.

It comes after the couple confirmed their relationship last year.

Pop star Taylor Swift was among the famous figures to offer congratulations.

Two-time Grammy-nominated Gomez posted further pictures of her beaming, wearing the ring, and one of Blanco embracing her in what appears to be a closet.

“Hey wait… that’s my wife,” Blanco commented on the post.

Swift replied: “Yes I will be the flower girl.”

Rapper Cardi B, actresses Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston and Suki Waterhouse, and singer Lil Nas X also sent well wishes.

In an Instagram Story shared with her 423 million followers, the most-followed woman on the app also revealed a video showing her ring to loved ones on the phone.

“Yes to this,” she can be heard saying, evoking screams on the other end of the video call.

Gomez and record producer Blanco had collaborated on songs I Can’t Get Enough in 2019 and Single Soon in 2023, before announcing their relationship.

Blanco, who has also worked with the likes of Rihanna, Calvin Harris and Justin Bieber, was effusive about his love on the Drew Barrymore Show back in May.

“She’s just like the best, most genuine person,” he said on the chat show.

“Everything is completely real. Everyday when I wake up, I, like, walk by the mirror as I’m, like, walking to her and I ask myself, ‘How did I get here’…

“She’s one of the sweetest, one of the most charming, one of the most humble people I’ve ever met.”

Come & Get It singer Gomez was previously in a high profile on-and-off relationship with fellow singer Justin Bieber. She also dated singer The Weeknd in 2017.

The Texas-born star rose to fame as a child actress on Barney and Disney Channel, before forging a career as a singer and in acting.

This year she joined the billionaire celebrity rich list, according to Bloomberg, amassing a $1.3bn (£1bn) fortune – mainly deriving from her Rare Beauty make-up company.

On Monday, she received two Golden Globe nominations – one in the best supporting actress category for her role in operatic musical Emilia Pérez and the other for best actress in a TV series, musical or comedy, for her recurring role in Only Murders in the Building.

Amid the shattered glass and trampled flags, posters of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lie ripped on the floor of the Iranian embassy in Damascus. There are torn pictures too of the former leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air strike in Beirut in September.

Outside, the ornate turquoise tiles on the embassy’s façade are intact, but the defaced giant image of Iran’s vastly influential former military Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani – killed on the orders of Donald Trump during his first presidency – is a further reminder of the series of blows Iran has faced, culminating on Sunday in the fall of a key ally, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

So, as the Islamic Republic licks its wounds, and prepares for a new Donald Trump presidency, will it decide on a more hardline approach – or will it renew negotiations with the West? And just how stable is the regime?

In his first speech after the toppling of Assad, Khamenei was putting a brave face on a strategic defeat. Now 85 years old, he faces the looming challenge of succession, having been in power and the ultimate authority in Iran since 1989.

“Iran is strong and powerful – and will become even stronger,” he claimed.

He insisted that the Iran-led alliance in the Middle East, which includes Hamas, Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and Iraqi Shia militias – the “scope of resistance” against Israel – would only strengthen too.

“The more pressure you exert, the stronger the resistance becomes. The more crimes you commit, the more determined it becomes. The more you fight against it, the more it expands,” he said.

But the regional aftershocks of the Hamas massacres in Israel on 7 October 2023 – which were applauded, if not supported, by Iran – have left the regime reeling.

Israel’s retaliation against its enemies has created a new landscape in the Middle East, with Iran very much on the back foot.

“All the dominoes have been falling,” says James Jeffrey, a former US diplomat and deputy national security advisor, who now works at the non-partisan Wilson Center think-tank.

“The Iranian Axis of Resistance has been smashed by Israel, and now blown up by events in Syria. Iran is left with no real proxy in the region other than the Houthis in Yemen.”

Iran does still back powerful militias in neighbouring Iraq. But according to Mr Jeffrey: “This is a totally unprecedented collapse of a regional hegemon.”

The last public sighting of Assad was in a meeting with the Iranian Foreign Minister, on 1 December, when he vowed to “crush” the rebels advancing on the Syrian capital. The Kremlin has said he is now in Russia after fleeing the country.

Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, described Assad as the “front end of the Axis of Resistance”. Yet, when the end came for Bashar al-Assad, a weakened Iran – shocked by the sudden collapse of his forces – was unable and unwilling to fight for him.

In a matter of days, the only other state in the “Axis of Resistance” – its lynchpin – had gone.

Iran had spent decades building its network of militias to maintain influence in the region, as well as deterrence against Israeli attack. This dates back to the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

In the war with Iraq that followed, Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez, supported Iran.

The alliance between the Shia clerics in Iran and the Assads (who are from the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam) helped cement Iran’s powerbase in a predominantly Sunni Middle East.

Syria was also a crucial supply route for Iran to its ally in Lebanon, Hezbollah, and other regional armed groups.

Iran had come to Assad’s aid before. When he appeared vulnerable after a popular uprising in 2011 had morphed into a civil war, Tehran provided fighters, fuel and weapons. More than 2,000 Iranian soldiers and generals were killed there while ostensibly serving as “military advisers”.

“We know that Iran spent $30bn to $50bn [£23.5bn to £39bn] in Syria [since around 2011],” says Dr Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at think tank Chatham House.

Now the pipeline through which Iran might have tried, in the future, to resupply Hezbollah in Lebanon – and from there, potentially, others – has been cut.

“The Axis of Resistance was an opportunistic network designed to provide Iran with strategic depth and protect Iran from direct strike and attack,” Dr Vakil argues. “This has clearly failed as a strategy.”

Iran’s calculation of what to do next will be affected not just by the demise of Assad but also by the fact that its own military came off far worse than Israel in the first ever direct confrontations between the two countries earlier this year.

Most of the ballistic missiles that Iran launched at Israel in October were intercepted, although some caused damage to several airbases. Israeli strikes caused serious damage to Iran’s air defences and missile production capabilities. “The missile threat has proven to be a paper tiger,” says Mr Jeffrey.

The assassination in Tehran of the former Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in July was also a profound embarrassment for Iran.

The chief priority of the Islamic Republic from here on in is its own survival. “It will be looking to reposition itself, reinforce what’s left of the Axis of Resistance and re-invest in regional ties in order to survive the pressure that Trump is likely to bear,” says Dr Vakil.

Dennis Horak spent three years in Iran as Canadian charge d’affaires. “It’s a pretty resilient regime with tremendous levers of power, and a lot more they could unleash,” he says.

It still possesses serious firepower, he argues, which could be used against Gulf Arab countries in the event of a confrontation with Israel. He cautions against any view of Iran as a paper tiger.

It has however, been profoundly weakened internationally – with an unpredictable Donald Trump about to assume the presidency in the US, and Israel having demonstrated its ability to pick off its enemies.

“Iran will certainly be re-evaluating its defence doctrine which was primarily reliant on the Axis of Resistance,” says Dr Vakil.

“It will also be considering its nuclear programme and trying to decide if greater investment in that is necessary to provide the regime with greater security.”

Iran insists that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful. But it has advanced considerably since Donald Trump abandoned a carefully-negotiated deal struck in 2015, which limited its nuclear activities in return for the lifting of some economic sanctions.

Under the agreement, Iran was permitted to enrich uranium up to a purity of 3.67%. Low-enriched uranium can be used to produce fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says Iran is now significantly increasing the rate at which it can produce uranium enriched to 60%.

Iran has said it is doing this in retaliation for the sanctions that Trump reinstated and which remained in place as the Biden administration tried and failed to revive the deal.

Weapons-grade uranium, which is needed for a nuclear bomb, is 90% enriched or more.

The IAEA head, Rafael Grossi, has suggested what Iran is doing may be a response to the country’s regional setbacks.

“It’s a really concerning picture,” says Darya Dolzikova, expert on nuclear proliferation at the Royal United Services Institute think tank. “The nuclear programme is in a completely different place to where it was in 2015.”

It has been estimated that Iran could now enrich enough uranium for a weapon within about a week, if it decided to, though it would also need to construct a warhead and mount a delivery system, which experts say would take months or possibly as long as a year.

“We don’t know how close they are to a deliverable nuclear weapon. But Iran has gained a lot of knowledge that will be really hard to roll back,” adds Ms Dolzikova.

Western countries are alarmed.

“It’s clear that Trump will try to re-impose his ‘maximum pressure’ strategy on Iran,” says Dr Raz Zimmt, senior researcher at the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies and Tel Aviv University.

“But I think he’ll also try to engage Iran in renewed negotiations trying to convince Iran to roll back its nuclear capabilities.”

Despite Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stated desire for regime change, Dr Zimmt believes the country will bide its time, waiting to see what Donald Trump does and how Iran responds.

Iran is unlikely to want to provoke a full-scale confrontation.

“I think Donald Trump – as a businessman – will try to engage Iran and make a deal,” says Nasser Hadian, professor of political science at Tehran University.

“If that doesn’t happen, he’ll go for maximum pressure in order to bring it to the table.”

He believes a deal is more likely than conflict, but he adds: “There is a possibility that, if he goes for maximum pressure, things go wrong and we get a war that neither side wants.”

The Islamic Republic faces a host of domestic challenges too, as it prepares for the succession of the Supreme Leader.

“Khamenei goes to bed worrying about his legacy and transition and is looking to leave Iran in a stable place,” according to Dr Vakil.

The regime was badly shaken by the 2022 nationwide protests that followed the death of a young woman, Mahsa Jina Amini, who had been accused of not wearing the hijab properly.

The uprising challenged the legitimacy of the clerical establishment and was crushed with brutal force.

There is still widespread, simmering fury at a regime that has poured resources into conflicts abroad while many Iranians face unemployment and struggle with high inflation.

And Iran’s younger generation, in particular, is increasingly estranged from the Islamic Revolution, with many chafing at the social restrictions imposed by the regime. Every day, women still defy the regime, risking arrest by going out without their hair covered.

However, that’s not to say that there will be a collapse of the regime similar to that in Syria, say Iran watchers.

“I don’t think the Iranian people are going to rise up again because Iran has lost its empire, which was very unpopular anyway,” says Mr Jeffrey.

Mr Horak believes its tolerance of dissent will be lowered still further as it tries to shore up its internal security. A long-planned new law that strengthens punishments for women who do not wear the hijab is due to come in imminently. But he doesn’t believe the regime is currently at risk.

“Millions of Iranians don’t support it, but millions still do,” he says. “I don’t think it’s in danger of toppling anytime soon.”

But as it navigates anger at home, the loss of its lynchpin in Syria – after so many other blows to its regional clout – has made the job of Iran’s rulers a lot more tricky.

Time Magazine has named Donald Trump as their person of the year for the second time.

“For marshaling a comeback of historic proportions, for driving a once-in-a- generation political realignment, for reshaping the American presidency and altering America’s role in the world, Donald Trump is TIME’S 2024 Person of the Year,” Time Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs said in a letter to readers.

The Republican president-elect is set to ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday to commemorate the honour alongside several of his family members.

Trump was first named person of the year in 2016 after winning the US presidential election.

The magazine’s tradition – which started in 1927 as “Man of the Year” – recognises a person or movement that “for better or for worse… has done the most to influence the events of the year”.

Other previous winners include climate change activist Greta Thunberg, former President Barack Obama, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Pope Francis and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Time Magazine editors ultimately decide who wins the award.

The outlet was considering 10 people for the person of the year award, including Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Princess of Wales and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, now a close confidante of Trump set to lead an advisory board called the Department of Government Efficiency.

In a description of Trump for the list of finalists, Time said he had won the 2024 election “in a stunning political comeback”.

“He has reshaped the American electorate, activating young male voters who propelled him to a decisive victory that saw him win the popular vote for the first time and turn every swing state red,” the outlet said.

“His 2024 win is history-making in multiple ways: he will be the oldest President in U.S. history, and he was convicted earlier this year by a New York jury of 34 counts of fraud, making him the first convicted felon to be elected President.”

Trump sat for interviews with the magazine in April this year during the campaign season. During the wide-ranging discussions, Trump talked about his plans for a second term, including his goals of reforming the US immigration system and deporting millions of people.

Trump complained in 2015 when he was not chosen for the magazine cover during his first run for office, when the award went to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

But after he was named person of the year following his election win, he called it a “great honor”.

“It means a lot, especially me growing up reading Time magazine. And, you know, it’s a very important magazine,” he said at the time.

He has, however, continued to criticise the magazine’s choices since winning, including the selection of Taylor Swift as Time’s person of the year in 2023.

Prosecutors in Sweden have closed an inquiry into a case of alleged rape, which Swedish media had linked to French football captain Kylian Mbappé.

Marina Chirakova, of the Swedish Prosecution Authority, said the investigation into an alleged attack reported to have taken place in Stockholm had ended due to a lack of evidence.

The Real Madrid player, one of football’s most high-profile stars, was never formally named by Swedish prosecutors or notified by them of being under suspicion of a crime.

In October, when the allegations surfaced, Mbappé’s lawyer said her client was preparing to clear his name with a claim for defamation. Mbappé previously described the reports as “fake news”.

• Mbappé shocked by Swedish rape inquiry, lawyer says

Senior prosecutor Ms Chirakova, who headed the preliminary investigation, deemed the evidence “not sufficient to proceed further, and the investigation is therefore closed”.

The alleged rape and two cases of sexual harassment reportedly took place in a hotel in the Swedish capital on 10 October.

Several Swedish media outlets, including newspapers Aftonbladet and Expressen, and public broadcaster SVT, named Mbappé as a suspect.

He had been visiting Stockholm at the time.

Police were seen visiting the Bank hotel where he had stayed, with officers later leaving with bags. One report said they had taken clothing from the hotel in evidence.

On Sunday, speaking for the first time about the case on French TV show Clique, Mbappé said he was “not involved”.

“I haven’t received anything, no summons… I’m not involved.”

His lawyer previously condemned the Swedish media reports as defamatory and said that nothing was known of the complaint.

“[Mbappé] is never alone. He is never put in a position where he ends up in a situation that would lead to him taking a risk,” Marie-Alix Canu-Bernard said.

The Real Madrid forward this week scored his 50th Champions League goal. He transferred from Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) earlier this year.

He won the World Cup as a teenager, in 2018, in Russia and scored a hat-trick in the 2022 final in Qatar – which France lost on penalties to Lionel Messi’s Argentina.

At PSG, he was part of a superstar trio with Messi and Brazilian forward Neymar.

Last year, the Paris-born star finished in third place for the Ballon d’Or and Best FIFA Men’s Player prizes.

The Australian state of Queensland has passed laws which will see children as young as 10 subject to the same penalties as adults if convicted of crimes such as murder, serious assault and break-ins.

The government says the harsher sentencing rules are in response to “community outrage over crimes being perpetrated by young offenders” and will act as a deterrent.

But many experts have pointed to research showing that tougher penalties do not reduce youth offending, and can in fact exacerbate it.

The United Nations has also criticised the reforms, arguing they disregard conventions on the human rights of children and violate international law.

The Liberal National Party (LNP) – which won the state election in October – made the rules a hallmark of its campaign, saying they put the “rights of victims” ahead of “the rights of criminals”.

“These laws are for every Queenslander who has ever felt unsafe and been a victim of youth crime across our state,” Premier David Crisafulli said after parliament passed the bill on Thursday.

Leading up to the vote, both sides of politics had claimed that Queensland was in the grips of a youth crime wave, and that a more punitive approach was necessary to combat the issue.

But data from the Australian bureau of statistics, shows that youth crime has halved in Queensland across the past 14 years, that it hit its lowest rate in recorded history in 2022, and has remained relatively steady since.

Figures from the Queensland Police Service and the Australian Institute of Criminology also demonstrate a clear downward trend.

Dubbed by the government as “adult crime, adult time”, the new laws list 13 offences which will now be subject to harsher prison sentences when committed by youths, including mandatory life detention for murder, with a non-parole period of 20 years.

Previously, the maximum penalty for young offenders convicted of murder was 10 years in jail, with life imprisonment only considered if the crime was “particularly heinous”.

The laws also remove “detention as a last resort” provisions – which favour non-custodial orders, such as fines or community service, for children rather than incarceration – and will make it possible for judges to consider a child’s full criminal history when sentencing.

The Queensland Police Union has called the changes “a leap forward in the right direction”, while Queensland’s new Attorney-General Deb Frecklington says it will give courts the ability to “better address patterns of offending” and “hold people accountable for their actions”.

But in a summary, Frecklington also noted the changes were in direct conflict with international standards, that Indigenous children would be disproportionately impacted and that more youngsters were likely to be held in police cells for extended periods because detention centres are full.

Queensland already has more children in detention than any other Australian state or territory.

Premier Crisafulli said on Thursday that although there may be “pressure in the short-term” his government had a long-term plan to “deliver a raft of other detention facilities and different options”.

Australia’s commissioner for children, Anne Hollonds, described the changes as an “international embarrassment”.

She also accused Queensland’s government of “ignoring evidence” which suggests “the younger a child comes into contact with the justice system, the more likely it is that they will continue to commit more serious crimes”.

“The fact that [the bill’s] provisions are targeting our most at-risk children makes this retreat from human rights even more shocking,” she said in a statement on Wednesday.

Other legal experts, who gave evidence to a parliamentary hearing on the bill last week, said the laws could have unintended consequences for victims, with children being less likely to plead guilty given the tougher sentences, resulting in more trials and longer court delays.

The rate of medical assistance in dying – also known as euthanasia – has grown in Canada for the fifth straight year, albeit at a slower pace.

The country released its fifth annual report since legalising assisted dying in 2016, which for the first time included data on the ethnicity of those seeking euthanasia.

Around 15,300 people underwent assisted dying last year, accounting for 4.7% of deaths in the country. Canada lawmakers are currently seeking to expand access to euthanasia to cover people with mental illnesses by 2027.

Canada is among a few countries that have introduced assisted dying laws in the past decade. Others include Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Austria.

The figures released on Wednesday by Health Canada show that the rate of assisted dying in Canada increased by nearly 16% in 2023. This number is a sharp drop from the average increase of 31% in previous years.

The report cautioned that it is too early to determine what caused the rate to slacken.

Nearly all of those who requested assisted dying – around 96% – had a foreseeable natural death. The remaining 4% were granted euthanasia due to having a long-term chronic illness and where a natural death was not imminent.

The average age of those seeking assisted dying was around 77 years old, with cancer being the most frequent underlying medical condition.

For the first time, the report delved into race and ethnic data of those who died by euthanasia.

Around 96% of recipients identified as white people, who account for about 70% of Canada’s population. It is unclear what caused this disparity.

The second most reported ethnic group was east Asians (1.8%), who account for about 5.7% of Canadians.

Assisted dying continued to have the highest usage rate in Quebec, which accounted for nearly 37% of all euthanasia deaths, despite the province holding just 22% of Canada’s population.

Quebec’s government launched a study earlier this year to examine why its euthanasia rate was so high.

While the number of assisted deaths in Canada is growing, the country still falls behind the Netherlands, where euthanasia accounted for around 5% of total deaths last year.

UK MPs voted late last month to pass a similar bill that gives terminally ill adults in England and Wales the right to have an assisted death, though it will face months of further scrutiny before it could become law.

As British MPs debated the legislation, Canada was cited by some as a cautionary tale due to its perceived lack of safeguards.

Like the UK, Canada initially only legalised assisted dying for those whose death was “reasonably foreseeable”.

However, Canada expanded access in 2021 to people who may not have a terminal diagnosis, but want to end their life because of a chronic, debilitating condition.

It was set to broaden access once again to people with mental illnesses earlier this year.

But that was delayed for the second time after concerns were raised by Canadian provinces, which oversee healthcare delivery, about whether the system could cope with such an expansion.

On Wednesday, Health Canada defended the procedure, saying that the criminal code sets out “strict eligibility” criteria.

But Cardus, a Christian think tank, said the latest figures were “alarming” and showed Canada has one of the fastest growing euthanasia programmes in the world.

A report released in October by Ontario – Canada’s most populous province – has since shed some light on controversial cases where people were granted assisted dying when they were not nearing their natural death.

One example included a woman in her 50s with a history of depression and suicidal thoughts who had a severe sensitivity to chemicals.

Her request for euthanasia was granted after she failed to secure housing that could have met her medical needs.

Another case made headlines in recent months of a Nova Scotia cancer patient who said she was asked if she was aware of assisted dying as an option twice as she underwent mastectomy surgeries.

The question “came up in completely inappropriate places”, she told the National Post.

Canadian news outlets have also reported on cases where people with disabilities have considered assisted dying due to lack of housing or disability benefits.

An 18-year-old British man sentenced to a year in prison for a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old British girl in Dubai has appealed to the emirate’s ruler “to let me go home”.

Marcus Fakana, from north London, began a secretive holiday romance in September with another Londoner, who is now aged 18.

After returning home and seeing pictures and chats, the girl’s mother reported the relationship to Dubai police, who arrested Fakana at his hotel. Sex with another person aged under 18 is illegal in Dubai.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “The prime minister recognises it’s an extremely distressing situation for Marcus and his family.”

Speaking in temporary accommodation while on bail, Fakana told campaign group Detained in Dubai: “My family and I are devastated and in shock.

“I never intended to break the law. It didn’t occur to me at the time and for that, I’m sorry. I am asking His Highness, Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum to please forgive me and pardon me.

“Let me go home. Please give me my life back.”

On Wednesday, Detained in Dubai called the judgment an “utter disgrace” and said Fakana, from Tottenham, would appeal against the “unreasonable” sentence.

Both teenagers were on holiday with their parents in the UAE from the UK, where the age of consent is 16.

Fakana had told his family about the romance but the girl had not told hers.

The 18-year-old’s parents have returned to London after the holiday to resume their jobs in a warehouse and as a cleaner to help pay for his temporary accommodation in Dubai.

The Downing Street spokesman added: “The Foreign Office is in regular contact with his family and his legal team at this difficult time.

“He’s not currently detained, the consular officials are supporting him throughout this period and will continue to do so.”

The government of Dubai previously said: “Under UAE law, the girl is legally classified as a minor, and in accordance with procedures recognised internationally, her mother – being the legal guardian – filed the complaint.”

It added: “Dubai’s legal system is committed to protecting the rights of all individuals and ensuring impartial judicial proceedings.”

The BBC has approached it for further comment.

Radha Stirling, the founder and chief executive of Detained in Dubai, which helps foreigners abroad and is an international authority on UAE law, told the BBC that Fakana’s sentence was “unfathomable”.

She said: “It does not warrant a year in jail, doesn’t warrant tearing this family apart and ruining this young 18-year-old’s life.

“I’m confident that, on appeal, the custodial sentence will be overturned and he will be allowed to return home.

“The question is how long is that going to take and how much effort is that going to take, whether that’s British intervention or the public support in telling Dubai this is unacceptable?”

Embattled South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has defended his shock decision to declare martial law last week, saying he did it to protect the country’s democracy.

In a surprise televised address on Thursday, he said the attempt was a legal decision to “prevent the collapse” of democracy and counter the opposition’s “parliamentary dictatorship”.

Yoon has suggested that he would not step down ahead of a second vote to impeach him in parliament on Saturday.

“I will stand firm whether I’m impeached or investigated,” he said. “I will fight to the end”.

The president and his allies are facing investigations on insurrection charges, and he and several of them have been banned from leaving South Korea.

On Thursday, the opposition-led parliament voted to impeach police chief Cho Ji-ho and justice minister Park Sung-jae. The two officials have been immediately suspended.

Unlike impeachment motions against presidents, which require 200 votes in the 300-strong National Assembly to be passed, other officials can be impeached with 150 votes.

In his address, his first since his apology over the weekend, Yoon denied that his martial law order was an act of insurrection, claiming that his political rivals were creating “false incitement” to bring him down.

Yoon repeated many of the same arguments that he used on the night he declared martial law: that the opposition was dangerous, and that by seizing control, he had been trying to protect the public and defend democracy.

However, Yoon added that he would not avoid his “legal and political responsibilities”.

Last Saturday, an attempt by opposition lawmakers to impeach the president failed after members of his own ruling People Power Party (PPP) boycotted the vote. But opposition members are set to hold another impeachment vote this weekend and have vowed to hold one every Saturday until Yoon is removed from office.

The floor leader of the PPP, Choo Kyung-ho, stepped down after the failed impeachment attempt, and on Thursday the party elected Kwon Seong-dong, a Yoon loyalist, as his replacement.

Kwon told reporters on Thursday that he would hold discussions with PPP lawmakers on whether they should continue opposing Yoon’s impeachment.

Yoon’s party had been hoping to convince the president to leave office early, rather than force him out.

Minutes before Yoon spoke, his party leader Han Dong-hoon appeared on television saying it had become clear that the president was not going to step aside. Han then urged members of the party to vote to remove him from office this Saturday.

The opposition tabled another impeachment motion on Thursday, setting the stage for a vote at 17:00 local time (09:00 GMT) Saturday.

If South Korea’s parliament passes the impeachment bill, a trial would be held by the Constitutional Court. Two-thirds of that court would have to sustain the majority for Yoon to be removed from office permanently.

Yoon has been a lame duck president since the opposition won the April general election by a landslide – his government has not been able to pass the laws it wanted and has been reduced to vetoing bills proposed by the opposition.

Yoon also accused North Korea sympathisers of trying to undermine his government when he declared martial law on the night of 3 December.

The announcement plunged the country into political turmoil. Protesters faced off against security forces in front of the National Assembly building while lawmakers scrambled to vote down Yoon’s order.

Yoon withdrew his martial law order hours after it was blocked by lawmakers.

Since then, the country has remained on edge. There have been huge protests and strikes calling for Yoon’s impeachment, and the presidential office was raided on Wednesday as Yoon faces multiple investigations on charges of insurrection and treason.

Meanwhile, ex-defence minister Kim Yong-hyun, who resigned and took responsibility for announcing martial law, attempted suicide while in detention on Tuesday, officials said. He is in a stable condition.

A body has been found in the search for former England rugby international Tom Voyce, who went missing in an area flooded during Storm Darragh.

Police feared the 43-year-old had died after trying to cross Abberwick Ford, near Bolton, Northumberland, in a vehicle which was then pulled along by the current.

A search had been ongoing since Sunday, but Northumbria Police’s Marine Unit discovered a body near Abberwick Mill earlier.

Formal identification is yet to take place, but Mr Voyce’s next of kin have been notified.

Concerns were raised after Mr Voyce, who was capped nine times for England, had not returned home from being out with friends on Saturday evening.

Chief Supt Helena Barron, of Northumbria Police, said: “This is an extremely sad development and out thoughts very much continue to be with Mr Voyce’s loved ones.”

Officers do not believe there to be any third-party involvement.

The rugby player’s family and friends were involved in the search alongside the police, mountain rescue teams and the National Police Air Service.