The news is moving so quickly in South Korea, the papers can no longer keep up. President Yoon Suk Yeol’s shock attempt to impose martial law last Tuesday night was so short-lived it failed to make the front page. By the time he despatched the troops, the press had already gone to print. By the following day’s editions, the failed power-grab had already been defeated.

Within the week, the president has morphed from being contrite and apologetic, hoping to avoid impeachment, to brazenly defiant, vowing to fight on as the net closed in on him.

Banned from leaving the country while he is investigated for treason – a crime punishable by death – he is facing a second impeachment vote this weekend, as support from his party trickles away. Meanwhile, the roars of anger from the thousands of people on the street every night are getting louder.

For a short while this week it looked as if he had struck a deal with his party to stand down early, in return for them not booting him out of office in last Saturday’s vote. But as the week sped by, there was no sign of the president nor the details of such plan, and it gradually became obvious Yoon had zero intention of resigning.

On Thursday, he emerged obstinate. “I will fight until the end,” he declared, as he defended his decision to seize control of the country.

His speech was rambling and filled with unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, including a vague suggestion that North Korea could have rigged the previous elections, in which he had failed to win control of parliament. The parliament was a “monster”, he said; the opposition party “dangerous”, and he, by declaring martial law, was trying to protect the people and save democracy.

Yoon spent much of this week in hiding, while police attempted to raid his offices to gather evidence. To try and temper public anger, his party announced that he would not be allowed to make decisions going forward – even though legal experts agreed there was nothing in the constitution that allowed for this.

This has left everyone with the same, pressing question – who IS running the country? – especially as senior commanders of Yoon’s army have said they would defy his orders if he tried to impose martial law again.

There is now an unnerving power vacuum in a country that lives with the continuous threat of being attacked by North Korea. “There is no legal basis for this arrangement. We are in a dangerous and chaotic situation,” said Lim Ji-bong, a law professor at Sogang University.

It was evident to all those on the outside that this destabilising and bizarre situation could not be allowed to continue much longer. But it took the president’s party, the People Power Party (PPP), some time to realise Yoon’s impeachment was unavoidable.

Initially his party members protected him, eager to save their own political skins, and consumed by their hatred of South Korea’s opposition leader, Lee Jae-myung, who they fear will become president if Yoon is removed. But on Thursday, after stalling for days, the PPP leader, Han Dong-hoon, came out to urge all MPs to impeach him. “The president must be suspended from office immediately,” he said.

For the impeachment to pass, two-thirds of parliament must vote in favour, meaning eight ruling party MPs must join the opposition. A handful have so far declared their intention to do so. One of the first to change his mind was Kim Sang-wook. “The president is no longer qualified to lead the country, he is totally unfit,” he told the BBC from his office at the National Assembly.

But Kim said not all MPs would follow his lead; there is a core that will stay loyal to Yoon. In his very conservative constituency, Kim said he had received death threats for switching sides. “My party and supporters have called me a traitor,” he said, labelling South Korean politics as “intensely tribal”.

The vast majority of anger, however, has been directed at the MPs who have shielded Yoon up to this point.

At a protest on Wednesday night the chants had changed from merely “impeach Yoon” to “impeach Yoon, dissolve the party”.

“I hate them both so much right now, but I think I hate the MPs even more than the president,” said a 31-year-old graduate student Chang Yo-hoon, who had joined tens of thousands of others, in freezing temperatures, to voice his disillusionment.

All week, lawmakers have been bombarded with thousands of abusive messages and phone calls from the public, in what one member of parliament described to me as “phone terrorism”, while some have been sent funeral flowers.

Even if enough MPs vote to impeach Yoon this weekend, his party, now divided and widely detested, faces political oblivion. “We don’t even know who we are or what we stand for anymore,” one exasperated party official told me.

The defecting lawmaker Kim Sang-wook thinks it will take time to regain voters’ trust. “We will not disappear, but we need to rebuild ourselves from scratch,” he said. “There is a saying that South Korea’s economy and culture are first class, but its politics are third class. Now is the chance to reflect on that.”

Yoon has dealt a severe blow to South Korea’s reputation as a well-established, albeit young, democracy. There was pride when MPs swiftly overturned the president’s martial law decision, that the country’s democratic institutions were functioning after all. But the fragility of the system was exposed again, as the party manoeuvred to keep him in office, with the opposition branding this a “second coup”.

But Professor Yun Jeong-in, a research professor at Korea University’s Legal Research Institute, insisted the country was dealing with “an aberration, not a systemic failure of democracy”, pointing to the mass protests every night. “People are not panicking; they are fighting back. They see democracy as something that is rightfully theirs,” she said.

Damage has also been done to South Korea’s international relationships, and ironically to much of what Yoon wanted to achieve. He had a vison that South Korea would become a “global pivotal state”, playing a bigger role on the world stage. He even hoped to earn Seoul an invitation to join the elite group of G7 countries.

A Western diplomat told me they were hoping for a “swift resolution” to the crisis. “We need South Korea to be a stable partner. Impeachment would be a step in the right direction.”

If Yoon is suspended from office on Saturday, he will not leave without a fight. A prosecutor by trade, who knows the law inside out, he has decided he would rather be impeached, and challenge the decision when it goes to court, than go quietly. And the shockwaves he has set off are going to ripple through the country for years, perhaps decades, to follow.

The end, when it came for the BGP5 barracks, was loud and brutal. First, a crackly speaker calling out for their surrender; then, a thunderous barrage of artillery, rockets and rifle fire that tore chunks out of the buildings in which hundreds of soldiers were hiding.

BGP5 – the letters stand for Border Guard Police – was the Myanmar military junta’s last stand in northern Rakhine State, which lies along the border with Bangladesh.

Video by the insurgent Arakan Army (AA) which was besieging the base shows their rag-tag fighters, many barefoot, firing an assortment of weapons into the base, while air force jets roar over their heads.

It was a ferocious battle – perhaps the bloodiest of the civil war which has consumed Myanmar since the military seized power in a coup in 2021.

“They had dug deep ditches filled with spikes around the base,” an AA source told the BBC.

“There were bunkers and reinforced buildings. They laid more than a thousand mines. Many of our fighters lost limbs, or their lives, trying to get through.”

For the coup leader, General Min Aung Hlaing, this has been yet another humiliating defeat after a year of military setbacks.

For the first time his regime has lost control of an entire border: the 270km (170 miles) dividing Myanmar from Bangladesh now wholly under AA control.

And with only the Rakhine State capital Sittwe still firmly in military hands, though cut off from the rest of the country, the AA is likely to be the first insurgent group to take complete control of a state.

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The army has been in headlong retreat from the Arakan Army since the beginning of the year, losing town after town.

The last army units withdrew in September to BGP5, a compound covering around 20 hectares just outside the border town of Maungdaw, where the AA laid siege.

BGP5 was built on the site of a Muslim Rohingya village, Myo Thu Gyi, which was burned down during the violent expulsion of much of the Rohingya population by the armed forces in 2017.

It was the first of many burned villages I saw on a visit to Maungdaw right after the military operation in September of that year, a mass of charred debris in among the lush tropical vegetation, its inhabitants killed or forced to flee to Bangladesh.

When I returned two years later, the new police complex had already been built, with all the trees removed, giving defenders a clear view of any attacking force.

The AA source told us their advance towards it was painfully slow, requiring the insurgents to dig their own ditches for cover.

It does not publish its own casualties. But judging from the intensity of fighting in Maungdaw, which began in June, it is likely to have lost hundreds of its own troops.

Throughout the siege, the Myanmar air force kept up a constant bombardment of Maungdaw, driving the last civilians out of the town.

Its planes dropped supplies to the besieged soldiers at night, but it was never enough. They had plenty of rice stored in the bunkers, a local source told us, but they could not get any treatment for their injuries, and the soldiers became demoralised.

They started to surrender last weekend.

AA video shows them coming out in a pitiful state, waving white cloths. Some are hobbling on makeshift crutches, or hopping, their injured legs wrapped in rags. Few are wearing shoes.

Inside the wrecked buildings the victorious insurgents filmed piles of bodies.

The AA says more than 450 soldiers died in the siege. It has published images of the captured commander, Brigadier-General Thurein Tun, and his officers kneeling beneath the flagpole, now flying the insurgents’ banner.

Pro-military commentators in Myanmar have been venting their frustration on social media.

“Min Aung Hlaing, you have not asked any of your children to serve in the military,” wrote one. “Is this how you use us? Are you happy seeing all those deaths in Rakhine?”

“At this rate, all that will be left of the Tatmadaw [military] will be Min Aung Hlaing and a flagpole,” wrote another.

The capture of BGP5 also shows the Arakan Army to be one of the most effective fighting forces in Myanmar.

Formed only in 2009 – much later than most of Myanmar’s other insurgent groups – by young ethnic Rakhine men who had migrated to the Chinese border on the other side of the country in search of work, the AA is part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance which has inflicted most of the defeats suffered by the junta since last year.

The other two members of the alliance have stayed on the border, in Shan State.

But the AA moved back to Rakhine eight years ago to start its armed campaign for self-government, tapping into historic resentment among the Rakhine population of the poverty, isolation and central government neglect of their state.

The AA leaders have proven to be smart, disciplined and able to motivate their fighters.

They are already administering the large areas of Rakhine State they control as though they were running their own state.

And they also have good weapons, thanks to their links with the older insurgent groups on the Chinese border, and appear to be well-funded.

There is a bigger question, though, over how much the various ethnic insurgent groups are willing to prioritise the goal of overthrowing the military junta.

Publicly they say they do, alongside the shadow government which was deposed by the coup, and the hundreds of volunteer peoples’ defence forces which have sprung up to support it.

In return for the support it is getting from the ethnic insurgents, the shadow government is promising a new federal political system which will give Myanmar’s regions self-rule.

But already the other two members of the Three Brotherhood Alliance have accepted China’s request for a ceasefire.

China is seeking a negotiated end to the civil war which would almost certainly leave the military with much of its power intact.

The opposition insists the military must be reformed and removed from politics. But having already made so many territorial gains at the expense of the junta, the ethnic insurgents may be tempted to strike a deal with China’s blessing rather than keep fighting to oust the generals.

The AA’s victory poses more worrying questions.

The group’s leadership is tight-lipped about its plans. But it takes over a state that was always poor and which has suffered greatly from the intense fighting of the past year.

“Eighty per cent of the housing in Maungdaw and the surrounding villages has been destroyed,” one Rohingya man who left Maungdaw recently for Bangladesh told the BBC.

“The town is deserted. Almost all the shops and houses have been looted.”

Last month the United Nations, whose agencies are being given very little access to Rakhine, warned of looming famine, because of the huge numbers of displaced people and the difficulty of getting any supplies in, past a military blockade.

The AA is trying to set up its own administration, but the BBC has been told by some of those displaced by the fighting that the group cannot feed or shelter them.

It is also unclear how the AA will treat the Rohingya population, still thought to number around 600,000 in Rakhine, even after the expulsion of 700,000 in 2017.

The largest number live in northern Rakhine State and Maungdaw has long been a predominantly Rohingya town. Relations with the ethnic Rakhine majority, the support base for the AA, have long been fraught.

They are now a great deal worse after Rohingya militant groups, which have their power base in the vast refugee camps in Bangladesh, chose to take sides with the military, against the AA, despite the army’s track record of persecuting Rohingyas.

Many Rohingyas do not like these groups, and some say they are happy to live in an AA-run Rakhine State.

But tens of thousands have been expelled by the AA from towns it has conquered, and not been allowed back.

The AA has promised to include all communities in its vision for a future independent of the central government, but it has also denounced the Rohingyas it found itself fighting alongside the army.

“We cannot deny the fact that Rohingyas have been persecuted by Myanmar governments for many years, and the Rakhine people supported that,” said the Rohingya man we spoke to in Bangladesh.

“The government wants to keep Rohingyas from becoming citizens, but the Rakhine people believe there should be no Rohingyas at all in Rakhine State. Our situation today is even more difficult than it was under the rule of the military junta.”

Warning: This article contains graphic details of torture

“We gave our blood and soul to the revolution,” crowds chanted, as they carried Mazen Al-Hamada’s coffin through the streets of Damascus, draped in the green, white and black flag adopted by protesters back in 2011, now ubiquitous in the city since the fall of Bashar Al-Assad.

As the funeral procession moved forward, more and more people joined it. “Mazen is a martyr,” many shouted, some weeping.

If the world knew before this about the extent of the brutality of Assad’s regime against its own people, it was in part because of Mazen, an activist who was an outspoken critic of the regime.

On Sunday, his body was found in the notorious “slaughterhouse”, Seydnaya prison in Damascus. It bore signs of horrific torture.

A doctor who examined it told the BBC he had fractures, burn marks and contusions all over his body, allegations corroborated by Mazen’s family.

“It’s impossible to count the wounds on his body. His face was smashed and his nose was broken,” his sister Lamyaa said.

A protester when the uprising in Syria began in 2011, Mazen Al-Hamada was arrested and tortured. Released in 2013, he was given asylum in the Netherlands. He began to speak openly about what he was subjected to in prison.

In the documentary Syria’s Disappeared by Afshar Films, Mazen describes how he was raped, his genitals clamped, and how his ribs were broken by a guard jumping on his chest over and over again.

While in asylum, Mazen’s nephew Jad Al-Hamada says he began suffering from severe depression and other mental health issues. During this time, he was seen in a video claiming he was being threatened by members of Syria’s ethnic minority Kurds, and called for violence against them in response. His family says he was not of sound mind at the time.

In 2020, he decided to return to Syria.

“The government told him he had a deal and that he would be safe. He was also told that his family would be arrested and killed if he didn’t return,” Lamyaa said.

He was arrested as soon as he arrived in the country. And his family believes he was killed after rebels took Hama last week, shortly before the regime fell.

“I am happy that we are free, but I wish he had lived to see it. He paid the price for our freedom,” said Lamyaa.

Mazen’s story is just a small glimpse into the atrocities committed by the Assad regime. More than 100,000 people disappeared under his rule, most believed to be dead. Now their families are searching for their bodies.

At the Damascus hospital, the bodies brought from Seydnaya were laid out in a morgue, and when they ran out of space, the most decomposed ones were kept in a shed-like structure just outside. The stench was overwhelming.

One body was decapitated. The others bore marks of severe torture.

In one corner, there was a plastic bag with a human skull and bones. Families were looking through it to identify their loved ones.

Nineteen-year-old Ahmad Sultan Eid’s disfigured body was identified by his mother and brother. His mother nearly collapsed after she saw it, and nurses took her to the emergency room.

“Oh my boy, my baby, you were only 19,” she wailed. “There’s nothing left for us anymore.”

Ahmad’s brother leaned his face against a wall and wept.

All around us, people were holding up the photos of the loved ones they were searching for.

“I haven’t been able to find anything. How can you find anything if you’re looking through skeletons?” said Mustafa Khair-ul-Inam, an elderly man who had come looking for his two sons Omar and Mohammad who disappeared in 2011.

Amhad Masri meanwhile had come looking for his brother Khalil.

“Until now we weren’t allowed to ask where our loved ones are, otherwise we would be arrested. Can you imagine our feelings? They didn’t do anything and just like that they are gone. Maybe they are in a mass grave somewhere. Living in a jungle was better than living in Syria,” he said.

Grief and rage – which couldn’t be expressed openly until just a week ago – were pouring out.

“Every mother who is looking for her son should get revenge against Assad. Putin should not give him refuge. He should send Assad back so we can execute him in a public square,” one woman shouted loudly.

I asked Mazen’s sister Lamyaa what justice she wanted for her brother.

“The perpetrators of the crimes have all escaped. But I want them brought back so we can get justice in a court of law.”

When Donald Trump sat with world leaders in Paris last weekend to marvel at the restored Notre Dame cathedral, armed Islamist fighters in Syria were in jeeps on the road to Damascus finalising the fall of the Assad regime.

In this split screen moment of global news, the US president-elect, seated between the French first couple, still had an eye on the stunning turn of events in the Middle East.

“Syria is a mess, but is not our friend,” he posted the same day on his Truth Social network.

He added: “THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!”

This post, and another the next day, were a reminder of the president-elect’s powerful mandate to not intervene in foreign policy.

It also raised big questions about what comes next: Given the way the war has drawn in and affected regional and global powers, can Trump really have “nothing to do” with Syria now that President Bashar al-Assad’s government has fallen?

Will Trump pull US troops out?

Does his policy differ drastically from President Biden’s, and if so, what’s the point of the White House doing anything in the five weeks before Trump takes over?

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The current administration is involved in a frantic round of diplomacy in response to the fall of Assad and the rise to power of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Syrian Islamist armed group that the US designates as a terrorist organisation.

I’m writing this onboard Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s plane, as he shuttles between Jordan and Turkey trying to get key Arab and Muslim countries in the region to back a set of conditions Washington is placing on recognising a future Syrian government.

The US says it must be transparent and inclusive, must not be a “base for terrorism”, cannot threaten Syria’s neighbours, and must destroy any chemical and biological weapons stocks.

For Mike Waltz, Trump’s nominee for national security adviser, who has yet to be confirmed, there is one guiding principle to his foreign policy.

“President Trump was elected with an overwhelming mandate to not get the United States dug into any more Middle Eastern wars,” he told Fox News this week.

He went on to list America’s “core interests” there as the Islamic State (IS) group, Israel and “our Gulf Arab allies”.

Waltz’s comments were a neat summary of the Trump view of Syria as a small jigsaw piece in his bigger regional policy puzzle.

His goals are to ensure that remnants of IS remain contained and to see that a future government in Damascus can’t threaten Washington’s most important regional ally, Israel.

Trump is also focused on what he sees as the biggest prize: a historic diplomatic and trade deal to normalise relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which he believes would further weaken and humiliate Iran.

The rest, Trump believes, is Syria’s “mess” to work out.

Trump’s rhetoric harkens back to how he talked about Syria during his first term, when he derided the country – which has an extraordinary cultural history dating back millennia – as a land of “sand and death”.

“Donald Trump, himself, I think really wanted very little to do with Syria during his first administration,” said Robert Ford, who served as President Barack Obama’s ambassador to Syria from 2011-14, and who argued within that administration for more American intervention in the form of support for Syrian moderate opposition groups to counter Assad’s brutal suppression of his population.

“But there are other people in his circle who are much more concerned about counterterrorism,” he told the BBC.

The US currently has around 900 troops in Syria east of the Euphrates river and in a 55km (34 miles) “deconfliction” zone bordering Iraq and Jordan.

Their official mission is to counter the IS group, now much degraded in desert camps, and to train and equip the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF – Kurdish and Arab allies of the US who control the territory).

The SDF also guards camps containing IS fighters and their families.

In practice, the US presence on the ground has also gone beyond this, helping to block a potential weapons transit route for Iran, which used Syria to supply its ally Hezbollah.

Mr Ford, like other analysts, believes that while Trump’s isolationist instincts play well on social media, the realities on the ground and the views of his own team could end up moderating his stance.

That view is echoed by Wa’el Alzayat, a former adviser on Syria at the US Department of State.

“He is bringing on board some serious people to his administration who will be running his Middle East file,” he told the BBC, specifically noting that Senator Marco Rubio, who has been nominated for secretary of state, “is a serious foreign policy player”.

These tensions – between isolationist ideals and regional goals – also came to a head during his first term, when Trump withdrew remaining CIA funding for some “moderate” rebels, and ordered the withdrawal of US forces from northern Syria in 2019.

At the time, Waltz called the move “a strategic mistake” and, fearing an IS resurgence, Trump’s own officials partially rowed back his decision.

Trump also diverged from his non-interventionist ideals by launching 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield, after Assad allegedly ordered a chemical weapons attack that killed scores of civilians in 2017.

He also doubled down on sanctions against Syria’s leadership.

The blurred lines of Trump’s “it’s not our fight” pledge were summed up by Waltz.

“That doesn’t mean he’s not willing to absolutely step in,” he told Fox News.

“President Trump has no problem taking decisive action if the American homeland is threatened in any way.”

Adding to the possibility of tension is another key figure, Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump has nominated as director of national intelligence. The controversial former Democrat-turned-Trump ally met Assad in 2017 on a “fact-finding” trip, and at the time criticised Trump’s policies.

Her nomination is likely to be heavily scrutinised by US senators amid accusations – that she has denied – of being an apologist for Assad and Russia.

Anxiety over the continuing mission in Syria, and a desire to be able to end it, is not exclusive to Trump.

In January, three American soldiers were killed at a US base in Jordan in a drone strike by Iran-backed militias operating in Syria and Iraq, as the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza threatened to spread farther in the region.

This attack and others have continued to raise questions to the Biden administration over US force levels and their exposure in the area.

In fact, many of the outgoing Biden and incoming Trump administrations’ positions on Syria match more than they diverge.

Despite the sharp differences in the tone and rhetoric, both leaders want Damascus run by a government amenable to US interests.

Both Biden and Trump want to build on Iran and Russia’s humiliation in Syria.

Trump’s “this is not our fight, let it play out” is his equivalent of the Biden administration’s “this is a process that needs to be led by Syrians, not by the United States”.

But the “major” difference, and that which raises the most anxiety among Biden supporters, is in Trump’s approach to US forces on the ground and American backing for the SDF, said Bassam Barabandi, a former Syrian diplomat in Washington who helped opposition figures flee the Assad regime.

“Biden has more sympathy, connection, passion towards [the Kurds]. Historically, he was one of the first senators to visit the Kurdish areas [of northern Iraq] after Saddam Hussein’s Kuwait invasion,” he said.

“Trump and his people they don’t care as much… they take it into consideration not to leave their allies out, they get this, [but] the way they implement it is different.”

Mr Barabandi, who said he supports Trump’s non-interventionist rhetoric, thinks the president-elect will pull out US troops “for sure”, but over a gradual timeframe and with a clear plan in place.

“It will not be like Afghanistan, within 24 hours,” he said. “He will say within six months, or whatever time, a deadline for that and for the arrangement of everything.”

Much may revolve around Trump’s discussions with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with whom he is thought to have a close relationship.

American backing for the SDF has long been a source of tension with Turkey, which views the People’s Defense Units (YPG) – the Kurdish force that makes up the SDF’s military backbone – as a terrorist organisation.

Since Assad fell, Turkey has been carrying out air strikes to force Kurdish fighters out of strategic areas, including the town of Manbij.

Trump may want to cut a deal with his friend in Ankara that allows him to withdraw US troops and could see Turkey’s hand strengthen further.

But the possibility of Turkish-backed groups taking control of some areas worries many, including Wa’el Alzayat, the former US State Department Syria expert.

“You can’t have different groups running different parts of the country, controlling different resources,” he added.

“There’s either the political process, which I do think the US has a role to play, or something else, and I hope they avoid that latter scenario.”

On a painted wall outside Damascus’s Mustahed Hospital are photographs of the faces of dead men.

A constantly changing crowd of people examine them, squinting against the low winter sun at men who look as if they died in great pain. Noses, mouths and eye sockets are twisted, damaged and squashed.

Their bodies are in the hospital, brought to the city centre from another on the outskirts of Damascus. The medics say the dead were all prisoners.

A stream of wives, brothers, sisters and fathers come to the hospital looking for information. They’re hoping most of all to find a body to bury.

They get as close as possible to the photos looking hard for anything on the faces that they recognise. Some of them video each picture to take home for a second opinion.

It is a brutal job. A few of the men had been dead for weeks judging by the way faces have decomposed.

From the wall of photos, relatives go on to the mortuary.

Mustahed Hospital received 35 bodies, so many that the mortuary is full and the overflow room packed with trolleys loaded with body bags.

Inside the morgue, bodies were laid out on a bare concrete floor under a line of refrigerated trays.

Body bags had been opened as families peered inside and opened the refrigerators.

Some corpses were wrapped loosely in shrouds that had fallen away to expose faces, or tattoos or scars that could identify someone.

One of the dead men was wearing a diaper. Another had sticky tape across his chest, scrawled with a number. Even as they killed him, his jailors denied him the dignity of his own name.

All the bodies were emaciated. The doctors who examined them said they had signs of beating including severe bruising and multiple fractures.

Dr Raghad Attar, a forensic dentist, was checking dental records left by families to try to identify bodies. She spoke calmly about how she was assembling a bank of evidence that could be used for DNA tests, then broke down when I asked her how she was coping.

“You hear always that prisoners are lost for a long time, but seeing it is very painful.

“I came here yesterday. It was very difficult for me. We hope the future will be better but this is very hard. I am really sorry for these families. I am very sorry for them.”

Tears rolled down her face when I asked her if Syria could recover from 50 years of the Assads.

“I don’t know. I hope so. I have the feeling that good days are coming but I want to ask all countries to help us.”

“Anything to help us. Anything, anything…”

The families and friends coming in went silently from body to body, hoping to find some end to the pain that started when their loved ones were picked up at one of the regime’s checkpoints or in a raid on their homes and thrown into the Assads’ gulag.

A woman called Noor, holding a facemask over her mouth and nose, said her brother was taken in 2012, when he was 28.

All they had heard since was a mention in a Facebook post that he had been in the notorious Sednaya prison, where the regime left prisoners to rot for decades.

“It is painful,” said Noor. “At the same time, we have hope. Even if we find him between the bodies. Anything so long as he’s not missing. We want to find something of him. We want to know what happened to him. We need an end to this.”

One couple told a doctor their son was hauled away for refusing to open his laptop for inspection.

That was 12 years ago. He hasn’t been heard from since.

During the years I have reported from Syria I have heard many similar stories.

On my phone I have a photo of the haunted face of a woman I met in July 2018 at a camp for people displaced just after the rebel stronghold of Douma in the Damascus suburbs was forced to surrender.

Her son, a young teenager, disappeared after he was taken at a checkpoint by one of the intelligence agencies.

More than 50 years of the Assads means 50 years of disappearances, of incarceration, of killing.

It means pitiless cruelty to the prisoners, to the families trying to find them and to the Syrian people who were outside the Assads’ circle of trust.

At the photo wall and in the mortuary at Mustahed hospital they wanted to find what had happened, some information and if they were very lucky, a body.

They needed a reckoning and many wanted revenge. Most of all, they dreamed and hoped for a life without fear.

A woman at the hospital said that even though she knew Bashar al-Assad was in Russia, the regime had drilled so much fear into her that she was still terrified of what it might do.

Maybe every Syrian who feels like her should go to the crag overlooking Damascus where Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, ordered the construction of a presidential palace, to check that the monumental, marble edifice is empty.

Our driver gathered his own video evidence. He took out his phone to start filming when the car turned into the palace’s long ceremonial driveway.

During the years of the regime, ordinary Syrians made sure they did not slow down near the palace gates in case they were arrested and thrown into prison as a threat to the president.

Mobile phones stopped working as you approached the palace’s security bubble.

The palace looks down on Damascus, visible from most of the city. It told the people that the Assads were always present and always watching via the regime’s web of intelligence agencies.

The system was designed by Hafez, the first Assad president. His secret police spied on each other and spied on the people.

A businessman I knew in Homs told me once that one intelligence branch approached him when he was developing a hotel, asking for the designs early in the project so they could incorporate all the listening devices they needed into the rooms. They explained it was easier than retrofitting them after the building was finished.

The Assad family never lived at the palace. It was for ceremonial occasions, and upstairs there were some workaday offices.

I went there a lot in 2015, to negotiate the terms of an interview with Bashar al-Assad. I had interviewed him twice before, some years before the uprising against him started in 2011.

That was when he was still tantalising Syrians with talk of reform, which turned out to be lies.

He was also encouraging western leaders to believe he might be separated from Iran and if not join the western camp exactly, then be persuaded that it was worth his while not to oppose it.

The US, Israel and the UAE were still trying to persuade him to dump Iran in the weeks before he was forced to flee to Moscow.

Now that Assad has gone, my target at the palace was an opulent villa in the grounds. I wanted to go there because it was where I met Assad for the interviews.

The villa, much more luxurious than the state rooms at the palace, was built, I was told, as a private residence for the Assad family.

Its floors and tables are marble, the wood is polished walnut and the chandeliers are crystal.

The Assads did not like it, so it was used as a guest house and for Bashar’s rare interviews.

I could see why they might have preferred their existing residence, a beautiful French colonial mansion that stands behind a screen of pine trees. It feels like an aristocrat’s retreat on the Riviera.

Until less than two weeks ago in the souk in old Damascus you could buy fridge magnets of Bashar al-Assad and his siblings as children, playing on bikes in a garden as their indulgent parents looked on.

Presumably the photo was taken on the villa’s spacious, immaculate lawns.

The extended Assad family treated Syria as their own personal possession, enriching themselves and buying trust with their followers at the expense of Syrians who could be thrown into jail or killed if they stepped out of line, or even if they didn’t.

A fighter called Ahmed, who had taken up arms against the regime in 2011, survived the rebel defeat in Damascus, and fought his way back from Idlib with the rebels of Hayat Tahrir al Sham was inspecting the way the Assads lived with his three brothers, all rebel fighters.

“People were living in hell and he was in his palace,” Ahmed said calmly.

“He didn’t care about what they were going through. He made them live in fear, hunger and humiliation. Even after we entered Damascus people would only whisper to us, because they were still afraid.”

I found the marble guesthouse, and walked through the walnut-panelled, marble-floored library where I had interviewed Assad when the regime was fighting for survival in February 2015.

The highlight of the interview were his denials that his forces were killing civilians. He even tried to joke about it.

Now, rebel fighters were on the door and patrolling the corridors. Some of the books had fallen off the library shelves, but the building was intact.

I walked across to an ante room where Assad would grant 10 or 15 minutes of private conversation before the interview.

He was unfailingly polite, even solicitous, enquiring about my family, and the journey to Syria.

Bashar al-Assad’s slightly awkward demeanour made some western observers believe he was a lightweight who might bend to pressure.

In private I found him self-confident to the point of arrogance, convinced he was the all-knowing spider at the heart of the Middle East web, tracking his enemies’ malign intentions and ready to strike.

His father Hafez al-Assad was a kingpin of the Middle East. He was a ruthless man who built the police state that lasted for over fifty years, using fear, guile and a willingness to destroy any threat to impose stability on Syria, a country that had been a byword for violent changes of government until he seized sole power in 1970.

I had the impression that Bashar wanted to be his father’s son, perhaps even to outdo him.

He killed many more Syrians than Hafez and broke the country to try to save the regime.

But Bashar’s stubbornness, refusal to reform or negotiate and his willingness to kill sealed his fate and condemned him to a last terrified drive to the airport with his wife and children on their last flight out of Syria to Moscow.

In a scruffy, bustling neighbourhood not far from the grace and beauty of the old city of Damascus, I had a front row seat as some of the pressures facing Syria and its new rulers surged through an excited crowd.

They had heard that the man who until less than a week ago was the local boss, the mafia-style godfather of their suburb was going to be executed.

The man, known as Abu Muntaja, was one of the military intelligence officers considered responsible for the Tadamon massacre in 2013 of at least 41 local men.

The crowd grew until thousands blocked the streets, delighted that a notorious regime killer was going to be executed in in front of them in the main square that he used to swagger across.

The atmosphere throbbed with excitement, expectation and anger.

Justice meant watching their enemy die, not just because of his crimes, but because of the boundless cruelty of the Assad regime.

An elderly women called Muna Sakar, dressed in a neat coat and hat, was there to see him die as a thief as well as a killer.

“He stole my house and money. Of course I want to see him dead. I would have done it myself with my own hands. But I couldn’t find a way. I wanted to kill him.”

When rumours flew around that the execution was starting, the crowd surged back and forth, jostling for the best position, phones held high in outstretched arms for the video.

No one wanted to miss a thing. When they decided the execution was happening down the street, they stampeded over fences and cars stuck in traffic to get there.

In the end there was no execution, at least not yet. It was probably a rumour, that thousands wanted to be true.

If Syria’s new rulers do not want change to be measured in blood, they will need to control the desire for revenge.

When the weight of dictatorship is lifted, powerful forces are unleashed.

How Syria’s new rulers deal with them will shape what comes next.

A pilot who caused a deadly light plane crash on an island in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has been spared a jail sentence.

British tourist Jocelyn Spurway, 29, was killed and 21-year-old Irish woman Hannah O’Dowd seriously injured when the aircraft hit the sand on Middle Island in January 2017.

A jury found pilot Leslie Woodall guilty of dangerously operating a vehicle causing death and grievous bodily harm, after a short trial which focused on his actions after one of the plane’s engines suddenly failed.

Woodall was given a two-year sentence, wholly suspended – which means the 64-year-old will remain free as long as he complies with certain conditions.

The three-day trial in the Brisbane District Court was shown footage filmed by one of the three passengers inside the plane, which captured the moment the engine stopped and Woodall sharply turned the plane to the left.

The Cessna 172N then rapidly lost altitude, before a wing hit the sand and it rolled.

Ms Spurway suffered fatal spinal injuries, and her friend Ms O’Dowd was left with a traumatic brain injury and a series of fractures. Woodall also sustained serious injuries, and a 13-year-old boy who was on board suffered a broken ankle.

Prosecutors argued it was not the engine failure that caused the crash, but rather Woodall’s response to it.

Aviation experts who gave evidence during the trial agreed that Woodall, an experienced pilot, went against flight training and best practice. He should have kept the wings level in order to glide and safely land, they said.

However Woodall’s defence team argued he had little other options available to him in a highly stressful situation.

In a 2019 police interview played to the court he told officers he was trying to reach a sandbank, according to reports by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“I decided not to land in the water as it was deep, and I was concerned about the risks of drowning and the risk of bull sharks,” the pilot said.

“I truly believe I did everything I could to ensure the safety of those on board.”

The former coach of the Chinese national men’s football team has been sentenced to 20 years in jail for bribery, state media reported.

Li Tie, who also played for Everton in the English Premier League, confessed earlier this year to fixing matches, accepting bribes, and offering bribes to get the top coaching job.

The case shows how President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption crackdown has cut through sport, banking and the military.

Earlier this week, three former officials from the Chinese Football Association (CFA) were also handed jail sentences for bribery. More than a dozen coaches and players have been investigated.

Li, who was the national team’s head coach from January 2020 to December 2021, pleaded guilty in March to taking over $10 million in bribes.

The 47-year-old was featured in an anti-corruption documentary aired by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV early this year, wherein he apologised for his offences.

“I’m very sorry. I should have kept my head to the ground and followed the right path,” he said. “There were certain things that at the time were common practices in football”.

Li had made 92 appearances for China and played at the 2002 World Cup.

His former boss, the former CFA president Chen Xuyuan, was sentenced to life in prison earlier this year for accepting bribes worth $11 million.

Xi had in the past voiced his ambition to turn China into a major football power.

In 2011, he spoke of his “three wishes” for Chinese football: to qualify for the World Cup again, to host the tournament and to one day win the trophy.

But the recent detentions and convictions of major football figures – some of whom were officials tasked to lead the football revolution – have dealt another setback to the country’s football ambitions.

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

Dommaraju, 18, is four years younger than the former record-holder, Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov, who was 22 when he won the title in 1985.

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 outside challenger going into the final round of the FIDE World Chess Championship, held in Singapore this year.

Playing on black, Dommaraju won the game after Ding, who had been in a solid position, made a fatal foolish move that gave up his last powerful piece.

His blunder delivered victory to the 18-year-old, who until now had been ranked fifth in the world and second in his own country.

The 14-game World Championship competition had been closely watched by chess fans around the world this past fortnight.

Going into the final game on Thursday, Dommaraju and Ding had eight draws and two wins apiece.

Players receive one point for a win and half a point each for a draw. Dommaraju claimed the title on Thursday with a final score of 7.5 to 6.5, becoming just the 18th world chess champion.

The teenager comes from Chennai, a city known as India’s chess capital for having produced so many national champions.

But there were no elite chess players in his family – he was enrolled in chess sessions after school because his father, a surgeon, and his mother, a medical professor, needed somewhere to put him.

His talent was spotted there by coaches, who encouraged his family to invest in his training. In high school in 2019, he was crowned a grandmaster at the age of 12 years and seven months – the third-youngest in history.

The teenager has spoken before about how yoga and mindful thinking has helped him deal with the pressures of his chess career.

He stayed focused on Thursday as his opponent, the defending champion Ding, appeared to buckle under the pressure.

Ding has faced questions over his form all year since winning the title in 2023 becoming China’s first chess world champion.

For most of the year, he had taken a break from chess, having spoken about his struggles with depression and mental health.

But his stylish win over Dommaraju in the opening game of the championship last month, and a victory in Round 12, had suggested momentum.

Thursday’s game saw several hours of tight play, with commentators suggesting it was heading to a draw.

But on the 55th move, Ding committed a fatal blunder – moving his rook into a position to be taken.

Immediately recognising his mistake, he 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.”

He resigned three moves later. Dommaraju promptly burst into tears as the room erupted with cheers.

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

At age 18, he is only the second Indian player to become world chess champion, after five-time world chess champion Viswanathan Anand who last won in 2012.

“It’s a proud moment for chess, a proud moment for India… and for me, a very personal moment of pride.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Narendra Modi was also among the first public figures showering praise.

“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.

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.”

The head of Nato has said it is time to “shift to a wartime mindset”, as he warned the military alliance’s members were not spending enough to prepare for the threat of a future conflict with Russia.

Secretary general Mark Rutte said Moscow was “preparing for long-term confrontation with Ukraine and with us”, describing the current security situation as the worst in his lifetime.

“We are not ready for what is coming our way in four to five years,” he said in his first major speech since becoming secretary general in October, urging members to “turbocharge” their defence spending.

His comments come weeks before president-elect Donald Trump takes office, having previously suggested the US would not protect Nato allies that were failing to spend enough on defence.

Nato members have pledged to spend at least 2% of the value of their economies – measured by GDP – on defence per year by 2024.

But speaking at an event in Brussels, the former Dutch prime minister said “a lot more” would be needed as danger “[moves] towards us at full speed”.

He said European members had spent upwards of 3% of GDP on defence during the Cold War.

“If we don’t spend more together now to prevent war, we will pay a much, much, much higher price later to fight it,” he said.

He added that Russia’s economy was “on a war footing”, with its defence spend by 2025 set to be “a third of Russia’s state budget – and the highest level since the Cold War”.

Russia has significantly increased its defence spending since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with record levels approved for 2025.

Rutte spoke at a critical juncture in the war in Ukraine, with Russian forces grinding forward in the east of the country. By November, Moscow had seized six times as much Ukrainian territory in 2024 compared with the whole of 2023.

While the average defence spend for Nato members in Europe and Canada is estimated at 2%, not all meet the target.

Trump said in February that he would “encourage” Russia to attack any Nato member that fails to pay its bills as part of the Western military alliance.

Nato’s 32 members in Europe and North America agree that if one member is attacked, the others should help defend them.

Speaking to the BBC following his speech on Thursday, Rutte said: “Donald Trump was completely right when in his first term he forced us to spend more, he was successful, we are considerably spending more than before he became president, so in that sense he was totally right.”

This is why some in Nato call Rutte “The Trump Whisperer”. And that, they say, is a very big reason he was chosen as Nato secretary general.

Back in 2018, then President Trump famously threatened the US would “go our own way” if other Nato members – essentially in Europe – did not spend more on their own militaries. Then Dutch Prime Minister Rutte was credited with reasoning with the US president, assuring him that spending had already gone up and that he, President Trump, was the reason for it.

And now Trump is poised to return to the White House and Rutte wants to keep the US committed to Nato and European defence. So Rutte’s messaging to Trump is once again to flatter him.

As a former prime minister, Rutte well knows that Europe’s leaders hesitate to spend much more on defence because voters across the continent have other priorities – rising living costs, health, migration.

That, he told the BBC, is why he aimed his speech today as his “plea” to “people”.

“I’m really pleading directly to the one billion people living in Nato territory, and particularly in Canada and Europe, to ask them to help me,” Rutte said.

“Call up your politicians, tell them that you agree that yes it is difficult, it will mean somewhat less spending on some other items, but that you want them, your politicians, to prioritise defence, because this is long-term crucial…

“My plea here is if you have children, grandchildren, if you think our way of life should be preserved, the democracy, our values, then we have to prioritise defence.

“And if we don’t, in four or five years we are in real difficulty.”

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.

Bolivia has extradited its former anti-drugs director to the United States, where he faces drug trafficking charges.

Maximiliano Dávila, also known as “Macho”, is accused of facilitating cocaine smuggling to the US during his time as the head of Bolivia’s anti-narcotics agency.

His extradition, which took place on Thursday, was approved by Bolivia’s Supreme Court in late November. He denies any wrongdoing.

Dávila had been imprisoned in Bolivia on corruption charges since February 2022.

That same month, US officials unsealed an indictment accusing the 60-year-old of cocaine trafficking, and a related weapons charge.

The US Department of State alleges Dávila was involved in narcotics trafficking before and during his time as director of the Bolivian Special Forces for the Fight Against Drug Trafficking (FELCN).

It says Dávila exploited his position to “safeguard aircraft used to transport cocaine to third countries, for subsequent distribution in the United States”.

If convicted, he faces a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum term of life in prison, according to US documents.

The state department in 2022 offered a reward of up to $5m (£4m) for information that could lead to his conviction.

Dávila was FELCN director under former President Evo Morales, who governed Bolivia from 2006 to 2019.

Shortly after Dávila’s extradition, Morales criticised the move and said “Bolivia is once again a US Colony”, in a post on his X account.

“Bolivians are handed over to the North American Empire, violating international agreements, without first being tried in their homeland where they supposedly committed crimes”, he added.

In 2008, Morales expelled the US ambassador and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) from Bolivia for allegedly conspiring against his government.

Morales himself is under investigation for alleged statutory rape and human trafficking, which he denies. His supporters recently staged blockades around the country for weeks demanding the end of the investigation against him.

In November, he shared a video of his car being shot at, in what he called an “assassination attempt” against him.

The Bolivian government rejected Morales’ claims that it was behind the attempt on his life.

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.

Syria’s new interim government “freed and secured” Mr Timmerman, it confirmed in a message on the Telegram messaging service on Thursday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said 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.

Richard Timmerman, who identified himself as the freed prisoner’s great-uncle, said the last time he heard from him he had been working in Chicago.

“The family had been looking for him, but no-one’s been able to find anything about him,” he was quoted as saying by the New York Times.

“He’s very responsible,” he added. “He’s not a criminal kind of person.”

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.

Syria’s new leadership said on Thursday the search for Mr Tice was “ongoing,” and that it was ready to “cooperate directly” with the US to find Americans that disappeared under the Assad regime.

The now collapsed 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.”

In Aleppo’s city centre, the huge billboard in the main square with a picture of President Bashar al-Assad, which used to be a feature in any Syrian town and village, was set on fire, then removed.

The red, white and black national flags that decorated the lampposts were also taken away and replaced with what is known as “independence flag”. Down the road, outside the city hall, a giant banner with a photo of Assad was taken down; another had his face riddled with bullets, and for whatever reason was being kept there.

Across Aleppo, residents and the new authorities seemed eager to get rid of anything symbolising the Assads – Bashar had come to power in 2000 after the death of his father Hafez, who ruled for 29 years.

I came to Aleppo for the first time as a student, in 2008, and banners with Assad’s face were prominent in public squares, streets and government buildings; all of them seemed to have been either removed or destroyed.

This was the first major city captured by Islamist-led rebels earlier this month, in their astonishing offensive that overthrew Assad and brought freedom to this country after five decades of oppression – at least for now.

One of the first things they did was to topple a large equestrian statue of the former president’s late brother, Bassel; a statue of Hafez was also vandalised.

Once a bustling commercial hub, Aleppo witnessed, and was ravaged by, intense battles between opposition fighters and government forces during the civil war, which started in 2011 when Assad brutally repressed peaceful protests against him.

Thousands were killed. Tens of thousands others fled.

Now, with Assad gone, many are coming back, from other parts of Syria and even abroad.

• Jeremy Bowen: Assad’s palace, once a symbol of power, now an empty shell
• Israel seizing on Syria chaos to strike military assets
• Victims of Syria chemical attacks speak freely for first time

Early in the war, East Aleppo, a rebel stronghold, was besieged by forces loyal to the regime and came under intense Russian bombardment. In 2016, government forces reclaimed it, a victory then considered a turning point in the conflict.

To this day, buildings remain destroyed, and piles of rubble wait to be collected. The return of the Assad forces meant that it was too risk for those who had fled to come back – until now.

“When the regime fell, we could raise our heads,” Mahmoud Ali, who is 80, said. He left when fighting there intensified in 2012. He moved with his family to Idlib, in the country’s north-west, which, until two weeks ago, was the rebel enclave in Syria, run by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group that led the anti-Assad offensive.

“Repression is what I say all my life in the hands of the Assad family. Anyone demanding any rights would be sent to jail. We protested because there was a lot of repression, especially on us, the poor people.”

His daughter, 45-year-old Samar, is one of millions in Syria who had only known this country being ruled by the Assads.

“Up until, nobody dared to speak up because of the terror of the regime,” she said.

“Our children were deprived of everything. They didn’t have their childhood.”

It is remarkable that these feelings were being shared so freely in a country where opposition was not tolerated; the secret police, known as the Mukhabarat, seemed to be everywhere and spying on everyone, and critics were disappeared or sent to jail, where they were tortured and killed.

Across Aleppo, the new authorities installed billboards with the image of chains around two wrists saying, “Freeing detainees is a debt upon our necks”.

“We’re happy, but there’s still fear,” Samar said. “Why are we still afraid? Why isn’t our happiness full? It’s because of the fear they [the regime] planted inside us”.

Her brother, Ahmed, agreed. “You could be sent to jail for saying simple things. I’m happy, but I’m still concerned. But we’ll never live under repression again”.

His father intervened, to agree with him. “That’s impossible.”

The family lived in a small flat, where electricity was intermittent and heating, inexistent.

Now that they had returned, they did not know what to do, like many others here. More than 90% of Syria’s population is estimated to live in poverty, and there are broader concerns about how HTS, which started as an al-Qaeda affiliate, will run the country.

A woman who lived in a flat nearby said, “No-one could take away my happiness. I still can’t believe that we came back. May God protect those who took the country back.”

At the main square, a man told me, “I really hope we get it right, and there isn’t a return to violence and oppression.”

At Mahmoud Ali’s flat, an “independence flag”, with its four red stars in the middle, had been drawn on a white paper, and put on the coffee table in the living room.

Samar, one of his daughters, told me, “We still can’t believe that Assad is gone.”

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.”

“If I see someone tapping their fingers on a desk, my immediate thought is to chop their fingers off with a knife,” an anonymous patient confides to a researcher.

Another shares: “When I see someone making really small repetitive movements, such as my husband bending his toes, I feel physically ill. I hold it back but I want to vomit.”

Sound familiar? If so, perhaps you too have a condition called misokinesia – a diagnosible hatred of fidgeting.

Scientists are striving to understand more about the phenomenon that has no known cause, as yet.

For the latest research, featured in the journal PLoS One, experts carried out indepth interviews with 21 people belonging to a misokinesia support group.

Common triggers were leg, hand or foot movements – jiggling thighs, twitchy fingers and shuffling shoes.

Pen clicking and hair twiddling were also triggers, though not quite as frequently.

Often people reported some overlap with another more recognised condition called misophonia – an intense dislike of others people’s noises, such as heavy breathing or loud eating.

It’s impossible to know exactly how many people might be experiencing misokinesia.

One recent Canadian study suggested perhaps one in three of us might be aversely affected by other people fidgeting, experiencing intense feelings of rage, torture and disgust.

I spoke with Dr Jane Gregory, a clinical psychologist at Oxford University in the UK, who has been studying and treating both misokinesia and misophonia.

She told BBC News: “The two go alongside each other very frequently. Often people have both at the same time.”

Although there is no good data, Dr Gregory says the conditions are probably suprisingly common.

“Obviously, people have been experiencing it for a long time but just didn’t have a name for it.”

The severity of people’s aversion to fidgeting varies, she tells me.

“Some people might get really annoyed by fidgeting or repetitive movements but it doesn’t impact massively on day-to-day life,” she says.

Others, however, may “get a really strong emotional reaction – anger, panic or distress – and just can’t filter them out”.

Through Dr Gregory’s work, she tends to meet people with more extreme symptoms. Many are adults who have endured misokinesia for years, but some are in their early teens and experiencing it for the first time.

Andrea, 62 and from the UK, says she developed misophonia and misokinesia at 13 but that it wasn’t recognised at the time.

One of her earliest memories of the condition is being distressed by a girl at school who was picking her nails.

“Most of misokinesia tends to focus around people’s hands – what they are doing with their hands and what they are touching,” she says.

Another trigger for her is when people partially cover their mouth with their hand while speaking – she struggles to watch and feels like her own mouth is becoming sore when she does.

Andrea says the anger she experiences is explosive and instantaneous.

“There’s no thought process in it. There’s no rationale. It just explodes inside you, which is why it is so distressing.”

She tells me she has tried different strategies to manage her condition, but can’t block it out.

Now she shields herself from society, living alone and working from home, and says her whole life is designed around avoiding the things that could distress her.

Andrea says she has lots of supportive friends who understand that she sometimes needs to modify how she interacts with them.

“It’s easier to just withdraw. To try and survive it. You can’t keep asking other people not to do things.”

She explains that she doesn’t blame people for their fidgeting and understands that most people’s actions are unintentional and done out of habit.

Andrea says sharing her experiences with a Facebook support group has been a real help.

Jill, who is 53 and from Kent, is another member of that group.

She says her misokinesia makes her heart race.

“Anything can trigger me, from leg bouncing to how someone looks and holds their fork.

“I get anger, so much anger.

“My heart starts beating too fast. It’s like a fight for flight.”

Julie, who is 54 and from Hull, says the main feeling she experiences with her misokinesia is angst.

“The other day, I was on the bus and there was a lady walking by and both her arms were swinging. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I was getting really anxious with it, not angry.

“It’s silly things like someone is making me a cup of tea and they get the teabag and bounce it up and down, up and down, up and down. Why?

“Or if someone is sat there wobbling their leg. I can’t take my eyes off it. Or if I do look away, I have to look back to see if they are still doing it.”

She tells the BBC the unpleasant feeling afterwards can eat away at her for hours.

“I’m not an angry person. It just makes me feel like there is a ball in my stomach that wants to explode. It’s not anger, it’s feeling really anxious inside.”

Julie says she is not afraid to ask people to stop doing something that she is finding distressing, but tends to walk away instead.

Her misokinesia makes her unhappy, she tells me.

“It makes me internalise it. I don’t like myself for feeling like this.”

Dr Gregory says the condition can be extremely debilitating and prevent people from focusing and doing normal things.

“Part of their brain is constantly thinking about this movement,” she explains.

“Violent images might pop into their head. They want to grab the person and force them to stop… even though they are not angry in their normal lives.”

In terms of why some people are triggered, Dr Gregory says it might be a heightened basic survival instinct – like a meerkat on the lookout for danger.

She likens the feeling to seeing “someone scurrying in the distance” or “tuning into footsteps behind you”.

“For some people, you don’t tune it out again. Your brain is continually monitoring.”

In noisy, hectic modern life, it’s not very useful, she says.

And if you keep getting triggered, the frustration and anger can build.

For some people, it’s strangers’ habits that are most irksome, while for others, it’s loved ones.

One common way people try to manage the condition is by avoiding looking at fidgeting or by distracting themselves, Dr Gregory says.

Others may try to avoid people entirely, as much as they can.

If there is only one isolated visual trigger – such as hair twirling – the expert says it is sometimes possible to use reframing therapy to help the person view the situation in a more positive way.

“You might look at it deliberately and create a new backstory for why someone is doing that movement.”

That can help reduce the anger and anxiety, she says.

“A lot of people feel really embarrased or ashamed that they get such strong reactions,” Dr Gregory adds.

“That, itself, can be a problem because suppressing your emotions can intensify them and make them worse.”

How closely have you been paying attention to what’s been going on in the world over the past seven days?

Fancy some more? Try last week’s quiz, or have a go at something from the archives.

A sombre mood engulfed a village in Kenya’s Rift Valley last week as dozens of medical interns joined other mourners at the burial of their colleague who had taken his own life.

Speaker after speaker lamented the loss of Francis Njuki, a 29-year-old trainee pharmacist, whose family told the BBC about his feelings of exhaustion and frustration over the non-payment of his salary by the government since he started working as an intern in August.

He is the fifth medic to kill themselves in Kenya in the last two months because of “work-stress hardships and lack of responsive insurance cover”, according to Dr Davji Atellah, the secretary of the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union (KMPDU) – adding it was not something the union had ever recorded before.

There had also been five attempted suicides by KMPDU members this year, the medical body said.

No figures are yet available on the number of suicides nationwide in Kenya this year.

Njuki was doing his internship at a public hospital in Thika town near the capital, Nairobi, when he took his life last month.

He had reported hallucinations and depression due to sleep deprivation, his uncle Tirus Njuki told BBC.

“In his suicide note he mentioned that the four-month salary delay was among issues that aggravated his mental illness, pushing him to end his life,” the uncle added.

The first-born in his family, the intern had been battling depression and had been receiving treatment, according to a police report.

Njuki was among hundreds of interns who were posted to health facilities in August to do their mandatory one-year training to qualify.

But the interns say they had not received their salaries for the first four months, with the government citing financial constraints.

This is despite the fact that interns are a crucial part of the workforce in public hospitals – used by many Kenyans who cannot afford private medical insurance.

Trainees make up about 30% of doctors in the state health sector.

They do most of the work in public hospitals, but under close supervision. They are on call, sometimes for 36 hours, and provide most of the health services that patients need.

“Like many of his colleagues, Dr Njuki faced insurmountable challenges in meeting basic needs such as rent and utility bills,” KMPDU said in a statement.

The government has been in a long-running dispute with unions over the pay and working conditions of interns.

The government has proposed cutting the monthly salary of interns to $540 (£430).

The union wants it to remain at $1,600 as had been agreed with the government in 2017.

But President William Ruto has said that the government cannot afford to pay such an amount, and “we must live within our means”.

“We cannot continue to spend money we don’t have,” Ruto said in early April.

Following mounting pressure and strike threats, the government last month released $7.4m to pay more than 1,200 interns who had not received their salaries since August.

Some of the interns say they are being paid “peanuts”.

“After spending six to seven years of study, we had to wait for several months to get internship. And then with all the long working hours, the government decided to pay us peanuts. We are really suffering,” Dr Abdi Adow, an intern at Mbagathi hospital in Nairobi, told the BBC.

Dr Adow is among hundreds of young medics who are torn between leaving the country to seek jobs overseas or abandoning their profession for better-paid careers.

Another intern, who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said: “I have sworn to save life, at the very least, and restore health, at the very best, but the government is doing everything to kill my zeal and undermine my oath of service.”

Experts point to the death last month of Dr Timothy Riungu as an example of how stressful working conditions are for medics.

He was a paediatrician at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi, who collapsed and died at home after a round-the-clock shift; he had repeatedly complained of exhaustion to his supervisor that day, local media reported.

The 35-year-old was diabetic and had not taken leave for the two years, according to his family.

A post-mortem revealed Dr Riungu had died of hypoglycaemia, caused by the blood sugar level dropping below normal. It also showed he had not eaten anything for more than 48 hours prior to his death.

In May, Kenya’s government reached a deal with one medical union to end a 56-day strike, but the key issue of the salaries of interns remained unresolved.

The strike had halted operations in public hospitals, with dozens of patients reportedly losing their lives.

Several rounds of talks have collapsed over the pay and working conditions of interns.

Last week, the KMPDU ordered all intern doctors to stay home as it issued a fresh 21-day nationwide strike notice, accusing the government of reneging on the agreement reached in May.

In September, a 27-year-old medical intern at the Gatundu Level 5 Hospital in central Kiambu county took her own life.

Dr Desree Moraa Obwogi had just finished a gruelling 36-hour shift that had taken a toll on her mental-health status, according to her workmates.

They said she too struggled to pay her rent and utility bills.

Dr Muinde Nthusi, the chair of KMPDU’s Internship Liaison Committee, blamed financial hardships and a “toxic” work environment for her death.

During the burial, Obwogi’s family asked the government to take responsibility and account for the life lost, local media reported.

The other recent suicide cases noted by the KMPDU include Vincent Bosire Nyambunde, an intern at Kisii Teaching and Referral Hospital; Collins Kiprop Kosgei, a fifth-year medical student at the University of Nairobi and Keith Makori, a 30-year-old medic in central Kiambu county.

Young doctors have been mobilising on X under the hashtag #PayMedicalInterns to push for better pay and working conditions. They marched to the offices of the Ministry of Health last week to vent their frustrations.

“Our doctors and nurses shoulder the weight of a broken system, yet their cries are drowned by the greed of those in power,” Dr Kipkoech Cheruiyot posted on X platform.

Health officials did not respond to a BBC request for comment.

But reacting to the increasing suicide cases in September, Health Minister Deborah Barasa said it was “a stark reminder of the silent struggles that many, including those in the healthcare profession, often endure”.

The minister announced plans to introduce “robust workplace mental wellness” programmes for healthcare workers nationwide to “ensure that support systems are strengthened and that those facing challenges don’t feel alone”.

Medical experts said many young doctors also experience “moral injury”, or psychological trauma as they feel guilty for not doing enough to treat patients, even though they tried their best under difficult conditions.

“The thought that you could have done something to save a patient’s life but you couldn’t, can lead to feelings of guilt, shame, and helplessness, contributing to mental health issues,” Dr Chibanzi Mwachonda, a psychiatrist, told Kenya’s Standard newspaper.

Trainee doctors told the BBC that most medical schools do not adequately address the topic of suicide, leaving new and fatigued physicians poorly equipped to deal with traumatic ordeals – and this is compounded by poor pay.

“A healthy doctor builds a healthy nation. When I am stressed or depressed as a doctor, I might even forget how to perform resuscitation on a patient, which could lead to loss of life,” said one intern doctor.

“A demotivated doctor is a dangerous person to serve you. It’s becoming a thankless job.”

About 1,400 Kenyans die by suicide each year, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. But some analysts believe that the actual numbers might be higher.

Suicide remains criminalised in Kenya, where those found guilty of attempted suicide can face up to two years imprisonment, a fine, or both.

This law has been widely criticised, with some rights groups calling for its repeal, arguing that it further stigmatises mental-health issues and prevents people from seeking help.

“How many doctors are we going to bury for the government to act?” asked Dr Adow.

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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.

Far from triumphantly breezing out of Africa, modern humans went extinct many times before going on to populate the world, new studies have revealed.

The new DNA research has also shed new light on the role our Neanderthal cousins played in our success.

While these early European humans were long seen as a species which we successfully dominated after leaving Africa, new studies show that only humans who interbred with Neanderthals went on to thrive, while other bloodlines died out.

In fact, Neanderthal genes may have been crucial to our success by protecting us from new diseases we hadn’t previously encountered.

The research for the first time pinpoints a short period 48,000 years ago when Homo sapiens interbred with Neanderthals after leaving Africa, after which they went on to expand into the wider world.

Homo sapiens had crossed over from the African continent before this, but the new research shows these populations before the interbreeding period did not survive.

Prof Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Biology, in Germany, told BBC News that the history of modern humans will now have to be rewritten.

“We see modern humans as a big story of success, coming out of Africa 60,000 years ago and expanding into all ecosystems to become the most successful mammal on the planet,” he said. “But early on we were not, we went extinct multiple times.”

For a long time, deciphering how the only surviving species of humans evolved was based on looking at the shapes of fossilised remains of our ancestors living hundreds of thousands of years ago and observing how their anatomy subtly changed over time.

The ancient remains have been sparse and often damaged. But the ability to extract and read the genetic code from bones that are many thousands of years old has lifted a veil on our mysterious past.

The DNA in the fossils tell the story of the individuals, how they are related to each other and their migration patterns.

Even after our successful interbreeding with Neanderthals, our population of Europe wasn’t without hitches.

Those first modern humans that had interbred with Neanderthals and lived alongside them died out completely in Europe 40,000 years ago – but not before their offspring had spread further out into the world.

It was the ancestors of these early international pioneers who eventually returned to Europe to populate it.

The research also gives a new perspective on why Neanderthals died out so soon after modern humans arrived from Africa. No one knows why this happened, but the new evidence steers us away from theories that our species hunted them out of existence, or that we were somehow physically or intellectually superior.

Instead, Prof Krause says that it supports the view that it was due to environmental factors.

“Both humans and Neanderthals go extinct in Europe at this time,” he said. “If we as a successful species died out in the region then it is not a big surprise that Neanderthals, who had an even smaller population went extinct.”

The climate was incredibly unstable at the time. It could switch from nearly as warm as it is today to being bitterly cold, sometimes within a person’s lifetime, according to Prof Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London, who is independent of the new research.

“The study shows that near the end of their time on the planet, Neanderthals were very low in numbers, less genetically diverse than the modern human counterparts they lived alongside, and it may not have taken much to tip them over the edge to extinction,” he said.

A separate DNA study, published in the journal Science, shows that modern humans held on to some key genetic traits from Neanderthals that may have given them an evolutionary advantage.

One relates to their immune system. When humans emerged from Africa, they were extremely susceptible to new diseases they had never encountered. Interbreeding with Neanderthals gave their offspring protection.

“Perhaps getting Neanderthal DNA was part of the success because it gave us better adaptive capabilities outside of Africa,” said Prof Stringer. “We had evolved in Africa, whereas the Neanderthals had evolved outside of Africa.”

“By interbreeding with the Neanderthals we got a quick fix to our immune systems.”

Follow Pallab on Blue Sky and X

We have all heard of Taylor Swift, but what about Colombian singer Karol G?

While Swift has dominated the headlines and concert ticket sales over recent years, it is actually the 33-year-old Latin American pop star whose videos are the most watched online.

That’s according to Vevo, which is the main provider of official music videos to YouTube. Karol G’s were the most streamed around the world for each of the past four years, 2021 to 2024.

This year, Karol G’s Vevo videos were watched 3.5 billion times, with fellow Colombian Shakira in second place on 1.96 billion, and Swift on 1.95 billion.

So who is Karol G, and what has fuelled the success that also saw her sell out Madrid’s Bernabéu Stadium over four nights back in July, plus stadiums across the US last year?

Born in the Colombian city of Medellín in 1991 her full name is Carolina Giraldo Navarro. She wanted to be a singer from an early age, and when she was 14 she appeared on the Colombian version of the talent show X Factor in 2005.

Success did not immediately follow, and instead by 2014 she had moved to the US to live with her aunt in New York City to learn English and do menial work. She almost gave up pursuing a career in music at this time, but her father convinced her that she could make it.

While in the US Karol G also attended a music business conference in Boston, which she says was very helpful in helping her understand how the industry worked.

She got her breakthrough hit single in 2017, the song Ahora Me Llama, which was a collaboration with Puerto Rican male artist Bad Bunny. Her first album Unstoppable then followed.

Since then the hits have just kept on coming, and her 2023 album, Mañana Será Bonito, was the first entirely Spanish-language release by a female artist to top the US album chart.

Karol G’s style of music is more often described as “reggaeton”. This combines hip-hop with Latin American and Jamaican music, with the singing and rapping usually done in Spanish.

While she is widely reported to be both hardworking and ambitious, Rocío Guerrero, head of Latin music at Amazon Music, says that the singer – and Latin music in general – have been greatly helped by the rise of streaming, both the music and the accompanying videos.

“Streaming democratised the landscape,” says Ms Guerrero, explaining that it has allowed Latin music, which wasn’t being played on mainstream radio stations to travel the world.

“Radio stations were local, but with streaming we brought together all of those audiences [around the globe]. It has given more opportunity to more Latin songs and artist to be exposed. Karol G is a perfect example of this evolution.”

Today on Amazon Music more than a third of Latin music is now consumed outside Latin America, and in the last three years alone the listenership for Karol G has grown by more than 250%.

Meanwhile, in the US, Latin music is now the fastest-growing genre, hitting a record $1.4bn (£1.1bn) in venues last year, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Streaming accounted for 98% of this.

And this year, Karol’s G’s Mañana Será Bonito album was the fourth most streamed globally on Spotify.

This helped to boost interest in her 2023-24 sell-out, global Mañana Será Bonito Tour. This grossed $307m in ticket sales. And while that figure is dwarfed by the $2bn achieved by Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, Karol G’s earnings were the highest for a female Latin artist.

Carlos Balado, a professor at OBS Business School in Barcelona, analyses the economic impact of music concerts. He says that both Karol G and Taylor Swift have benefited from the increased popularity of going to such a big live event.

“There’s a growing trend where the public considers that part of their normal spending has to go towards concerts,” he adds.

Leila Cobo, chief content officer for Latin/Español at US music magazine Billboard, which is also known for its music charts, says Karol G has helped to put Colombian music on the map.

“I think music is the biggest ambassador for Colombia. I really do,” she says. “And Karol G has tapped into this female Latin female fanbase who really didn’t have someone like her. They wanted someone relatable, fun, sexy, had cool songs, but wasn’t completely over the top.

“And reggaeton is super danceable, it’s super consumable, it’s super youth oriented,” adds Ms Cobo, who is the author of a book on Latin music.

Despite winning numerous awards and critical acclaim, Karol G has not been immune to criticism. Her lyrics have been slammed for being too raunchy, and critics have also taken aim at her for calling one of her songs “Bichota”. This is a slang term meaning big shot or boss, and often associated with drugs and criminality.

She argues that she repurposed the word to signify empowerment. As for her lyrics, her defenders say that rather than singing about and objectifying women, she sings on behalf of them.

Karol G’s estimated net worth had skyrocketed to $25m by 2023 according to Celebrity Net Worth – a figure that’s likely increased substantially since her recent tour.

Outside of music she earns money by collaborations with shoemaker Crocs, sportswear brand Kappa, Smirnoff vodka, and Spanish fashion label Loewe. Her name has also appeared on the front of FC Barcelona shirts as part of the football club’s partnership with music streamer Spotify.

Ms Cobo says: “She’s branching out. She’s a very bright, inquisitive person and always looking to grow. And she’s very aware that it’s not just about music.”

Karol G’s business ventures are controlled by her company Girl Power Inc, which also oversees her charity Con Cora Foundation.

This aims to help improve the lives of underprivileged women and children across Latin America by giving educational scholarships to teenage mothers, supporting girls who want to go into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, providing financial aid to kids’ football teams, and society-reintegration projects for female inmates.

Meanwhile, Karol G launched her own record label in 2023, Bichota, to have more control over her music, which is subsequently distributed and promoted by US company Interscope, part of the giant Universal Music Group.

Yet despite her global success, there are still markets she hasn’t yet cracked – the UK, for example, where she’s still not widely known. Britain has a small, but fast-growing Hispanic diaspora.

However, Amazon’s Ms Guerrero thinks it is only a matter of time before Karol G does break the British market. “It’s going to happen. It’s just a matter of time,” she says.

Two famous real estate brokers and their brother have been charged with sex trafficking in a case involving the alleged drugging, assaulting and raping of dozens of women over more than a decade.

Prosecutors say Tal and Oren Alexander, who are known for selling high-end properties in New York and Miami, along with their brother Alon, used their wealth to take advantage of women.

The brothers were arrested in Florida on Wednesday and are expected to be taken to New York to face the charges.

A lawyer representing Oren Alexander rejected the accusations. Alon Alexander’s lawyer said her client will be pleading not guilty. Tal Alexander’s representative, Joel Denaro, declined to comment.

“As of today, law enforcement has interviewed dozens of women who reported being forcibly raped or sexually assaulted by at least one of the Alexander brothers,” said Damian Williams, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, at a press conference in Manhattan.

“This conduct, as alleged, was heinous.”

The prosecutors say the alleged crimes were committed over more than a decade.

The indictment describes a scheme that involved inviting women to parties as well as using the promise of luxury experiences and travel to lure them to locations in the US and abroad where the alleged assaults happened.

It also says they procured drugs and provided them to the women and, at times, “surreptitiously” put them in drinks.

Finally, prosecutors also say that in some instances the brothers “physically restrained and held down their victims during the rapes and sexual assaults and ignored screams and explicit requests to stop”.

Immediately after the assaults, the brothers allegedly provided some of the victims with concert tickets and other luxury items.

The three brothers are being charged with one count each of engaging in a sex trafficking conspiracy, and a second count of sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion.

Tal Alexander is also charged with a further count of sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion.

“Oren Alexander is innocent,” said his lawyer, Susan Necheles.

“The evidence will show that neither he nor his brothers ever committed a crime.”

Meanwhile, a lawyer representing the women welcomed the indictment.

“We are glad to hear that there will finally be some measure of accountability for the Alexander brothers and justice for their many victims,” said David Gottlieb in a statement posted by his law firm Wigdor LLP on X.

“We applaud all the survivors who have had the strength and courage to speak up about their unimaginable experiences after years of pain and suffering.”

Tal and Oren Alexander have worked for real estate giant Douglas Elliman, listing properties for celebrities including Liam Gallagher, Lindsay Lohan, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.

In 2022, they started a firm called Official.

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.

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 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.

The end, when it came for the BGP5 barracks, was loud and brutal. First, a crackly speaker calling out for their surrender; then, a thunderous barrage of artillery, rockets and rifle fire that tore chunks out of the buildings in which hundreds of soldiers were hiding.

BGP5 – the letters stand for Border Guard Police – was the Myanmar military junta’s last stand in northern Rakhine State, which lies along the border with Bangladesh.

Video by the insurgent Arakan Army (AA) which was besieging the base shows their rag-tag fighters, many barefoot, firing an assortment of weapons into the base, while air force jets roar over their heads.

It was a ferocious battle – perhaps the bloodiest of the civil war which has consumed Myanmar since the military seized power in a coup in 2021.

“They had dug deep ditches filled with spikes around the base,” an AA source told the BBC.

“There were bunkers and reinforced buildings. They laid more than a thousand mines. Many of our fighters lost limbs, or their lives, trying to get through.”

For the coup leader, General Min Aung Hlaing, this has been yet another humiliating defeat after a year of military setbacks.

For the first time his regime has lost control of an entire border: the 270km (170 miles) dividing Myanmar from Bangladesh now wholly under AA control.

And with only the Rakhine State capital Sittwe still firmly in military hands, though cut off from the rest of the country, the AA is likely to be the first insurgent group to take complete control of a state.

• ‘My 17-year-old was brutally killed, but I’m glad she fought for freedom’
• Young people attempt to flee Myanmar ahead of conscription order

The army has been in headlong retreat from the Arakan Army since the beginning of the year, losing town after town.

The last army units withdrew in September to BGP5, a compound covering around 20 hectares just outside the border town of Maungdaw, where the AA laid siege.

BGP5 was built on the site of a Muslim Rohingya village, Myo Thu Gyi, which was burned down during the violent expulsion of much of the Rohingya population by the armed forces in 2017.

It was the first of many burned villages I saw on a visit to Maungdaw right after the military operation in September of that year, a mass of charred debris in among the lush tropical vegetation, its inhabitants killed or forced to flee to Bangladesh.

When I returned two years later, the new police complex had already been built, with all the trees removed, giving defenders a clear view of any attacking force.

The AA source told us their advance towards it was painfully slow, requiring the insurgents to dig their own ditches for cover.

It does not publish its own casualties. But judging from the intensity of fighting in Maungdaw, which began in June, it is likely to have lost hundreds of its own troops.

Throughout the siege, the Myanmar air force kept up a constant bombardment of Maungdaw, driving the last civilians out of the town.

Its planes dropped supplies to the besieged soldiers at night, but it was never enough. They had plenty of rice stored in the bunkers, a local source told us, but they could not get any treatment for their injuries, and the soldiers became demoralised.

They started to surrender last weekend.

AA video shows them coming out in a pitiful state, waving white cloths. Some are hobbling on makeshift crutches, or hopping, their injured legs wrapped in rags. Few are wearing shoes.

Inside the wrecked buildings the victorious insurgents filmed piles of bodies.

The AA says more than 450 soldiers died in the siege. It has published images of the captured commander, Brigadier-General Thurein Tun, and his officers kneeling beneath the flagpole, now flying the insurgents’ banner.

Pro-military commentators in Myanmar have been venting their frustration on social media.

“Min Aung Hlaing, you have not asked any of your children to serve in the military,” wrote one. “Is this how you use us? Are you happy seeing all those deaths in Rakhine?”

“At this rate, all that will be left of the Tatmadaw [military] will be Min Aung Hlaing and a flagpole,” wrote another.

The capture of BGP5 also shows the Arakan Army to be one of the most effective fighting forces in Myanmar.

Formed only in 2009 – much later than most of Myanmar’s other insurgent groups – by young ethnic Rakhine men who had migrated to the Chinese border on the other side of the country in search of work, the AA is part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance which has inflicted most of the defeats suffered by the junta since last year.

The other two members of the alliance have stayed on the border, in Shan State.

But the AA moved back to Rakhine eight years ago to start its armed campaign for self-government, tapping into historic resentment among the Rakhine population of the poverty, isolation and central government neglect of their state.

The AA leaders have proven to be smart, disciplined and able to motivate their fighters.

They are already administering the large areas of Rakhine State they control as though they were running their own state.

And they also have good weapons, thanks to their links with the older insurgent groups on the Chinese border, and appear to be well-funded.

There is a bigger question, though, over how much the various ethnic insurgent groups are willing to prioritise the goal of overthrowing the military junta.

Publicly they say they do, alongside the shadow government which was deposed by the coup, and the hundreds of volunteer peoples’ defence forces which have sprung up to support it.

In return for the support it is getting from the ethnic insurgents, the shadow government is promising a new federal political system which will give Myanmar’s regions self-rule.

But already the other two members of the Three Brotherhood Alliance have accepted China’s request for a ceasefire.

China is seeking a negotiated end to the civil war which would almost certainly leave the military with much of its power intact.

The opposition insists the military must be reformed and removed from politics. But having already made so many territorial gains at the expense of the junta, the ethnic insurgents may be tempted to strike a deal with China’s blessing rather than keep fighting to oust the generals.

The AA’s victory poses more worrying questions.

The group’s leadership is tight-lipped about its plans. But it takes over a state that was always poor and which has suffered greatly from the intense fighting of the past year.

“Eighty per cent of the housing in Maungdaw and the surrounding villages has been destroyed,” one Rohingya man who left Maungdaw recently for Bangladesh told the BBC.

“The town is deserted. Almost all the shops and houses have been looted.”

Last month the United Nations, whose agencies are being given very little access to Rakhine, warned of looming famine, because of the huge numbers of displaced people and the difficulty of getting any supplies in, past a military blockade.

The AA is trying to set up its own administration, but the BBC has been told by some of those displaced by the fighting that the group cannot feed or shelter them.

It is also unclear how the AA will treat the Rohingya population, still thought to number around 600,000 in Rakhine, even after the expulsion of 700,000 in 2017.

The largest number live in northern Rakhine State and Maungdaw has long been a predominantly Rohingya town. Relations with the ethnic Rakhine majority, the support base for the AA, have long been fraught.

They are now a great deal worse after Rohingya militant groups, which have their power base in the vast refugee camps in Bangladesh, chose to take sides with the military, against the AA, despite the army’s track record of persecuting Rohingyas.

Many Rohingyas do not like these groups, and some say they are happy to live in an AA-run Rakhine State.

But tens of thousands have been expelled by the AA from towns it has conquered, and not been allowed back.

The AA has promised to include all communities in its vision for a future independent of the central government, but it has also denounced the Rohingyas it found itself fighting alongside the army.

“We cannot deny the fact that Rohingyas have been persecuted by Myanmar governments for many years, and the Rakhine people supported that,” said the Rohingya man we spoke to in Bangladesh.

“The government wants to keep Rohingyas from becoming citizens, but the Rakhine people believe there should be no Rohingyas at all in Rakhine State. Our situation today is even more difficult than it was under the rule of the military junta.”

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

Dommaraju, 18, is four years younger than the former record-holder, Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov, who was 22 when he won the title in 1985.

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 outside challenger going into the final round of the FIDE World Chess Championship, held in Singapore this year.

Playing on black, Dommaraju won the game after Ding, who had been in a solid position, made a fatal foolish move that gave up his last powerful piece.

His blunder delivered victory to the 18-year-old, who until now had been ranked fifth in the world and second in his own country.

The 14-game World Championship competition had been closely watched by chess fans around the world this past fortnight.

Going into the final game on Thursday, Dommaraju and Ding had eight draws and two wins apiece.

Players receive one point for a win and half a point each for a draw. Dommaraju claimed the title on Thursday with a final score of 7.5 to 6.5, becoming just the 18th world chess champion.

The teenager comes from Chennai, a city known as India’s chess capital for having produced so many national champions.

But there were no elite chess players in his family – he was enrolled in chess sessions after school because his father, a surgeon, and his mother, a medical professor, needed somewhere to put him.

His talent was spotted there by coaches, who encouraged his family to invest in his training. In high school in 2019, he was crowned a grandmaster at the age of 12 years and seven months – the third-youngest in history.

The teenager has spoken before about how yoga and mindful thinking has helped him deal with the pressures of his chess career.

He stayed focused on Thursday as his opponent, the defending champion Ding, appeared to buckle under the pressure.

Ding has faced questions over his form all year since winning the title in 2023 becoming China’s first chess world champion.

For most of the year, he had taken a break from chess, having spoken about his struggles with depression and mental health.

But his stylish win over Dommaraju in the opening game of the championship last month, and a victory in Round 12, had suggested momentum.

Thursday’s game saw several hours of tight play, with commentators suggesting it was heading to a draw.

But on the 55th move, Ding committed a fatal blunder – moving his rook into a position to be taken.

Immediately recognising his mistake, he 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.”

He resigned three moves later. Dommaraju promptly burst into tears as the room erupted with cheers.

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

At age 18, he is only the second Indian player to become world chess champion, after five-time world chess champion Viswanathan Anand who last won in 2012.

“It’s a proud moment for chess, a proud moment for India… and for me, a very personal moment of pride.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Narendra Modi was also among the first public figures showering praise.

“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.

When Donald Trump sat with world leaders in Paris last weekend to marvel at the restored Notre Dame cathedral, armed Islamist fighters in Syria were in jeeps on the road to Damascus finalising the fall of the Assad regime.

In this split screen moment of global news, the US president-elect, seated between the French first couple, still had an eye on the stunning turn of events in the Middle East.

“Syria is a mess, but is not our friend,” he posted the same day on his Truth Social network.

He added: “THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!”

This post, and another the next day, were a reminder of the president-elect’s powerful mandate to not intervene in foreign policy.

It also raised big questions about what comes next: Given the way the war has drawn in and affected regional and global powers, can Trump really have “nothing to do” with Syria now that President Bashar al-Assad’s government has fallen?

Will Trump pull US troops out?

Does his policy differ drastically from President Biden’s, and if so, what’s the point of the White House doing anything in the five weeks before Trump takes over?

• Inside Aleppo, the first city to fall to Syrian rebel
• What just happened in Syria and who’s in charge
• Syria in maps: Who controls the country now Assad has gone?

The current administration is involved in a frantic round of diplomacy in response to the fall of Assad and the rise to power of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Syrian Islamist armed group that the US designates as a terrorist organisation.

I’m writing this onboard Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s plane, as he shuttles between Jordan and Turkey trying to get key Arab and Muslim countries in the region to back a set of conditions Washington is placing on recognising a future Syrian government.

The US says it must be transparent and inclusive, must not be a “base for terrorism”, cannot threaten Syria’s neighbours, and must destroy any chemical and biological weapons stocks.

For Mike Waltz, Trump’s nominee for national security adviser, who has yet to be confirmed, there is one guiding principle to his foreign policy.

“President Trump was elected with an overwhelming mandate to not get the United States dug into any more Middle Eastern wars,” he told Fox News this week.

He went on to list America’s “core interests” there as the Islamic State (IS) group, Israel and “our Gulf Arab allies”.

Waltz’s comments were a neat summary of the Trump view of Syria as a small jigsaw piece in his bigger regional policy puzzle.

His goals are to ensure that remnants of IS remain contained and to see that a future government in Damascus can’t threaten Washington’s most important regional ally, Israel.

Trump is also focused on what he sees as the biggest prize: a historic diplomatic and trade deal to normalise relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, which he believes would further weaken and humiliate Iran.

The rest, Trump believes, is Syria’s “mess” to work out.

Trump’s rhetoric harkens back to how he talked about Syria during his first term, when he derided the country – which has an extraordinary cultural history dating back millennia – as a land of “sand and death”.

“Donald Trump, himself, I think really wanted very little to do with Syria during his first administration,” said Robert Ford, who served as President Barack Obama’s ambassador to Syria from 2011-14, and who argued within that administration for more American intervention in the form of support for Syrian moderate opposition groups to counter Assad’s brutal suppression of his population.

“But there are other people in his circle who are much more concerned about counterterrorism,” he told the BBC.

The US currently has around 900 troops in Syria east of the Euphrates river and in a 55km (34 miles) “deconfliction” zone bordering Iraq and Jordan.

Their official mission is to counter the IS group, now much degraded in desert camps, and to train and equip the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF – Kurdish and Arab allies of the US who control the territory).

The SDF also guards camps containing IS fighters and their families.

In practice, the US presence on the ground has also gone beyond this, helping to block a potential weapons transit route for Iran, which used Syria to supply its ally Hezbollah.

Mr Ford, like other analysts, believes that while Trump’s isolationist instincts play well on social media, the realities on the ground and the views of his own team could end up moderating his stance.

That view is echoed by Wa’el Alzayat, a former adviser on Syria at the US Department of State.

“He is bringing on board some serious people to his administration who will be running his Middle East file,” he told the BBC, specifically noting that Senator Marco Rubio, who has been nominated for secretary of state, “is a serious foreign policy player”.

These tensions – between isolationist ideals and regional goals – also came to a head during his first term, when Trump withdrew remaining CIA funding for some “moderate” rebels, and ordered the withdrawal of US forces from northern Syria in 2019.

At the time, Waltz called the move “a strategic mistake” and, fearing an IS resurgence, Trump’s own officials partially rowed back his decision.

Trump also diverged from his non-interventionist ideals by launching 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield, after Assad allegedly ordered a chemical weapons attack that killed scores of civilians in 2017.

He also doubled down on sanctions against Syria’s leadership.

The blurred lines of Trump’s “it’s not our fight” pledge were summed up by Waltz.

“That doesn’t mean he’s not willing to absolutely step in,” he told Fox News.

“President Trump has no problem taking decisive action if the American homeland is threatened in any way.”

Adding to the possibility of tension is another key figure, Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump has nominated as director of national intelligence. The controversial former Democrat-turned-Trump ally met Assad in 2017 on a “fact-finding” trip, and at the time criticised Trump’s policies.

Her nomination is likely to be heavily scrutinised by US senators amid accusations – that she has denied – of being an apologist for Assad and Russia.

Anxiety over the continuing mission in Syria, and a desire to be able to end it, is not exclusive to Trump.

In January, three American soldiers were killed at a US base in Jordan in a drone strike by Iran-backed militias operating in Syria and Iraq, as the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza threatened to spread farther in the region.

This attack and others have continued to raise questions to the Biden administration over US force levels and their exposure in the area.

In fact, many of the outgoing Biden and incoming Trump administrations’ positions on Syria match more than they diverge.

Despite the sharp differences in the tone and rhetoric, both leaders want Damascus run by a government amenable to US interests.

Both Biden and Trump want to build on Iran and Russia’s humiliation in Syria.

Trump’s “this is not our fight, let it play out” is his equivalent of the Biden administration’s “this is a process that needs to be led by Syrians, not by the United States”.

But the “major” difference, and that which raises the most anxiety among Biden supporters, is in Trump’s approach to US forces on the ground and American backing for the SDF, said Bassam Barabandi, a former Syrian diplomat in Washington who helped opposition figures flee the Assad regime.

“Biden has more sympathy, connection, passion towards [the Kurds]. Historically, he was one of the first senators to visit the Kurdish areas [of northern Iraq] after Saddam Hussein’s Kuwait invasion,” he said.

“Trump and his people they don’t care as much… they take it into consideration not to leave their allies out, they get this, [but] the way they implement it is different.”

Mr Barabandi, who said he supports Trump’s non-interventionist rhetoric, thinks the president-elect will pull out US troops “for sure”, but over a gradual timeframe and with a clear plan in place.

“It will not be like Afghanistan, within 24 hours,” he said. “He will say within six months, or whatever time, a deadline for that and for the arrangement of everything.”

Much may revolve around Trump’s discussions with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with whom he is thought to have a close relationship.

American backing for the SDF has long been a source of tension with Turkey, which views the People’s Defense Units (YPG) – the Kurdish force that makes up the SDF’s military backbone – as a terrorist organisation.

Since Assad fell, Turkey has been carrying out air strikes to force Kurdish fighters out of strategic areas, including the town of Manbij.

Trump may want to cut a deal with his friend in Ankara that allows him to withdraw US troops and could see Turkey’s hand strengthen further.

But the possibility of Turkish-backed groups taking control of some areas worries many, including Wa’el Alzayat, the former US State Department Syria expert.

“You can’t have different groups running different parts of the country, controlling different resources,” he added.

“There’s either the political process, which I do think the US has a role to play, or something else, and I hope they avoid that latter scenario.”

US President Joe Biden has issued presidential pardons to 39 Americans convicted of non-violent crimes, and commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 others, including several convicted of multi-million dollar fraud schemes.

The White House described it as the most acts of presidential clemency issued in a single day. It comes after Biden made the decision to pardon his own criminally convicted son, Hunter Biden.

Announcing the move, Biden said those pardoned had “shown successful rehabilitation and have shown commitment to making their communities stronger and safer”.

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”.

The White House released a pardon list of 39 people that said the individuals had committed either a “non-violent offense” or a “non-violent drug offense”. It did not name the specific crimes they were convicted of committing.

Several of those pardoned were individuals who had been released from prison. Many were veterans or they had become community leaders or advocates.

The White House described one pardon recipient as a 49-year-old Virginia resident who was convicted of a drug offence at age 21. After serving his sentence, he went on to earn a university degree, have a successful career in the US Army and Air Force and volunteer for charitable organisations that support veterans.

He is known “as exceptionally hard working, dedicated, and trustworthy by those who know him”, the White House said in a statement that gave short biographies on all those who had received pardons.

The 1,499 commuted sentences includes individuals who were placed in home confinement during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as those whose sentences Biden deemed to be too long due to outdated laws.

They have “shown that they deserve a second chance”, Biden said of those whose sentences he had commuted.

Biden promised “more steps in the weeks ahead”.

Among those who had their sentences commuted was 76-year-old Timothy McGinn, a former stockbroker convicted in 2013 of defrauding hundreds of clients for millions of dollars, wiping out savings for many of his victims.

Another person who received clemency, a former Ohio county commissioner, Jimmy Dimora, was convicted in 2012 of taking $450,000 (£355,000) in bribes that included lavish trips to Las Vegas, prostitutes and a stone-fired pizza oven.

Also on the list were Paul Daugerdas, convicted of overseeing fraudulent tax shelters in 2014, and Elaine Lovett, convicted of defrauding federal health insurance programme Medicare as part of a $26m scheme in 2017.

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.

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.

The younger Biden was facing sentencing for two criminal cases for tax fraud and gun crimes.

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.

In a separate development on Thursday, an ex-FBI informant pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, which had led to investigations into the Biden family.

Alexander Smirnov acknowledged that he concocted “fabrications” about Biden and his son accepting bribes from Ukrainian energy firm Burisma. The claim was seized upon by Republicans in Congress as proof of corruption.

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.

In recent days, Trump has pledged to issue pardons on his first day in office to people who were convicted for participating in the 6 January 2021 riot on Capitol Hill, in which his supporters tried to block the certification of Biden’s election victory.

He said this week that the pardons would be for people who were “non-violent”.

“A vast majority should not be in jail, and they’ve suffered gravely,” he said in an interview with Time magazine on Thursday.

The news is moving so quickly in South Korea, the papers can no longer keep up. President Yoon Suk Yeol’s shock attempt to impose martial law last Tuesday night was so short-lived it failed to make the front page. By the time he despatched the troops, the press had already gone to print. By the following day’s editions, the failed power-grab had already been defeated.

Within the week, the president has morphed from being contrite and apologetic, hoping to avoid impeachment, to brazenly defiant, vowing to fight on as the net closed in on him.

Banned from leaving the country while he is investigated for treason – a crime punishable by death – he is facing a second impeachment vote this weekend, as support from his party trickles away. Meanwhile, the roars of anger from the thousands of people on the street every night are getting louder.

For a short while this week it looked as if he had struck a deal with his party to stand down early, in return for them not booting him out of office in last Saturday’s vote. But as the week sped by, there was no sign of the president nor the details of such plan, and it gradually became obvious Yoon had zero intention of resigning.

On Thursday, he emerged obstinate. “I will fight until the end,” he declared, as he defended his decision to seize control of the country.

His speech was rambling and filled with unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, including a vague suggestion that North Korea could have rigged the previous elections, in which he had failed to win control of parliament. The parliament was a “monster”, he said; the opposition party “dangerous”, and he, by declaring martial law, was trying to protect the people and save democracy.

Yoon spent much of this week in hiding, while police attempted to raid his offices to gather evidence. To try and temper public anger, his party announced that he would not be allowed to make decisions going forward – even though legal experts agreed there was nothing in the constitution that allowed for this.

This has left everyone with the same, pressing question – who IS running the country? – especially as senior commanders of Yoon’s army have said they would defy his orders if he tried to impose martial law again.

There is now an unnerving power vacuum in a country that lives with the continuous threat of being attacked by North Korea. “There is no legal basis for this arrangement. We are in a dangerous and chaotic situation,” said Lim Ji-bong, a law professor at Sogang University.

It was evident to all those on the outside that this destabilising and bizarre situation could not be allowed to continue much longer. But it took the president’s party, the People Power Party (PPP), some time to realise Yoon’s impeachment was unavoidable.

Initially his party members protected him, eager to save their own political skins, and consumed by their hatred of South Korea’s opposition leader, Lee Jae-myung, who they fear will become president if Yoon is removed. But on Thursday, after stalling for days, the PPP leader, Han Dong-hoon, came out to urge all MPs to impeach him. “The president must be suspended from office immediately,” he said.

For the impeachment to pass, two-thirds of parliament must vote in favour, meaning eight ruling party MPs must join the opposition. A handful have so far declared their intention to do so. One of the first to change his mind was Kim Sang-wook. “The president is no longer qualified to lead the country, he is totally unfit,” he told the BBC from his office at the National Assembly.

But Kim said not all MPs would follow his lead; there is a core that will stay loyal to Yoon. In his very conservative constituency, Kim said he had received death threats for switching sides. “My party and supporters have called me a traitor,” he said, labelling South Korean politics as “intensely tribal”.

The vast majority of anger, however, has been directed at the MPs who have shielded Yoon up to this point.

At a protest on Wednesday night the chants had changed from merely “impeach Yoon” to “impeach Yoon, dissolve the party”.

“I hate them both so much right now, but I think I hate the MPs even more than the president,” said a 31-year-old graduate student Chang Yo-hoon, who had joined tens of thousands of others, in freezing temperatures, to voice his disillusionment.

All week, lawmakers have been bombarded with thousands of abusive messages and phone calls from the public, in what one member of parliament described to me as “phone terrorism”, while some have been sent funeral flowers.

Even if enough MPs vote to impeach Yoon this weekend, his party, now divided and widely detested, faces political oblivion. “We don’t even know who we are or what we stand for anymore,” one exasperated party official told me.

The defecting lawmaker Kim Sang-wook thinks it will take time to regain voters’ trust. “We will not disappear, but we need to rebuild ourselves from scratch,” he said. “There is a saying that South Korea’s economy and culture are first class, but its politics are third class. Now is the chance to reflect on that.”

Yoon has dealt a severe blow to South Korea’s reputation as a well-established, albeit young, democracy. There was pride when MPs swiftly overturned the president’s martial law decision, that the country’s democratic institutions were functioning after all. But the fragility of the system was exposed again, as the party manoeuvred to keep him in office, with the opposition branding this a “second coup”.

But Professor Yun Jeong-in, a research professor at Korea University’s Legal Research Institute, insisted the country was dealing with “an aberration, not a systemic failure of democracy”, pointing to the mass protests every night. “People are not panicking; they are fighting back. They see democracy as something that is rightfully theirs,” she said.

Damage has also been done to South Korea’s international relationships, and ironically to much of what Yoon wanted to achieve. He had a vison that South Korea would become a “global pivotal state”, playing a bigger role on the world stage. He even hoped to earn Seoul an invitation to join the elite group of G7 countries.

A Western diplomat told me they were hoping for a “swift resolution” to the crisis. “We need South Korea to be a stable partner. Impeachment would be a step in the right direction.”

If Yoon is suspended from office on Saturday, he will not leave without a fight. A prosecutor by trade, who knows the law inside out, he has decided he would rather be impeached, and challenge the decision when it goes to court, than go quietly. And the shockwaves he has set off are going to ripple through the country for years, perhaps decades, to follow.

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.

On a painted wall outside Damascus’s Mustahed Hospital are photographs of the faces of dead men.

A constantly changing crowd of people examine them, squinting against the low winter sun at men who look as if they died in great pain. Noses, mouths and eye sockets are twisted, damaged and squashed.

Their bodies are in the hospital, brought to the city centre from another on the outskirts of Damascus. The medics say the dead were all prisoners.

A stream of wives, brothers, sisters and fathers come to the hospital looking for information. They’re hoping most of all to find a body to bury.

They get as close as possible to the photos looking hard for anything on the faces that they recognise. Some of them video each picture to take home for a second opinion.

It is a brutal job. A few of the men had been dead for weeks judging by the way faces have decomposed.

From the wall of photos, relatives go on to the mortuary.

Mustahed Hospital received 35 bodies, so many that the mortuary is full and the overflow room packed with trolleys loaded with body bags.

Inside the morgue, bodies were laid out on a bare concrete floor under a line of refrigerated trays.

Body bags had been opened as families peered inside and opened the refrigerators.

Some corpses were wrapped loosely in shrouds that had fallen away to expose faces, or tattoos or scars that could identify someone.

One of the dead men was wearing a diaper. Another had sticky tape across his chest, scrawled with a number. Even as they killed him, his jailors denied him the dignity of his own name.

All the bodies were emaciated. The doctors who examined them said they had signs of beating including severe bruising and multiple fractures.

Dr Raghad Attar, a forensic dentist, was checking dental records left by families to try to identify bodies. She spoke calmly about how she was assembling a bank of evidence that could be used for DNA tests, then broke down when I asked her how she was coping.

“You hear always that prisoners are lost for a long time, but seeing it is very painful.

“I came here yesterday. It was very difficult for me. We hope the future will be better but this is very hard. I am really sorry for these families. I am very sorry for them.”

Tears rolled down her face when I asked her if Syria could recover from 50 years of the Assads.

“I don’t know. I hope so. I have the feeling that good days are coming but I want to ask all countries to help us.”

“Anything to help us. Anything, anything…”

The families and friends coming in went silently from body to body, hoping to find some end to the pain that started when their loved ones were picked up at one of the regime’s checkpoints or in a raid on their homes and thrown into the Assads’ gulag.

A woman called Noor, holding a facemask over her mouth and nose, said her brother was taken in 2012, when he was 28.

All they had heard since was a mention in a Facebook post that he had been in the notorious Sednaya prison, where the regime left prisoners to rot for decades.

“It is painful,” said Noor. “At the same time, we have hope. Even if we find him between the bodies. Anything so long as he’s not missing. We want to find something of him. We want to know what happened to him. We need an end to this.”

One couple told a doctor their son was hauled away for refusing to open his laptop for inspection.

That was 12 years ago. He hasn’t been heard from since.

During the years I have reported from Syria I have heard many similar stories.

On my phone I have a photo of the haunted face of a woman I met in July 2018 at a camp for people displaced just after the rebel stronghold of Douma in the Damascus suburbs was forced to surrender.

Her son, a young teenager, disappeared after he was taken at a checkpoint by one of the intelligence agencies.

More than 50 years of the Assads means 50 years of disappearances, of incarceration, of killing.

It means pitiless cruelty to the prisoners, to the families trying to find them and to the Syrian people who were outside the Assads’ circle of trust.

At the photo wall and in the mortuary at Mustahed hospital they wanted to find what had happened, some information and if they were very lucky, a body.

They needed a reckoning and many wanted revenge. Most of all, they dreamed and hoped for a life without fear.

A woman at the hospital said that even though she knew Bashar al-Assad was in Russia, the regime had drilled so much fear into her that she was still terrified of what it might do.

Maybe every Syrian who feels like her should go to the crag overlooking Damascus where Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, ordered the construction of a presidential palace, to check that the monumental, marble edifice is empty.

Our driver gathered his own video evidence. He took out his phone to start filming when the car turned into the palace’s long ceremonial driveway.

During the years of the regime, ordinary Syrians made sure they did not slow down near the palace gates in case they were arrested and thrown into prison as a threat to the president.

Mobile phones stopped working as you approached the palace’s security bubble.

The palace looks down on Damascus, visible from most of the city. It told the people that the Assads were always present and always watching via the regime’s web of intelligence agencies.

The system was designed by Hafez, the first Assad president. His secret police spied on each other and spied on the people.

A businessman I knew in Homs told me once that one intelligence branch approached him when he was developing a hotel, asking for the designs early in the project so they could incorporate all the listening devices they needed into the rooms. They explained it was easier than retrofitting them after the building was finished.

The Assad family never lived at the palace. It was for ceremonial occasions, and upstairs there were some workaday offices.

I went there a lot in 2015, to negotiate the terms of an interview with Bashar al-Assad. I had interviewed him twice before, some years before the uprising against him started in 2011.

That was when he was still tantalising Syrians with talk of reform, which turned out to be lies.

He was also encouraging western leaders to believe he might be separated from Iran and if not join the western camp exactly, then be persuaded that it was worth his while not to oppose it.

The US, Israel and the UAE were still trying to persuade him to dump Iran in the weeks before he was forced to flee to Moscow.

Now that Assad has gone, my target at the palace was an opulent villa in the grounds. I wanted to go there because it was where I met Assad for the interviews.

The villa, much more luxurious than the state rooms at the palace, was built, I was told, as a private residence for the Assad family.

Its floors and tables are marble, the wood is polished walnut and the chandeliers are crystal.

The Assads did not like it, so it was used as a guest house and for Bashar’s rare interviews.

I could see why they might have preferred their existing residence, a beautiful French colonial mansion that stands behind a screen of pine trees. It feels like an aristocrat’s retreat on the Riviera.

Until less than two weeks ago in the souk in old Damascus you could buy fridge magnets of Bashar al-Assad and his siblings as children, playing on bikes in a garden as their indulgent parents looked on.

Presumably the photo was taken on the villa’s spacious, immaculate lawns.

The extended Assad family treated Syria as their own personal possession, enriching themselves and buying trust with their followers at the expense of Syrians who could be thrown into jail or killed if they stepped out of line, or even if they didn’t.

A fighter called Ahmed, who had taken up arms against the regime in 2011, survived the rebel defeat in Damascus, and fought his way back from Idlib with the rebels of Hayat Tahrir al Sham was inspecting the way the Assads lived with his three brothers, all rebel fighters.

“People were living in hell and he was in his palace,” Ahmed said calmly.

“He didn’t care about what they were going through. He made them live in fear, hunger and humiliation. Even after we entered Damascus people would only whisper to us, because they were still afraid.”

I found the marble guesthouse, and walked through the walnut-panelled, marble-floored library where I had interviewed Assad when the regime was fighting for survival in February 2015.

The highlight of the interview were his denials that his forces were killing civilians. He even tried to joke about it.

Now, rebel fighters were on the door and patrolling the corridors. Some of the books had fallen off the library shelves, but the building was intact.

I walked across to an ante room where Assad would grant 10 or 15 minutes of private conversation before the interview.

He was unfailingly polite, even solicitous, enquiring about my family, and the journey to Syria.

Bashar al-Assad’s slightly awkward demeanour made some western observers believe he was a lightweight who might bend to pressure.

In private I found him self-confident to the point of arrogance, convinced he was the all-knowing spider at the heart of the Middle East web, tracking his enemies’ malign intentions and ready to strike.

His father Hafez al-Assad was a kingpin of the Middle East. He was a ruthless man who built the police state that lasted for over fifty years, using fear, guile and a willingness to destroy any threat to impose stability on Syria, a country that had been a byword for violent changes of government until he seized sole power in 1970.

I had the impression that Bashar wanted to be his father’s son, perhaps even to outdo him.

He killed many more Syrians than Hafez and broke the country to try to save the regime.

But Bashar’s stubbornness, refusal to reform or negotiate and his willingness to kill sealed his fate and condemned him to a last terrified drive to the airport with his wife and children on their last flight out of Syria to Moscow.

In a scruffy, bustling neighbourhood not far from the grace and beauty of the old city of Damascus, I had a front row seat as some of the pressures facing Syria and its new rulers surged through an excited crowd.

They had heard that the man who until less than a week ago was the local boss, the mafia-style godfather of their suburb was going to be executed.

The man, known as Abu Muntaja, was one of the military intelligence officers considered responsible for the Tadamon massacre in 2013 of at least 41 local men.

The crowd grew until thousands blocked the streets, delighted that a notorious regime killer was going to be executed in in front of them in the main square that he used to swagger across.

The atmosphere throbbed with excitement, expectation and anger.

Justice meant watching their enemy die, not just because of his crimes, but because of the boundless cruelty of the Assad regime.

An elderly women called Muna Sakar, dressed in a neat coat and hat, was there to see him die as a thief as well as a killer.

“He stole my house and money. Of course I want to see him dead. I would have done it myself with my own hands. But I couldn’t find a way. I wanted to kill him.”

When rumours flew around that the execution was starting, the crowd surged back and forth, jostling for the best position, phones held high in outstretched arms for the video.

No one wanted to miss a thing. When they decided the execution was happening down the street, they stampeded over fences and cars stuck in traffic to get there.

In the end there was no execution, at least not yet. It was probably a rumour, that thousands wanted to be true.

If Syria’s new rulers do not want change to be measured in blood, they will need to control the desire for revenge.

When the weight of dictatorship is lifted, powerful forces are unleashed.

How Syria’s new rulers deal with them will shape what comes next.

The head of Nato has said it is time to “shift to a wartime mindset”, as he warned the military alliance’s members were not spending enough to prepare for the threat of a future conflict with Russia.

Secretary general Mark Rutte said Moscow was “preparing for long-term confrontation with Ukraine and with us”, describing the current security situation as the worst in his lifetime.

“We are not ready for what is coming our way in four to five years,” he said in his first major speech since becoming secretary general in October, urging members to “turbocharge” their defence spending.

His comments come weeks before president-elect Donald Trump takes office, having previously suggested the US would not protect Nato allies that were failing to spend enough on defence.

Nato members have pledged to spend at least 2% of the value of their economies – measured by GDP – on defence per year by 2024.

But speaking at an event in Brussels, the former Dutch prime minister said “a lot more” would be needed as danger “[moves] towards us at full speed”.

He said European members had spent upwards of 3% of GDP on defence during the Cold War.

“If we don’t spend more together now to prevent war, we will pay a much, much, much higher price later to fight it,” he said.

He added that Russia’s economy was “on a war footing”, with its defence spend by 2025 set to be “a third of Russia’s state budget – and the highest level since the Cold War”.

Russia has significantly increased its defence spending since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with record levels approved for 2025.

Rutte spoke at a critical juncture in the war in Ukraine, with Russian forces grinding forward in the east of the country. By November, Moscow had seized six times as much Ukrainian territory in 2024 compared with the whole of 2023.

While the average defence spend for Nato members in Europe and Canada is estimated at 2%, not all meet the target.

Trump said in February that he would “encourage” Russia to attack any Nato member that fails to pay its bills as part of the Western military alliance.

Nato’s 32 members in Europe and North America agree that if one member is attacked, the others should help defend them.

Speaking to the BBC following his speech on Thursday, Rutte said: “Donald Trump was completely right when in his first term he forced us to spend more, he was successful, we are considerably spending more than before he became president, so in that sense he was totally right.”

This is why some in Nato call Rutte “The Trump Whisperer”. And that, they say, is a very big reason he was chosen as Nato secretary general.

Back in 2018, then President Trump famously threatened the US would “go our own way” if other Nato members – essentially in Europe – did not spend more on their own militaries. Then Dutch Prime Minister Rutte was credited with reasoning with the US president, assuring him that spending had already gone up and that he, President Trump, was the reason for it.

And now Trump is poised to return to the White House and Rutte wants to keep the US committed to Nato and European defence. So Rutte’s messaging to Trump is once again to flatter him.

As a former prime minister, Rutte well knows that Europe’s leaders hesitate to spend much more on defence because voters across the continent have other priorities – rising living costs, health, migration.

That, he told the BBC, is why he aimed his speech today as his “plea” to “people”.

“I’m really pleading directly to the one billion people living in Nato territory, and particularly in Canada and Europe, to ask them to help me,” Rutte said.

“Call up your politicians, tell them that you agree that yes it is difficult, it will mean somewhat less spending on some other items, but that you want them, your politicians, to prioritise defence, because this is long-term crucial…

“My plea here is if you have children, grandchildren, if you think our way of life should be preserved, the democracy, our values, then we have to prioritise defence.

“And if we don’t, in four or five years we are in real difficulty.”

Niall McNamee was scrolling through his phone on the London underground when a thief on the platform snatched it from his hand just as the doors closed.

Two days later the 30-year-old discovered his bank accounts had been drained by about £21,000 – including a £7,000 loan taken out in his name.

“It used to be people stole a phone so they could sell on a phone,” he told the BBC. “Now it seems they are stealing phones so they can get in to all of your data and take money.”

Niall is not alone – across Britain, reports of theft and robberies on trains and at stations shot up 58% from 2018 to 2023, according to British Transport Police (BTP) data.

The force, which polices the rail and underground networks in England, Wales and Scotland has warned the month of December had the highest number of thefts and robbery reports in recent years.

Superintendent John Loveless said during the autumn and winter months offenders operated under the “cover of darkness” to target people. “The nights drawing in earlier, it gives people an opportunity…for offending,” he added.

BTP says there are three main “gadget-grabbers tactics” to beware of:

• The Plucker – Thief selects a victim who has fallen asleep in their seat and steals their phone without waking them
• The Grabber – Thief watches as victim is distracted and puts their phone on a seat or table, then walks by and steals it
• The Snatcher – Thief stands by the exit, waiting until the train is about to depart and snatches the phone from the victim’s hands and runs as the doors close

London, where Niall had his phone stolen, made up the overwhelming majority of reports of thefts and robberies on the trains last year, but outside of the capital, hotspot areas included Birmingham, Kent, Essex and Manchester.

However, while reports are the rise, the figures, obtained by the BBC under the Freedom of Information Act, suggest convictions are low.

Of the 23,683 thefts and robberies recorded in 2023, 98% had not resulted in what police term a “positive outcome” or conviction.

Niall, a musician and actor who has lived in London for 12 years, reported his phone theft to police. But he said he did not immediately think to call his bank or cancel his cards.

“They took everything,” he said. “My online banking was showing zero…zero…zero.”

Niall explained the thief had taken out a £7,000 loan in his name from HSBC, then transferred all of the cash to his Monzo account, and then took it all. Transactions showed the thief went on a “spending spree” in an Apple store, he added.

“It’s one of those moments where you just in one second feel a bucket of sweat come out of your head and you go red,” he said.

“It was panic stations for two days. I was on the phone pretty non stop…and then pacing up and down the kitchen. Just trying to get to the bottom of it.

“I’ve no idea how they’d got into either of my accounts,” he added. “It’s face ID and password protected. They managed to take out a loan, which is a laugh because I’ve been trying to get a loan for years and I’m not eligible for one – somehow they managed to.”

British Transport Police advises people to:

• Be mindful and aware of what’s going on around you
• Keep your phone out of sight when you’re not using it
• Avoid putting valuables in your back pocket and use zip pockets instead
• Register all your electrical items at immobilise.com
• Ensure stolen device protection is enabled in your phone security settings
• Switch on or install a tracker on your phone, which could help trace your device if it’s stolen

Uma Kumaran, Labour MP for Stratford and Bow, told the BBC her constituency had a “problem” with phone thefts and robberies.

“I have had my own phone stolen from me,” she said. “It can happen in seconds. I had my phone in my hand one minute, put it in my pocket and within 30 seconds someone’s brushed past me and taken it.”

“Your whole life is in your phone nowadays…you could class it as a low level, petty crime, but to the person it happens to…you feel like suddenly your whole life is taken off you.”

The BBC filmed with a police task force aimed at catching phone snatchers and witnessed several arrests. One suspect had an expensive phone wrapped in tinfoil in an attempt to block the device’s signal and avoid it being traced.

A month after Niall reported his phone theft British Transport Police said the investigation had ended due to “no CCTV evidence”.

While Monzo reimbursed Niall with around £14,000 of the stolen money, he told the BBC the £7,000 fraudulent loan was yet to be written off by HSBC.

“HSBC don’t seem to understand that I don’t have £7,000 to give them back…they’ve still not been able to explain how a loan was taken out in my name. They have not been helpful at all.”

HSBC has been contacted for comment.

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.

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 from 2001 until 2006, had not returned home from being out with friends on Saturday evening.

Northumbria Police’s Ch Supt Helena Barron said: “This is an extremely sad development and our 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.

His wife Anna and family previously thanked police, friends and the local community for their help and support.

The search was carried out in “very challenging” conditions due to the river flow and level being heightened after the heavy rain over the weekend, police said.

Mr Voyce, from Truro in Cornwall, played for Wasps, Bath and Gloucester before retiring from the sport in 2013.

He previously worked for the bank Investec and has been living in Alnwick since 2020.

Among those from the world of rugby who have paid tribute were former England international Mike Tindall, who played with Mr Voyce at Gloucester.

A post shared by his podcast, The Good, The Bad and The Rugby, read: “He epitomised rugby as a game for all shapes and sizes, punching well above his weight.

“His ability to break tackles and his durability were exceptional. He was a great character off the pitch.”

His co-host, former England star James Haskell, also paid tribute, adding: “He was a teammate, a friend and an incredible player – someone I admired who always punched above his weight.

“He will be sorely missed by everybody.”

A carol service due to take place at Bolton Chapel, near to the search, was cancelled on Wednesday.

The Reverend Gill Lonsdale said: “Nobody really has the heart to gather and sing carols, so it felt the right decision not to hold the event this year.”