A man accused of murdering four women and a nine-year-old boy by driving a car into them at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg has been remanded in custody.

The 50-year-old was brought before Magdeburg district court on Saturday evening following the incident on Friday when a black BMW car ploughed through the crowded market injuring more than 200 people.

Magdeburg Police said investigations are continuing and officers are appealing for witnesses to send in photos or video of the incident.

The suspect has been named in local media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old Saudi citizen who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had worked as a doctor.

On Sunday morning, Magdeburg police confirmed four women – aged 45, 52, 67 and 75 – were also killed in the incident.

“The judge ordered pre-trial detention for five counts of murder, multiple attempted murder and multiple counts of dangerous bodily harm,” its statement said.

City officials said around 100 police, medics and firefighters, as well as 50 rescue service personnel, went to the scene shortly after 19:00 local time (18:00 GMT) on Friday.

Witnesses described how they had to jump out of the car’s path during the attack.

In an interview with German paper Bild, one woman called Nadine described being at the Christmas market with her boyfriend Marco when the car came speeding towards them.

“He was hit and pulled away from my side,” the 32-year-old told the paper. “It was terrible.”

Lars Frohmüller, a reporter for German public broadcaster MDR, told BBC Radio 4’s World Tonight programme he saw “blood on the floor” as well as “many doctors trying to keep people warm and help them with their injuries”.

• What we know so far about Magdeburg market attack
• Eyewitness saw car hit boyfriend in attack
• Reporter describes ‘chaotic situation’

A memorial service for victims of the attack was held at Magdeburg Cathedral on Saturday evening

The service was attended by families of the victims, emergency workers and federal government officials, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

During a visit to the market earlier on Saturday, Scholz described the attack as a “dreadful tragedy” as “so many people were injured and killed with such brutality” in a place that is supposed to be “joyful”.

He told reporters that there were serious concerns for those who had been critically injured and that “all resources” will be allocated to investigating the suspect behind the attack.

Previously, Reiner Haseloff, the premier of Saxony-Anhalt state, said a preliminary investigation suggested the alleged attacker was acting alone.

Prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens said on Saturday that the investigation was ongoing but suggested one potential motive for the attack “could have been disgruntlement with the way Saudi Arabian refugees are treated in Germany”.

Al-Abdulmohsen is thought to have driven into the market through an entry point which was reserved for emergency vehicles, police said.

The suspect is a psychiatrist who lived in Bernburg, around 40km (25 miles) south of Magdeburg.

Originally from Saudi Arabia, al-Abdulmohsen arrived in Germany in 2006 and in 2016 was recognised as a refugee.

He ran a website that aimed to help other former Muslims flee persecution in their Gulf homelands.

The suspected attacker has no known links to Islamist extremism. His social media and posts appear to suggest he had been critical of Islam.

A source close to the Saudi government told the BBC it sent four official notifications known as “Notes Verbal” to German authorities, warning them about what they said were “the very extreme views” held by al-Abdulmohsen.

The source, who asked not to be named, said these notifications were ignored.

However, another experienced counter-terrorism expert said the Saudis may be mounting a disinformation campaign to discredit someone who tried to help young Saudi women seek asylum in Germany.

A woman who was with her boyfriend at the Christmas market in Magdeburg has told local media she had her boyfriend in her arms when the car used in the attack came speeding towards them.

“He was hit and pulled away from my side. It was terrible,” 32-year-old Nadine told the Bild newspaper.

Footage published on German media showed a black car striking a crowd of people at high speed and continuing to drive forward for hundreds of metres.

Nadine’s boyfriend is said to have sustained injuries to his leg and head.

Another eyewitness, Gianni Warzecha, told the BBC he was listening to Christmas music at the market with his girlfriend’s family when “suddenly there was a rumbling and the sound of shattered glass”.

“People began to panic,” he said. “I saw the car and people on the floor, people bleeding. There were also kids.

“I was concentrating on getting first aid to people. It took a few minutes for the first paramedics to arrive but it wasn’t enough because there were already 200 people hurt.

“Most of the first aid was done by people there.”

Lars Frohmüller, a reporter for the public broadcaster MDR who arrived at the Christmas market in Magdeburg shortly after the attack, told the BBC about what he saw.

“Everywhere were ambulances, there were police, there were a lot of fire workers.

“This was a real chaotic situation. We saw blood on the floor, we saw people sitting beside each other and having golden and silver foils around them. And we saw many doctors trying to keep people warm and help them with their injuries.

“It’s a big shock. It’s a big shock for every people here in Magdeburg and for every person in Saxony-Anhalt.”

• Follow updates on this story
• Full report: Five dead, more than 200 injured in attack

Tobias Rausch, who was at the Christmas market and serves as general secretary of Germany’s far-right AfD party in Saxony-Anhalt, told Reuters it was scary.

Rausch said he had not reached the market when “all of a sudden, we heard a muffled noise, an engine roaring”.

“People were screaming. It all happened in a fraction of a second.”

Once away from danger, Rausch said he was able to film the moment police detained the suspect.

Local officials told a news conference that fellow citizens had given vital first aid to those hurt in the moments before emergency services arrived on the scene.

One Magdeburg resident, Heike Janke, was at the Christmas market on Friday and left at around 18:00 local time (17:00 GMT), roughly an hour before the attack took place.

“We could have been hit,” Ms Janke told Reuters, as she lit a candle for those involved in the tragedy. She said she felt appalled by what happened, “somehow you just can’t believe it”.

She was joined by many other locals who brought flowers and candles to a church near where the attack happened.

Corinna Pagels, a local and employee with a counselling organisation, said she was at the market herself early on Friday. She said the healing for the community starts now.

“Of course, it gets to you and we also need to process things and thankfully we have a good network and are also there to provide aftercare for rescue workers and firefighters and support them in the aftermath. So the real work starts now.”

Ukrainian sniper Oleksandr Matsievsky was captured by Russians in the first year of the full-scale invasion. Later, a video emerged showing him smoking his last cigarette in a forest, apparently next to a grave he had been forced to dig.

“Glory to Ukraine!” he says to his captors. Moments later, shots ring out and he falls dead.

His execution is one of many.

In October this year, nine captured Ukrainian soldiers were reportedly shot dead by Russian forces in Kursk region. Ukrainian prosecutors are investigating the case including a photo showing half-naked bodies lying on the ground. This photo was enough for one of the victims, drone operator Ruslan Holubenko, to be identified by his parents.

“I recognised him by his underwear,” his distraught mother told local broadcaster Suspilne Chernihiv. “I bought it for him before a trip to the sea. I also knew that his shoulder had been shot through. You could see that in the picture.”

The list of executions goes on. Ukrainian prosecutors are investigating reports of beheadings and a sword being used to kill a Ukrainian soldier with his hands tied behind his back.

In another instance, a video showed 16 Ukrainian soldiers apparently being lined up and then mowed down with automatic gunfire after emerging from a woods to surrender.

Some of the executions were filmed by Russian forces themselves, while others were observed by Ukrainian drones hovering above.

The killings captured on such videos usually take place in woods or fields lacking distinctive features, which makes confirming their exact location difficult. BBC Verify, however, has been able to confirm in several cases – such as one beheading – that the victims wear Ukrainian uniforms and that the videos are recent.

The Ukrainian prosecution service says that at least 147 Ukrainian prisoners of war have been executed by Russian forces since the start of the full-scale invasion, 127 of them this year.

“The upward trend is very clear, very obvious,” says Yuri Belousov, the head of the War Department at the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General’s Office.

“Executions became systemic from November last year and have continued throughout all of this year. Sadly, their number has been particularly on the rise this summer and autumn. This tells us that they are not isolated cases. They are happening across vast areas and they have clear signs of being part of a policy – there is evidence that instructions to this effect are being issued.”

International humanitarian law – particularly the Third Geneva Convention – offers protection to prisoners of war, and executing them is a war crime.

Despite this, Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman leader of Russia’s Chechnya, briefly ordered his commanders involved in the Ukraine war “to take no prisoners”.

Rachel Denber, Deputy Director of the Europe and Central Asia Division at Human Rights Watch, says there is no shortage of evidence supporting allegations of Ukrainian prisoners of war being executed by Russian troops. According to her, impunity plays a key part, and the Russian army has some serious questions to answer.

“What instructions do these units have, either formally or informally from their commanders? Are their commanders being quite clear about what the Geneva Conventions say about the treatment of prisoners of war? What are Russian military commanders telling their units about their conduct? What steps is the chain of command taking to investigate these instances? And if higher ups are not investigating, or not taking steps to prevent that conduct, are they aware that they too are criminally liable and can be held accountable?” she asks.

So far, there has been nothing to suggest that Russia is formally investigating claims that its forces have been executing Ukrainian prisoners of war. Even mentioning similar allegations is punishable by lengthy prison sentences in Russia.

According to Vladimir Putin, Russian forces have “always” treated Ukrainian prisoners of war “strictly in line with international legal documents and international conventions”.

Ukrainian forces have also been accused of executing Russian prisoners of war, but the number of such claims has been much smaller.

Yuri Belousov says that the Ukrainian prosecution service treats such accusations “very seriously” and is investigating them – but so far no one has been charged.

According to Human Rights Watch, since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022 the Russian forces have committed “a litany of violations, including those which should be investigated as war crimes or crimes against humanity”.

The Russian army’s record of abuses is such that some Ukrainian soldiers prefer death to capture.

“He told me: Mum, I’ll never surrender, never. Forgive me, I know you’ll cry, but I don’t want to be tortured,” Ruslan Holubenko’s mother says. Her son is still officially classed as missing in action, and she hopes against hope.

“I’ll do everything that’s possible and impossible to get my child back. I keep looking at this photo. Maybe he is just unconscious? I want to believe, I don’t want to think that he’s gone.”

When Syrian rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in Damascus and gave a victory speech on the heels of a lightning military campaign that swept through the country and toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime, one remark went widely unnoticed. That was his reference to an illegal narcotic that has flooded the Middle East over the past ten years.

“Syria has become the biggest producer of Captagon on earth,” he said. “And today, Syria is going to be purified by the grace of God.”

Mostly unknown outside of the Middle East, Captagon is an addictive, amphetamine-like pill, sometimes called “poor man’s cocaine”.

Its production has proliferated in Syria amid an economy broken by war, sanctions and the mass displacement of Syrians abroad. Authorities in neighbouring countries have struggled to cope with the smuggling of huge quantities of pills across their borders.

All the evidence pointed to Syria being the main source of Captogan’s illicit trade with an annual value placed at $5.6bn (£4.5bn) by the World Bank.

At the scale that the pills were being produced and dispatched, the suspicion was that this was not simply the work of criminal gangs – but of an industry orchestrated by the regime itself.

Weeks on from the speech by al-Sharaa (previously known by his nom de guerre of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani), spectacular images have emerged that suggest the suspicion was correct.

Videos filmed by Syrians raiding properties allegedly owned by relatives of Assad show rooms full of pills being made and packaged, hidden in fake industrial products.

Other footage shows piles of pills found in what appears to be a Syrian military airbase, set on fire by the rebels.

I spent a year investigating Captagon for a BBC World Service documentary and saw how the drug became as popular among the wealthy youth of Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia as it was among the working class in countries like Jordan.

“I was 19 years old, I started taking Captagon and my life started to fall apart,” Yasser, a young male addict in a rehab clinic told us in Jordan’s capital, Amman. “I started hanging out with people who take this thing. You work, you live without food, so the body is a wreck.”

So how will al-Sharaa and his group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), deal with the large number of people in Syria and around the Middle East addicted to Captagon who may suddenly find themselves without a supply?

Caroline Rose, an expert on Syrian drug trafficking at the New Lines Institute, has concerns around this. “My fear is that they will really crack down on supply and not necessarily try to do any sort of demand reduction.”

But there is a broader question at play too: that is, what effect will the loss of such a lucrative trade have on Syria’s economy? And as those behind it move aside, how will al-Sharaa keep at bay any other criminals waiting in the wings to replace them?

The proliferation of Captagon pushed the Middle East into a genuine narco-war.

While filming with the Jordanian army on their desert border with Syria, we saw how the soldiers had reinforced their fences and learned about their comrades who had been killed in shoot-outs with Captagon smugglers. They accused the Syrian soldiers across the border of aiding the smugglers.

Other countries in the region have been just as disturbed by the trade.

For a while, Saudi Arabia suspended imports of fruit and vegetables from Lebanon because authorities were frequently finding shipping containers full of produce like pomegranates which had been hollowed out and filled with bags of Captagon pills.

We filmed in five countries, including in regime-held and rebel-held Syria, consulted well-placed sources, and gained access to confidential records from court cases in Germany and Lebanon.

We were able to name two major parties as having their hands in the trade – Assad’s extended family and the Syrian armed forces, in particular its Fourth Division, led by Assad’s brother, Maher.

Maher al-Assad was perhaps the most powerful man in Syria aside from his brother.

He was sanctioned by many Western powers for the violence he wrought against protesters during the pro-democracy uprising in 2011 that precipitated the bloody civil war. The French judiciary has also issued an international arrest warrant for him and his brother for their alleged responsibility in chemical weapons attacks in Syria in 2013.

Gaining access to the WhatsApp chats of a Captagon trader imprisoned in Lebanon, we were able to implicate Maher al-Assad’s Fourth Division and his second-in-command, General Ghassan Bilal.

The revelation was a huge milestone in confirming the role of Syria’s armed forces and Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle in the trade.

Seeing the recent images of demoralised Syrian army troops fleeing without a fight as the rebels advanced, I was reminded of an interview we conducted with a regime soldier last year.

He told us his monthly army pay of $30 (£24) barely covered three days of food for his family, so his unit became involved in criminality and Captagon.

“It’s what brings most of the money now,” he said.

In May 2023, the Arab League agreed to re-admit Syria 12 years after it was expelled for violently suppressing the popular uprising. It was seen as a diplomatic coup for Assad, using promises to tackle the Captagon trade as leverage to be rehabilitated.

Now, as Syria’s rebel leaders consolidate their power over the organs of state, it seems they are fully aware of positive signals they are sending to wary neighbouring states when they promise to crack down on the Captagon trade.

But it might be a steeper task for them to wrest the country away from a lucrative criminal enterprise after so many years when it was encouraged by the state itself.

Issam Al Reis was a major engineer in the Syrian army until he defected at the beginning of the uprising against the Assad regime, and has spent time investigating the Captagon trade. He believes that HTS will not need to do much to stop the trade initially “because the main players have left” and there’s already been a dramatic drop in Captagon exports – but he warns that “new guys” might be waiting in the wings to take over.

This will be particularly problematic if the demand side isn’t tackled too. There is little evidence of investment in rehabilitation from the time HTS controlled Idlib province in north-west Syria, according to Ms Rose. “[There was a] very poor picture for trying to address Captagon consumption,” she says.

She also says there has already been an uptick in another drug being trafficked through Syria.

“I think many users will seek out crystal meth as an alternative, especially users who have already established a tolerance to Captagon and need something that’s a bit more strong.”

The other problem, as Mr Al Reis points out, is a financial one. As he puts it: “Syrians need the money.”

His hope is that the international community will help prevent people entering the drug trade through humanitarian aid and easing sanctions.

But Ms Rose argues the new leaders will need to identify “new and alternative economic pathways to encourage Syrians to participate in the licit formal economy.”

While the kingpins have fled, many of those involved in manufacturing and smuggling the drug remain inside the country, she said.

“And old habits die hard.”

When a court declared Iwao Hakamata innocent in September, the world’s longest-serving death row inmate seemed unable to comprehend, much less savour the moment.

“I told him he was acquitted, and he was silent,” Hideko Hakamata, his 91-year-old sister, tells the BBC at her home in Hamamatsu, Japan.

“I couldn’t tell whether he understood or not.”

Hideko had been fighting for her brother’s retrial ever since he was convicted of quadruple murder in 1968.

In September 2024, at the age of 88, he was finally acquitted – ending Japan’s longest running legal saga.

Mr Hakamata’s case is remarkable. But it also shines a light on the systemic brutality underpinning Japan’s justice system, where death row inmates are only notified of their hanging a few hours in advance, and spend years unsure whether each day will be their last.

Human rights experts have long condemned such treatment as cruel and inhuman, saying it exacerbates prisoners’ risk of developing a serious mental illness.

And more than half a lifetime spent in solitary confinement, waiting to be executed for a crime he didn’t commit, took a heavy toll on Mr Hakamata.

Since being granted a retrial and released from prison in 2014, he has lived under Hideko’s close care.

When we arrive at the apartment he is on his daily outing with a volunteer group that supports the two elderly siblings. He is anxious around strangers, Hideko explains, and has been in “his own world” for years.

“Maybe it can’t be helped,” she says. “This is what happens when you are locked up and crammed in a small prison cell for more than 40 years.

“They made him live like an animal.”

A former professional boxer, Iwao Hakamata  was working at a miso processing plant when the bodies of his boss, the man’s wife and their two teenage children were found. All four had been stabbed to death.

Authorities accused Mr Hakamata of murdering the family, setting their house in Shizuoka alight and stealing 200,000 yen (£199; $556) in cash.

“We had no idea what was going on,” Hideko says of the day in 1966 when police came to arrest her brother.

The family home was searched, as well as the homes of their two elder sisters, and Mr Hakamata was taken away.

He initially denied all charges, but later gave what he came to describe as a coerced confession following beatings and interrogations that lasted up to 12 hours a day.

Two years after his arrest, Mr Hakamata was convicted of murder and arson and sentenced to death. It was when he was moved to a cell on death row that Hideko noticed a shift in his demeanour.

One prison visit in particular stands out.

“He told me, ‘there was an execution yesterday – it was a person in the next cell’,” she recalls. “He told me to take care – and from then on, he completely changed mentally and became very quiet.”

Mr Hakamata is not the only one to be damaged by life on Japan’s death row, where inmates wake each morning not knowing if it will be their last.

“Between 08:00 and 08:30 in the morning was the most critical time, because that was generally when prisoners were notified of their execution,” Menda Sakae, who spent 34 years on death row before being exonerated, wrote in a book about his experience.

“You begin to feel the most terrible anxiety, because you don’t know if they are going to stop in front of your cell. It is impossible to express how awful a feeling this was.”

James Welsh, lead author of a 2009 Amnesty International report into conditions on death row, noted that “the daily threat of imminent death is cruel, inhuman and degrading”. The report concluded that inmates were at risk of “significant mental health issues”.

Hideko could only watch as her own brother’s mental health deteriorated as the years went by.

“Once he asked me ‘Do you know who I am?’ I said, ‘Yes, I do. You are Iwao Hakamata’. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you must be here to see a different person’. And he just went back [to his cell].”

Hideko stepped up as his primary spokesperson and advocate. It wasn’t until 2014, however, that there was a breakthrough in his case.

A key piece of evidence against Mr Hakamata were red-stained clothes found in a miso tank at his workplace.

They were recovered a year and two months after the murders and the prosecution said they belonged to him. But for years Mr Hakamata’s defence team argued that the DNA recovered from the clothes did not match his – and alleged that the evidence was planted.

In 2014 they were able to persuade a judge to release him from prison and grant him a retrial.

Prolonged legal proceedings meant it took until last October for the retrial to begin. When it finally did, it was Hideko who appeared in court, pleading for her brother’s life.

Mr Hakamata’s fate hinged on the stains, and specifically how they had aged.

The prosecution had claimed the stains were reddish when the clothes were recovered – but the defence argued that blood would have turned blackish after being immersed in miso for so long.

That was enough to convince presiding judge Koshi Kunii, who declared that “the investigating authority had added blood stains and hid the items in the miso tank well after the incident took place”.

Judge Kunii further found that other evidence had been fabricated, including an investigation record, and declared Mr Hakamata innocent.

Hideko’s first reaction was to cry.

“When the judge said that the defendant is not guilty, I was elated; I was in tears,” she says. “I am not a tearful person, but my tears just flowed without stopping for about an hour.”

The court’s conclusion that evidence against Mr Hakamata was fabricated raises troubling questions.

Japan has a 99% conviction rate, and a system of so-called “hostage justice” which, according to Kanae Doi, Japan director at Human Rights Watch, “denies people arrested their rights to a presumption of innocence, a prompt and fair bail hearing, and access to counsel during questioning”.

“These abusive practices have resulted in lives and families being torn apart, as well as wrongful convictions,” Ms Doi noted in 2023.

David T Johnson, a professor of sociology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, whose research focuses on criminal justice in Japan, has followed the Hakamata case for the last 30 years.

He said one reason it dragged on is that “critical evidence for the defence was not disclosed to them until around 2010”.

The failure was “egregious and inexcusable”, Mr Johnson told the BBC. “Judges kept kicking the case down the road, as they frequently do in response to retrial petitions (because) they are busy, and the law allows them to do so.”

Hideko says the core of the injustice was the forced confession and the coercion her brother suffered.

But Mr Johnson says false accusations don’t happen because of a single mistake. Instead, they are compounded by failings at all levels – from the police right through to the prosecutors, courts and parliament.

“Judges have the last word,” he added. “When a wrongful conviction occurs, it is, in the end, because they said so. All too often, the responsibility of judges for producing and maintaining wrongful convictions gets neglected, elided, and ignored.”

Against that backdrop, Mr Hakamata’s acquittal was a watershed – a rare moment of retrospective justice.

After declaring Mr Hakamata innocent, the judge presiding over his retrial apologised to Hideko for how long it took to achieve justice.

A short while later, Takayoshi Tsuda, chief of Shizuoka police, visited her home and bowed in front of both brother and sister.

“For the past 58 years… we caused you indescribable anxiety and burden,” Mr Tsuda said. “We are truly sorry.”

Hideko gave an unexpected reply to the police chief.

“We believe that everything that happened was our destiny,” she said. “We will not complain about anything now.”

After nearly 60 years of anxiety and heartache, Hideko has styled her home with the express intention of letting some light in. The rooms are bright and inviting, filled with pictures of her and Iwao alongside family friends and supporters.

Hideko laughs as she shares memories of her “cute” little brother as a baby, leafing through black-and-white family photos.

The youngest of six siblings, he seems to always be standing next to her.

“We were always together when we were children,” she explains. “I always knew I had to take care of my little brother.  And so, it continues.”

She walks into Mr Hakamata’s room and introduces their ginger cat, which occupies the chair he normally sits in. Then she points to pictures of him as a young professional boxer.

“He wanted to become a champion,” she says. “Then the incident happened.”

After Mr Hakamata was released in 2014, Hideko wanted to make the apartment as bright as possible, she explains. So she painted the front door pink.

“I believed that if he was in a bright room and had a cheerful life, he would naturally get well.”

It’s the first thing one notices when visiting Hideko’s apartment, this bright pink statement of hope and resilience.

It’s unclear whether it has worked – Mr Hakamata still paces back and forth for hours, just as he did for years in a jail cell the size of three single tatami mats.

But Hideko refuses to linger on the question of what their lives might have looked like if not for such an egregious miscarriage of justice.

When asked who she blames for her brother’s suffering, she replies: “no-one”.

“Complaining about what happened will get us nowhere.”

Her priority now is to keep her brother comfortable. She shaves his face, massages his head, slices apples and apricots for his breakfast each morning.

Hideko, who has spent the majority of her 91 years fighting for her brother’s freedom, says this was their fate.

“I don’t want to think about the past. I don’t know how long I’m going to live,” she says. “I just want Iwao to live a peaceful and quiet life.”

Sega is considering launching its own Netflix-like subscription service for video games, a move which would accelerate gaming’s transition towards streaming.

There are already a number of similar services on the market – such as Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus – which see gamers pay a monthly fee for access to a range of titles rather than owning them outright.

Sega’s president Shuji Utsumi told the BBC such subscription products were “very interesting”, and his firm was “evaluating some opportunities”.

“We’re thinking something – and discussing something – we cannot disclose right now,” he said.

Some in the industry have expressed concern about the move however telling the BBC it could see gamers “shelling out more money” on multiple subscription services.

It is not just Sony and Microsoft who offer game subscriptions – there are now countless players in the space, with rivals such as Nintendo, EA and Ubisoft all offering their own membership plans.

Currently, various Sega games are available across multiple streaming services.

The amount these services individually charge vary depending on the features and games made available. For example, Xbox Game Pass prices range from £6.99 to £14.99 a month, while PlayStation Plus ranges from £6.99 to £13.49 a month.

So it would make financial sense for Sega for people who are playing its titles to pay it subscription fees rather its rivals.

It could also be attractive for people who mostly want to play Sega games – but for everyone else it could result in higher costs.

Rachel Howie streams herself playing games on Twitch, where she is known as DontRachQuit to her fans, and said she was “excited and worried” about another subscription service

“We have so many subscriptions already that we find it very difficult to justify signing up for a new one,” she told the BBC.

“I think that SEGA will definitely have a core dedicated audience that will benefit from this, but will the average gamer choose this over something like Game Pass?”

And Sophie Smart, Production Director at UK developer No More Robots, agreed.

“As someone whose first console was the Sega Mega Drive, what I’d love more than anything is to see Sega thriving and this feels like a step in a modern direction,” she said.

But she wondered if Sega did create a rival subscription service if this would lead to their games being removed from other services.

“If so, it could mean that consumers are shelling out more money across owning multiple subscription services,” she said.

Shuji Utsumi spoke to the BBC ahead of the premiere of the film Sonic 3 on Saturday, after a year in which he oversaw the launch of Metaphor: ReFantazio, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, and the latest Sonic the Hedgehog game.

Our conversation started in an unexpected way.

The very first thing Mr Utsumi said to me seemed to suggest that the firm, which dominated gaming in the 1990s with a rivalry between Sonic the Hedgehog and Nintendo’s Super Mario, may have lost its way.

“I want to make Sega really shiny again,” he said.

He said Sega had been putting too much focus on domestic success in Japan, and needed to re-establish itself on a global stage, which would mean expanding past its base.

“Sega has been somehow losing confidence,” he said.

“But why? Sega has a great RPG group, Sega has amazing IPs, Sega is a really well-known brand.

“So I was like, hey, now is not the time to be defensive – but more offensive.”

He said the company was too concerned about controlling costs when he took over, and he wants to “bring a rock and roll mentality” to gaming.

When I told him that sounded familiar – Sega’s marketing in the 90s often tried to position Sonic the Hedgehog as the cool alternative to Mario – he agreed.

He said the firm now simply must “make a great game” in the series.

“The next one is going to be a quite challenging, quite exciting game that we are working on,” he said.

But he would not divulge whether Sega was considering a follow up to the much-loved Sonic Adventure series.

“Sonic Adventure was kind of a game-changer for Sonic,” he said.

“When we release it, it should be good, it should be impressive – we need to meet or even exceed people’s expectations, so it takes some time.”

Part of the series which fans have been clamouring to see return is the Chao Garden – a much-loved virtual pet synonymous with Sonic Adventure.

Mr Utsumi said “we’ve been talking about it” – but would not go into further detail, only that he could not “say too much about it”.

Mr Utsumi unsurprisingly talked up the firm’s successes this year, which have included winning multiple gaming awards with new IP Metaphor: ReFantazio, made by the team behind the Persona series.

But it hasn’t all been positive for the firm, with job cuts in March, and Football Manager 2025 being delayed to next year.

“It was a hard decision,” he said of the cuts which saw 240 people lose their jobs.

“But when you reset the initiative, you have to make that hard decision.”

And he said Football Manager had been delayed over “a quality issue”.

“I mean, financially, maybe providing the game at an early stage can be the better choice.

“But we decided to keep having the quality level – to keep that discipline.”

And he also spoke of how Sega’s year has gone outside of gaming, with several film and television adaptations being capped off with the third Sonic the Hedgehog movie releasing on Saturday.

“I just saw the movie – it’s so much fun. It’d be nice if that kind of excitement goes on.”

In 1915, 29-year-old Indian entrepreneur Jhamandas Watumull arrived in Hawaii’s O’ahu island to set up a retail shop of his import business with his partner Dharamdas.

The two registered Watumull & Dharamdas as a business on Honolulu’s Hotel Street, selling exotic goods like silks, ivory crafts, brassware and other curios from the East.

Dharamdas died of cholera in 1916, prompting Jhamandas Watumull to send for his brother Gobindram to manage their Honolulu store while he took care of their business in Manila. Over the next several years, the brothers would travel between India and Hawaii as they solidified their business.

Today, the Watumull name is ubiquitous on the islands – from garment manufacturing and real estate to education and arts philanthropy, the family is inextricably linked with Hawaii’s rich history.

The first South Asians to move to the island from India, they are now one of its wealthiest families.

“Slowly, slowly, that’s how we did it,” Jhamandas told a local Hawaiian publication in 1973.

Born in pre-independent India, Jhamandas was the son of a brick contractor in Sindh province’s Hyderabad (now in Pakistan). The family was educated but not wealthy. After an accident paralysed his father, Jhamandas’ mother bought his passage to the Philippines where he began working in textile mills. In 1909, he began his own trading business in Manila with his partner Dharamdas.

His grandson JD Watumull says Jhamandas and Dharamdas moved to Hawaii after a drop in their Manila business after the US, which occupied Philippines at the time, curtailed ties with foreign businesses.

Their Hawaii business was renamed East India Store soon after Jhamandas’ brother Gobindram began managing it. In the following years, the business expanded into a major department store with branches in several parts of Asia as well as Hawaii, says SAADA, a digital archive of South Asian American history.

In 1937, Gobindram built the Watumull Building in Honolulu’s Waikiki neighbourhood to house the company’s headquarters. According to SAADA, the multi-million-dollar business had expanded to 10 stores, an apartment house and assorted commercial developments by 1957.

The Star-Bulletin newspaper describes products at the store – linens, lingerie, brass and teak wood curios – as woven with “romance and mystery” that transported one “to distant lands and fascinating scenes”.

As Hawaii emerged as a popular destination for wealthy tourists in the 1930s, shirts in bold colours with island motifs called the ‘Aloha shirt’ became a sought-after souvenir.

According to Dale Hope, an expert in Hawaiian textile and patterns, the Watumull’s East India Store was one of the first on the island to carry designs with Hawaiian patterns.

The designs were first commissioned in 1936 by Gobindram from his artist sister-in-law Elsie Jensen.

“Instead of Mount Fuji, she’d have Diamond Head, instead of koi [she’d] have tropical fish, instead of cherry blossoms [she’d] have gardenias and hibiscus and all the things we know here,” Hope said.

The designs were sent to Japan where they were handblocked onto raw silk, Nancy Schiffer writes in the book Hawaiian Shirt Designs.

“These subtle floral patterns, modern and dynamic in concept, were the first Hawaiian designs to be produced commercially,” Schiffer notes.

“They were sold by the boat load and were exhibited as far away as London,” William Devenport says in the book Paradise of the Pacific.

Gobindram’s daughter Lila told Hope that the Watumull’s Waikiki store had American movie stars Loretta Young, Jack Benny, Lana Turner and Eddie “Rochester” Anderson coming to buy these shirts.

“More and more we are finding out that Watumull has become a synonym for Hawaiian fashions,” Gulab Watumull said in a 1966 interview in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

The Watumulls soon bought the Royal Hawaiian Manufacturing Company, where the first matching family aloha wear was created.

Despite their success, it would be decades before the Watumull brothers – Jhamandas and Gobindram – received US citizenship. Their early years in the country were marred by discrimination and difficult immigration laws, the Hawaii Business Magazine wrote.

In 1922, Gobindram married Ellen Jensen, an American, whose citizenship was stripped under the Cable Act for marrying an immigrant who was not eligible for US citizenship. Jensen would go on to work with the League of Women Voters to reform the law and regain citizenship in 1931.

Gobindram would become a citizen in 1946 when a law allowing Indians to gain citizenship through naturalisation was enacted.

His brother Jhamandas, meanwhile, continued to split much of his time between India and Hawaii.

During India’s 1947 partition, the Watumull family moved from Sindh to Bombay (now Mumbai), leaving much of their property behind, SAADA says.

Jhamandas’ son Gulab eventually arrived in Hawaii to work in the family business and become its head.

In 1955, the brothers split the business with Jhamandas and Gulab keeping its retail portion while Gobindram’s family took over its real estate section.

Jhamandas moved permanently to Hawaii In 1956, a few years after the death of his wife and one of their sons, and in 1961, became a US citizen.

Over the years, the family remained invested in the welfare of India and its people. Gobindram was an active member of the Committee for India’s Freedom and often travelled to Washington to support the country’s case for independence, Elliot Robert Barkan writes in Making it in America.

Gobindram’s home in Los Angeles was “a Mecca for people concerned with Indian independence”, Sachindra Nath Pradhan notes in the book India in the United States.

The Watumull Foundation in 1946 sponsored a series of lectures by Dr S Radhakrishnan – who later served as India’s president – at American universities.

Gobindram’s wife Ellen was instrumental in bringing an international parenthood conference to Delhi in 1959, leading to the establishment of the country’s first birth control clinics.

The family’s philanthropy has and continues to include funding for educational institutions in Hawaii and in India, endowments for Honolulu-based art programmes and promoting Indian-Hawaiian exchange.

Many of the Watumull brothers’ grandchildren now work in and around Hawaii.

In the past few years, as the family business shifted focus to real estate, the last Watumull retail store closed in 2020. The company thanked its customers “for years of good business and good memories”.

Watumull Properties purchased a 19,045 sq m (205,000 sq ft) marketplace in Hawaii last year. JD Watumull, the president of the company, said, “The Hawaiian Islands continue to be our family’s focus today and in the future.”

Talks to reach a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas are 90% complete, but key issues remain that need to be bridged, a senior Palestinian official involved in the talks told the BBC.

One of the main sticking points is the continued Israeli military presence in the Philadelphi corridor, a strategically important strip of land in southern Gaza along the border with Egypt.

The Palestinian official shared details of the discussions being held in Doha which include the potential creation of a buffer zone several kilometres wide along the length of Israel’s border with Gaza.

Israel would retain a military presence within this area, the official said.

With these issues resolved, a three-stage ceasefire could be agreed within days, they added.

The deal would include an exchange of 20 Palestinian prisoners for every female soldier released in the first of three stages of the ceasefire.

The names of the prisoners are yet to be agreed but would be chosen from around 400 names who are serving prison sentences of 25 years or more in Israel.

These are not thought to include the senior Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, whose release Israel is expected to veto.

Israeli hostages would be released in stages, as it is believed that Hamas still need to locate some of the missing hostages.

Of 96 hostages still held in Gaza, 62 are assumed by Israel to still be alive.

Gazan civilians would be able to return to the north, under a system with Egyptian/Qatari oversight, and there would be around 500 trucks per day bringing aid into the strip, the official said.

In the final stage of the three-phase plan, which would see the end of the 14-month war, Gaza would be overseen by a committee of technocrats from the enclave, who would not have previous political affiliations but would have the backing of all Palestinian factions.

In recent weeks, the US, Qatar and Egypt have resumed their mediation efforts and reported greater willingness by both sides to conclude a deal.

A round of talks in mid-October failed to produce a deal, with Hamas rejecting a short-term ceasefire proposal.

Hamas and two other Palestinian militant groups said that reaching a ceasefire agreement in Gaza “has become closer than ever before” only if Israel “stops imposing new conditions”.

In a Telegram statement on Saturday, the group said it held a meeting in Cairo on Friday on the ongoing negotiation efforts with representatives from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

The Palestinian Islamist armed group Hamas, which governed Gaza, carried out an unprecedented cross-border attack in southern Israel on 7 October 2023. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 others abducted.

More than 100 hostages have been freed through negotiations or Israeli military rescue operations.

Blake Lively has filed a legal complaint against It Ends With Us co-star Justin Baldoni, alleging sexual harassment and a campaign to “destroy” her reputation.

According to the legal filing, she accuses Mr Baldoni and his team of attacking her public image following a meeting in which she brought along her actor husband, Ryan Reynolds, to address “repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behavior” by Mr Baldoni and a producer on the movie.

Mr Baldoni’s legal team told the BBC the allegations are “categorically false” and said they hired a crisis manager because Ms Lively had threatened to derail the film unless her demands were met.

In the romantic drama, Ms Lively plays a woman who finds herself in a relationship with a charming but abusive boyfriend, played by Mr Baldoni.

The meeting between Ms Lively and Mr Baldoni, together with others involved in the movie’s production, took place on 4 January this year, and it aimed to address “the hostile work environment” on set, says the legal filing.

Ms Lively’s husband, Deadpool star Mr Reynolds, who did not appear in It Ends With Us, joined her at the showdown, according to the legal complaint, which is one step before a lawsuit.

Mr Baldoni, 40, attended the meeting in his capacity as co-chairman and co-founder of the company that produced the film, Wayfarer Studios. He was also the film’s director.

In the legal complaint, Ms Lively’s lawyers allege that both Mr Baldoni and the Wayfarer chief executive officer, Jamey Heath, engaged in “inappropriate and unwelcome behavior towards Ms Lively and others on the set of It Ends With Us”.

In the filing to the California Civil Rights Department, a list of 30 demands relating to the pair’s alleged misconduct was made at the meeting to ensure they could continue to produce the film.

Among them, Ms Lively, 37, requested that there be no more mention of Mr Baldoni and Mr Heath’s previous “pornography addiction” to Ms Lively or to other crew members, no more descriptions of their own genitalia to Ms Lively, and “no more adding of sex scenes, oral sex, or on camera climaxing by BL [Blake Lively] outside the scope of the script BL approved when signing onto the project”, says the complaint.

Ms Lively also demanded that Mr Baldoni stop saying he could speak to her dead father.

Ms Lively’s legal team further accuse Mr Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios of leading a “multi-tiered plan” to wreck her reputation.

She alleges this was “the intended result of a carefully crafted, coordinated, and resourced retaliatory scheme to silence her, and others from speaking out about the hostile environment that Mr Baldoni and Mr Heath created”.

Responding to the legal complaint, Mr Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said on Saturday: “It is shameful that Ms Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations against Mr Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives.”

Mr Freedman accused Ms Lively of making numerous demands and threats, including “threatening to not show up to set, threatening to not promote the film”, which would end up “ultimately leading to its demise during release, if her demands were not met”.

He alleged that Ms Lively’s claims were “intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media”.

In a statement via her attorneys to the BBC, Ms Lively said: “I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted.”

She also denied that she or any of her representatives had planted or spread negative information about Mr Baldoni or Wayfarer.

The film was a box-office hit, although some critics said it romanticised domestic violence.

Soon after the release date in August, another co-star, Brandon Sklenar, hinted in an Instagram post at rumours of a rift between Ms Lively and Mr Baldoni.

Speculation of a falling out only grew when they did not appear together on the red carpet.

It Ends With Us tells the story of Boston florist Lily Bloom, played by Ms Lively, as she navigates a love triangle between her charming but abusive boyfriend, Ryle Kincaid, played by Mr Baldoni, and her compassionate first love, Atlas Corrigan, played by Mr Sklenar.

It is based on a best-selling novel by Colleen Hoover. The 45-year-old author has previously said her inspiration was domestic abuse her mother endured.

In an interview with the BBC at the film’s premiere in August, Ms Lively said she had felt the “responsibility of servicing the people that care so much about the source material”.

“I really feel like we delivered a story that’s emotional and it’s fun, but also funny, painful, scary, tragic and it’s inspiring and that’s what life is, it’s every single colour,” said the actress.

Ms Lively, who is also credited as a producer, told the BBC she felt the film had been made “with lots of empathy”.

“Lily is a survivor and a victim and while they are huge labels, these are not her identity,” said Ms Lively. “She defines herself and I think it’s deeply empowering that no one else can define you.”

The US military says it has carried out a series of air strikes on the Yemeni capital Sanaa targeting a missile storage site and command facilities operated by Iran-backed Houthi militants.

US Central Command added it also hit multiple Houthi drones and an anti-ship cruise missile over the Red Sea.

The US military later said that one of its fighter jets was shot down over the Red Sea in an apparent “friendly fire” incident. Both crew members ejected safely with one suffering minor injuries, Central Command added.

The attack came hours after the Houthis fired a ballistic missile at Israel which injured more than a dozen people in a Tel Aviv park.

The Houthis, an Iran-backed rebel group that controls north-western Yemen, began attacking Israel and international shipping shortly after the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with Palestinians.

In a statement, the US military’s Central Command said the strikes aimed to “disrupt and degrade Houthi operations, such as attacks against US Navy warships and merchant vessels in the Southern Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb, and Gulf of Aden”.

The US military also said it struck “multiple Houthi one-way attack uncrewed aerial vehicles, or drones, and an anti-ship cruise missile over the Red Sea” using “US Air Force and US Navy assets, including F/A-18s”.

A few hours later Central Command issued a second statement confirming a “friendly fire” incident over the Red Sea.

“The guided missile cruiser USS Gettysburg, which is part of the USS Harry S Truman Carrier Strike Group, mistakenly fired on and hit the F/A-18, which was flying off the USS Harry S Truman,” the statement said.

It is not clear whether the downed aircraft had been involved in the Yemen operation.

• Who are the Houthis and why are they attacking Red Sea ships?

Since November 2023, Houthi missile attacks have sunk two vessels in the Red Sea and damaged others. They have claimed, often falsely, that they are targeting ships only linked to Israel, the US or the UK.

Last December, the US, UK and 12 other nations launched Operation Prosperity Guardian to protect Red Sea shipping lanes against the attacks.

On Saturday, Israel’s military said its attempts to shoot down a projectile launched from Yemen were unsuccessful and the missile struck a park in Tel Aviv.

Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s emergency medical service, said it treated 16 people who were “mildly injured” by glass shards from shattered windows in nearby buildings.

Another 14 people suffered minor injuries on their way to protected areas were also treated, it said.

A Houthi spokesman said the group hit a military target using a hypersonic ballistic missile.

Earlier this week, Israel conducted a series of strikes against what it said were Houthi military targets, hitting ports as well as energy infrastructure in the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

Houthi-run Al Masirah TV reported that nine people were killed in the port of Salif and the Ras Issa oil terminal.

The Houthis have vowed to continue their attacks until the war in Gaza ends. The US says its latest strike is part of a commitment to protect itself and its allies.

US President-elect Donald Trump has appointed British TV executive Mark Burnett, who produced him on The Apprentice, as his special envoy to the UK.

Trump said it was his “great honour” to pick his former colleague for the role, which is separate to the position of US ambassador to the UK.

“Mark will work to enhance diplomatic relations, focusing on areas of mutual interest, including trade, investment opportunities, and cultural exchanges,” he added.

Burnett said in a statement: “I am truly honoured to serve The United States of America and President Trump as his Special Envoy to the United Kingdom.”

He created The Apprentice and produced it along with a range of other reality TV programmes, winning 13 Emmy Awards.

“With a distinguished career in television production and business, Mark brings a unique blend of diplomatic acumen and international recognition to this important role,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Saturday.

The president-elect, who takes office next month, has already picked billionaire donor Warren Stephens as his ambassador to the UK. While Stephens’s nomination requires confirmation by the US Senate, Burnett’s role needs no such approval.

Burnett, 64, was raised in Essex and served as a paratrooper in the Army before emigrating to the US in 1982, when he was 22.

He went on to work for MGM and became known as a significant figure in reality television.

In addition to creating and producing The Apprentice, Burnett created formats such as Survivor and Shark Tank – the US version of Dragon’s Den.

He helped propel Trump, a real estate developer, to new heights of fame as he starred in The Apprentice from 2008-15.

Burnett became president of MGM Television in December 2015, but stood aside in 2022 when Amazon acquired the studio.

He had a role in planning Trump’s first inauguration in 2017.

Burnett told the BBC in 2010 that Trump was “fearless” and “a big, strong tough guy”.

“He is a very, very down-to-earth normal guy and he’s a really, really loyal friend and, as I’ve seen him with many other people, not the kind of enemy you would want,” said Burnett.

Trump’s first run for the presidency as Republican nominee in 2016 was plunged into crisis as tapes emerged of him telling Access Hollywood presenter Billy Bush that “you can do anything” to women “when you’re a star”.

Burnett released a statement at the time denying he was a supporter of Trump.

“Further, my wife and I reject the hatred, division and misogyny that has been a very unfortunate part of his campaign,” he said. Burnett is married to Londonderry-born actress Roma Downey.

Another former producer of The Apprentice subsequently claimed that Trump had been heard making “far worse” remarks in recordings from the show.

But Burnett rejected calls to release all outtakes of Trump, saying he was unable to do so and citing “various contractual and legal requirements”.

Pascual Andreu points proudly to a black-and-white photograph stuck to the wall of the premises of his chocolate-making business. Staring out from it is his grandfather, who started the company in 1914.

But, as he looks around him and remembers the destruction caused by the flash floods which struck the eastern Spanish region of Valencia on 29 October, tears well up in Andreu’s eyes.

“The water came in and water and mud covered everything,” he says. “And when it had gone, it left a terrible sight. All the stock we had was ruined, the machinery was useless.”

He adds: “All my life working. And for what?”

The floodwater left a six-feet-high (1.8m) mark on the wall, and although the water has now gone, mud still clings to the machines. Miraculously, the photo of his grandfather was not washed away.

But, now in his sixties, and still waiting to see how much insurance money he might receive, Andreu is too disheartened to start over.

The flash flood killed more than 220 people in the Valencia region, many of them caught in their cars, or on the ground floors of buildings when the tsunami-like waters hit. But as well as claiming lives, the disaster also devastated livelihoods. Valencia’s chamber of commerce estimated that 48,000 companies have been affected.

The towns and industrial belt surrounding the Mediterranean city of Valencia, which itself avoided the impact of the floods, were the worst hit. In total, the province of Valencia represents 5% of Spain’s GDP, according to CaixaBank Research, which estimates that the disaster could reduce national economic output by one to two percentage points in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Much of the damage has been caused on industrial estates. Diego Romá, executive president of the federation of industrial estates in the Valencia region (Feteval), says that “thousands and thousands of jobs are in the air” and that a total of 58 industrial estates were affected by the flood water.

“Most companies are working hard to resume production, but unfortunately there are maybe 10 to 20% of companies which are going to close,” he said.

The legacy of 29 October is still visible on the industrial estates. Abandoned cars sit on the side of the road covered in mud, debris has been pushed up against walls and the shutters of many businesses remain closed.

Electro Fernández, an electricity installation company, is one of the few which has reopened, having lost €40,000 ($42,000; £33,000) worth of tools in the floods.

“We were immediately affected 100% because we lost our tools and vehicles,” said Patricia Muñoz, who co-owns the company with her husband. She says that they are currently working at 10% of their capacity.

“We’ve cleaned the place, we’ve got all our employees here, and we’ve taken action to get going again,” she says. “But a lot of the companies on this industrial estate, and on others are nowhere near that, they are still cleaning up.

“This has been an absolute disaster. You only realise the scale of it when you see it for yourself.”

Not far away is a car storage area, where hundreds of the 120,000 or so vehicles damaged or destroyed by the flooding have been removed from roads and piled one on top of the other. As part of a €17bn relief plan announced by the government in the first month after the tragedy, it promised to provide up to 10,000 euros to car owners to replace their vehicles.

Businesses and self-employed workers are also due to benefit, with compensation for damage caused to homes and corporate premises. A furlough scheme is also in place.

The Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, told congress in late November that his government was “making a titanic effort” to ensure that the promised funds reach those in need as soon as possible. However, not everyone is convinced.

“I think that official financial aid is badly managed,” says Toni Milla, president of a local business association in the town of Alfafar, which was heavily affected. He says that a lot of the relief for businesses promised during the Covid pandemic did not reach its destination.

“I think this time the same thing is going to happen,” he says.

Valencians’ faith in their authorities has already been severely shaken by the immediate response to the disaster. Protesters have been demanding the resignation of regional president Carlos Mazón, who, it emerged, was absent from his office for several hours on the day the floods struck because he was having lunch with a journalist. Many believe his administration’s delay in issuing an alert to the phones of people in the region cost lives.

Mazón has rejected such claims. “We did the best we could with the information available,” he says.

Others criticise the central government for failing to deploy the military and other resources more forcefully. Sánchez, however, has insisted that his administration “fulfilled its duties and did so from the very beginning” of the crisis.

Meanwhile, help has been provided by the private sector. Alcem-se, a charity platform set up by local supermarket entrepreneur Juan Roig, says it has distributed €35m euros in non-refundable aid to 4,600 businesses.

However, for many, including Mr Milla, the relief may not be enough. He owned a local TV channel, an estate agency and a bar and he has only managed to reopen the latter – partially – in the wake of the October floods.

He lists several nearby businesses – including a petrol station, a gym, a beautician and an optician – which he says will not reopen.

But it is not just urban areas which were hit on 29 October. The Valencia region is part of an agricultural heartland in south-eastern Spain, which exports large quantities of fruit and vegetables to the rest of Europe.

Twenty-five miles (40km) south of Valencia city, José España visits his orange trees. Beneath them, oranges which were washed off their branches by the floodwater lie rotting on the ground.

“Farmers always say ‘next year things will get better’, but right now, the mood among farmers is very pessimistic,” he said. The agricultural association he is a member of, AVA-ASAJA, estimates that well over €1bn euros worth of damage was caused on 29 October to crops alone.

“Farmers have had a few years now in which we’ve been abandoned, and the floods might end up causing a few more farmers than usual to leave the industry,” he says. “In order to get things back to how they were before the flooding, it’s going to take two or three years.”

On Friday evening, a man ploughed a car into a crowd of shoppers at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg.

The attack killed five people, including a nine-year-old child, and left more than 200 injured, with many in a critical condition.

One man has been arrested and is currently being questioned, German authorities confirmed.

Police believe he acted alone.

• News story: Five dead, more than 200 injured in car attack on German Christmas market

• Eyewitness account: Witness saw car hit boyfriend in attack

At 19:02 local time (18:02 GMT), the first call to emergency services was made.

The caller reported that a car had driven into a crowd at a Christmas market in the middle of town.

The caller assumed it was an accident, police said, but it soon became clear this wasn’t the case.

The driver, police said, had used traffic lights to turn off the road and onto a pedestrian crossing, leading him through an entry point to the market which was reserved for emergency vehicles, injuring a number of people on the way.

Unverified footage on social media showed the driver speeding the vehicle through a pedestrian walkway between Christmas stalls.

Eyewitnesses described jumping out of the car’s path, fleeing or hiding.

Police said the driver then returned to the road the way he came in and was forced to stop in traffic. Officers already at the market were able to apprehend and arrest the driver here.

Footage showed armed police confronting and arresting a man who can be seen lying on the ground next to a stationary vehicle – a black BMW with significant damage to its front bumper and windscreen.

The entire incident was over in three minutes, police said.

A nine-year-old child and four adults are confirmed to have died in the attack.

More than 200 people have been injured and at least 41 of those are in a critical condition.

The toll had earlier been reported as two dead and 68 injured, but was revised to the much higher totals on Saturday morning.

None of the victims have been identified yet.

The suspect has been identified in local media reports as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, the BBC understands.

He is a 50-year-old psychiatrist who lives in Bernburg, around 40km (25 miles) south of Magdeburg.

The suspect is currently being questioned and prosecutors expect to charge him with murder and attempted murder in due course, the head of the local prosecutor’s office said on Saturday.

The motive behind the attack remains unclear but authorities have reported that they believe he carried out the attack alone.

Originally from Saudi Arabia, he arrived in Germany in 2006 and in 2016 was recognised as a refugee.

Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told reporters that it was “clear to see” that the suspect holds “Islamophobic” views.

The suspect is an outspoken critic of Islam on social media, and has promoted conspiracy theories regarding an alleged plot by German authorities to islamicise Europe.

A report from Der Spiegel said a complaint was filed against Taleb A with the authorities a year ago over statements which officials concluded did not constitute a concrete threat.

“The reports from Magdeburg raise the worst fears,” the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said on social media platform X.

Magdeburg’s city councillor for public order, Ronni Krug, said the Christmas market will stay closed and that “Christmas in Magdeburg is over”, according to German public broadcaster MDR.

That sentiment was echoed on the market’s website, which in the wake of the attack featured only a black screen with words of mourning, announcing that the market was over.

The Saudi government expressed “solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims”, in a statement on X, and “affirmed its rejection of violence”.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he was “horrified by the atrocious attack in Magdeburg”, adding that his thoughts were with “the victims, their families and all those affected” in a post on X on Friday night.

We asked our readers to send in their best pictures on the theme of “bright lights”. Here is a selection of the photographs we received from around the world.

The next theme is “agriculture” and the deadline for entries is 7 January 2025.

The pictures will be published later that week and you will be able to find them, along with other galleries, on the In Pictures section of the BBC News website.

You can upload your entries directly here or email them to yourpics@bbc.co.uk.

Terms and conditions apply.

Further details and themes are at: We set the theme, you take the pictures.

All photographs subject to copyright.

It was one of the worst weeks of his political career, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was ringing in the season.

At the Liberal Party’s annual holiday gathering, Trudeau put on his party face, despite being blindsided the day before by the snap resignation of one of his most trusted allies, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, just hours before she was due to deliver an economic statement in Parliament.

But even as some members of his own party were calling on him to leave, the prime minister struck a resolute, defiant tone as he addressed the party faithful in his dark blue suit and tie.

He alluded to his “difficult” week, comparing it to a family fight.

He discussed being “audacious” and “ambitious” in the face of adversity, and made pointed digs at his political rival, Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the opposition Conservative Party of Canada.

Pundits remarked afterwards that it sounded a lot like a campaign speech, and that despite the latest political turmoil, Trudeau appears to be digging in.

That stance did not change on Friday, even after the leader of the country’s progressive New Democrat Party (NDP) Jagmeet Singh said he would introduce a motion to topple Trudeau’s government in the new year. It was the support of the NDP that had kept the Liberals in power. An election now appears imminent.

Yet Trudeau has so far given no indication that he will resign soon, though he reportedly told fellow party members that he would take time over the winter holiday to think about what to do.

Political observers say Trudeau has often shown a streak of defiance when he is under pressure, something that has helped him weather a number of controversies in his nine years in power.

And he has often been underestimated, such as when he won a majority government in 2015 at the age of 44, despite being portrayed by his political opponents as something of a dilettante.

But as pressure mounts on him to resign, some of those same experts say he may need a new strategy.

When Trudeau first ran for prime minister, three words followed him around: Just not ready.

That phrase was the tagline of an attack ad played repeatedly throughout the country as he tried to unseat the incumbent Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a Conservative who had been in power since 2004.

It conveyed common criticisms he faced at the time about his young age, his relative lack of experience and his winding path to politics.

Trudeau “sort of meandered around” in his early life before becoming a drama teacher in Vancouver, said Canadian historian Raymond Blake, seemingly insulated as the well-known and wealthy son of former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

But not long after entering politics, Trudeau adopted a fighting stance.

It is a trait that some say he learned from his father, who was known for his charismatic yet combative leadership style, and who is famous for his catchphrase of “just watch me,” which he glibly told a reporter at the height of a political crisis.

“His father had an image of really being a resilient, very tough politician,” said Lawrence Martin, a long-time Canadian political columnist based in Washington DC.

The younger Trudeau went on to defy the odds himself by pulling off a historic win for his Liberal party, taking them from third-place in parliament to a majority mandate in his first federal election.

“This kind of makes him feel that he can overcome big obstacles,” said Mr Martin, adding that, politically, Trudeau operates with “a hyper amount of self-confidence”.

Trudeau’s path to power turned bumpy once he had assumed office, after he became involved in a number of political scandals.

In his first term, Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould – the first indigenous woman to hold the job – quit over what she described as attempts at interference and “veiled threats” from top government officials seeking a legal favour for a firm facing a corruption trial.

As he vied for a second term in 2019, Trudeau’s re-election campaign was rocked by images that were released showing him as a younger man donning brown face on at least three occasions.

And a year later, in 2020, Trudeau faced yet another ethics scandal involving a potentially large government contract for a youth charity that had worked with Trudeau family members.

But in the face of every setback, Trudeau held on to power. He won re-election twice, making him the longest-serving leader of his G7 peers.

“Trudeau has survived so much,” Prof Blake said, noting that his political successes and leadership have won the loyalty of many in his party despite the scandals.

While Trudeau has weathered many storms, there are signs that his time may be up.

For one, history is not on his side. Only one Canadian prime minister, Sir John A MacDonald – the country’s first – served four consecutive terms.

Trudeau is also working against a sinking popularity. A September poll from Ipsos suggested around two-thirds of Canadians disapprove of him. Just 26% of respondents said Trudeau was their top pick for prime minister, putting him 19 points behind Conservative leader Poilievre.

And then there’s the slowly dwindling support within Trudeau’s own party. So far, at least 18 Liberal MPs have called for their leader to step down.

“He’s delusional if he thinks we can continue like this,” New Brunswick MP Wayne Long told reporters this week.

“It’s unfair to us MPs, it’s unfair to the ministers and most importantly it’s unfair to the country. We need to move on with a new direction and we need to reboot.”

According to Long, who has driven the push to remove Trudeau, as many as 50 of the 153 Liberal MPs want him to quit immediately. Roughly the same number are Trudeau loyalists, he said, and the rest are on the fence.

“There’s still some party loyalists who like him and, you know, want to still support him,” said Mr Martin, the DC-based columnist. “But if you had a secret vote of Liberal caucus about whether he should stay on or not, he would be defeated handily.”

The prime minister is also seemingly driven to stay by his disdain for his political opponent Poilievre, Mr Martin observed.

“He does not want to back down, and he does want to take on Pierre Poilievre, whom he detests,” he said.

Trudeau’s stubborn perseverance in the face of a dismal political forecast has drawn comparisons to outgoing US President Joe Biden, who abandoned his candidacy months before the November election only after mounting internal pressure.

Prof Blake said that Trudeau’s legacy, like Biden’s, will hinge on how he exits. Fighting a losing battle, he said, could give Trudeau “a lasting scar”. But the prime minister has a remarkable ability to survive, he noted.

“He’s been a survivor, and he hasn’t done what’s normal. Will normal – whatever it is – fall into place this time? Perhaps, but I’m not convinced.”

Trudeau’s dilemma is also similar to one faced by his father, who won three elections in a row, and went on to win a fourth after leaving power for less than a year.

But by 1984, more than 15 years after first becoming prime minister, the elder Trudeau – like his son now – faced dire polls. It seemed clear he would not win the next election if he stayed on. He decided to step down, telling the public that he made the decision after taking a walk in an Ottawa snowstorm.

Since then, the term “walk in the snow” has become synonymous with political resignation in Canada. This Christmas, it remains to be seen whether Trudeau will take his own walk.

Two Somali fishermen wearing big scarves over their heads to hide their faces glance around furtively as they walk into the room for a secret meeting to tell me why they have recently decided to become gun-wielding pirates – in search of million-dollar ransoms.

“You are free to record – we accept,” one tells me as they sit down nervously for the interview that has taken months to set up in the small coastal town of Eyl.

This behaviour is in start contrast to the bravado of the pirates who used to strut around this charming, ancient port nestled between arid mountains on Somalia’s Indian Ocean coast.

It has always been considered strategic, not only because of its location but also because it has a fresh-water source – and during the piracy boom of the early to mid-2000s the pirates made it their base.

It became known as “Harunta Burcadda” – the Pirate Capital. From here, they targeted the container ships that transport goods around the world and even some oil tankers, forcing shipping companies to change their routes.

The regional authorities held no sway – and the local police force was too scared to enter the town.

Pirates kept their hijacked ships anchored offshore and businesses in the town and region profited from ransom payments. Between 2005 and 2012 the World Bank estimates pirate groups earned between $339m (£267m) and $413m.

But the pirates suffered a reversal of fortunes when international navies began to patrol the seas off Somalia and these days the Puntland Maritime Police Force has a base in Eyl.

Most people in the town welcomed this as the pirates brought with them eye-watering inflation, drugs, alcohol and a notoriety that the local Muslim elders shunned.

But the longstanding resentment felt towards foreign shipping, in particular fishing trawlers, has never gone away in a town full of fishermen that depends on the sea for its survival. To this day they accuse these fishing boats of stealing their living – often violently.

“Ships came and took all our equipment and belongings,” Farah, one of the fisherman-turned-pirates looking out defensively from behind his blue scarf, tells the BBC.

Both his name and that of his friend Diiriye, who is wrapped in a white headscarf, have been changed – one of the conditions of our meeting.

He and a few others had invested approximately $10,000 in a fishing venture for a boat, outboard engine and nets. But Farah says last year the crew of one foreign trawler came and stole the nets, along with its catch, and then shot the engine – destroying it.

The pair give another example: some of their relatives had gone out to check their nets one morning and never came back – usually the fisherman go out at dawn and return before the midday heat hits.

Three days later they were found, floating towards the beach.

“There were bullets in their bodies,” Diiriye says.

“They had no guns; they had gone to the sea with their nets to make their livelihood.”

Farah goes on: “We work and live by the sea. The sea is our business.

“When someone intimidates you and robs you, it is compulsory to fight. They caused the fight. Had they not taken our property, we would not go to piracy.”

These men – aged in their 30s – are not alone in making the decision over the last year to turn to piracy.

According to the European Union’s naval force Operation Atalanta, which patrols nearby, there were 26 pirate attacks between 2013 and 2019 – and then not a single one from 2020 to 2022. But they resumed in 2023, with six attacks and surged to 22 this year, figures until 5 December show.

Most of these skirmishes do not end up in a successful hijacking – but when it does, it pays. Pirates say they received a ransom of $5m to release the Bangladesh-flagged MV Abdullah, hijacked in March 2024. The vessel’s owner has not confirmed this, but did say it was freed following negotiations.

Sources in the semi-autonomous Puntland state, where Eyl is located, told the BBC they estimate about 10 gangs, each with around 12 members, are operating in the area.

They go off to sea for 15 to 30 days at a time, packing their small speed-boats with AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), food and fuel.

Farah and Diiriye say their aim is to hijack a medium-sized vessel deep in the Indian Ocean and then make it back to their mother ship, using its GPS tracking system to find bigger ships to target.

“You can attack the ships using small speed boats,” says Farah.

Their Bazooka rocket launcher is also an essential part of their strategy.

“We use the RPG to stop the ship. When the ship doesn’t stop, we shoot over it. We don’t kill. The aim is to get something, not to kill. [The aim is] to frighten them,” says Diiriye.

All this weaponry does not come cheap – so the gangs essentially seek funding from interested investors. The disgruntled fishermen put out feelers and a syndicate is formed often involving different businessmen from the cities of Garowe and Bosaso.

One may fund the boats, another the weapons and a third sundries like fuel. These entrepreneurs sometimes invest in several groups in the hope that one of them will hit the jackpot when a vessel is captured so they can get their cut of the ransom.

And it is easy to get hold of a gun in Somalia – even in Eyl you can pick up an AK-47 for about $1,200, a legacy of its two-decade civil war and years of lawlessness.

Farah and Diiriye say they were not involved in the piracy boomtime and have not taken any advice from retired pirates, some of whom also started out as disgruntled fishermen.

Most of these old pirates have left the area – often they have gone abroad or have repented.

In one famous case a former pirate – Abdirahman Bakeyle – gave away his wealth. In 2020, he donated the houses and hotels he had bought in Garowe to Muslim charities and is now a travelling preacher going from town to town in Puntland urging people to lead an austere and morally upright life.

Adado, a town in central Somalia where pirates once invested, earned the nicknamed “Blue City” because their newly built mansions often had blue-painted iron sheet roofs.

A good deal of these houses now lie empty – or available to rent for as little as $100 a month.

In Eyl, the town elders say the main legacy of piracy is the prevalence of alcohol, often smuggled in from Ethiopia, and drugs such as opioids – with concerns that some young men who already chew the stimulant leaf khat, a popular afternoon pastime, are becoming addicts.

The men who gather outside teashops in the afternoons to play dominoes and discuss the news say they do not approve of piracy – although they understand the enmity towards foreign ships.

The recent incident of the three fishermen who were shot dead clearly rankles with many.

Ali Mursal Muse, who has been fishing for lobsters and sharks off Eyl for about 40 years to support his wife and 12 children, believes they may have been mistaken for pirates – as he was years ago.

“We left here with another fishing boat and went to the sea. At the same time pirates tried to hijack a ship. A plane came. My boat came to the shore; the other fishing boat was attacked,” he recalls.

Forty-year-old widow Hawa Mohamed Zubery believes her husband suffered the same fate 14 years ago when he went missing.

This was when piracy was at its peak and she had just given birth to a son, whom they wanted to circumcise.

“My husband was thinking that if he caught a shark then we could pay to have the baby circumcised,” she tells the BBC, clearly still distressed about his death. She says she struggles to pay school fees for her children from her living selling samosas.

Mr Muse says the main issue for him these days is the unethical behaviour of fishing fleets from countries like Iran and Yemen which often steal his equipment.

He believes they are issued with fake Somali fishing licences by powerful local backers who also provide them with gunmen for protection. He accused them of looting their catches and muscling in on their fishing grounds.

“They have a zone they work and they even come on the beach. When we go and ask for our equipment back, they shoot at us. Recently, they hurt some people. They shot a boy, wounding his hand and leg.”

The fisherman says he has complained to the local authorities on multiple occasions, but nothing is ever done.

Puntland’s Information Minister Caydid Dirir admits the presence of some illegal vessels and says some foreign ships may be granted licences and “misuse them”.

“Illegal fishing exists in all seas, and piracy can occur anywhere. Progress is being made gradually,” he tells the BBC.

Illegal fishing has been a controversial issue in Somalia for many years.

Many fishing vessels operate without licences or with licences issued by bodies without the authority to do so, according to the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime.

It quotes evidence, including satellite navigational data, to show that many of the vessels originate from China, Iran, Yemen and south-east Asia. A report from the US embassy in Mogadishu suggests Somalia loses $300m each year as a result.

Operation Atalanta’s Rear Admiral Manuel Alvargonzález Méndez says his forces only target pirate vessels and now also have to protect ships from Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

But he maintains the area is much safer and Somalis can now “cast their fishing nets without fear” – as does the Puntland Maritime Police Force, which works closely with the EU naval mission.

Its commander Farhan Awil Hashi is confident that it will not return to the “bad old days” of piracy.

He believes the long-term answer is “job creation”.

“Young people must get jobs, always. If the person is busy doing something, they will not think about heading to the sea and hijacking ships,” he tells the BBC.

Farah and Diiriye make the same argument – they say because fishing no longer pays, hijacking a ship for ransom is the only way they can support their children.

They know piracy is wrong – and Diiriye admits he is too scared to tell his own mother.

“If she knew, she would be very disappointed. In fact, she would inform the authorities.”

• Risking death to smuggle alcohol past bandits and Islamist fighters
• Are we witnessing a return to piracy off Somalia’s coast?
• How foreign navies curbed Somalia’s piracy
• Life in Somalia’s pirate town

Jamil Hassan, one of the most feared men in Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime, wanted for the torture and killing of civilians, was shaking as he walked down the stairs of his apartment block.

Outside, the 72-year-old climbed into a car in a small convoy with his family and a handful of security guards, just a few suitcases between them.

His neighbour and her teenage son watched.

“I knew the moment I saw them flee that Assad had fallen,” she says.

When we entered Hassan’s apartment a few days later, signs of the family’s hasty departure were everywhere.

In the fridge was a half-eaten carrot cake with a knife still on the plate. The beds were strewn with clothes and empty shoeboxes. Flowers wilted in a vase in the dining room, and cups and plates had been left to dry by the sink.

A framed photo of a smiling Hassan and Assad hung on the wall of the study, with text reading: “Our skies are for us and forbidden to others”.

Hassan, referred to as “the butcher” by many civilians on his street, was one of Assad’s most menacing enforcers. He led the Air Force Intelligence and oversaw a network of detention facilities including the notorious Mezzeh Prison, where detainees were routinely tortured.

He is one of many senior regime figures wanted or sanctioned around the world who have abandoned their homes in affluent areas of Damascus and vanished.

Finding these men who ruled Syria with an iron fist will be difficult. Some fear they will strike political deals abroad and evade justice.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which led the campaign to topple the regime, has vowed to search for them inside Syria. Rebels aligned with the group now occupy Hassan’s apartment and a handwritten note on the front door warns people not to enter.

When we asked them where Hassan might have gone, one grinned and replied: “I don’t know – to Hell.”

Many apartment shutters on Hassan’s quiet street in central Damascus are now closed. Knocks on doors go unanswered.

Those who will speak tell us about their fear at living on a street with a wanted war criminal. “We were so afraid to talk,” says the woman who watched him flee. “It was terrifying to live next to them.”

Hassan is wanted in the US for “engaging in conspiracy to commit cruel and inhuman treatment of civilian detainees, including US citizens”. He was convicted in absentia earlier this year in France for his role in imprisoning, disappearing and torturing two Syrian-French nationals. Germany wants him too. An Interpol Red Notice shows a photograph of Hassan alongside a note that he is wanted for “conspiracy to commit war crimes”.

He was placed under travel bans and had his assets frozen over the repression of civilian protesters. In April 2011 the US says Air Force Intelligence personnel fired tear gas and live ammunition at protesting crowds in Damascus and other cities, killing at least 43.

People on the street describe a formidable figure who was unapproachable and always surrounded by guards.

A makeshift security post outside Hassan’s apartment building was constantly staffed by military personnel. The night before the regime collapsed, the men simply took off their uniforms and discarded their weapons, according to another neighbour.

“It was the first time I’d seen this post with no lights, no sounds, no noise,” says 27-year-old Amr al-Bakri, a filmmaker who lives with his family in the building next door.

He said locals “knew what he did to the Syrians – outside of Damascus and in Damascus – so we know it but we can’t say anything, just ‘good morning sir’. He’d say nothing back.”

Amr says his family had to give away their pet dog after Hassan’s guards threatened to kill it if it didn’t stop barking. When Amr’s family asked for the guard post to be moved from outside their home, they were told they should move house instead, he says.

The guards would run regular inspections on the street and check the bags of visitors.

“Sometimes if I had a plumber or handyman to come and fix something one of the guards would come and check if there was really something that needed to be fixed,” says the woman living in Hassan’s building.

Neighbours also say Hassan had a “golden line” for electricity that meant his family’s lights were always on, while other homes in the neighbourhood were in darkness.

The electrician called to fix any problems at the apartment says he knew Hassan over many years “but only from a distance”. “[Hassan] was very strict – a military personality,” the man says. “He was a butcher… He had no mercy.”

The man told BBC News he had been in prison – not at Mezzeh but elsewhere – and was tortured there.

A local shopkeeper, Mohammed Naoura, says he didn’t like Hassan but that you had to appear to support him.

“We are happy now,” he adds. “Nobody believed this would ever happen.”

Hussam Luka, head of the General Security Directorate (GSD), was less well-known among residents but had an apartment underneath Hassan.

His “ruthless, smooth-talking nature” reportedly earned him the nickname “the spider” – and he’s under sanctions in the EU, US and UK.

A UK sanctions list says he was “responsible for the torture of opponents in custody”, while the US Treasury Department says he “reportedly committed a number of massacres” while working in Homs.

The White House has said he is one of a small group of officials who might have information about missing American journalist Austin Tice.

At his home on Monday, rebels were dismantling furniture to be put into storage. They said they arrived after looters had already taken many of the most expensive items.

A photo of Luka and Assad remained, printed in different sizes and styles, alongside documents from security and intelligence events, and ceremonial medals and certificates from the foreign spy service in Russia – where the deposed Syrian leader Assad has fled.

“This award is to the coordinator of the mukhabarat [intelligence service] organ in the southern provinces of the Syrian Arab Republic,” one certificate naming Luka says. “You showed the utmost professionalism and put in huge effort to fulfil the duties entrusted to you for the good of the Syrian people.”

As rebels clear the apartment, a neighbour wanders in to see what’s happening.

When asked what she knows about the regime official, she replies: “We keep to ourselves, they keep to themselves. No one in this building interacts with each other.” She walks away.

In other affluent areas more homes have been abandoned. Fridges are fully stocked, wardrobes full and in some cases travel documents left behind.

The rebels who have taken over the homes are using them as bases, and say they are also preventing further looting.

At one lavish apartment, men say they are sleeping on blankets on marble floors beneath giant chandeliers and cooking on a camp stove in its modern kitchen. Guns are propped against plush sofas and arm chairs.

“We don’t need any of this,” a rebel says, gesticulating around the room.

At another, a child peaks through the curtain of a sprawling ground-floor apartment with an outdoor swimming pool. A large family say they are occupying the space.

Perhaps the grandest home in the area is the modern labyrinthine underground dwelling of one of the country’s best-known businessmen – Khodr Taher Bin Ali, better known as Abu Ali Khodr.

Bin Ali has been sanctioned by the US, UK and EU for his role in supporting and benefiting from the Syrian regime.

His home has a lift, a full-size gym, an indoor swimming pool, hot tub and sauna, and an industrial kitchen.

In the master bedroom, there are two golden safes, with space for dozens of watches – in a drawer there is a forgotten warranty card for luxury brand Audemars Piguet. A gun case and jewellery boxes in the wardrobe are empty.

The children’s ensuite bedrooms still have toys and a Louis Vuitton handbag on the floor and homework and school reports are in the cupboards. A Quran rests on a work top with the words “A gift from the president Bashar al-Assad” inscribed on the side.

Around the corner from Bin Ali is the home of Ali Mamlouk, one of Assad’s closest associates and among the most senior and notorious members of the regime. He was reportedly given the nickname “black box” because of his control over sensitive information.

He was sentenced alongside Hassan by French judges this year for war crimes, and is also wanted in Lebanon for two explosions in 2012 in the city of Tripoli that killed and wounded dozens.

Like Luka, the White House believes Mamlouk is one of few men who could have information about Tice.

His home is padlocked shut, and rebels are more reluctant to grant entry there.

In a guard booth outside, there are notes on visitors to the property before Assad’s fall – people delivering chocolates, water and vegetables, and coming to fix the electricity.

“No one could see, no one could walk, no one could pass by this area. It’s actually the first time I’m seeing this place from up close,” says 17-year-old Mo Rasmi Taftaf, whose family own a house nearby.

“Whenever he came in or out, guards would cut the roads off,” one neighbour says.

Shouting down from a second-floor balcony, another gestures towards Mamlouk’s large home when asked about the wanted regime figure.

“It felt like there was a strange atmosphere” on the street the night before news broke that Assad had fled, he says, without elaborating.

“His security was here at the time but I saw them leave on Sunday morning – a lot of cars. Ali Mamlouk wasn’t here,” he adds, before returning inside.

Another man, who declines to give his name, says he doesn’t want to talk about the regime men.

“I just want to live in peace. I don’t want to open this book or explore all of these crimes – there would be a lot of blood.”

Many, though, do want justice.

The leader of HTS has vowed to pursue the senior regime figures in Syria and asked other countries to hand over those who fled. Those wanted elsewhere have limited places to run.

Finding the men will be a challenge.

“While there is no confirmed information on the current whereabouts of senior regime figures like Jamil Hassan, Ali Mamlouk, and others, there are concerns that such individuals could benefit from political deals that enable them to evade justice,” the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) tells the BBC.

“Some are likely to have sought refuge in allied countries, complicating future extradition efforts, while others may still be in Syria, living discreetly.”

On Hassan’s street, neighbours speculate about where the vanished war criminal has gone.

His family left few clues in the apartment. But in the office is a certificate for Hassan’s daughter signed by Hassan Nasrallah, the late leader of Lebanon-based Shia militant group Hezbollah, thanking her for her “help and support for this honourable resistance”.

Several neighbours suggest he may be hiding in Lebanon or has transited through there, while the local shopkeeper says he thinks Hassan headed for the coast, perhaps to Latakia in the north – the heartland of the minority Alawite sect to which Assad and many of his closest allies belong.

Meanwhile, Lebanese newspaper Nida al-Watan reports that Mamlouk was smuggled across the border and into the Lebanese capital Beirut by Hezbollah – a long-time ally of Syria’s Ba’ath government.

Hezbollah has not confirmed offering assistance to any regime figures, and the Lebanese government has said no Syrian officials targeted by international warrants were authorised to enter through legal crossings. Lebanese security services say Mamlouk is not in the country.

Syrian-British barrister Ibrahim Olabi says regime officials may have acquired new identities and passports, as they were powerful people backed by state institutions.

When it comes to getting justice, he adds, a lack of evidence is not the problem. It is more about finding them and getting them to a place where they can be held accountable.

The SCM says doing this will “require considerable resources, sustained political will, and international collaboration”.

Failing to do so will send a “dangerous message that crimes, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, can go unpunished”, it adds.

Ibrahim Olabi says he is hopeful that justice will be served.

“It will absolutely be a hunt,” he says, but “the world now is a small place through social media, private investigators, political leverages”.

Hassan’s neighbours who were willing to talk say they hope he will one day be returned to Syria, far away from their street, to be punished.

The winter solstice sunrise was greeted by thousands of people at Stonehenge, with a focus on “renewal, rebirth and good vibes”.

The ancient site opened its Monument Field at 07:45 GMT so crowds could see the sun break over the iconic stones.

Despite a windy Wiltshire morning, people followed the “spiritual draw of the area” to mark the winter solstice, which is the shortest day of the year.

From now on, the nights will slowly start to draw back again and the days will gradually become longer.

The sun rose at Stonehenge at approximately 08:09 to cheers and applause.

It is due to set at 16:02, meaning there will be little under eight hours of daylight.

Civil servant Chris Smith, 31, had come to Stonehenge for the first time.

“This is all about renewal, rebirth, we’re entering into the new year, and it’s also a good time to acknowledge what’s taking place in the year that’s been,” he said.

“For me, I’ve gone through a bit of a tumultuous year, there’s been lots that has taken place for me in the past 24 months, and this is an opportunity to consolidate everything that has taken place this year and bury that in the past and be able to move forward then into this next new year.

“There’s such a vibe. I mean, if you look around, you’ve got everybody here, there’s such an energy in the space.

“You can really feel it, like it’s all good vibes. People are just here enjoying themselves, and that’s kind of one of the draws of these sorts of events.

“We have got people here from all walks of life. This is the community. And I think in today’s age, this is a really important thing to do.”

The stones, which are thought to have been placed there around 2,500 BC, line up with the Sun’s movements during the two solstices, marking the changing of the seasons.

Usually, access for large crowds of people is prohibited, but English Heritage opens up the site for the summer and winter solstices.

English Heritage’s Stonehenge director Steve Bax said: “It was fantastic to welcome around 4,500 people to Stonehenge this morning to celebrate winter solstice, and we were delighted that more than 100,000 people also watched live online from around the world.

“It was an enjoyable and peaceful celebration despite the sun not making an appearance and it was great to see so many families enjoying themselves around the monument.”

In nearby Avebury, which is home to another ancient stone circle, two men wearing cloaks could be seen blowing horns as people gathered to watch the sunrise over the fields.

Near the stone circle there is a group of beech trees which people tie ribbons to.

This is a pagan tradition known as “wishing trees”, done as prayers to the tree spirits or in the memory of loved ones.

In Somerset, Glastonbury Tor also saw crowds of people climbing the hill earlier this morning to mark the sun rising.

The Tor is part of the ruins of the 15th Century St Michael’s Church, and rises 518ft (158m) above the Somerset Levels to give a panoramic view of Wells, the Bristol Channel, Wiltshire, the Polden Hills and Exmoor.

It is regarded by some as a spiritual site just like Stonehenge.

At the top of the hill, a fire was lit and songs were sung by people gathered there.

Russia says five people have been killed in a Ukrainian strike in the western Kursk region.

Ukrainian officials reported earlier that Moscow had launched a fresh missile attack on Kyiv, damaging a building hosting several embassies.

In Russia, the acting governor of the Kursk region said in addition to those killed, nine had been taken to hospital following the attack on the town of Rylsk.

Alexander Khinshtein said a cultural centre, a fitness complex, a school and homes had been damaged in the strike which took place at 15:30 local time (12:30 GMT) on Friday.

Russian officials earlier reported six killed, including a child, in Rylsk, about 25km (16 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

But in an audio message on Telegram on Saturday morning, Khinshtein gave the latest update, saying there were five fatalities.

“There were no children among those [killed],” he said.

Ukrainian troops still hold parts of the Kursk region after launching a surprise cross-border offensive in early August.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry said Russia’s strike on Kyiv had affected the diplomatic missions of Albania, Argentina, North Macedonia, Palestine, Portugal and Montenegro. It is unclear whether the building housing them was directly targeted in the Ukrainian capital.

At least one person was killed and nine others were injured in the strike which damaged a number of buildings in the city, Ukraine’s military said. It is not thought that any of the embassy diplomats were injured.

In a verified video filmed in the Pecherskyi District, Kyiv’s second oldest Roman Catholic church, St Nicholas Cathedral. is shown with windows shattered following a nearby blast.

Ukraine’s military said Russia had launched 65 drones and missiles across the country overnight, with most shot down.

One man in Kyiv, who said he was the owner of a restaurant that suffered extensive damage following the attack, was filmed cursing the Russians as “beasts” as he surveyed the charred shell of a building in front of him.

The video was widely shared on social media.

Oksana, another resident, sent the BBC photos of her destroyed apartment, with the windows blown in and glass and brickwork strewn across the floors.

“I don’t understand how I survived,” she said.

“My balcony flew away, half my walls are gone. My neighbour is in such shock she can’t even speak. I have no words for the people who did this.”

A local journalist at the scene told the BBC that one of the buildings nearby had been used by the Ukrainian Security Service, the SBU, and was likely to have been the target of the strikes, although much of the damage seen by the BBC had affected residential buildings.

In a statement confirming the attack, the Russian defence ministry said missiles had been launched at an SBU “command post” in response to a strike on a chemical plant in Russia’s Rostov Region two days ago.

But there is also speculation in Kyiv that Friday’s attack could be linked to the killing of a Russian general, Lt-Gen Igor Kirillov, in Moscow on Tuesday.

Friday’s attack come one day after Vladimir Putin’s end-of-year press conference and phone-in show, in which he threatened to launch more ballistic missiles at the Ukrainian capital.

There is concern in Ukraine that Russia could use a so-called Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile to hit Kyiv. Moscow test-fired the missile on the central city of Dnipro earlier this month.

Earlier on Friday morning, the Ukrainian authorities issued an air alert linked to the possible launch of an Oreshnik missile, and urged people in Kyiv to urgently seek shelter. It turned out to be a false alarm.

A selection of news photographs from around the world.

For the uninitiated, sorting one’s rubbish can be a convoluted process in Japan – a country that boasts one of the world’s strictest waste disposal rules.

But in the city of Fukushima, things are about to get even tougher.

Starting in March, the city government will go through bags of rubbish that fall afoul of regulations – such as those which have not been sorted correctly, or which exceed size limits – and in some cases publicly identify their owners.

The new regulations, passed in a municipal meeting on Tuesday, comes amid Japan’s long push to enhance its waste management system.

While many cities in Japan open rubbish bags to inspect them, and some allow for the disclosure of offending businesses, Fukushima is believed to be the first city that plans to disclose the names of both individuals and businesses.

In a statement to the BBC, the Fukushima Waste Reduction Promotion Division said that waste which had not been properly disposed has previously led to scattered rubbish and the proliferation of crows.

“The improper disposal of waste is a major concern as it deteriorates the living environment of local residents,” said the department.

Waste which is not properly sorted also leads to more landfill, the department added, “which imposes a burden on future generations”.

“Therefore, we consider waste sorting to be very important.”

Last year, Fukushima reported over 9,000 cases of non-compliant rubbish.

Currently, instead of collecting rubbish that does not comply with disposal rules, workers usually paste stickers on the bags informing residents of the violation. Residents would then have to take them back inside, re-sort it and hope they get it right the next time collectors come around.

Under Fukushima’s new rules, if the rubbish remains unsorted for a week, city workers can go through it and try to identify the offenders via items such as mail. The violators will be issued a verbal warning, followed by a written advisory, before the last resort: having their names published on the government website.

Amid privacy concerns, Fukushima authorities said that the inspection of the rubbish would be carried out in private.

Japanese cities each have their own guides on how to dispose of rubbish. In Fukushima, rubbish bags have to be placed at collection points every morning by 0830 – but cannot be left out from the night before.

Different types of waste – separated into combustibles, non-combustibles, and recyclables – are collected according to different schedules.

For items that exceed stipulated dimensions, like household appliances and furniture, residents have to make an appointment for them to be collected separately.

Fukushima’s mayor, Hiroshi Kohata, said that the new rules were meant to promote waste reduction and proper disposal methods.

“There is nothing illegal about publicising malicious waste generators who do not abide by the rules and do not follow the city’s guidance and advisory,” the Mainichi quoted authorities as saying.

Rubbish is taken very seriously in Japan, where since the 1990s the government has made it a national goal to shift away from landfills, reduce waste and promote recycling. Local authorities have introduced their own initiatives in line with this goal.

Residents in Kamikatsu, a Japanese town with an ambitious zero-waste goal, proudly sort their rubbish into 45 categories. Kagoshima prefecture has made it mandatory for residents to write their names on their rubbish bags. And last year the city of Chiba piloted an AI assistant to help residents dispose their rubbish properly.

Alphabet’s Google proposed new limits to revenue-sharing agreements with companies including Apple which make Google’s search engine the default on their devices and browsers.

The suggestions stem from the US search giant’s ongoing antitrust battle over its online search business.

In August, US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google illegally crushed its competition in search – a decision the company vowed to appeal.

In a legal filing submitted Friday, Google said it should be allowed to continue entering into those contracts with other companies while widening the options it offers.

These options include allowing different default search engines to be assigned to different platforms and browsing modes.

Google’s suggested remedies also call for the ability for partners to change their default search provider at least every 12 months.

The proposals stand in stark contrast to the sweeping remedies suggested last month by the US Department of Justice (DOJ), which recommended that Judge Mehta force the firm to stop entering into revenue-sharing contracts.

DOJ lawyers also demanded that Google sell Chrome, the world’s most popular web browser.

Google’s search engine accounts for about 90% of all online searches globally, according to web traffic analysis platform Statcounter.

In a statement, Google called DOJ’s remedies “overbroad” and said even its own counterproposals, which were filed in response to a court-mandated deadline, would come at a cost to their partners.

Judge Mehta is expected to issue a decision in the remedies phase of the landmark case by August, after a trial.

The US government has enacted a budget to avert shutting itself down, but the bitterly disputed deal doesn’t include a call from President-elect Donald Trump to increase the federal borrowing limit.

US President Joe Biden signed the spending bill into law on Saturday morning. The Senate passed the agreement shortly after a midnight deadline by 85-11. The House of Representatives approved it hours earlier by 336-34.

Without a funding deal, millions of federal employees would have ended up either on temporary unpaid leave or working without pay.

US government debt stands at about $36 trillion (£29tn), with more money now being spent just on the interest payments than on US national security.

A shutdown would have closed or severely reduced operations for public services like parks, food assistance programmes and federally-funded preschools, while limiting assistance to aid-reliant farmers and people recovering from natural disasters.

Lawmakers earlier this week successfully negotiated a deal to fund government agencies, but it fell apart after Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk called on Republicans to reject it.

The last government shutdown was during Trump’s first presidential term in 2019 and lasted 35 days – the longest in US history.

The American Relief Act, 2025 that just passed is 118 pages, stripped down from a 1,547-page bill that Trump and Musk rejected this week. It will fund the US government at current levels until 14 March.

Trump’s call to lift the debt ceiling – which was a sticking point for Democrats and some Republican budget hawks – was not included in the final bill, but Republican leaders said that measure would be debated in the new year.

The dramatic budget fight is a preview of the legislative fights that may lie in store when Trump takes office next month.

“Trying to jam a debt ceiling suspension into the legislation at the 11th hour was not sustainable,” House Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said ahead of the vote.

He later praised the bill’s passage, saying: “House Democrats have successfully stopped the billionaire boys club.”

The deal removes measures sought by Democrats in the first version of the bill, including the first pay rise for lawmakers since 2009, healthcare reforms, and provisions aimed at preventing hotels and live event venues from deceptive advertising.

It does include $100bn in disaster relief funds to help with hurricane recovery and other natural disasters, and allocates $10bn in aid to farmers.

It also includes full federal funding to rebuild Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed when it was struck by a cargo ship in March.

Musk, who Trump has tasked with cutting government spending in his administration, had lobbied heavily against the earlier version of the bill.

During the debate, Republicans said they looked forward to a “new era” with Trump taking office on 20 January and Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress. Currently, the Senate remains under Democratic control.

The budget wrangling left Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson bruised as he faced criticism from members of his own party, raising a question mark over whether he can win a 3 January vote in the chamber to keep his job.

“We are grateful that everyone stood together to do the right thing and having gotten this done now as the last order of business for the year, we are set up for a big and important new start in January,” Johnson told reporters after Friday’s vote.

He also said that he had spoken frequently to both Trump and Musk during the negotiations.

Musk praised the Louisiana congressman’s work on the budget in a post on X, the social media platform he owns.

“The Speaker did a good job here, given the circumstances,” he posted. “It went from a bill that weighed pounds to a bill that weighed ounces.”

A nine-year-old child and four adults have been killed after a car drove into a crowd at a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg.

More than 200 people were injured – at least 41 critically – in the attack on Friday evening.

A black BMW SUV ploughed 400 metres through the crowded market in an attack that lasted about three minutes.

The suspect has been named in local media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old Saudi citizen who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had worked as a doctor.

Prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens said on Saturday that the investigation was ongoing but suggested the background to the crime “could have been disgruntlement with the way Saudi Arabian refugees are treated in Germany”.

The suspected attacker has no known links to Islamist extremism. His social media and posts appear to suggest he had been critical of Islam.

A source close to the Saudi government told the BBC it sent four official notifications known as “Notes Verbal” to German authorities, warning them about what they said were “the very extreme views” held by al-Abdulmohsen.

The source, who asked not to be named, said these notifications were ignored.

However, another experienced counter-terrorism expert said the Saudis may be mounting a disinformation campaign to discredit someone who tried to help young Saudi women seek asylum in Germany.

• Follow live updates on this story
• What we know so far about Magdeburg Christmas market attack
• Eyewitness saw car hit boyfriend in attack

Al-Abdulmohsen is currently being questioned and prosecutors expect to charge him with murder and attempted murder in due course, the head of the local prosecutor’s office said on Saturday.

Reiner Haseloff, the premier of Saxony-Anhalt state, said a preliminary investigation suggested the alleged attacker was acting alone.

City officials said around 100 police, medics and firefighters, as well as 50 rescue service personnel, rushed to the scene shortly after 19:00 local time on Friday.

Al-Abdulmohsen is thought to have driven into the market through an entry point which was reserved for emergency vehicles, police said.

The suspect is a psychiatrist who lived in Bernburg, around 40km (25 miles) south of Magdeburg.

Originally from Saudi Arabia, al-Abdulmohsen arrived in Germany in 2006 and in 2016 was recognised as a refugee.

He ran a website that aimed to help other former Muslims flee persecution in their Gulf homelands.

On Saturday evening, a memorial service was held for victims of the attack at Magdeburg Cathedral.

The service was attended by families of the victims, emergency workers and government officials, including German chancellor Olaf Scholz.

During a visit to the market earlier on Saturday, Scholz described the attack as a “dreadful tragedy” as “so many people were injured and killed with such brutality” in a place that is supposed to be “joyful”.

He told reporters that there were serious concerns for those who had been critically injured and that “all resources” will be allocated to investigating the suspect behind the attack.

Witnesses described jumping out of the car’s path, fleeing or hiding during Friday’s attack.

In an interview with German paper Bild, Nadine described being at the Christmas market with her boyfriend Marco when the car came speeding towards them.

“He was hit and pulled away from my side,” the 32-year-old told the paper. “It was terrible.”

Meanwhile, Lars Frohmüller, a reporter for German public broadcaster MDR, told BBC Radio 4’s World Tonight he saw “blood on the floor” as well as “many doctors trying to keep people warm and help them with their injuries”.

Friday’s incident is not the first time people at a Christmas market have been attacked in Germany.

In 2016, Anis Amri, a Tunisian man who failed to gain asylum in Germany and had links to the so-called Islamic State (IS) group, drove a truck into crowds gathered at a church market in Berlin, killing 12 and injuring 49 others.

Two years later, a gunman opened fire on a Christmas market in the eastern French city of Strasbourg, killing five and injuring another 11 people. The gunman was shot dead by police two days later.

Only last month, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser talked about the need for “greater vigilance” at the highly popular markets but said there were no “concrete” indications of danger.

She also reportedly pointed to tougher laws on weapons in public spaces following a knife attack in Solingen, west Germany, in August in which three people died.

In 2012, Elon Musk had just completed a business trip to London and Oxford. “Just returned… I met with many interesting people,” he wrote on Twitter. “I really like Britain!”

Fast-forward to 2024, and Musk’s views on Britain are a little different.

“Civil war is inevitable” … “Britain is going full Stalin”… “The people of Britain have had enough of a tyrannical police state”.

These are just some of his recent comments on X, as he renamed the site after he bought it.

He has repeatedly got into spats with politicians including Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, he has amplified voices on the right and far-right online and is in talks to donate to Reform UK, according to the party’s leader Nigel Farage.

So why has Musk’s relationship with America’s closest ally apparently soured and what, if anything, does he hope to achieve?

We would love to ask him ourselves but he didn’t respond to our requests for an interview.

His X timeline offers some clues though.

The self-proclaimed “Chief Troll Officer” often exaggerates in an ambiguous way, unclear if he’s being sincere or ironic.

When he writes, “Is this Britain or the Soviet Union?” he doesn’t really mean that Britain is a totalitarian Communist state but also, he sort of does. Often he reposts content with just a single word – “interesting” – or an emoji, rather than going into details.

In recent years, however, Musk watchers have noticed that the kinds of things he boosts to his 200 million followers tend to come from a particular place: a world view that is libertarian and “anti-woke”, against progressives and centrists.

The shift was explicit during last summer’s riots following the horrific killing of three girls at a dance class in the north-west England town of Southport.

False rumours about the attacker were circulated on X, including by far-right accounts which had been unbanned since Musk took over the company two years before.

As a protest turned violent and rioting flared, Sir Keir issued a warning: “To large social media companies, and those who run them – violent disorder, clearly whipped up online, that is also a crime.

“It’s happening on your premises, and the law must be upheld everywhere.”

Musk replied with one word: “Insane”.

Later, he would state that “civil war is inevitable” and spread a false message from the leader of a far-right party, claiming that Sir Keir was considering building detainment camps for rioters on the Falkland Islands. By the time he deleted the post, it had been viewed more than a million times.

Musk also criticised Britain’s “prison overcrowding situation” on Joe Rogan’s podcast – watched 19m times on YouTube – saying we should “make Orwell fiction again”, a reference to George Orwell’s writings about dystopian society.

While free speech is not Musk’s only big issue – he appears to care a lot about existential questions around the future of humanity too – it’s a subject that the Tesla, SpaceX and X owner has repeatedly returned to.

Just a few weeks ago, in response to a tweet from a right-wing American influencer, making an exaggerated claim about a report from the last government on radicalisation, he commented: “What is happening in the UK?”

And he may be planning to do more than tweet. He was recently pictured with Farage and Reform UK treasurer Nick Candy, amid reports he is preparing to donate a large sum of money to the party.

Musk’s interest in UK affairs could be a reflection of how his own political beliefs have changed. He previously described himself as a centrist and even donated to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, but now he talks a lot about the “woke mind virus”.

According to interviews he’s given and a recent biography, the transition of one of his children from male to female – and that child, Vivian Wilson, subsequently cutting him off from her life – appears to be one of the key turning points.

Winston Marshall, a former Mumford & Sons guitarist turned podcast host and right-leaning political commentator whose father jointly owns TV channel GB News, speculates that Musk could be picking fights because “he cares very deeply about the UK”.

“Britain is the birthplace of liberal democracy, of many of the great philosophies that underpin America,” Marshall says.

“So then he looks over to the UK and he sees what’s been going on for several years, but which is now crescendoing after the August riots, with many, many people being given long jail sentences for literally Facebook memes in some cases.”

“Facebook memes” sounds pretty harmless but these examples include – for instance – a three-month jail sentence for a person who posted a meme along with the caption “let’s [expletive] riot” on a Facebook group with “riot/protest” in the name during the Southport disorder.

Some question whether the tycoon is really as committed to free speech as he claims.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate, which scrutinises social media companies, was critical of Musk’s tenure at X – prompting the tycoon to sue, accusing the organisation of misusing data and scaring off advertisers. The case was thrown out by a US judge.

Its CEO Imran Ahmed called the incident “indicative of the mindset of a man who simply cannot understand that freedom of speech is a freedom afforded to all, not just to him”.

Other critics have pointed out that Musk has been careful not to criticise the president of China, a country where Tesla has huge business interests, despite Beijing’s well-documented culture of censorship.

He has far less at stake, business-wise, in Britain, but the country could still affect his bottom line via the Online Safety Act, passed by Parliament in late 2023. It will allow regulator Ofcom to issue huge fines to social media companies if they’re found to have certain types of illegal content on their platforms.

Andrew Chadwick, professor of political communication at Loughborough University, explains that while some provisions in the bill are uncontroversial, “where it gets a bit more tricky is where this illegal content blurs across into what we might call the kinds of disinformation or misinformation that we see circulate on a daily basis on social media platforms”.

This could include “racially or religiously aggravated public order offences or the incitement of violence,” he says.

The Act comes with some potentially huge punishments – a fine of up to 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue.

Could it be that Musk is worried about Britain biting off a chunk of X’s revenues – or even, as the Act allows for in some circumstances, blocking access to the site in the UK?

Defenders of the Act argue that it’s got nothing to do with censoring free speech. Gawain Towler, former head of press for Reform UK, says while Musk might not have “a forensic knowledge of all the details of backbench committee” he does “see the bigger picture” – what Reform activists and others describe as a creeping culture of censorship.

“You don’t have to concentrate always on the trees. And I think Musk sees the forest quite, quite well,” he adds.

Nobody can read the mind of the world’s richest man.

But it’s clear that Musk has funnelled his vast wealth into influence and is now exporting his values – including a mainstream American view of free speech and largely unfettered capitalism – around the world.

And one thing’s for sure – he’s not yet done with the UK.

When Syrian rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in Damascus and gave a victory speech on the heels of a lightning military campaign that swept through the country and toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime, one remark went widely unnoticed. That was his reference to an illegal narcotic that has flooded the Middle East over the past ten years.

“Syria has become the biggest producer of Captagon on earth,” he said. “And today, Syria is going to be purified by the grace of God.”

Mostly unknown outside of the Middle East, Captagon is an addictive, amphetamine-like pill, sometimes called “poor man’s cocaine”.

Its production has proliferated in Syria amid an economy broken by war, sanctions and the mass displacement of Syrians abroad. Authorities in neighbouring countries have struggled to cope with the smuggling of huge quantities of pills across their borders.

All the evidence pointed to Syria being the main source of Captogan’s illicit trade with an annual value placed at $5.6bn (£4.5bn) by the World Bank.

At the scale that the pills were being produced and dispatched, the suspicion was that this was not simply the work of criminal gangs – but of an industry orchestrated by the regime itself.

Weeks on from the speech by al-Sharaa (previously known by his nom de guerre of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani), spectacular images have emerged that suggest the suspicion was correct.

Videos filmed by Syrians raiding properties allegedly owned by relatives of Assad show rooms full of pills being made and packaged, hidden in fake industrial products.

Other footage shows piles of pills found in what appears to be a Syrian military airbase, set on fire by the rebels.

I spent a year investigating Captagon for a BBC World Service documentary and saw how the drug became as popular among the wealthy youth of Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia as it was among the working class in countries like Jordan.

“I was 19 years old, I started taking Captagon and my life started to fall apart,” Yasser, a young male addict in a rehab clinic told us in Jordan’s capital, Amman. “I started hanging out with people who take this thing. You work, you live without food, so the body is a wreck.”

So how will al-Sharaa and his group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), deal with the large number of people in Syria and around the Middle East addicted to Captagon who may suddenly find themselves without a supply?

Caroline Rose, an expert on Syrian drug trafficking at the New Lines Institute, has concerns around this. “My fear is that they will really crack down on supply and not necessarily try to do any sort of demand reduction.”

But there is a broader question at play too: that is, what effect will the loss of such a lucrative trade have on Syria’s economy? And as those behind it move aside, how will al-Sharaa keep at bay any other criminals waiting in the wings to replace them?

The proliferation of Captagon pushed the Middle East into a genuine narco-war.

While filming with the Jordanian army on their desert border with Syria, we saw how the soldiers had reinforced their fences and learned about their comrades who had been killed in shoot-outs with Captagon smugglers. They accused the Syrian soldiers across the border of aiding the smugglers.

Other countries in the region have been just as disturbed by the trade.

For a while, Saudi Arabia suspended imports of fruit and vegetables from Lebanon because authorities were frequently finding shipping containers full of produce like pomegranates which had been hollowed out and filled with bags of Captagon pills.

We filmed in five countries, including in regime-held and rebel-held Syria, consulted well-placed sources, and gained access to confidential records from court cases in Germany and Lebanon.

We were able to name two major parties as having their hands in the trade – Assad’s extended family and the Syrian armed forces, in particular its Fourth Division, led by Assad’s brother, Maher.

Maher al-Assad was perhaps the most powerful man in Syria aside from his brother.

He was sanctioned by many Western powers for the violence he wrought against protesters during the pro-democracy uprising in 2011 that precipitated the bloody civil war. The French judiciary has also issued an international arrest warrant for him and his brother for their alleged responsibility in chemical weapons attacks in Syria in 2013.

Gaining access to the WhatsApp chats of a Captagon trader imprisoned in Lebanon, we were able to implicate Maher al-Assad’s Fourth Division and his second-in-command, General Ghassan Bilal.

The revelation was a huge milestone in confirming the role of Syria’s armed forces and Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle in the trade.

Seeing the recent images of demoralised Syrian army troops fleeing without a fight as the rebels advanced, I was reminded of an interview we conducted with a regime soldier last year.

He told us his monthly army pay of $30 (£24) barely covered three days of food for his family, so his unit became involved in criminality and Captagon.

“It’s what brings most of the money now,” he said.

In May 2023, the Arab League agreed to re-admit Syria 12 years after it was expelled for violently suppressing the popular uprising. It was seen as a diplomatic coup for Assad, using promises to tackle the Captagon trade as leverage to be rehabilitated.

Now, as Syria’s rebel leaders consolidate their power over the organs of state, it seems they are fully aware of positive signals they are sending to wary neighbouring states when they promise to crack down on the Captagon trade.

But it might be a steeper task for them to wrest the country away from a lucrative criminal enterprise after so many years when it was encouraged by the state itself.

Issam Al Reis was a major engineer in the Syrian army until he defected at the beginning of the uprising against the Assad regime, and has spent time investigating the Captagon trade. He believes that HTS will not need to do much to stop the trade initially “because the main players have left” and there’s already been a dramatic drop in Captagon exports – but he warns that “new guys” might be waiting in the wings to take over.

This will be particularly problematic if the demand side isn’t tackled too. There is little evidence of investment in rehabilitation from the time HTS controlled Idlib province in north-west Syria, according to Ms Rose. “[There was a] very poor picture for trying to address Captagon consumption,” she says.

She also says there has already been an uptick in another drug being trafficked through Syria.

“I think many users will seek out crystal meth as an alternative, especially users who have already established a tolerance to Captagon and need something that’s a bit more strong.”

The other problem, as Mr Al Reis points out, is a financial one. As he puts it: “Syrians need the money.”

His hope is that the international community will help prevent people entering the drug trade through humanitarian aid and easing sanctions.

But Ms Rose argues the new leaders will need to identify “new and alternative economic pathways to encourage Syrians to participate in the licit formal economy.”

While the kingpins have fled, many of those involved in manufacturing and smuggling the drug remain inside the country, she said.

“And old habits die hard.”

Blake Lively has filed a legal complaint against It Ends With Us co-star Justin Baldoni, alleging sexual harassment and a campaign to “destroy” her reputation.

According to the legal filing, she accuses Mr Baldoni and his team of attacking her public image following a meeting in which she brought along her actor husband, Ryan Reynolds, to address “repeated sexual harassment and other disturbing behavior” by Mr Baldoni and a producer on the movie.

Mr Baldoni’s legal team told the BBC the allegations are “categorically false” and said they hired a crisis manager because Ms Lively had threatened to derail the film unless her demands were met.

In the romantic drama, Ms Lively plays a woman who finds herself in a relationship with a charming but abusive boyfriend, played by Mr Baldoni.

The meeting between Ms Lively and Mr Baldoni, together with others involved in the movie’s production, took place on 4 January this year, and it aimed to address “the hostile work environment” on set, says the legal filing.

Ms Lively’s husband, Deadpool star Mr Reynolds, who did not appear in It Ends With Us, joined her at the showdown, according to the legal complaint, which is one step before a lawsuit.

Mr Baldoni, 40, attended the meeting in his capacity as co-chairman and co-founder of the company that produced the film, Wayfarer Studios. He was also the film’s director.

In the legal complaint, Ms Lively’s lawyers allege that both Mr Baldoni and the Wayfarer chief executive officer, Jamey Heath, engaged in “inappropriate and unwelcome behavior towards Ms Lively and others on the set of It Ends With Us”.

In the filing to the California Civil Rights Department, a list of 30 demands relating to the pair’s alleged misconduct was made at the meeting to ensure they could continue to produce the film.

Among them, Ms Lively, 37, requested that there be no more mention of Mr Baldoni and Mr Heath’s previous “pornography addiction” to Ms Lively or to other crew members, no more descriptions of their own genitalia to Ms Lively, and “no more adding of sex scenes, oral sex, or on camera climaxing by BL [Blake Lively] outside the scope of the script BL approved when signing onto the project”, says the complaint.

Ms Lively also demanded that Mr Baldoni stop saying he could speak to her dead father.

Ms Lively’s legal team further accuse Mr Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios of leading a “multi-tiered plan” to wreck her reputation.

She alleges this was “the intended result of a carefully crafted, coordinated, and resourced retaliatory scheme to silence her, and others from speaking out about the hostile environment that Mr Baldoni and Mr Heath created”.

Responding to the legal complaint, Mr Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said on Saturday: “It is shameful that Ms Lively and her representatives would make such serious and categorically false accusations against Mr Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and its representatives.”

Mr Freedman accused Ms Lively of making numerous demands and threats, including “threatening to not show up to set, threatening to not promote the film”, which would end up “ultimately leading to its demise during release, if her demands were not met”.

He alleged that Ms Lively’s claims were “intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt and rehash a narrative in the media”.

In a statement via her attorneys to the BBC, Ms Lively said: “I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted.”

She also denied that she or any of her representatives had planted or spread negative information about Mr Baldoni or Wayfarer.

The film was a box-office hit, although some critics said it romanticised domestic violence.

Soon after the release date in August, another co-star, Brandon Sklenar, hinted in an Instagram post at rumours of a rift between Ms Lively and Mr Baldoni.

Speculation of a falling out only grew when they did not appear together on the red carpet.

It Ends With Us tells the story of Boston florist Lily Bloom, played by Ms Lively, as she navigates a love triangle between her charming but abusive boyfriend, Ryle Kincaid, played by Mr Baldoni, and her compassionate first love, Atlas Corrigan, played by Mr Sklenar.

It is based on a best-selling novel by Colleen Hoover. The 45-year-old author has previously said her inspiration was domestic abuse her mother endured.

In an interview with the BBC at the film’s premiere in August, Ms Lively said she had felt the “responsibility of servicing the people that care so much about the source material”.

“I really feel like we delivered a story that’s emotional and it’s fun, but also funny, painful, scary, tragic and it’s inspiring and that’s what life is, it’s every single colour,” said the actress.

Ms Lively, who is also credited as a producer, told the BBC she felt the film had been made “with lots of empathy”.

“Lily is a survivor and a victim and while they are huge labels, these are not her identity,” said Ms Lively. “She defines herself and I think it’s deeply empowering that no one else can define you.”

On Friday evening, a man ploughed a car into a crowd of shoppers at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg.

The attack killed five people, including a nine-year-old child, and left more than 200 injured, with many in a critical condition.

One man has been arrested and is currently being questioned, German authorities confirmed.

Police believe he acted alone.

• News story: Five dead, more than 200 injured in car attack on German Christmas market

• Eyewitness account: Witness saw car hit boyfriend in attack

At 19:02 local time (18:02 GMT), the first call to emergency services was made.

The caller reported that a car had driven into a crowd at a Christmas market in the middle of town.

The caller assumed it was an accident, police said, but it soon became clear this wasn’t the case.

The driver, police said, had used traffic lights to turn off the road and onto a pedestrian crossing, leading him through an entry point to the market which was reserved for emergency vehicles, injuring a number of people on the way.

Unverified footage on social media showed the driver speeding the vehicle through a pedestrian walkway between Christmas stalls.

Eyewitnesses described jumping out of the car’s path, fleeing or hiding.

Police said the driver then returned to the road the way he came in and was forced to stop in traffic. Officers already at the market were able to apprehend and arrest the driver here.

Footage showed armed police confronting and arresting a man who can be seen lying on the ground next to a stationary vehicle – a black BMW with significant damage to its front bumper and windscreen.

The entire incident was over in three minutes, police said.

A nine-year-old child and four adults are confirmed to have died in the attack.

More than 200 people have been injured and at least 41 of those are in a critical condition.

The toll had earlier been reported as two dead and 68 injured, but was revised to the much higher totals on Saturday morning.

None of the victims have been identified yet.

The suspect has been identified in local media reports as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, the BBC understands.

He is a 50-year-old psychiatrist who lives in Bernburg, around 40km (25 miles) south of Magdeburg.

The suspect is currently being questioned and prosecutors expect to charge him with murder and attempted murder in due course, the head of the local prosecutor’s office said on Saturday.

The motive behind the attack remains unclear but authorities have reported that they believe he carried out the attack alone.

Originally from Saudi Arabia, he arrived in Germany in 2006 and in 2016 was recognised as a refugee.

Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told reporters that it was “clear to see” that the suspect holds “Islamophobic” views.

The suspect is an outspoken critic of Islam on social media, and has promoted conspiracy theories regarding an alleged plot by German authorities to islamicise Europe.

A report from Der Spiegel said a complaint was filed against Taleb A with the authorities a year ago over statements which officials concluded did not constitute a concrete threat.

“The reports from Magdeburg raise the worst fears,” the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said on social media platform X.

Magdeburg’s city councillor for public order, Ronni Krug, said the Christmas market will stay closed and that “Christmas in Magdeburg is over”, according to German public broadcaster MDR.

That sentiment was echoed on the market’s website, which in the wake of the attack featured only a black screen with words of mourning, announcing that the market was over.

The Saudi government expressed “solidarity with the German people and the families of the victims”, in a statement on X, and “affirmed its rejection of violence”.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he was “horrified by the atrocious attack in Magdeburg”, adding that his thoughts were with “the victims, their families and all those affected” in a post on X on Friday night.

Ukrainian sniper Oleksandr Matsievsky was captured by Russians in the first year of the full-scale invasion. Later, a video emerged showing him smoking his last cigarette in a forest, apparently next to a grave he had been forced to dig.

“Glory to Ukraine!” he says to his captors. Moments later, shots ring out and he falls dead.

His execution is one of many.

In October this year, nine captured Ukrainian soldiers were reportedly shot dead by Russian forces in Kursk region. Ukrainian prosecutors are investigating the case including a photo showing half-naked bodies lying on the ground. This photo was enough for one of the victims, drone operator Ruslan Holubenko, to be identified by his parents.

“I recognised him by his underwear,” his distraught mother told local broadcaster Suspilne Chernihiv. “I bought it for him before a trip to the sea. I also knew that his shoulder had been shot through. You could see that in the picture.”

The list of executions goes on. Ukrainian prosecutors are investigating reports of beheadings and a sword being used to kill a Ukrainian soldier with his hands tied behind his back.

In another instance, a video showed 16 Ukrainian soldiers apparently being lined up and then mowed down with automatic gunfire after emerging from a woods to surrender.

Some of the executions were filmed by Russian forces themselves, while others were observed by Ukrainian drones hovering above.

The killings captured on such videos usually take place in woods or fields lacking distinctive features, which makes confirming their exact location difficult. BBC Verify, however, has been able to confirm in several cases – such as one beheading – that the victims wear Ukrainian uniforms and that the videos are recent.

The Ukrainian prosecution service says that at least 147 Ukrainian prisoners of war have been executed by Russian forces since the start of the full-scale invasion, 127 of them this year.

“The upward trend is very clear, very obvious,” says Yuri Belousov, the head of the War Department at the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General’s Office.

“Executions became systemic from November last year and have continued throughout all of this year. Sadly, their number has been particularly on the rise this summer and autumn. This tells us that they are not isolated cases. They are happening across vast areas and they have clear signs of being part of a policy – there is evidence that instructions to this effect are being issued.”

International humanitarian law – particularly the Third Geneva Convention – offers protection to prisoners of war, and executing them is a war crime.

Despite this, Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman leader of Russia’s Chechnya, briefly ordered his commanders involved in the Ukraine war “to take no prisoners”.

Rachel Denber, Deputy Director of the Europe and Central Asia Division at Human Rights Watch, says there is no shortage of evidence supporting allegations of Ukrainian prisoners of war being executed by Russian troops. According to her, impunity plays a key part, and the Russian army has some serious questions to answer.

“What instructions do these units have, either formally or informally from their commanders? Are their commanders being quite clear about what the Geneva Conventions say about the treatment of prisoners of war? What are Russian military commanders telling their units about their conduct? What steps is the chain of command taking to investigate these instances? And if higher ups are not investigating, or not taking steps to prevent that conduct, are they aware that they too are criminally liable and can be held accountable?” she asks.

So far, there has been nothing to suggest that Russia is formally investigating claims that its forces have been executing Ukrainian prisoners of war. Even mentioning similar allegations is punishable by lengthy prison sentences in Russia.

According to Vladimir Putin, Russian forces have “always” treated Ukrainian prisoners of war “strictly in line with international legal documents and international conventions”.

Ukrainian forces have also been accused of executing Russian prisoners of war, but the number of such claims has been much smaller.

Yuri Belousov says that the Ukrainian prosecution service treats such accusations “very seriously” and is investigating them – but so far no one has been charged.

According to Human Rights Watch, since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022 the Russian forces have committed “a litany of violations, including those which should be investigated as war crimes or crimes against humanity”.

The Russian army’s record of abuses is such that some Ukrainian soldiers prefer death to capture.

“He told me: Mum, I’ll never surrender, never. Forgive me, I know you’ll cry, but I don’t want to be tortured,” Ruslan Holubenko’s mother says. Her son is still officially classed as missing in action, and she hopes against hope.

“I’ll do everything that’s possible and impossible to get my child back. I keep looking at this photo. Maybe he is just unconscious? I want to believe, I don’t want to think that he’s gone.”

Jamil Hassan, one of the most feared men in Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime, wanted for the torture and killing of civilians, was shaking as he walked down the stairs of his apartment block.

Outside, the 72-year-old climbed into a car in a small convoy with his family and a handful of security guards, just a few suitcases between them.

His neighbour and her teenage son watched.

“I knew the moment I saw them flee that Assad had fallen,” she says.

When we entered Hassan’s apartment a few days later, signs of the family’s hasty departure were everywhere.

In the fridge was a half-eaten carrot cake with a knife still on the plate. The beds were strewn with clothes and empty shoeboxes. Flowers wilted in a vase in the dining room, and cups and plates had been left to dry by the sink.

A framed photo of a smiling Hassan and Assad hung on the wall of the study, with text reading: “Our skies are for us and forbidden to others”.

Hassan, referred to as “the butcher” by many civilians on his street, was one of Assad’s most menacing enforcers. He led the Air Force Intelligence and oversaw a network of detention facilities including the notorious Mezzeh Prison, where detainees were routinely tortured.

He is one of many senior regime figures wanted or sanctioned around the world who have abandoned their homes in affluent areas of Damascus and vanished.

Finding these men who ruled Syria with an iron fist will be difficult. Some fear they will strike political deals abroad and evade justice.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which led the campaign to topple the regime, has vowed to search for them inside Syria. Rebels aligned with the group now occupy Hassan’s apartment and a handwritten note on the front door warns people not to enter.

When we asked them where Hassan might have gone, one grinned and replied: “I don’t know – to Hell.”

Many apartment shutters on Hassan’s quiet street in central Damascus are now closed. Knocks on doors go unanswered.

Those who will speak tell us about their fear at living on a street with a wanted war criminal. “We were so afraid to talk,” says the woman who watched him flee. “It was terrifying to live next to them.”

Hassan is wanted in the US for “engaging in conspiracy to commit cruel and inhuman treatment of civilian detainees, including US citizens”. He was convicted in absentia earlier this year in France for his role in imprisoning, disappearing and torturing two Syrian-French nationals. Germany wants him too. An Interpol Red Notice shows a photograph of Hassan alongside a note that he is wanted for “conspiracy to commit war crimes”.

He was placed under travel bans and had his assets frozen over the repression of civilian protesters. In April 2011 the US says Air Force Intelligence personnel fired tear gas and live ammunition at protesting crowds in Damascus and other cities, killing at least 43.

People on the street describe a formidable figure who was unapproachable and always surrounded by guards.

A makeshift security post outside Hassan’s apartment building was constantly staffed by military personnel. The night before the regime collapsed, the men simply took off their uniforms and discarded their weapons, according to another neighbour.

“It was the first time I’d seen this post with no lights, no sounds, no noise,” says 27-year-old Amr al-Bakri, a filmmaker who lives with his family in the building next door.

He said locals “knew what he did to the Syrians – outside of Damascus and in Damascus – so we know it but we can’t say anything, just ‘good morning sir’. He’d say nothing back.”

Amr says his family had to give away their pet dog after Hassan’s guards threatened to kill it if it didn’t stop barking. When Amr’s family asked for the guard post to be moved from outside their home, they were told they should move house instead, he says.

The guards would run regular inspections on the street and check the bags of visitors.

“Sometimes if I had a plumber or handyman to come and fix something one of the guards would come and check if there was really something that needed to be fixed,” says the woman living in Hassan’s building.

Neighbours also say Hassan had a “golden line” for electricity that meant his family’s lights were always on, while other homes in the neighbourhood were in darkness.

The electrician called to fix any problems at the apartment says he knew Hassan over many years “but only from a distance”. “[Hassan] was very strict – a military personality,” the man says. “He was a butcher… He had no mercy.”

The man told BBC News he had been in prison – not at Mezzeh but elsewhere – and was tortured there.

A local shopkeeper, Mohammed Naoura, says he didn’t like Hassan but that you had to appear to support him.

“We are happy now,” he adds. “Nobody believed this would ever happen.”

Hussam Luka, head of the General Security Directorate (GSD), was less well-known among residents but had an apartment underneath Hassan.

His “ruthless, smooth-talking nature” reportedly earned him the nickname “the spider” – and he’s under sanctions in the EU, US and UK.

A UK sanctions list says he was “responsible for the torture of opponents in custody”, while the US Treasury Department says he “reportedly committed a number of massacres” while working in Homs.

The White House has said he is one of a small group of officials who might have information about missing American journalist Austin Tice.

At his home on Monday, rebels were dismantling furniture to be put into storage. They said they arrived after looters had already taken many of the most expensive items.

A photo of Luka and Assad remained, printed in different sizes and styles, alongside documents from security and intelligence events, and ceremonial medals and certificates from the foreign spy service in Russia – where the deposed Syrian leader Assad has fled.

“This award is to the coordinator of the mukhabarat [intelligence service] organ in the southern provinces of the Syrian Arab Republic,” one certificate naming Luka says. “You showed the utmost professionalism and put in huge effort to fulfil the duties entrusted to you for the good of the Syrian people.”

As rebels clear the apartment, a neighbour wanders in to see what’s happening.

When asked what she knows about the regime official, she replies: “We keep to ourselves, they keep to themselves. No one in this building interacts with each other.” She walks away.

In other affluent areas more homes have been abandoned. Fridges are fully stocked, wardrobes full and in some cases travel documents left behind.

The rebels who have taken over the homes are using them as bases, and say they are also preventing further looting.

At one lavish apartment, men say they are sleeping on blankets on marble floors beneath giant chandeliers and cooking on a camp stove in its modern kitchen. Guns are propped against plush sofas and arm chairs.

“We don’t need any of this,” a rebel says, gesticulating around the room.

At another, a child peaks through the curtain of a sprawling ground-floor apartment with an outdoor swimming pool. A large family say they are occupying the space.

Perhaps the grandest home in the area is the modern labyrinthine underground dwelling of one of the country’s best-known businessmen – Khodr Taher Bin Ali, better known as Abu Ali Khodr.

Bin Ali has been sanctioned by the US, UK and EU for his role in supporting and benefiting from the Syrian regime.

His home has a lift, a full-size gym, an indoor swimming pool, hot tub and sauna, and an industrial kitchen.

In the master bedroom, there are two golden safes, with space for dozens of watches – in a drawer there is a forgotten warranty card for luxury brand Audemars Piguet. A gun case and jewellery boxes in the wardrobe are empty.

The children’s ensuite bedrooms still have toys and a Louis Vuitton handbag on the floor and homework and school reports are in the cupboards. A Quran rests on a work top with the words “A gift from the president Bashar al-Assad” inscribed on the side.

Around the corner from Bin Ali is the home of Ali Mamlouk, one of Assad’s closest associates and among the most senior and notorious members of the regime. He was reportedly given the nickname “black box” because of his control over sensitive information.

He was sentenced alongside Hassan by French judges this year for war crimes, and is also wanted in Lebanon for two explosions in 2012 in the city of Tripoli that killed and wounded dozens.

Like Luka, the White House believes Mamlouk is one of few men who could have information about Tice.

His home is padlocked shut, and rebels are more reluctant to grant entry there.

In a guard booth outside, there are notes on visitors to the property before Assad’s fall – people delivering chocolates, water and vegetables, and coming to fix the electricity.

“No one could see, no one could walk, no one could pass by this area. It’s actually the first time I’m seeing this place from up close,” says 17-year-old Mo Rasmi Taftaf, whose family own a house nearby.

“Whenever he came in or out, guards would cut the roads off,” one neighbour says.

Shouting down from a second-floor balcony, another gestures towards Mamlouk’s large home when asked about the wanted regime figure.

“It felt like there was a strange atmosphere” on the street the night before news broke that Assad had fled, he says, without elaborating.

“His security was here at the time but I saw them leave on Sunday morning – a lot of cars. Ali Mamlouk wasn’t here,” he adds, before returning inside.

Another man, who declines to give his name, says he doesn’t want to talk about the regime men.

“I just want to live in peace. I don’t want to open this book or explore all of these crimes – there would be a lot of blood.”

Many, though, do want justice.

The leader of HTS has vowed to pursue the senior regime figures in Syria and asked other countries to hand over those who fled. Those wanted elsewhere have limited places to run.

Finding the men will be a challenge.

“While there is no confirmed information on the current whereabouts of senior regime figures like Jamil Hassan, Ali Mamlouk, and others, there are concerns that such individuals could benefit from political deals that enable them to evade justice,” the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) tells the BBC.

“Some are likely to have sought refuge in allied countries, complicating future extradition efforts, while others may still be in Syria, living discreetly.”

On Hassan’s street, neighbours speculate about where the vanished war criminal has gone.

His family left few clues in the apartment. But in the office is a certificate for Hassan’s daughter signed by Hassan Nasrallah, the late leader of Lebanon-based Shia militant group Hezbollah, thanking her for her “help and support for this honourable resistance”.

Several neighbours suggest he may be hiding in Lebanon or has transited through there, while the local shopkeeper says he thinks Hassan headed for the coast, perhaps to Latakia in the north – the heartland of the minority Alawite sect to which Assad and many of his closest allies belong.

Meanwhile, Lebanese newspaper Nida al-Watan reports that Mamlouk was smuggled across the border and into the Lebanese capital Beirut by Hezbollah – a long-time ally of Syria’s Ba’ath government.

Hezbollah has not confirmed offering assistance to any regime figures, and the Lebanese government has said no Syrian officials targeted by international warrants were authorised to enter through legal crossings. Lebanese security services say Mamlouk is not in the country.

Syrian-British barrister Ibrahim Olabi says regime officials may have acquired new identities and passports, as they were powerful people backed by state institutions.

When it comes to getting justice, he adds, a lack of evidence is not the problem. It is more about finding them and getting them to a place where they can be held accountable.

The SCM says doing this will “require considerable resources, sustained political will, and international collaboration”.

Failing to do so will send a “dangerous message that crimes, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, can go unpunished”, it adds.

Ibrahim Olabi says he is hopeful that justice will be served.

“It will absolutely be a hunt,” he says, but “the world now is a small place through social media, private investigators, political leverages”.

Hassan’s neighbours who were willing to talk say they hope he will one day be returned to Syria, far away from their street, to be punished.

Lara Trump, daughter-in-law of US President-elect Donald Trump, has withdrawn her name from consideration for a seat in the Senate.

She stepped down this month as co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), fuelling speculation that she might replace outgoing Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, whom Trump has nominated for secretary of state.

But in a post on X, she said she had removed herself from consideration “after an incredible amount of thought, contemplation, and encouragement from so many”.

She said she wished Florida Governor Ron DeSantis luck in hand-picking a replacement to serve out the remainder of Rubio’s six-year term, which ends in 2026.

In her post on X on Saturday, Lara Trump said: “I could not have been more honoured to serve as RNC co-chair during the most high-stakes election of our lifetime and I’m truly humbled by the unbelievable support shown to me by the people of our country, and here in the great state of Florida.”

She said she had a big announcement to share in January, without giving further details.

Lara Trump was elected as RNC co-chair in March, solidifying her father-in-law’s influence over the party as he campaigned for the presidency.

Alongside her husband, Trump’s son Eric, and his older brother Don Jr, she emerged as one of the top campaign surrogates for the Republican candidate in the run-up to the election.

Talks to reach a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas are 90% complete, but key issues remain that need to be bridged, a senior Palestinian official involved in the talks told the BBC.

One of the main sticking points is the continued Israeli military presence in the Philadelphi corridor, a strategically important strip of land in southern Gaza along the border with Egypt.

The Palestinian official shared details of the discussions being held in Doha which include the potential creation of a buffer zone several kilometres wide along the length of Israel’s border with Gaza.

Israel would retain a military presence within this area, the official said.

With these issues resolved, a three-stage ceasefire could be agreed within days, they added.

The deal would include an exchange of 20 Palestinian prisoners for every female soldier released in the first of three stages of the ceasefire.

The names of the prisoners are yet to be agreed but would be chosen from around 400 names who are serving prison sentences of 25 years or more in Israel.

These are not thought to include the senior Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, whose release Israel is expected to veto.

Israeli hostages would be released in stages, as it is believed that Hamas still need to locate some of the missing hostages.

Of 96 hostages still held in Gaza, 62 are assumed by Israel to still be alive.

Gazan civilians would be able to return to the north, under a system with Egyptian/Qatari oversight, and there would be around 500 trucks per day bringing aid into the strip, the official said.

In the final stage of the three-phase plan, which would see the end of the 14-month war, Gaza would be overseen by a committee of technocrats from the enclave, who would not have previous political affiliations but would have the backing of all Palestinian factions.

In recent weeks, the US, Qatar and Egypt have resumed their mediation efforts and reported greater willingness by both sides to conclude a deal.

A round of talks in mid-October failed to produce a deal, with Hamas rejecting a short-term ceasefire proposal.

Hamas and two other Palestinian militant groups said that reaching a ceasefire agreement in Gaza “has become closer than ever before” only if Israel “stops imposing new conditions”.

In a Telegram statement on Saturday, the group said it held a meeting in Cairo on Friday on the ongoing negotiation efforts with representatives from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

The Palestinian Islamist armed group Hamas, which governed Gaza, carried out an unprecedented cross-border attack in southern Israel on 7 October 2023. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 others abducted.

More than 100 hostages have been freed through negotiations or Israeli military rescue operations.

US President-elect Donald Trump has appointed British TV executive Mark Burnett, who produced him on The Apprentice, as his special envoy to the UK.

Trump said it was his “great honour” to pick his former colleague for the role, which is separate to the position of US ambassador to the UK.

“Mark will work to enhance diplomatic relations, focusing on areas of mutual interest, including trade, investment opportunities, and cultural exchanges,” he added.

Burnett said in a statement: “I am truly honoured to serve The United States of America and President Trump as his Special Envoy to the United Kingdom.”

He created The Apprentice and produced it along with a range of other reality TV programmes, winning 13 Emmy Awards.

“With a distinguished career in television production and business, Mark brings a unique blend of diplomatic acumen and international recognition to this important role,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Saturday.

The president-elect, who takes office next month, has already picked billionaire donor Warren Stephens as his ambassador to the UK. While Stephens’s nomination requires confirmation by the US Senate, Burnett’s role needs no such approval.

Burnett, 64, was raised in Essex and served as a paratrooper in the Army before emigrating to the US in 1982, when he was 22.

He went on to work for MGM and became known as a significant figure in reality television.

In addition to creating and producing The Apprentice, Burnett created formats such as Survivor and Shark Tank – the US version of Dragon’s Den.

He helped propel Trump, a real estate developer, to new heights of fame as he starred in The Apprentice from 2008-15.

Burnett became president of MGM Television in December 2015, but stood aside in 2022 when Amazon acquired the studio.

He had a role in planning Trump’s first inauguration in 2017.

Burnett told the BBC in 2010 that Trump was “fearless” and “a big, strong tough guy”.

“He is a very, very down-to-earth normal guy and he’s a really, really loyal friend and, as I’ve seen him with many other people, not the kind of enemy you would want,” said Burnett.

Trump’s first run for the presidency as Republican nominee in 2016 was plunged into crisis as tapes emerged of him telling Access Hollywood presenter Billy Bush that “you can do anything” to women “when you’re a star”.

Burnett released a statement at the time denying he was a supporter of Trump.

“Further, my wife and I reject the hatred, division and misogyny that has been a very unfortunate part of his campaign,” he said. Burnett is married to Londonderry-born actress Roma Downey.

Another former producer of The Apprentice subsequently claimed that Trump had been heard making “far worse” remarks in recordings from the show.

But Burnett rejected calls to release all outtakes of Trump, saying he was unable to do so and citing “various contractual and legal requirements”.