Sweden’s government has announced plans to tighten its gun laws, days after the worst mass shooting in the country’s history.

A gunman, who killed 10 people and himself at an adult education centre in Orebro on Tuesday, had four legally-owned rifles – three of which were found at the school, police said.

Sweden’s centre-right coalition said it would seek to increase vetting for gun licenses and restrict access to semi-automatic weapons.

“There are certain types of weapons that are so dangerous that they should only be possessed for civilian purposes as an exception,” the government said.

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• Syrians and Bosnian among victims of gunman’s attack

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, on a visit to Latvia, told reporters: “We have to ensure that only the right people have guns in Sweden.”

The Sweden Democrats said that it agreed with proposals to amend the law, including greater restrictions on access to semi-automatic weapons.

“The horrific act of violence in Orebro raises several key questions about gun legislation,” the party said in a statement.

The AR-15, a particular style of semi-automatic rifle that is both powerful and can carry large magazines, was singled out by the government as an example of weapons that could be restricted.

Police have not said exactly which weapons were used in the attack, but the AR-15 has been used in many mass shootings in the US.

They confirmed that several long rifles were found at the site of the attack in Orebro, along with 10 empty magazines.

Under current Swedish gun laws, anyone over 18 who does not have a criminal record can apply for a permit for a shotgun, handgun or semi-automatic rifle.

They must justify to the police why they need a gun. People over 20 can apply for a special dispensation to own a fully automatic weapon.

Around 580,000 Swedes have a weapons license out of a population of around 10.5 million, according to figures from Swedish broadcaster SVT.

A 2017 Swiss study found there were about 2.3 million guns held by civilians in Sweden. That is around 23 guns per 100 people, compared to 29 in Norway and 120 per 100 in the US.

To obtain a hunting license in Sweden, a theory and practical test is required. About 280,000 Swedes have one.

Police have yet to publicly identify the victims of the attack in Orebro, or declare a motive for the attack, but said they hoped to conclude the identification process and make an announcement on Friday.

Among the dead, according to family and community members, were Syrians who fled the war there as refugees, as well as one Bosnian.

Swedish police are usually cautious about naming suspects during an investigation, but the absence of official information has contributed to a feeling of fear and uncertainty among Orebro’s immigrant communities over the past few days.

“We need more information,” said Nour Afram, 36, who was inside the Risbergska school when the attack began.

“We don’t know why he did it, why did he target this school? Was he sick or was it something else?” she said.

Afram was waiting to go into class when she heard people screaming that there was a shooter.

“We started to run and then I heard the gunshots,” she said. “One at first, then tak tak tak – maybe ten shots. I was so scared I felt like my heart stopped in my chest.”

Sweden has a relatively high level of gun ownership and gun crime, by European standards, though most weapons are legally owned and used for hunting.

Gun crime is mostly associated with gangs, who have also taken to using bombs to target one another.

Non gang-related gun crime is less common, and Tuesday’s attack the nation’s first school shooting and its worst mass shooting. A total of four people were killed in two separate school stabbings in 2015 and 2022.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has vowed to continue its judicial work after US President Donald Trump signed an order to impose sanctions on its staff.

The ICC said it “stands firmly” by its personnel and the order seeks to harm its “independent and impartial” work.

Trump’s order accuses it of “illegitimate and baseless actions”, after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza, which Israel denies. The ICC also issued a warrant for a Hamas commander.

The ICC is a global court, although the US and Israel are not members, with the power to bring prosecutions for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

In its statement, it said: “The ICC condemns the issuance by the US of an executive order seeking to impose sanctions on its officials and harm its independent and impartial judicial work.”

It added it stood by its personnel, pledging “to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world”.

In recent years, the court has issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin over alleged war crimes in Ukraine, Taliban leaders for “persecuting Afghan girls and women” and Myanmar’s military leader for crimes against the Rohingya Muslims.

More than 120 countries are members, including the UK and many European nations.

• International Criminal Court: What is the ICC and what does it do?

Judges at the court have said there are “reasonable grounds” to suggest Netanyahu, his former defence minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas’ Mohammed Deif – who died last year – bear “criminal responsibility for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity”.

But a White House memo circulated on Thursday accused the Hague-based ICC of creating a “shameful moral equivalency” between Hamas and Israel by issuing the warrants at the same time.

Trump’s executive order said the ICC’s recent actions “set a dangerous precedent” that endangered Americans by exposing them to “harassment, abuse and possible arrest”.

The order adds it “threatens to infringe upon the sovereignty of the United States” and “undermines” the national security and foreign policy work of the US and allies.

The sanctions, announced while Netanyahu was in the US, place financial and visa restrictions on individuals and their families who assist in ICC investigations of American citizens or allies.

The move has been met with condemnation by many US allies, including the Netherlands and Germany.

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the UK supported the independence of the ICC.

The United Nations (UN) has called for the measure to be reversed, while Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said on X that the ICC “must be able to freely pursue the fight against global impunity”.

But in a post on X on Friday, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said he “strongly” commended Trump’s executive order.

He claimed the ICC’s actions were “immoral and have no legal basis”, accusing the court of not operating “in accordance with international law”.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Facebook on Friday that Trump’s decision was “absolutely understandable”, alleging the ICC had “in recent times disguised itself as a biased political tool”.

Hungary’s government has received widespread criticism for retaining close ties to the Kremlin following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and has invited Netanyahu to visit despite the international arrest warrant.

A former clerk to the court’s first chief prosecutor warned the sanctions could have “a profound practical impact” on its operations.

“The sanctions… do have the potential of freezing property and assets, as well as suspending entry into the United States of ICC officials and their immediate family members,” Zachary Kaufman told the BBC World Service.

The US has repeatedly rejected any jurisdiction by the body over American officials or citizens, and has accused the ICC of placing constraints on Israel’s right to self-defence, while ignoring Iran and anti-Israel groups.

During his first term in office, Trump imposed sanctions on ICC officials who were investigating whether US forces had committed war crimes in Afghanistan.

This included a travel ban and asset freezes against former chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda.

Those sanctions were lifted by President Joe Biden’s administration.

Last month, the US House of Representatives voted to sanction the ICC, but the bill foundered in the Senate.

In response to efforts to what they described as attempts to challenge the ICC’s authority, nine nations – including South Africa and Malaysia – launched the ‘Hague Group’ last month in an effort to defend the court and its rulings.

During his last weeks in office, President Biden also criticised the ICC’s warrant for Netanyahu, calling the move “outrageous” and saying there was no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.

Trump’s executive order, meanwhile, said that “both nations [the US and Israel] are thriving democracies with militaries that strictly adhere to the laws of war”.

The ICC prosecutor’s case against Netanyahu and Gallant found reasonable grounds to believe that they “each bear criminal responsibility for the following crimes as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts”.

It also found reasonable grounds to believe that “each bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population”.

Trump’s signing of his latest executive order follows his announcement during a joint press conference with the Israeli prime minister on Tuesday about a plan for the US to “take over” Gaza, resettle its Palestinian population and turn the territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

After Arab leaders and the UN condemned the idea, the US president restated it on his Truth Social social media platform on Thursday.

Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second presidential term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher’s weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

America’s foreign aid agency could see its staff slashed from about 10,000 to fewer than 300 globally as the Trump administration makes major cuts to government spending.

All but a handful of essential staff are already set to be placed on administrative leave at midnight on Friday, including thousands based abroad. An online notice says a plan is being prepared for return travel and the termination of non-essential contractors.

One union representing employees, which is involved in a legal challenge to the plan, told the BBC’s US partner CBS News that just 294 staff have been deemed essential.

Trump’s cutbacks to USAID – championed by his adviser Elon Musk – have upended the global aid system.

Hundreds of programmes have already been frozen in countries around the world.

His team accuses USAID of wasting taxpayer money and failing to align with “America First” policy priorities.

Polling has indicated scepticism among many Americans for foreign aid. An AP-NORC poll from March 2023 suggested as many as nine in 10 Republicans felt the country was overspending.

The move is just one example of Trump’s efforts to slash federal spending since returning to the White House. He campaigned on overhauling the federal government and formed an advisory body named the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) – led by Musk – to cut the federal budget.

The US is by far the biggest single provider of humanitarian aid around the world. It has bases in more than 60 countries and works in dozens of others, with much of its work carried out by its contractors.

Former USAID chiefs have criticised the reported cutback plan. One of them, Gayle Smith, stressed to the BBC World Service’s Newsday programme that the US had always been the fastest to arrive during humanitarian crises around the world.

“When you pull all of that out, you send some very dangerous messages,” Smith said. “The US is signalling that we don’t frankly care whether people live or die and that we’re not a reliable partner.”

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The suggestion that only 294 staff were on the “essential” list was made by the American Foreign Service Association union (AFSA). It has teamed up with another labour group, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), to file a lawsuit challenging the plan.

As well as the president, the lawsuit takes aim at the US state department, USAID, the treasury department, the secretary of state and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The lawsuit argues that the president is violating the US Constitution and federal law by attempting to dismantle the agency. “Not a single one of defendants’ actions to dismantle USAID were taken pursuant to congressional authorization,” it says.

“And pursuant to federal statute, Congress is the only entity that may lawfully dismantle the agency.”

It calls for an independent acting director of USAID to be appointed, for USAID buildings to be reopened to employees, for the USAID website to be restored, for grants and contracts to be reinstated, and for mandatory evacuation notices to staff to be lifted.

It asks for a judge to immediately halt the implementation of the plan to “gut” USAID, which the lawsuit notes has been spearheaded by Elon Musk, due to the urgent need to resume to aid programmes.

“These actions have generated a global humanitarian crisis by abruptly halting the crucial work of USAID employees, grantees, and contractors. They have cost thousands of American jobs. And they have imperilled US national security interests,” the lawsuit says.

Thousands of USAID workers expect to be put on administrative leave from Friday night. A message posted on the agency’s website says this will apply to all direct hire personnel from 23:59 EST (04:59 GMT).

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat from Illinois, told the BBC the cuts were “horrible news for global public health”.

“There are ways to reform the USAID in a fashion that is much less harmful to the mission of the agency and to all the beneficiaries than the way in which it’s being conducted right now,” he said.

As the turmoil continues to be felt around the world, one leader of a non-government organisation (NGO) tackling HIV in Kenya – which is partly funded by USAID – described the impacts.

Nelson Otwoma told the BBC World Service that his NGO had been affected “adversely” by the freeze, describing massive job layoffs of individuals supported by USAID and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

This has led to fear and anxiety as people are not getting their medicine in facilities supported by USAID where layoffs occurred, he said. “We don’t know what tomorrow brings… things have ground to a halt.”

Earlier this week, reports suggested that the Trump administration planned to merge USAID with the state department. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he had become USAID’s acting head.

He has defended Trump’s moves, telling about 200 agency workers in Guatemala on Wednesday that the US did not plan to stop distributing aid to foreign countries. But he said that the programmes must align with US priorities.

“The United States is not walking away from foreign aid,” America’s top diplomat said. “It’s not. We’re going to continue to provide foreign aid and to be involved in programmes, but it has to be programmes that we can defend.”

“It has to be programmes that we can explain. It has to be programmes that we can justify. Otherwise, we do endanger foreign aid.”

The UK government has demanded to be able to access encrypted data stored by Apple users worldwide in its cloud service.

Currently only the Apple account holder can access data stored in this way. The tech giant itself cannot view it.

Legally, the notice, served by the Home Office under the Investigatory Powers Act, cannot be made public, and Apple declined to comment.

The news was first reported by the Washington Post quoting sources familiar with the matter, and the BBC has spoken to similar contacts.

The Home Office said: “We do not comment on operational matters, including for example confirming or denying the existence of any such notices.”

Privacy International called it an “unprecedented attack” on the private data of individuals.

“This is a fight the UK should not have picked,” said the charity’s legal director Caroline Wilson Palow.

“This overreach sets a hugely damaging precedent and will embolden abusive regimes the world over.”

The notice applies to all content stored using Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP), which encrypts the data meaning that Apple itself cannot see it.

This is an opt-in service and not all users choose to activate it because if they lose access to their account for any reason, the added encryption means that there is no way to retrieve your photos, videos and other information saved that way.

But the government notice does not mean the authorities are suddenly going to start combing through everybody’s data.

It is believed that the government would want to access this data if there were a risk to national security – in other words, it would be targeting an individual, rather than using it for mass surveillance.

Authorities would still have to follow a legal process, have a good reason and request permission for a specific account in order to access data – just as they do now with unencrypted data.

Apple has previously said it would pull security services from the UK market rather than comply with any government demands to weaken them by creating so-called “back doors” to grant the authorities access to user data on demand.

Cyber security experts agree that once such an entry point is in place, it is only a matter of time before bad actors also discover it.

And withdrawing the product from the UK might not be enough to ensure compliance – the Investigatory Powers Act applies worldwide to any tech firm with a UK market, even if they are not based in Britain.

Still, no Western government has yet been successful in attempts to force big tech firms like Apple to break their encryption.

The US government has previously asked for this, but Apple has pointedly refused.

The tech giant can appeal against the government’s demand but cannot delay implementing the ruling during the process even if it is eventually overturned, according to the legislation.

The government argues that encryption enables criminals to hide more easily, and the FBI in the US has also been critical of the ADP tool.

Professor Alan Woodward, cyber security expert from Surrey University, said he was “stunned” by the news, and privacy campaigners Big Brother Watch described the reports as “troubling”.

“This misguided attempt at tackling crime and terrorism will not make the UK safer, but it will erode the fundamental rights and civil liberties of the entire population,” the group said in a statement.

UK children’s charity the NSPCC has previously described encryption as being on the front line of child abuse because it enables abusers to share hidden content.

But Apple says that privacy for its customers is at the heart of all its products and services.

In 2024 the company contested proposed changes to the Investigatory Powers Act, calling it an “unprecedented overreach” of a government.

The changes also included giving the government the power to veto new security measures before they were implemented. They were passed into law.

“The main issue that comes from such powers being exercised is that it’s unlikely to result in the outcome they want,” said Lisa Forte, cyber security expert from Red Goat.

“Criminals and terrorists will just pivot to other platforms and techniques to avoid incrimination. So it’s the average, law abiding citizen who suffers by losing their privacy.”

Gang rule in Haiti has led to a staggering rise in sexual violence against children, the United Nations’ children’s organisation has warned.

The Caribbean island has been in the grip of violent gangs for several years who have been treating the population with unrelenting brutality, Unicef said.

Sexual violence against children has increased 1,000% since 2023, turning their bodies “into battlegrounds”, spokesman James Elder said.

Unicef estimates 85% of the capital Port-au-Prince is under the control of gangs. More than one million children are living with the constant threat of violence.

Mr Elder gave an example of a 16-year-old girl who had left home to go shopping, and then was seized by armed men. She was beaten, drugged, and repeatedly raped.

She was held for around one month, he said, until the gang let her go when they realised her family had no money to pay a ransom. Kidnappings for extortion are common in Haiti.

She is now in a UN shelter with dozens of other girls receiving care.

Gang control in Port-au-Prince has led to an almost complete breakdown of law and order, the collapse of health services and emergence of a food security crisis.

More than 5,600 people were killed in gang violence in Haiti last year alone.

Haiti’s transitional presidential council, the body created to organise elections and re-establish democratic order, appears to be in turmoil.

The council replaced the interim prime minister in November but has made little progress towards organising long-delayed elections.

Children are also being recruited by the gangs, sometimes forcibly, Unicef said.

The organisation has come across child gang members who are as young as eight.

The basics that Haitian children need for a normal childhood, even if they are still at home with their families, are virtually non-existent said Unicef. Schools and hospitals are barely functioning and tens of thousands of children are not in school.

Unicef has created mobile safe spaces in Haiti to try to support children, and to prevent sexual violence.

But last year, when it appealed for $221.4m (£177.8m) to fund its work in Haiti, it received just a quarter of that.

It’s feared now that with the US freeze on foreign aid affecting humanitarian projects worldwide, Haiti’s needs will be neglected again.

The tall, shiny buildings which rise out of the cornfields on the Myanmar side of the Moei river are a sight so jarring you find yourself blinking to be sure you haven’t imagined it.

Eight years ago there was nothing over there in Karen State. Just trees, a few roughly built cement buildings, and a long-running civil war which has left this area of Myanmar one of the poorest places on earth. But today, on this spot along the border with Thailand, a small city has emerged like a mirage. It is called Shwe Kokko, or Golden Raintree.

It is accused of being a city built on scams, home to a lucrative yet deadly nexus of fraud, money-laundering and human trafficking. The man behind it, She Zhijiang, is languishing in a Bangkok jail, awaiting extradition to China.

But Yatai, She Zhijiang’s company which built the city, paints a very different vision of Shwe Kokko in its promotional videos – as a resort city, a safe holiday destination for Chinese tourists and haven for the super-rich.

The story of Shwe Kokko is also one of the unbridled ambition which has rippled out of China in the last two decades.

She Zhijiang dreamed of building this glittering city as his ticket out of the shadowy world of scams and gambling which he inhabited.

But by aiming so high he has drawn the attention of Beijing, which is now keen to stamp out the fraud operations along the Thai-Myanmar border which are increasingly targeting Chinese people.

Publicity about the scams is also hurting Thai tourism – Thailand is shutting down power to compounds over the border, toughening its banking rules and promising to block visas for those suspected of using Thailand as a transit route.

Shwe Kokko has been left marooned in post-coup, war-wracked Myanmar, unable to bring in the flow of investment and visitors it needs to keep going.

Yatai is trying to fix the city’s sinister image by allowing journalists to see it, holding out hope that more favourable reporting might even get She Zhijiang out of jail.

So they invited the BBC to Shwe Kokko.

Getting there is tricky.

Ever since construction began in 2017, Shwe Kokko has been a forbidden place, off-limits to casual visitors.

As the civil war in Myanmar escalated after the 2021 military coup, access became even more difficult. It takes three days from the country’s commercial hub Yangon – through multiple checkpoints, blocked roads and a real risk of getting caught in armed skirmishes. Crossing from Thailand takes just a few minutes, but requires careful planning to avoid Thai police and army patrols.

She Zhijiang’s colleagues took us on a tour, highlighting the newly paved streets, the luxury villas, the trees – “Mr She believes in making a green city,” they told us. Our guide was Wang Fugui, who said he was a former police officer from Guangxi in southern China. He ended up in prison in Thailand, on what he insists were trumped-up fraud charges. There he got to know She Zhijiang and became one of his most trusted lieutenants.

At first glance, Shwe Kokko has the appearance of a provincial Chinese city. The signs on the buildings are written in Chinese characters, and there is a constant procession of Chinese-made construction vehicles going to and from building sites.

Yatai is vague about the tenants of all its buildings, as it is about many things. “Rich people, from many countries, they rent the villas,” they told us. And what about the businesses? “Many businesses. Hotels, casinos.”

However, most of the people we saw were local Karen, one of Myanmar’s ethnic minorities, who come into Shwe Kokko every day to work. We saw very few of the overseas visitors who are supposed to be the customers of the hotels and casinos.

Yatai says there are no more scams in Shwe Kokko. It has put up huge billboards all over town proclaiming, in Chinese, Burmese and English, that forced labour was not allowed, and that “online businesses” should leave. But we were quietly told by local people that the scam business was still running.

Starting a decade ago in the unchecked frenzy of Chinese investment on the Cambodian coast, then moving to the lawless badlands of Myanmar’s border with China, the scam operators have now settled along the Thai-Myanmar border. Around them, the Myanmar military and a hotch-potch of rebel armies and warlords are fighting for control of Karen State.

The scams have grown into a multi-billion dollar business. They involve thousands of workers from China, South East Asia, Africa and the Indian subcontinent kept in walled-off compounds where they defraud people all over the world of their savings.

Some work there willingly, but others are abducted and forced to work. Those who have escaped have told harrowing stories of torture and beatings. Some have come from Shwe Kokko.

We were able to speak to a young woman who had been working in one of the scam centres a couple of weeks before our visit. She had not enjoyed it and been allowed to leave.

Her job, she said, was as part of the modelling team, made up mostly of attractive young women, who contact potential victims and try to build an intimate online relationship with them.

“The target is the elderly,” she said. “You start a conversation like ‘oh you look just like one of my friends’. Once you make friends you encourage them by sending pictures of yourself, sometimes wearing your night clothes.”

Then, she explains, the conversation moves to get-rich-quick schemes, such as crypto investments, with the women claiming that’s how they made a lot of money.

“When they feel close to you, you pass them on to the chatting section,” she says. “The chatting people will continue messaging with the client, persuading them to buy shares in the crypto company.”

During our brief time in Shwe Kokko we were only allowed to see what Yatai wanted us to see. Even so, it was evident that the scams have not stopped, and are probably still the main business in the city.

Our request to see inside any of the newly built office buildings was turned down. Those are private, they kept telling us. We were escorted at all times by security guards seconded from the militia group which controls this part of the border.

We were allowed to film the construction work, and the outsides of the buildings, but not to enter them. Many of the windows had bars on the insides.

“Everybody in Shwe Kokko knows what goes on there,” said the young woman who used to work in a scam centre.

She dismissed Yatai’s claim that it no longer permitted scam centres in Shwe Kokko.

“That is a lie. There is no way they don’t know about this. The whole city is doing it in those high-rise buildings. No-one goes there for fun. There is no way Yatai doesn’t know.”

“I can promise that Yatai would never accept telecom fraud and scams,” said She Zhijiang on a call from Bangkok’s Remand Prison, where he is being held.

Yatai wanted us to hear from the man himself, and hooked up a ropey video link. Only Mr Wang could be seen talking to him; we had to stay out of view of the prison guards, and had to rely on Mr Wang to put our questions to him.

Not much is known about She Zhijiang, a small-town Chinese entrepreneur who Beijing alleges is a criminal mastermind.

Born in a poor village in Hunan province in China in 1982, he left school at 14 and learned computer coding. He appears to have moved to the Philippines in his early 20s and into online gambling, which is illegal in China.

This is where he started to make his money. In 2014 he was convicted by a Chinese court of running an illegal lottery, but he stayed overseas.

He invested in gambling businesses in Cambodia, and managed to get Cambodian citizenship. He has used at least four different names.

In 2016, he struck a deal with a Karen warlord, Saw Chit Thu, to build a new city together. She Zhijiang would provide the funds, the Chinese construction machinery and materials, while Saw Chit Thu and his 8,000 armed fighters would keep it safe.

Glitzy videos by Yatai promised a $15bn (£12.1bn) investment and depicted a high-rise wonderland of hotels, casinos and cyberparks. Shwe Kokko was described as part of Xi Jinping’s Belt-and-Road Initiative or BRI, bringing Chinese funds and infrastructure to the world.

China publicly dissociated itself from She Zhijiang in 2020, and the Myanmar government launched an investigation into Yatai, which was building far beyond the 59 villas authorised by its investment permit and was operating casinos before these had been legalised in Myanmar.

In August 2022, acting on a Chinese request to Interpol, She Zhijiang was arrested and imprisoned in Bangkok. He and his business partner Saw Chit Thu have also been sanctioned by the British government for their links to human trafficking.

She Zhijiang claims to be a victim of double dealing by the Chinese state. He says he founded his company Yatai on the instruction of the Chinese Ministry of State Security, and insists that Shwe Kokko was then a part of the BRI.

He accuses China’s communist leadership of turning on him because he refused to give them control of his project. They wanted a colony on the Thai-Myanmar border, he says. China has denied any business relationship with She Zhijiang.

While he denied any wrongdoing on Yatai’s part, She Zhijiang, however, admitted to “a high probability” that scammers were coming to Shwe Kokko to spend their money.

“Because our Yatai City is completely open to anyone who can go in and out freely. Refusing customers, for a businessman like me, is really difficult. This is my weakness.”

It is, however, stretching credulity to believe that Yatai, which runs everything in Shwe Kokko, was unable to stop scammers coming in and out of the city.

It is also hard to think of any business other than scams which would choose to operate here.

With Thailand cutting off power and telecommunications, electricity comes from diesel generators, which are expensive to run. And communications go through Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite system, which is also very costly.

Yatai’s strategy is “to whitewash the project to create a narrative that Shwe Kokko is a safe city”, says Jason Tower, from the United States Institute for Peace, which has spent years researching the scam operation in Shwe Kokko.

He says they may even “begin moving some of the more notorious components of the scam industry, like torture, into other zones”.

But he doesn’t think the plan will work: “What kinds of legitimate businesses will go into Shwe Kokko? It’s simply not attractive. The economy will continue to be a scam economy.”

When we were eventually allowed to see inside one casino in Shwe Kokko, run by a genial Australian, he told us they were going to close it down.

Inside the only customers were local Karen, gambling on a popular arcade-like game where they had to shoot digital fish. We were forbidden from doing any interviews. The back rooms, with the card and roulette tables, were empty.

The Australian manager said the casino – built six years ago – had been popular and profitable when there were just one or two of them, before the civil war. But these days, with at least nine in operation, there were not enough customers to go around.

The real money was in online gambling, which he said was the main business in Shwe Kokko.

It is impossible to know how much money is made through online gambling, and how much through outright criminal activities like money laundering and scams. They are usually run from the same compounds and by the same teams. When we asked Yatai how much money they made they would not tell us – not even a ballpark figure. That is private, they said.

The company is registered in Hong Kong, Myanmar and Thailand, but these are little more than shell companies, with very little income or revenue passing through them.

We turned down Yatai’s offer to see the go-kart track, water park and model farm that they have built. We did glimpse one other casino, while being taken to eat breakfast in Yatai’s own luxury hotel, though we could not go inside it. It seemed empty.

The only other facility we were allowed to see was a karaoke club, with spectacular private rooms, cavernous domes entirely covered in digital screens on which huge tropical fish and sharks swam.

They also ran video loops extolling the vision and virtues of She Zhijiang. This club too seemed deserted, except for some young Chinese women who worked there.

They wore opera masks to avoid being identified, and danced unenthusiastically to music for a few minutes before giving up and sitting down.

Interviews were not permitted. We were allowed to talk to a local Karen member of staff, but she was so intimidated by this we got little more than her name.

In his absence, She Zhijiang has left the running of Shwe Kokko to a young protégé, 31-year-old He Yingxiong. He lives with Wang Fugui in a sprawling villa they have built on the banks of the Moei River, overlooking Thailand, and guarded by massive Chinese bodyguards. There they play mahjong, eat the finest food and drink, and keep an eye on business.

Mr He has a slightly different explanation from his boss for the scams still operating under their noses. “We are just property developers,” he said. “I can guarantee that this kind of thing does not happen here.

“But even if it does, the local people have their own legal system, so it is their job to deal with it. Our job is just to provide good infrastructure, good buildings and supporting industries.”

But there is no legal system in this part of Myanmar, nor any government. It is ruled by the various armed groups which control different bits of territory along the Thai border.

Their commanders decide who can build or run a business, taking their cut to help fund their wars against the Myanmar military, or against each other. Many of them are known to be hosting scam compounds.

Mr He admitted that it was the war which had allowed Yatai to obtain the land so cheaply. Karen human rights groups have accused Saw Chit Thu of driving the original inhabitants off their land, with minimal compensation, though it is clear Yatai is also providing badly needed jobs for the locals.

It is the lawlessness of Karen State which makes it so appealing to illegal businesses – and that doesn’t help the image of Shwe Kokko.

Neither do recent headlines.

Last month a 22-year-old Chinese actor, Wang Xing, was rescued from a scam centre on the border after being lured to Thailand with an offer of work on a movie shoot. His disappearance spurred a barrage of questions on Chinese social media, forcing the Thai and Chinese authorities to mount a joint operation to free him.

Chinese tourists have been cancelling their holidays in Thailand, fearing for their safety. Other rescues have followed.

The BBC has been sent emails by some scam victims pleading for help; rescue organisations believe there are still thousands trapped. Nearly all are in smaller compounds along the border south of Shwe Kokko.

Yatai stressed to us that they are not the same as these rougher operations, some little more than a collection of sheds built in forest clearings. That is where all the bad things happen now, they said.

They talked about KK Park, a notorious compound south of the border town of Myawaddy, and Dongmei, a cluster of low-rise buildings run by a prominent Chinese crime lord called Wan Kuok Koi, better known as Broken Tooth.

That distinction hasn’t helped She Zhijiang, who once had the ear of politicians, police bosses and even minor royalty in Thailand. Today he appears to have lost even the influence he once had in prison, to buy himself special privileges. He has complained of being roughed up by the guards.

His lawyers are appealing against the Interpol red notice used to justify his arrest, but China’s voice will probably be loudest in determining his fate.

From our interview with him, Shi Zhijiang seemed genuinely outraged over his sudden reversal of fortune.

“Before, I had no understanding of human rights, but now I really understand how horrible it is to have human rights infringed upon,” he said.

“It is hard to imagine how the human rights of ordinary people in China are trampled upon when a respected businessman like me, who used to be able to go to the same state banquets as Xi Jinping, does not have his human rights and dignity protected in any way.”

It seems he really did believe he could build something which would one day transcend Shwe Kokko’s sordid origins as a scam city.

What happens to it now is hard to guess, but if the Thai and Chinese governments keep acting to shut down the scams, the money will start to dry up.

Chappell Roan has responded to criticism of a speech she gave calling for artists to receive a living wage while accepting her Grammy for Best New Artist.

The Pink Pony Club hitmaker was honoured at the ceremony on Sunday and used the platform to urge music labels to provide more support, including healthcare, to developing musicians.

While she received a standing ovation from the audience, music executive Jeff Rabhan branded Chappell “disingenuous” because she’s profiting from the industry she’s calling out, adding she was “wildly misinformed”.

Responding on Instagram, the US singer says she’s donated $25,000 (£20,000) to support struggling artists and encouraged Jeff to match her donation.

The 26-year-old’s break-out hit Good Luck, Babe! catapulted her to mainstream success last year and she was recognised with a trophy in Los Angeles.

On stage, Chappell said she’d always told herself if she ever won a Grammy and had the chance to address “the most powerful people in music”, she would demand that “labels and the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists would offer a liveable wage and healthcare”.

Chappell, who was first signed when she was 17, shared that she struggled to find a job after being dropped by her label in 2020 and could not afford health insurance.

“It was so devastating to feel so committed to my art and feel so betrayed by the system and so dehumanised,” she said.

She added labels need to treat artists as “valuable employees”, asking them: “We got you, but do you got us?”

Despite a round of applause from the room, not everyone agreed with Chappell’s speech including Jeff – the former Chair of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.

In a column for The Hollywood Reporter, he said the speech was “noble… but wildly misinformed”, calling her “too uninformed to be the agent of change she aspires to be”.

Jeff, who has worked for the Atlantic Records label and with stars including Kelis and Kelly Clarkson, said labels “are businesses, not charities”, getting a share of profits in return for taking a risk on new artists.

While he acknowledged things could improve, he also described Chappell as “disingenuous” for criticising the industry that “elevated” her to mainstream success and then “continuing to profit from that very system”.

He added Chappell was “no longer a struggling artist” and that “she should do something about it – rather than just talk at it”.

In response, Chappell said on Instagram: “Mr Rabhan, I love how in the article you said ‘put your money where your mouth is’ – genius!

“Let’s link and build together and see if you can do the same,” she added, after revealing her donation.

The article has been criticised by stars like Halsey who said it generalised the experiences of artists.

“If you want to profit off of someone’s else’s art, that artist should have the basic living means to feel safe enough to create that art,” the Without Me singer said.

Up and coming artists have often spoken about the challenges they face trying to break into the industry.

A report in 2023 by the Help Musicians charity found a lack of sustainable income was a barrier to the careers of 44% of artists who took part in their survey and 23% said they were unable to support themselves or their families.

It’s not the first time Chappell has called out the music industry either.

She previously told the BBC she’d be “more successful if I wore a muzzle” after a backlash to her comments about “creepy” fan behaviour and taking a break to focus on her wellbeing.

BBC Newsbeat has reached out to Jeff Rabhan but has not had a response. PMC, which publishes The Hollywood Reporter, has also been approached for comment.

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.

Three former Harrods employees have accused Mohamed Al Fayed’s only surviving brother of sexually assaulting them while they were working for the department store.

Speaking publicly for the first time, the women say Ali Fayed, 82, assaulted them in the 1990s when he and his brothers, Mohamed and Salah, owned and ran Harrods.

A spokesperson for Mr Fayed, who lives in the US, said the businessman “will not be scapegoated” and he “unequivocally denies any and all the allegations of wrongdoing” and that “the incidents simply never took place”.

The alleged sexual assaults happened in London, Scotland, Switzerland and the United States. One of the women, a former interior designer for Harrods, says one assault happened on a work trip while she was staying with Ali Fayed and his family at their former home in Connecticut.

“His hands were everywhere,” she says, and he stopped because “one of his little boys started calling for him”.

All three women say prior to Ali Fayed’s alleged assaults, they had also been sexually abused by his older brother. Police say 111 women have now made allegations against Mohamed Al Fayed, who added the Arabic “Al” prefix to his surname sometime in the 1970s.

One of the women, Amy, has told the BBC she wants “an explanation” from Ali Fayed, and an “understanding of what was going on that can help [her] step forward and begin healing”.

All three say they didn’t feel able to speak out at the time.

“This is my chance to finally stand up for myself. I’m not going to be that scared 24-year-old who doesn’t know what to do,” says Frances – who, like Amy, has waived her right to anonymity.

Frances took a job working for Harrods in the store’s interior design studio in 1989.

It wasn’t long before Mohamed Al Fayed began to bully and sexually abuse her, she says. Frances says she recalls him regularly trying to grab her breasts and grope her while at work, or subjecting her to “foul” verbal tirades.

Despite not having much experience, Frances says she was tasked with renovating Mohamed Al Fayed’s sprawling Scottish Balnagown Estate, including a farmhouse belonging to his younger brother, Ali.

Frances describes Ali Fayed’s demeanour as calmer than that of Mohamed.

“I think for a moment I thought maybe he would be kinder to me,” she says. “But he wasn’t.”

Ali Fayed, like Mohamed, also had a private office and private apartment in 60 Park Lane in central London.

It was in Ali’s office where Frances says his sexual abuse started with him “trying to kiss” her, followed by him “groping” and “molesting” her.

She says both the Fayed brothers would regularly give her gifts. “With Mohamed, it would often be wads of cash, Ali would give jewellery or clothes. It would be a see-saw between abusive behaviour then praise for my work and these lavish items.”

The abuse escalated in 1992, she says, when she flew to Connecticut to discuss interior design plans with Ali Fayed’s wife.

“It was this huge private house and it was decorated in an English country house style. I don’t think I’d ever seen anything like it in my life,” says Frances.

“I remember his wife taking me into this picture-perfect American rich town.”

Frances says she was staying in a guest room at the family’s house when Ali Fayed told her to get changed for dinner one evening.

“I was in the bathroom and got undressed. When I came out in my underwear, he [Ali] was just standing there in the room. I hadn’t heard him come in or knock.”

Frances says Ali Fayed got her on the bed and tried to get on top of her. His hands were “inside my bra, inside my pants. I knew what his intention was”.

According to Frances the alleged attack stopped when one of Ali’s children called out for him. Afterwards, she says she sat on the bed, “frozen”.

A spokesperson for Ali Fayed said the businessman “is not a perpetrator” and will “robustly defend himself against these unsubstantiated claims”.

When Frances returned to work in London, she says Mohamed Al Fayed “exploded” and started “aggressively spitting abusive words” because he apparently believed she and Ali had had sex .

She says he told her: “I’m done with you… go be with my brother.”

“From that point, I’d still see Mohamed, and he’d still call me every name under the sun, but he didn’t actually physically abuse me,” says Frances.

“Now I was in fear of two of the owners and I knew if I spoke out it would get worse. I could be threatened, I could be fired. I just felt I had to keep on going and, at some point, this horror would pass.”

Frances says Ali Fayed sexually assaulted her again later that year on a trip to Balnagown, where she was adding the finishing interior touches to his farmhouse.

Ali called her into his private office, she says, then dragged her onto his lap and started kissing her neck and touching her breasts as he spun around in his chair.

She says she could feel he was aroused through his trousers.

“I remember him laughing,” recalls Frances, who says she eventually managed to break free and run out of the room. “Laughter is meant to be nice. It wasn’t. I left him there just laughing at me.”

Ali Fayed would often try to sexually touch her when they met, she says, “always laughing and joking and making out it was fun”.

The following year, Frances says she was fired for being in a relationship with another employee, something she says Mohamed Al Fayed forbade among staff. Harrods later settled a case she brought for unfair dismissal.

Frances describes her time after leaving Harrods as “going underground and shutting myself down”. She struggled to work and trust people and eventually moved away. She says Mohamed and Ali Fayed “took away” her confidence and dignity.

“To this day I suffer with terrible anxiety and panic attacks and I don’t like people in my space,” she says.

Mohamed Al Fayed and his younger brothers bought Harrods in 1985. While Mohamed was the chairman, running day-to-day operations of the luxury department store, Ali Fayed was a director and also helped oversee the House of Fraser group, which they owned in the early 1990s.

The new claims point to the “breadth of abuse” by Mohamed Al Fayed and “raise serious allegations” against his brother Ali, Harrods told the BBC in a statement.

“We could not possibly speak on behalf of any individual who can, and should, respond to these allegations directly,” it added.

The store, which came under new ownership in 2010, said it hoped survivors were looking at “every appropriate avenue to them in their pursuit of justice, whether that be Harrods, the police or the Fayed family and estate”.

Ali Fayed, who was granted British citizenship in 1999, co-owns luxury British shirtmaker Turnbull and Asser with his sons – but resigned as director on 8 December 2024, 10 days after these allegations were put to him by the BBC.

All three women alleging abuse by Ali Fayed initially spoke to filmmaker Keaton Stone, who has been investigating Mohamed Al Fayed since 2018 and whose work informed the BBC’s recent documentary and podcast about Mohamed’s predatory behaviour.

Mohamed Al Fayed never faced charges while he was alive, but the women believe his brother Ali should now be investigated by police.

“Whether any charges would be brought, I don’t know, but I believe he should be investigated for what he did,” says Amy.

She worked as a personal assistant to Mohamed Al Fayed for almost three years, and says he sexually abused her throughout her time at Harrods. The abuse escalated, Amy says, when Mohamed let himself into her room on a work trip to Paris and tried to rape her.

She says she “endured” the abuse, thinking “that was just what being a young woman meant, it was a hazard of the workplace”.

Amy says she remembers Ali Fayed coming into Mohamed’s Park Lane office – and also taking phone calls from him. “He gave me the nickname ‘Amy speaking’ which he thought was hilarious,” she recalls. “He would giggle when he spoke to me.”

A year or two into the job, Amy says Mohamed told her to go to Switzerland with Ali to help with some personal assistant duties like filing and paperwork.

The pair travelled together on a Harrods private jet, she says, and were driven to the upmarket resort of Gstaad, where the Fayed family owned a ski chalet.

“Once we got to the chalet, aside from the elderly housekeeper, it was myself and Ali alone for three days. It was strange,” says Amy. “No efforts were made to even create something for me to do.”

The trip was taken out of season and Amy says Ali Fayed seemed bored. He suggested they go to the local public swimming pool, she says, and when they got there it was deserted.

“That’s when Ali’s demeanour changed and he became giddy,” says Amy.

“He pulled me in under the water, and groped and fondled me, making me feel very, very uncomfortable – very much trapped. I was terrified thinking how am I going to get out of this.”

Amy says Ali Fayed laughed as he “groped” her, before she managed to break free of his clutches.

After the alleged assault, Amy says they both returned to the chalet and she was left alone for the rest of the evening, feeling isolated and afraid.

Like the other two women, Amy didn’t tell anyone about the alleged abuse by either of the brothers.

Amy says she didn’t want to upset her loved ones and didn’t necessarily feel people would believe her.

“By not saying anything, I think it’s a coping technique, to just put it away,” she adds.

Amy went back to work after the alleged assault took place in Gstaad, but eventually resigned.

She says she “escaped and ran away” to work abroad.

“I wanted to just remove myself from it all”, she says, but “the trauma” lived with her.

“To this day, in certain social situations, I don’t want to be noticed, I try to stay invisible,” she says.

Ali Fayed denies all the allegations of wrongdoing – said his spokesperson – and “will not allow false accusations to go unchallenged”.

A third woman, who we are calling Laura, told us she recalls Mohamed Al Fayed summoning her to his office and telling her “with a smirk on his face” that his brother Ali wanted to see her.

“I remember it vividly because I had no comprehension of who Ali was, I’d never even seen him,” she says. “I don’t know how I was spotted or ‘selected’ for him.”

• Al Fayed’s brother Salah also abused us, women say
• Police investigate more people over Al Fayed abuse

Laura had been working directly for Mohamed Al Fayed in Harrods’ HR department and says his sexual harassment towards her had become commonplace, escalating to two serious sexual assaults.

Laura says Mohamed sent her to their office building in Park Lane one evening, but when she arrived there was no work to be done. She says she was sent through to Ali Fayed’s apartment where he was waiting. Laura says he told her they would be having dinner, and then presented her with a bottle of wine from the year she was born and a necklace.

“I wondered how he knew things about me,” she says.

Alone in his apartment, Laura says Ali Fayed ordered her through to the bedroom where she says she was subjected to a serious sexual assault. She says she felt “numbed with fear” and had to do whatever she was told in order to “get out of there”.

“Afterwards he just told me I could go.”

Laura says she never saw Ali Fayed again but kept the necklace from that night and it has recently been valued at £6,500.

The abuse at Harrods “took its toll” says Laura – even after she left the store. She bottled it all up for 25 years, she says, and still hasn’t told some of her loved ones what she went through.

All three women are pursuing civil legal action against Harrods through Justice for Harrods Survivors.

“We applaud the bravery of the women who have spoken out on their allegations against Ali Fayed and reiterate our commitment to securing justice and accountability for all survivors,” says their barrister Maria Mulla.

“We repeat, no stone will be left unturned in pursuit of this aim.”

The BBC spoke to three other women who said they had been either raped, sexually assaulted or trafficked by the other Fayed brother, Salah, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2010.

The women who accuse Ali Fayed question what the three brothers knew about each other’s behaviour.

“Looking back now, maybe they found it amusing to see how far the boundaries were with us between the brothers,” says Amy. “Maybe there was competition. I really don’t know, but I do feel it was all amusing for them.”

Ali Fayed’s spokesperson says he “unequivocally denies any and all allegations of wrongdoing. The alleged incidents simply never occurred. Mr Fayed is not a perpetrator and will not be scapegoated. He will robustly defend himself against these unsubstantiated claims and will not allow false accusations to go unchallenged.”

TikTok is being sued by the parents of four British teenagers who believe their children died after taking part in viral trends that circulated on the video-sharing platform in 2022.

The lawsuit claims Isaac Kenevan, Archie Battersbee, Julian “Jools” Sweeney and Maia Walsh died while attempting the so-called “blackout challenge”.

The US-based Social Media Victims Law Center filed the wrongful death lawsuit against TikTok and its parent company ByteDance on behalf of the children’s parents on Thursday.

Searches for videos or hashtags related to the challenge on TikTok are blocked.

According to the firm, this block has been in place since 2020.

TikTok says it prohibits dangerous content or challenges on the platform, and directs those who search for hashtags or videos to its Safety Centre.

The complaint was filed in the Superior Court of the State of Delaware on behalf of Archie’s mother Hollie Dance, Isaac’s mum Lisa Kenevan, Jools’ mother Ellen Roome and Maia’s dad Liam Walsh.

It claims the deaths were “the foreseeable result of ByteDance’s engineered addiction-by-design and programming decisions”, which were “aimed at pushing children into maximizing their engagement with TikTok by any means necessary”.

And it accuses ByteDance of having “created harmful dependencies in each child” through its design and “flooded them with a seemingly endless stream of harms”.

“These were not harms the children searched for or wanted to see when their use of TikTok began,” it claims.

Ellen Roome, who believes her 14-year-old son Jools died after participating in an online challenge, has sought to obtain data from TikTok that could provide clarity around his death.

She has been campaigning for “Jools’ Law”, which would allow parents to access the social media accounts of their children if they die. It was debated in parliament on 13 January 2025.

“Parents need to be aware of the dangers of social media,” she told the BBC.

“I thought TikTok was silly dances and silly challenges like standing on your hands and putting your t-shirt on upside-down – Jools and I did several of those challenges – because we just thought they were fun.

“It isn’t that – there’s some harmful material there, and I think parents need to be aware and really, if they can, get their children to show them their phone.”

She said she believed it was “morally wrong” that TikTok will not give her access to her son’s social media account.

“[TikTok] could have handed over the data and said, ‘here bereaved parents, I hope you get some answers’,” she said.

“It’s taking us going to court in the US to try to do that, and I think that’s morally wrong.”

Leanda Barrington-Leach, executive director of campaign group 5Rights Foundation, claimed this was “the horrific consequences of tech companies putting profit above children’s lives”.

The families’ lawsuit comes as question marks hang over the future of TikTok in the US.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January to extend the deadline for the app to be banned in the country unless sold to another firm.

• What does Trump’s executive order mean for TikTok and who might buy it?

A coroner concluded in January 2024 that Hollie Dance’s son Archie died aged 12 after a “prank or experiment” went wrong at their home in Southend-on-Sea in April 2022 – and said there was no evidence he was doing an online challenge at the time, as his mother believed.

Ms Dance, along with Lisa Kenevan, mother of 13-year-old Isaac, has tried to raise awareness about potentially dangerous social media trends in the wake of their childrens’ deaths.

Lisa Kenevan, speaking about Issac on BBC Breakfast in May, described him as a “happy, normal boy” who “wanted to look after his mum and dad”.

She said he was as an “highly inquisitive, highly intelligent” child who wanted to understand how things worked – leading him to attempt the blackout challenge.

It is one of several viral social media trends that have resulted in warnings from schools and experts about their dangers.

TikTok said in 2021 it would strengthen its detection and enforcement of rules around dangerous online challenges, and reportedly blocked some searches for the blackout challenge.

But it has faced a number of lawsuits and accusations from parents of deceased children claiming it recommended harmful content to them.

The Social Media Victims Law Center helped Tawainna Anderson sue the platform in 2022 after her 10-year-old daughter Nyla died after allegedly taking part in the blackout challenge.

A US appeals court overturned a lower court’s dismissal of her case in August 2024.

Australian reptile handlers say they have been stunned to rescue 102 venomous snakes from a backyard mulch pile in Sydney.

Cory Kerewaro said his business was initially called to rescue “a bunch” of the reptiles after one was reported to have bitten a dog at the property.

When his colleague arrived, he discovered 40 red-bellied black snakes – four of which gave birth to more live young once he had placed them in a removal bag.

Red-bellied black snakes are one of the most common venomous species in Australia but have not caused any human deaths on record.

The five adult and 97 baby snakes are currently under quarantine and will be released into a national park once the weather cools.

Mr Kerewaro said it was as record haul for the snake handlers, who normally catch between five and 15 reptiles per day.

He said he recalls colleague Dylan Cooper calling him within 15 minutes to say: “Mate, I’m going to be here a while. It’s a pretty big pile… I’m already over 15 snakes!”

“I thought he was stitching me up.”

The dog was “alive and well” after the incident which happened on Boxing Day, he added.

Female red-bellied black snakes often gather in small groups when they are ready to give birth, possibly to protect against predators, according to Mr Kerewaro.

They are the only snake of their genus to give live birth, the Australian Museum says on its website.

The species is considered to be shy, and bites – though uncommon – can cause swelling, nausea and diarrhoea.

Snake catchers are required by law to release the animals close to where they were found. But given the size this discovery, the catchers have been given permission to release the snakes into a national park away from human interactions.

Politicians, musicians, and celebrities arrived in their most glamorous looks for one of South Africa’s biggest political events – the State of the Nation Address (Sona), making it almost as much about fashion as politics.

Sona is a joint sitting of the two houses of parliament in Cape Town to mark the start of the government’s work for the year, where President Cyril Ramaphosa paints a picture of where the country stands and outlines the road ahead.

In his speech, President Ramaphosa talked about the nation’s resilience, earning rapturous applause when he declared, “South Africa will not be bullied.”

His stance comes after his US counterpart Donald Trump threatened to cut funding over South Africa’s land policy.

While governance takes centre stage, Sona has evolved into a fashion spectacle over the years, with MPs using their outfits to support local designers and showcase South African talent.

The outfits are always a hot topic on social media, and this year is no exception.

Praise singer Inako Mateza, this year’s imbongi (traditional praise poet), played a key role in one of the most significant Sona traditions.

Through song and dance, she recounted President Cyril Ramaphosa’s life story and history, blending tradition with a personal touch.

She ended her performance by addressing the president with his well-known nickname, “Cupcake.”

South Africa Minister of Water and Sanitation, Pemmy Majodina wore a traditional outfit and spectacular earrings.

Her Xhosa-inspired outfit was made by self-taught seamstress, Zoleka Vicky Magwaca, from the Mthatha Art Centre in Eastern Cape

“I am committed to supporting local designers,” Majodina told Eye Witness News on the red carpet.

Water was a key part of Ramaphosa’s speech, as he said there would be investment in several water projects to address the shortages affecting the whole country.

Draped in gold, this snazzy dresser is legendary Kwaito singer, Gezani Kobane, also known as Papa Penny. He is a member of former President Jacob Zuma’s party, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK).

As MK cements its presence in South African politics as the main opposition party, figures like Kobane are drawing attention both for their political stance and their distinctive style.

But Zuma wasn’t in attendance, as he was dealing with his ongoing trial on allegations of corruption over an arms deal. He denies any wrongdoing.

Outside parliament, there is a red carpet for guests and ministers to strike a pose.

This year’s Sona was held at Cape Town City Hall as the parliament building is still being rebuilt after a fire ripped through the building in 2022.

Sports Minister Gayton Mckenzie looked dapper in an all-black ensemble with matching sunglasses.

South African politician and Pondo traditional leader Mwelo Nonkonyana, who now serves on the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa in the Eastern Cape made sure his heritage was on full display.

The traditional beaded staff is a symbol of wisdom and authority, making it the perfect finishing touch for Sona.

Julius Malema’s party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) arrived in their trademark red overalls. The party has disrupted previous Sonas, but this year they were relatively calm.

Malema expressed his disappointment in President Ramaphosa speech and told local broadcaster eNCA, it was just “waffle”.

Lindiwe Ntshalintshali, the Deputy Minister of Correctional Services, was dressed to the nines as she dazzled in a gold-beaded dress while listening to the speech.

• Cyril Ramaphosa – South African union leader, mine boss, president
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In the middle of a grand, high-ceilinged church in Orebro, Sweden, Jacob Kasselia, a Syrian orthodox priest, looked up towards the stained glass windows above him, then back down at his hands. He adjusted the gold cross hanging from his neck.

“The police say this man acted alone,” the priest said. “But this hate, it is coming from somewhere.”

A member of Kasselia’s congregation, 29-year-old Salim Iskef, was among those murdered in Orebro on Tuesday in Sweden’s first school shooting and the worst mass shooting in the country’s history. The gunman killed 10 students at an adult learning centre and then himself.

Among the dead are Syrians and Bosnians, according to residents and the embassies of those countries, but the police in Orebro have not given any details of the victims publicly.

Kasselia described Iskef as kind and thoughtful, keen to help other members of the community. He came to Sweden with his mother and sister, the priest said – refugees from Aleppo, where his father was killed in the war. Iskef was studying Swedish at the Risbergska school, the target of Tuesday’s attack.

“He was simply a good man,” the priest said. “He did not look for trouble. He showed only goodwill. He was a member of our community.”

The night after the attack, Kasselia sat with Iskef’s family to console them. Iskef was engaged and due to be married this summer. His fiancee Kareen Elia, 24, was “very badly affected”, the priest said, and was “going through a very difficult, very dark experience”.

At a memorial service in Orebro on Thursday night, Elia broke down in screams and tears and had to be carried out of the church.

In the days since the shooting, there has been a striking lack of information from the authorities. On Thursday night, police had still not confirmed the identity of the gunman – widely reported by Swedish media to be 35-year-old local Rickard Andersson – nor any details about his motive or the victims.

In a statement issued early on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after the attack, police said the shooter did not appear to be motivated by any ideology. On Thursday, Anna Bergkvist, who is leading the police investigation, appeared to walk the statement back.

“Why they said that, I cannot comment,” she told the BBC. “We are looking at different motives and we will declare it when we have it.”

Swedish police are usually cautious about naming suspects during an investigation, but the absence of official information has contributed to a feeling of fear and uncertainty among Orebro’s immigrant communities over the past few days.

“We are getting all our information from the media and I don’t know why,” said Nour Afram, 36, who was inside the Risbergska school when the attack began.

“We need more information,” she said. “We don’t know why he did it, why did he target this school? Was he sick or was it something else?”

Afram was waiting to go into class when she heard people screaming that there was a shooter – something so unbelievable to her she thought at first it was a prank.

“We started to run and then I heard the gunshots,” she said. “One at first, then tak tak tak – maybe ten shots. I was so scared I felt like my heart stopped in my chest.”

Afram, who immigrated from Syria to Orebro as a child, said she was afraid for the first time to send her three children to school in Sweden.

Zaki Aydin, a 50-year-old Syriac language teacher in Orebro, said he was afraid for the first time for his young students, who are mostly from the Middle East. “We are foreigners, we have to be careful now,” he said.

Aydin used to have the doors of his classroom and the church building open when he taught. “Now we are closing them,” he said. “And yesterday I asked someone to stand outside to prevent anyone we didn’t know already from coming in.”

One of the pupils at the school, 18-year-old Gabriel, said a “nightmare had come true” for Orebro.

“The problem is we have no motive, only speculation,” he said. “A lot of people my age are frightened to go to school, we feel like Sweden has become like America. The things you see on television have happened here.”

In the absence of any official news about the motive, all that the residents here in Orebro know is that the killer appears to have been a reclusive white Swedish man and that he targeted a school with a large immigrant student base.

Tomas Poletti Lundstrom, an academic researcher in racism at Uppsala University, who happens to live just a few minutes from the site of the attack and heard police helicopters fly over his home on Tuesday, said Orebro was facing a “deeply horrible time”.

“You can really sense it everywhere here, it is affecting everyone,” Lundstrom said. “We don’t know the motives of the shooter yet, but we are living in a very racist time and this is a school for a lot of immigrants.”

Attacks like the one at Risbergska were “the outcome of how our society looks at the moment, how our politicians talk, and how we talk about one another”, he said.

“The government and the main opposition support anti-immigrant policies and use anti-immigrant rhetoric,” he added. “This is what happens when politicians speak the way they are speaking.”

At the cordoned off entrance to Risbergska school early on Thursday morning, people were stopping by to leave flowers, light candles, or simply to stand and take in the scene. From the street, you can clearly see the front door through which the killer was filmed appearing to go from classroom to classroom with a rifle.

Among those who came alone and stood for a while by the collection of candles and flowers was the city’s mayor, John Johansson, who had made an official visit to the site the day before alongside the prime minister and the king and queen but stopped there again on his way to work on Thursday to pay his respects.

“I hope that the police will find conclusions soon,” Johansson said. “The city needs answers, our society needs answers, and the families of the victims need to know why this happened.”

But it was not time to “speculate or rush ahead”, he said. “We do not want to contribute to any false rumours, and so we hope the police will find answers as early as possible.”

Tony Estroem, a salesman from Eskilstuna, about 80km from Orebro, also stopped by the school on Thursday morning. “This kind of shooting, at a school, you read about it elsewhere but not in Sweden,” he said.

“It looks to be a Swedish guy, and perhaps that is better than if it had been an immigrant responsible,” he added. “Of course it is a terrible event either way, but we do not want to add more fuel to the fire.”

Police have given out some limited information about their investigation. They said that about 130 officers responded to the shooting in total, and that they were met by an “inferno” in the school. They said that they believe the gunman acted alone.

Family members, former school friends and neighbours have told Swedish media he had become a recluse in recent years and may have suffered with psychological issues.

There have been complaints about the handling of the case. The Bosnian ambassador Bojan Sosic, who also visited the site of the shooting, learned from residents that a Bosnian was among the dead.

“I find it odd, to say the least, that the police chooses to withhold information that pertains to foreign citizens from respective embassies,” he said.

Others, including members of the Syrian community, said they trusted the police were doing the right thing and only hoped to learn more soon. Kasselia, the Syrian Orthodox priest, said that the wider community “does not know what the police are thinking, but we trust that they have their own plan”.

Hundreds of people came to Kasselia’s church on Thursday night from the Syrian, Turkish, Iraqi and other migrant communities. A picture of Salim Iskef, one of the shooting’s victims, sat on an easel. Children from the congregation sung hymns. Iskef’s family, sitting in a pew near the front, were consumed by grief.

It is difficult to understand why these sorts of attacks happen even when the motive is known. Without it, it is even more confounding. A few hours before the memorial service began, Kasselia had been sitting in a pew in his empty church, trying to make sense of it.

“People die, of course. They become sick, they have some accident,” he said. “But this, how can we understand this? To be shot dead in a school. We could not dream of this. We cannot even describe it. Why?”

There was some comfort in hearing from the police that the gunman acted alone, Kasselia said. It left less anxiety of another attack.

“But this man had something in his heart, some kind of hate, that he gathered from somewhere,” the priest said. “We cannot say there are not others.”

A video claiming that USAID, the US government’s main overseas aid agency, has paid Hollywood celebrities millions of dollars to visit Ukraine has gone viral on social media and has been amplified by high-profile accounts like Elon Musk.

However, the clip is not real and has hallmarks of a Russian disinformation operation that the BBC has previously investigated.

BBC Verify’s Olga Robinson explains why.

Finding and fighting the militants who have become the beating heart of the Islamic State (IS) group in Africa can be tough work as they hide deep in the mountains of north-eastern Somalia.

But in typical Donald Trump style, after the new US president ordered an airstrike on the area last weekend, he posted on social media: “WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!”

Trump said the hit, less than two weeks into his term, had targeted a senior IS attack planner and other militants in Somalia’s semi-autonomous region of Puntland and had “destroyed the caves they live in, and killed many terrorists without, in any way, harming civilians”.

He boasted that he had succeeded where former US President Joe Biden had failed.

“Biden and his cronies wouldn’t act quickly enough to get the job done. I did!”

The fact that Somalia was the target of America’s first major military operation under the new administration surprised many in the country who feared the US was planning to abandon them.

In his first term, Trump withdrew about 700 American troops, a decision reversed by his successor.

The $600,000 (£492,000) a year deal the Somalia government recently signed with top Washington lobbying firm, the BGR Group, is an indication of how worried it is.

Under Biden, US troops in Somalia were carrying out special operations, training an elite Somali force and conducting regular airstrikes.

A day before the airstrike, the Washington Post published an interview with Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in which he pleaded for the US “not to pull out the American advisers and consultants who are supporting the training of our special forces”.

A post on X from his office after the strike also had a touch of desperation about it, acknowledging “the unwavering support of the United States in the fight against international terrorism” and welcoming “the continued commitment under the decisive leadership of President Donald Trump”.

But airstrikes are different from troops on the ground and Trump did not stop aerial bombardments in his first term. In fact, he increased them to nearly 400.

“The strike does not mean that the US government is going to step up its military engagement in Somalia,” says Matt Bryden, the strategic adviser of Nairobi-based Sahan Research.

“Several American officials expected to assume leadership positions on African affairs no longer perceive Somalia’s federal government to be a credible partner and are deeply critical of the high levels of security assistance provided in recent years to very little appreciable effect.”

Puntland’s counter-terrorism approach is different from that of the national Somali government, with which it cut ties in March last year.

It is more self-reliant and not as heavily dependent on support from African Union troops – of which around 12,000 are on the ground – and global powers including the US and Turkey.

As Mohamed Mubarak, head of Puntland’s security co-ordination office, points out it is troops from the north-east that have been battling IS for years with little help or thanks from others.

“It is not fair to put the airstrike front and centre while we have been fighting and dying on the ground,” Mr Mubarak says.

“Regardless of what the rest of the world is doing, we are fighting IS, which is an international problem,” he says.

“We have not seen much support except from Kenya, Ethiopia and the UAE. We don’t know if the Americans will conduct more than one airstrike.”

Puntland says its forces have captured 48 caves and IS outposts – and destroyed dozens of drones and explosive devices – since launching its full-scale “hilaac” or “lightning” offensive last year.

Although IS has been active in Somalia for about a decade, it has posed less of a threat than the Islamist group al-Shabab, which controls large parts of the country and has been described as al-Qaeda’s most successful affiliate.

However, in recent times, IS has become more significant – locally, regionally and internationally.

The authorities in Puntland and unnamed US officials say IS-Somalia’s leader, the orange-bearded, bespectacled Abdulqadir Mumin, is now the global head of IS.

Initial reports suggested he had been killed in a US airstrike last May but have never been confirmed.

Whether or not Mumin is the head of IS or is alive or dead, IS-Somalia has become increasingly worrying for foreign states.

As Trump said: “These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States and our allies.”

According to Tricia Bacon, director of the policy anti-terrorism hub at American University in Washington DC, “IS-Somalia has taken on more responsibilities within the Islamic State network, particularly in Africa but beyond the continent as well”.

With branches of IS operating across the continent, from Mozambique to Mali, from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Nigeria, IS-Somalia serves as a crucial nerve centre.

Ms Bacon warns that IS-Somalia is looking beyond Africa too.

“It is positioned to facilitate and contribute to IS attacks in the West, including the United States. It also seeks to inspire attacks in the West,” she says.

“International partners should provide more support to Puntland’s ongoing efforts against the group.”

Mr Bryden says collusion with Iranian-backed Houthi rebels across the Red Sea in Yemen is also an issue.

“Like al-Shabab, IS-Somalia has received arms and training from the Houthis in Yemen, which is a source of concern for the US government and its allies,” he says.

A growing number of foreign fighters are joining the group, enhancing its strength in terms of numbers and expertise.

A major source of IS-Somalia recruits are thought to be Ethiopian migrants, who gather in Puntland’s port city of Bosaso in the hope of a sea crossing to a better life abroad.

IS offers them better pay than they would earn in the Gulf states and experts say that some of the group’s senior commanders are Ethiopian.

“We assess that IS-Somalia is 80% or more foreign fighters, mostly from North Africa, Ethiopia, Tanzania and the Middle East, in that order,” says Mr Mubarak.

He estimates the group is about 1,000-strong; UN monitors put it at around 600 to 700.

Last October, the head of the US Africa Command, Michael Langley, said he thought IS had grown in northern Somalia by about “two-fold” in a year.

The group staged one of its most sophisticated ever attacks in December, hitting a military base in Puntland’s Bari region.

The group released a statement saying not a single Somali was involved. The 12 attackers came from seven countries – Tanzania, Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen and Ethiopia.

The movement has also become more effective at raising money.

The US, UN and Somalia experts say a key part of IS’s financial infrastructure – the al-Karrar office – is based in Puntland, disbursing funds and expertise to other branches of the group in Africa and beyond.

The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said IS-Somalia had raised nearly $2m in the first half of 2022 by taxing local businesses, imports, nomads and farmers.

If Puntland’s forces are to succeed in driving out the militants, air support will prove invaluable.

Shortly after the US strike, Puntland police said the head of IS-Somalia’s assassination squad, Abdirahman Shirwa Aw-Said, had surrendered.

But experts say such strikes will need to be consistent to hunt down existing IS cells in Somalia and stop others mushrooming.

It is unclear whether the US and its unpredictable leader have the appetite to keep bombing Somalia’s north-eastern mountains.

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• A quick guide to Somalia

On 26 January, thousands of displaced Lebanese, who had been living across the country, tried to return to their homes in southern Lebanon.

They travelled in convoys, played revolutionary songs and waved, proudly, the yellow Hezbollah flag. Many found out that, aer more than a year of war, there were no homes to return to. They mourned what had been lost and, in the rubble of destroyed buildings, put up posters remembering the group’s late leader, Hassan Nasrallah.

The date marked the end of a deadline for the withdrawal of Israeli troops, part of a ceasefire brokered by the US and France, that required Hezbollah to remove its weapons and fighters from the south. The deal would also see the deployment of thousands of Lebanese soldiers in the area. But Israel said Lebanon had not fully implemented the deal and, as a result, not all invading forces pulled out. Lebanon also accused Israel of procrastination.

Unsurprisingly, there was violence. In some areas, Israeli soldiers opened fire and 24 people, including a Lebanese soldier, were killed. Still, for Hezbollah, which has been the dominant force in southern Lebanon for decades, the occasion was an opportunity to project strength, after being battered in the conflict with Israel. But can the group survive a wave of changes in Lebanon, and the re-shaping of power in the Middle East?

Over the years, Hezbollah, the Shia Muslim militia, political and social movement, cemented its position as Lebanon’s most powerful group. Backed by Iran, it built a military force more formidable than the Lebanese army. The use of violence was always an option. A strong parliamentary bloc meant that no major decision was possible without its consent while Lebanon’s fractured political system gave it representation in the government. In short, Hezbollah had the ability to paralyse the state – and many times did so.

The latest conflict started in October 2023, when Hezbollah opened a second front against Israel as Israel launched a war in Gaza in response to the Hamas attacks. The hostilities escalated dramatically last September, as Israel had penetrated the group in ways then unimaginable. First, pagers carried by its members exploded. Then their walkie-talkies. An unrelenting air campaign and subsequent invasion of the south killed more than 4,000 people including many civilians, left areas with a significant presence of Shia Muslims – which form the bulk of Hezbollah’s support – in ruins, and severely damaged the group’s arsenal.

Many of its leaders were assassinated, most notably Nasrallah, who had been Hezbollah’s face for more than three decades. His successor, former number two Naim Qassem, who is not as charismatic or influential, has admitted they suffered painful losses. The ceasefire deal that came into force in November was essentially a surrender by the group, which is considered a terrorist organisation by the US, the UK and others.

In this new reality, last month, Lebanon’s parliament finally elected a new president – former army chief Joseph Aoun, who was favoured by the Americans – after more than two years of impasse that critics attributed to Hezbollah. Weakened, the group could not block the process as it had done in the past.

In another sign of its diminished position, Aoun then named as prime minister Nawaf Salam, who was serving as president of the International Court of Justice, and someone not aligned with the group.

Hezbollah, for now, seems to be focused on another priority: its base. The group has told its followers that the loss in the war is a victory, but many know the truth is different. Their communities are destroyed, and the damage to buildings is estimated to be over $3bn (£2.4bn), according to the World Bank.

In a country with a collapsed economy, no one knows who will help – if anyone, as international assistance has been conditioned on the government taking measures that would curb Hezbollah’s power. The group has paid compensation to some families, as it did after the 2006 war, but there are already indications of discontent.

“If people are still living in tents in six months’ time, or on the rubble of their homes, they may start to blame Hezbollah rather than the government or Israel. This is why they’re investing so much effort now to try to pre-empt that,” says Nicholas Blanford, a Beirut-based non-resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programmes and the author of Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah’s Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel. “In the current context, you can push back a little bit against Hezbollah.”

But any action against Hezbollah comes with risks.

On 26 January, hours after people tried to return to the south, young men on motorbikes drove through non-Shia areas of Beirut and other places at night, honking and carrying Hezbollah flags. Residents in some areas confronted them. In a country where sectarian divisions run deep and many still remember the days of the 1975-1990 civil war, the convoys were seen as an intimidation tactic.

Mr Blanford said Hezbollah had “the implicit threat of violence” because of its military arm. “If you push them too hard,” he said, “they will slap you back very hard”. A Western diplomatic official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss private talks, told me: “We’ve been telling players here [the opposition] and in other countries: if you corner Hezbollah, it will probably backfire, and the risk of violence is a real possibility.”

Still, a new chapter has been opened in Lebanon, a country exhausted by pervasive corruption, government mismanagement and seemingly endless violence. It is a combination that has resulted in a dysfunctional state.

Addressing the Lebanese parliament in his inaugural speech, Aoun promised ambitious and long-delayed reforms with the knowledge that, without profound changes, Lebanon cannot be rescued. He vowed to rebuild public institutions, revive the economy, and, crucially, make the Lebanese army the sole carrier of weapons in the country. Aoun did not mention Hezbollah by name, but this is what he meant. The chamber enthusiastically applauded him; Hezbollah parliamentarians observed in silence.

But the decision about Hezbollah’s existence as a military power will probably be made far from Lebanon – in Iran. For decades, Tehran invested with weapons and money in a regional alliance it calls the Axis of Resistance, which constituted a ring of fire around Israel. Hezbollah was its main player. With thousands of well-trained, battle-hardened fighters and a vast arsenal that included long-range precision-guided missiles on Israel’s doorstep, the group acted as a deterrent against an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

This deterrence, for now, is gone – and rebuilding it, if that is Iran’s wish, will not be easy.

The fall of the Assad regime in Syria in December – in part because of Hezbollah’s setbacks – has interrupted the land corridor Tehran used to arm and fund the group. Israel, which has gathered extensive intelligence about Hezbollah, says it will continue to carry out attacks on the group to prevent its attempts to rearm.

Mr Blanford told me that “only Iran can really answer fundamental questions” about Hezbollah. “There is a possibility where either Iran or they [Hezbollah] decide to try to think differently, to disarm or become only a political party and social movement,” he said. “[But] this [ultimately] is Iran’s decision, out of the hands of Hezbollah.”

I asked a source familiar with Hezbollah’s internal affairs whether it was realistic to talk about the group’s disarmament. The issue, the source said, could be part of a “bigger, regional negotiation”, in what appeared to be a reference to indications by Iran that it is willing to reach an agreement with the West over its nuclear programme. “And there’s a difference between giving up weapons entirely or working under a framework with the state about their use, which is another possibility,” the source added.

Lebanon’s new leaders are under pressure to act quickly. Foreign allies see the reshaped balance of power in the Middle East as a chance to weaken Iran’s reach even further while the Lebanese are anxious for some stability and to have a sense that the rules apply to everyone. People here dislike when they are described as “resilient”, given their ability to carry on amid the chaos. “All we want is to live in a ‘normal country’,” I heard from a frustrated resident in a mainly Christian area of Beirut last year. It is also the case that after so much suffering, even Hezbollah’s supporters may be questioning what role the group should play.

Hezbollah is unlikely to return to what it was before the war. Disarming may not be as unthinkable as it once was.

“We’ve put all our mattresses in the living room,” says Georgia Nomikou.

The Santorini resident fears the impact of ongoing earthquakes on the Greek island, popular with tourists for its picture-postcard views.

But the idyll has been disrupted this past week by thousands of earthquakes.

Santorini, and other Greek islands in the region, are in the middle of an “unprecedented” seismic swarm or crisis – the name for an abrupt increase in earthquakes in a particular area.

About three-quarters of the island’s 15,000 population have evacuated while authorities declared a state of emergency after a 5.2 magnitude quake, the largest yet, rocked the island on Wednesday.

Further, albeit smaller quakes, were felt again on Thursday.

The “clusters” of quakes have puzzled scientists who say such a pattern is unusual because they have not been linked to a major shock. So what’s going on?

Experts agree the island is experiencing what Greece’s prime minister has called an “extremely and intricate geological phenomenon”.

“It is really unprecedented, we have never seen something like this before in [modern times] in Greece,” says Dr Athanassios Ganas, research director of the National Observatory of Athens.

Santorini lies on the Hellenic Volcanic Arc – a chain of islands created by volcanoes.

But it has not seen a major eruption in recent times, in fact not since the 1950s, so the reason for the current crisis is unclear.

Experts say they’re seeing many earthquakes within a relatively small area, which don’t fit the pattern of a mainshock-aftershock sequence, says Dr Ganas.

He said this began with the awakening of a volcano on Santorini last summer. Then in January there was a “surge” of seismic activity with smaller earthquakes being recorded.

That activity has escalated in the past week.

Thousands of earthquakes have been recorded since Sunday, with Wednesday’s the most significant yet.

“We are in the middle of a seismic crisis,” Dr Gasnas said.

Dr Margarita Segou from the British Geological Survey described the quakes as happening every day “in pulses”.

She says this “swarm-like behaviour” means that when a more significant earthquake strikes, for example a magnitude four, the “seismicity is increased for one to two hours, and then the system relaxes again”.

In short, it is impossible to tell. There are hopes that Wednesday’s quake, which struck at night, will be the biggest one to hit the island.

But seismologists have told the BBC it is difficult to be sure. Authorities have warned the activity could go on for weeks.

Experts also do not know whether this chain of quakes are foreshocks leading up to a large earthquake or their own event.

Professor Joanna Faure Walker, an earthquake geology expert at UCL’s Institute of Disaster Risk Reduction, said some large earthquakes do experience foreshocks – elevated levels of small to moderate seismic events – before the main shock.

But what is happening now are not volcanic earthquakes, say Dr Ganas. Volcanic earthquakes have a characteristic signature of low frequency wave forms and these have not been exhibited here.

Dr Segou told the BBC she and colleagues had analysed previous earthquakes in the region with machine learning – a data analysis method able to make predictions – to learn how earthquakes in the region in 2002 and 2004 came to an end.

The magnitude of those earthquakes were not as intense as the ones felt now she said. But the “signatures” of how they started and ended could help build a picture of what patterns to look out for.

Meanwhile, additional police units and military forces have been deployed to the island to help it cope with any major earthquake.

Ms Nomikou, who is president of Santorini’s town council, said her family were staying put but had each packed a small bag, “ready to go if anything happens”.

But some islanders say they are not fazed by the tremors.

“I’m not afraid at all,” says one Santorini resident, who decided to stay put on the volcanic island despite thousands of her neighbours fleeing amid the ongoing earthquakes.

Chantal Metakides insists that she would not be joining her compatriots. “For 500 years, this house has lived through earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and it’s still standing,” she told AFP news agency, adding, “there’s no reason why this should change”.

Colomiers in south-west France is modern, spread out – and not very attractive.

Young couples came here from the nearby city of Toulouse to have children because property prices are far cheaper. It grew rapidly and now has a population of 40,000.

However, fertility rates have recently declined across France, and Colomiers has seen one of the biggest falls – 31% since 2018.

France used to stand out from its European neighbours for the high number of children born per woman during her child-bearing years.

Its fertility rate still remains above the European average, but it is falling sharply.

The number of births in France in 2024 was the lowest since 1919.

In January last year, President Emmanuel Macron called for a “demographic rearmament” with new reforms making it easier for people to have children.

These included increasing the financial aid both parents receive while they look after their newborn babies, for up to six months.

But it may take years for the policies to have an impact on France’s demographic decline – especially as there have been four different governments in little over a year and the reforms have not yet come into law.

In a midwife’s office in Colomiers, Laurence Loiseau is weighing three-week-old Léonie – Caroline and Teddy Rivat’s second child.

The couple don’t know whether they will have any more children, but already they are well above the average for the Occitanie region, where the fertility rate stands at 1.53 compared with the national 1.62.

Laurence Loiseau has been a midwife here for 30 years and has noticed a change in mindset. Hardly any of her 32-year-old daughter’s friends have children, she says.

“They will try later in life but that means they will have more difficulty getting pregnant – and by the time they reach 40 it will be very difficult to have a second child.”

Ms Loiseau adds she still sees families with three or four children, but that these usually come from poorer or immigrant backgrounds.

Raising children in France is expensive.

The last official government statistics a decade ago put the cost at about €6,800 (£5,700) a year to raise a child. Using those figures and including inflation, French economists say the figure now is close to €9,000 a year.

Margaux Biscaye – also a midwife in Colomiers – meets a lot of young women who come to see her for contraceptive advice.

She says that for an increasing number of young women between the ages of 20 and 30 having children is not a priority.

Some simply don’t want any, says Ms Biscaye: “Often because of the world we live in right now. It’s not a very optimistic period. Maybe they will change their mind but maybe not.”

Paola Godard, who is 27 and works in the music industry, is adamant she will not have children of her own, though she might consider adoption.

Although financially she would be able to raise children, she does not think she could provide them with a safe future, she says.

She is worried by the rise of far right and by the potential impact of climate change in 20 years’ time.

The Occitanie region is witnessing the second-fastest fall in the fertility rate across France.

Only Corsica is higher, because so many young people leave the island for job opportunities on the mainland.

Catherine Sourd from the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee) told the BBC the birth rate in Occitanie fell by 8.5% in 2023, compared with 6.5% nationally.

Ms Sourd says the fall is even steeper among women aged between 24 and 35, who are usually the most fertile.

Women are delaying having their first child compared with previous generations and settling into long-term relationships later in life, she says.

At the same time, the current economic uncertainty is weighing on young people’s minds.

The same uncertainty during the financial crisis in 2008 also had a big impact on fertility in France and across Western Europe, with a sharp downward blip in births back then too, Ms Sourd says.

In Colomiers the number of primary school kids has fallen by 10% in the past seven years.

Xavier Vuiller works in educational management at the Victor Hugo secondary school. He and his Spanish wife, Noelia, have just one child, 12-year-old Paolo – and that won’t change.

“My wife was very keen to pursue a personal career… so that she would have the same opportunities as I would have as a man. So we took the time to have a child and just one,” Xavier says.

He adds that the falling pupils numbers will be felt in his own school in a few years’ time as the dwindling number of primary school children move up to secondary schools.

The picture is similar further into the French countryside too, where fertility rates used to be higher. That’s no longer the case either, according to government statistics.

In the cosy village of Gratens, south of Colomiers, Farid Achezegag, a sculptor, lives with his partner Marion Savy, a teacher, their 10-year-old daughter Maelle and a very large ginger cat.

Farid and Marion agreed to have just one child.

“It’s the model I am used to – and I was quite happy as a single child,” Marion says.

“I love my work and when I thought about becoming a mother I wanted to also have time for me. I am not selfish – I wanted to offer my child essential time just for her and still have my woman’s life.”

Farid’s parents were Algerian immigrants. They had four children, but he does not want to go down the same path.

“Like Marion I was set on having one child,” he said. “Your relationship with children in a big family is not the same.”

Sweden’s government has announced plans to tighten its gun laws, days after the worst mass shooting in the country’s history.

A gunman, who killed 10 people and himself at an adult education centre in Orebro on Tuesday, had four legally-owned rifles – three of which were found at the school, police said.

Sweden’s centre-right coalition said it would seek to increase vetting for gun licenses and restrict access to semi-automatic weapons.

“There are certain types of weapons that are so dangerous that they should only be possessed for civilian purposes as an exception,” the government said.

• Mass shooting leaves immigrant community on edge
• Syrians and Bosnian among victims of gunman’s attack

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, on a visit to Latvia, told reporters: “We have to ensure that only the right people have guns in Sweden.”

The Sweden Democrats said that it agreed with proposals to amend the law, including greater restrictions on access to semi-automatic weapons.

“The horrific act of violence in Orebro raises several key questions about gun legislation,” the party said in a statement.

The AR-15, a particular style of semi-automatic rifle that is both powerful and can carry large magazines, was singled out by the government as an example of weapons that could be restricted.

Police have not said exactly which weapons were used in the attack, but the AR-15 has been used in many mass shootings in the US.

They confirmed that several long rifles were found at the site of the attack in Orebro, along with 10 empty magazines.

Under current Swedish gun laws, anyone over 18 who does not have a criminal record can apply for a permit for a shotgun, handgun or semi-automatic rifle.

They must justify to the police why they need a gun. People over 20 can apply for a special dispensation to own a fully automatic weapon.

Around 580,000 Swedes have a weapons license out of a population of around 10.5 million, according to figures from Swedish broadcaster SVT.

A 2017 Swiss study found there were about 2.3 million guns held by civilians in Sweden. That is around 23 guns per 100 people, compared to 29 in Norway and 120 per 100 in the US.

To obtain a hunting license in Sweden, a theory and practical test is required. About 280,000 Swedes have one.

Police have yet to publicly identify the victims of the attack in Orebro, or declare a motive for the attack, but said they hoped to conclude the identification process and make an announcement on Friday.

Among the dead, according to family and community members, were Syrians who fled the war there as refugees, as well as one Bosnian.

Swedish police are usually cautious about naming suspects during an investigation, but the absence of official information has contributed to a feeling of fear and uncertainty among Orebro’s immigrant communities over the past few days.

“We need more information,” said Nour Afram, 36, who was inside the Risbergska school when the attack began.

“We don’t know why he did it, why did he target this school? Was he sick or was it something else?” she said.

Afram was waiting to go into class when she heard people screaming that there was a shooter.

“We started to run and then I heard the gunshots,” she said. “One at first, then tak tak tak – maybe ten shots. I was so scared I felt like my heart stopped in my chest.”

Sweden has a relatively high level of gun ownership and gun crime, by European standards, though most weapons are legally owned and used for hunting.

Gun crime is mostly associated with gangs, who have also taken to using bombs to target one another.

Non gang-related gun crime is less common, and Tuesday’s attack the nation’s first school shooting and its worst mass shooting. A total of four people were killed in two separate school stabbings in 2015 and 2022.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has vowed to continue its judicial work after US President Donald Trump signed an order to impose sanctions on its staff.

The ICC said it “stands firmly” by its personnel and the order seeks to harm its “independent and impartial” work.

Trump’s order accuses it of “illegitimate and baseless actions”, after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza, which Israel denies. The ICC also issued a warrant for a Hamas commander.

The ICC is a global court, although the US and Israel are not members, with the power to bring prosecutions for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

In its statement, it said: “The ICC condemns the issuance by the US of an executive order seeking to impose sanctions on its officials and harm its independent and impartial judicial work.”

It added it stood by its personnel, pledging “to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world”.

In recent years, the court has issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin over alleged war crimes in Ukraine, Taliban leaders for “persecuting Afghan girls and women” and Myanmar’s military leader for crimes against the Rohingya Muslims.

More than 120 countries are members, including the UK and many European nations.

• International Criminal Court: What is the ICC and what does it do?

Judges at the court have said there are “reasonable grounds” to suggest Netanyahu, his former defence minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas’ Mohammed Deif – who died last year – bear “criminal responsibility for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity”.

But a White House memo circulated on Thursday accused the Hague-based ICC of creating a “shameful moral equivalency” between Hamas and Israel by issuing the warrants at the same time.

Trump’s executive order said the ICC’s recent actions “set a dangerous precedent” that endangered Americans by exposing them to “harassment, abuse and possible arrest”.

The order adds it “threatens to infringe upon the sovereignty of the United States” and “undermines” the national security and foreign policy work of the US and allies.

The sanctions, announced while Netanyahu was in the US, place financial and visa restrictions on individuals and their families who assist in ICC investigations of American citizens or allies.

The move has been met with condemnation by many US allies, including the Netherlands and Germany.

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the UK supported the independence of the ICC.

The United Nations (UN) has called for the measure to be reversed, while Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said on X that the ICC “must be able to freely pursue the fight against global impunity”.

But in a post on X on Friday, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said he “strongly” commended Trump’s executive order.

He claimed the ICC’s actions were “immoral and have no legal basis”, accusing the court of not operating “in accordance with international law”.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Facebook on Friday that Trump’s decision was “absolutely understandable”, alleging the ICC had “in recent times disguised itself as a biased political tool”.

Hungary’s government has received widespread criticism for retaining close ties to the Kremlin following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and has invited Netanyahu to visit despite the international arrest warrant.

A former clerk to the court’s first chief prosecutor warned the sanctions could have “a profound practical impact” on its operations.

“The sanctions… do have the potential of freezing property and assets, as well as suspending entry into the United States of ICC officials and their immediate family members,” Zachary Kaufman told the BBC World Service.

The US has repeatedly rejected any jurisdiction by the body over American officials or citizens, and has accused the ICC of placing constraints on Israel’s right to self-defence, while ignoring Iran and anti-Israel groups.

During his first term in office, Trump imposed sanctions on ICC officials who were investigating whether US forces had committed war crimes in Afghanistan.

This included a travel ban and asset freezes against former chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda.

Those sanctions were lifted by President Joe Biden’s administration.

Last month, the US House of Representatives voted to sanction the ICC, but the bill foundered in the Senate.

In response to efforts to what they described as attempts to challenge the ICC’s authority, nine nations – including South Africa and Malaysia – launched the ‘Hague Group’ last month in an effort to defend the court and its rulings.

During his last weeks in office, President Biden also criticised the ICC’s warrant for Netanyahu, calling the move “outrageous” and saying there was no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.

Trump’s executive order, meanwhile, said that “both nations [the US and Israel] are thriving democracies with militaries that strictly adhere to the laws of war”.

The ICC prosecutor’s case against Netanyahu and Gallant found reasonable grounds to believe that they “each bear criminal responsibility for the following crimes as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts”.

It also found reasonable grounds to believe that “each bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population”.

Trump’s signing of his latest executive order follows his announcement during a joint press conference with the Israeli prime minister on Tuesday about a plan for the US to “take over” Gaza, resettle its Palestinian population and turn the territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

After Arab leaders and the UN condemned the idea, the US president restated it on his Truth Social social media platform on Thursday.

Follow the twists and turns of Trump’s second presidential term with North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher’s weekly US Politics Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

The tall, shiny buildings which rise out of the cornfields on the Myanmar side of the Moei river are a sight so jarring you find yourself blinking to be sure you haven’t imagined it.

Eight years ago there was nothing over there in Karen State. Just trees, a few roughly built cement buildings, and a long-running civil war which has left this area of Myanmar one of the poorest places on earth. But today, on this spot along the border with Thailand, a small city has emerged like a mirage. It is called Shwe Kokko, or Golden Raintree.

It is accused of being a city built on scams, home to a lucrative yet deadly nexus of fraud, money-laundering and human trafficking. The man behind it, She Zhijiang, is languishing in a Bangkok jail, awaiting extradition to China.

But Yatai, She Zhijiang’s company which built the city, paints a very different vision of Shwe Kokko in its promotional videos – as a resort city, a safe holiday destination for Chinese tourists and haven for the super-rich.

The story of Shwe Kokko is also one of the unbridled ambition which has rippled out of China in the last two decades.

She Zhijiang dreamed of building this glittering city as his ticket out of the shadowy world of scams and gambling which he inhabited.

But by aiming so high he has drawn the attention of Beijing, which is now keen to stamp out the fraud operations along the Thai-Myanmar border which are increasingly targeting Chinese people.

Publicity about the scams is also hurting Thai tourism – Thailand is shutting down power to compounds over the border, toughening its banking rules and promising to block visas for those suspected of using Thailand as a transit route.

Shwe Kokko has been left marooned in post-coup, war-wracked Myanmar, unable to bring in the flow of investment and visitors it needs to keep going.

Yatai is trying to fix the city’s sinister image by allowing journalists to see it, holding out hope that more favourable reporting might even get She Zhijiang out of jail.

So they invited the BBC to Shwe Kokko.

Getting there is tricky.

Ever since construction began in 2017, Shwe Kokko has been a forbidden place, off-limits to casual visitors.

As the civil war in Myanmar escalated after the 2021 military coup, access became even more difficult. It takes three days from the country’s commercial hub Yangon – through multiple checkpoints, blocked roads and a real risk of getting caught in armed skirmishes. Crossing from Thailand takes just a few minutes, but requires careful planning to avoid Thai police and army patrols.

She Zhijiang’s colleagues took us on a tour, highlighting the newly paved streets, the luxury villas, the trees – “Mr She believes in making a green city,” they told us. Our guide was Wang Fugui, who said he was a former police officer from Guangxi in southern China. He ended up in prison in Thailand, on what he insists were trumped-up fraud charges. There he got to know She Zhijiang and became one of his most trusted lieutenants.

At first glance, Shwe Kokko has the appearance of a provincial Chinese city. The signs on the buildings are written in Chinese characters, and there is a constant procession of Chinese-made construction vehicles going to and from building sites.

Yatai is vague about the tenants of all its buildings, as it is about many things. “Rich people, from many countries, they rent the villas,” they told us. And what about the businesses? “Many businesses. Hotels, casinos.”

However, most of the people we saw were local Karen, one of Myanmar’s ethnic minorities, who come into Shwe Kokko every day to work. We saw very few of the overseas visitors who are supposed to be the customers of the hotels and casinos.

Yatai says there are no more scams in Shwe Kokko. It has put up huge billboards all over town proclaiming, in Chinese, Burmese and English, that forced labour was not allowed, and that “online businesses” should leave. But we were quietly told by local people that the scam business was still running.

Starting a decade ago in the unchecked frenzy of Chinese investment on the Cambodian coast, then moving to the lawless badlands of Myanmar’s border with China, the scam operators have now settled along the Thai-Myanmar border. Around them, the Myanmar military and a hotch-potch of rebel armies and warlords are fighting for control of Karen State.

The scams have grown into a multi-billion dollar business. They involve thousands of workers from China, South East Asia, Africa and the Indian subcontinent kept in walled-off compounds where they defraud people all over the world of their savings.

Some work there willingly, but others are abducted and forced to work. Those who have escaped have told harrowing stories of torture and beatings. Some have come from Shwe Kokko.

We were able to speak to a young woman who had been working in one of the scam centres a couple of weeks before our visit. She had not enjoyed it and been allowed to leave.

Her job, she said, was as part of the modelling team, made up mostly of attractive young women, who contact potential victims and try to build an intimate online relationship with them.

“The target is the elderly,” she said. “You start a conversation like ‘oh you look just like one of my friends’. Once you make friends you encourage them by sending pictures of yourself, sometimes wearing your night clothes.”

Then, she explains, the conversation moves to get-rich-quick schemes, such as crypto investments, with the women claiming that’s how they made a lot of money.

“When they feel close to you, you pass them on to the chatting section,” she says. “The chatting people will continue messaging with the client, persuading them to buy shares in the crypto company.”

During our brief time in Shwe Kokko we were only allowed to see what Yatai wanted us to see. Even so, it was evident that the scams have not stopped, and are probably still the main business in the city.

Our request to see inside any of the newly built office buildings was turned down. Those are private, they kept telling us. We were escorted at all times by security guards seconded from the militia group which controls this part of the border.

We were allowed to film the construction work, and the outsides of the buildings, but not to enter them. Many of the windows had bars on the insides.

“Everybody in Shwe Kokko knows what goes on there,” said the young woman who used to work in a scam centre.

She dismissed Yatai’s claim that it no longer permitted scam centres in Shwe Kokko.

“That is a lie. There is no way they don’t know about this. The whole city is doing it in those high-rise buildings. No-one goes there for fun. There is no way Yatai doesn’t know.”

“I can promise that Yatai would never accept telecom fraud and scams,” said She Zhijiang on a call from Bangkok’s Remand Prison, where he is being held.

Yatai wanted us to hear from the man himself, and hooked up a ropey video link. Only Mr Wang could be seen talking to him; we had to stay out of view of the prison guards, and had to rely on Mr Wang to put our questions to him.

Not much is known about She Zhijiang, a small-town Chinese entrepreneur who Beijing alleges is a criminal mastermind.

Born in a poor village in Hunan province in China in 1982, he left school at 14 and learned computer coding. He appears to have moved to the Philippines in his early 20s and into online gambling, which is illegal in China.

This is where he started to make his money. In 2014 he was convicted by a Chinese court of running an illegal lottery, but he stayed overseas.

He invested in gambling businesses in Cambodia, and managed to get Cambodian citizenship. He has used at least four different names.

In 2016, he struck a deal with a Karen warlord, Saw Chit Thu, to build a new city together. She Zhijiang would provide the funds, the Chinese construction machinery and materials, while Saw Chit Thu and his 8,000 armed fighters would keep it safe.

Glitzy videos by Yatai promised a $15bn (£12.1bn) investment and depicted a high-rise wonderland of hotels, casinos and cyberparks. Shwe Kokko was described as part of Xi Jinping’s Belt-and-Road Initiative or BRI, bringing Chinese funds and infrastructure to the world.

China publicly dissociated itself from She Zhijiang in 2020, and the Myanmar government launched an investigation into Yatai, which was building far beyond the 59 villas authorised by its investment permit and was operating casinos before these had been legalised in Myanmar.

In August 2022, acting on a Chinese request to Interpol, She Zhijiang was arrested and imprisoned in Bangkok. He and his business partner Saw Chit Thu have also been sanctioned by the British government for their links to human trafficking.

She Zhijiang claims to be a victim of double dealing by the Chinese state. He says he founded his company Yatai on the instruction of the Chinese Ministry of State Security, and insists that Shwe Kokko was then a part of the BRI.

He accuses China’s communist leadership of turning on him because he refused to give them control of his project. They wanted a colony on the Thai-Myanmar border, he says. China has denied any business relationship with She Zhijiang.

While he denied any wrongdoing on Yatai’s part, She Zhijiang, however, admitted to “a high probability” that scammers were coming to Shwe Kokko to spend their money.

“Because our Yatai City is completely open to anyone who can go in and out freely. Refusing customers, for a businessman like me, is really difficult. This is my weakness.”

It is, however, stretching credulity to believe that Yatai, which runs everything in Shwe Kokko, was unable to stop scammers coming in and out of the city.

It is also hard to think of any business other than scams which would choose to operate here.

With Thailand cutting off power and telecommunications, electricity comes from diesel generators, which are expensive to run. And communications go through Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite system, which is also very costly.

Yatai’s strategy is “to whitewash the project to create a narrative that Shwe Kokko is a safe city”, says Jason Tower, from the United States Institute for Peace, which has spent years researching the scam operation in Shwe Kokko.

He says they may even “begin moving some of the more notorious components of the scam industry, like torture, into other zones”.

But he doesn’t think the plan will work: “What kinds of legitimate businesses will go into Shwe Kokko? It’s simply not attractive. The economy will continue to be a scam economy.”

When we were eventually allowed to see inside one casino in Shwe Kokko, run by a genial Australian, he told us they were going to close it down.

Inside the only customers were local Karen, gambling on a popular arcade-like game where they had to shoot digital fish. We were forbidden from doing any interviews. The back rooms, with the card and roulette tables, were empty.

The Australian manager said the casino – built six years ago – had been popular and profitable when there were just one or two of them, before the civil war. But these days, with at least nine in operation, there were not enough customers to go around.

The real money was in online gambling, which he said was the main business in Shwe Kokko.

It is impossible to know how much money is made through online gambling, and how much through outright criminal activities like money laundering and scams. They are usually run from the same compounds and by the same teams. When we asked Yatai how much money they made they would not tell us – not even a ballpark figure. That is private, they said.

The company is registered in Hong Kong, Myanmar and Thailand, but these are little more than shell companies, with very little income or revenue passing through them.

We turned down Yatai’s offer to see the go-kart track, water park and model farm that they have built. We did glimpse one other casino, while being taken to eat breakfast in Yatai’s own luxury hotel, though we could not go inside it. It seemed empty.

The only other facility we were allowed to see was a karaoke club, with spectacular private rooms, cavernous domes entirely covered in digital screens on which huge tropical fish and sharks swam.

They also ran video loops extolling the vision and virtues of She Zhijiang. This club too seemed deserted, except for some young Chinese women who worked there.

They wore opera masks to avoid being identified, and danced unenthusiastically to music for a few minutes before giving up and sitting down.

Interviews were not permitted. We were allowed to talk to a local Karen member of staff, but she was so intimidated by this we got little more than her name.

In his absence, She Zhijiang has left the running of Shwe Kokko to a young protégé, 31-year-old He Yingxiong. He lives with Wang Fugui in a sprawling villa they have built on the banks of the Moei River, overlooking Thailand, and guarded by massive Chinese bodyguards. There they play mahjong, eat the finest food and drink, and keep an eye on business.

Mr He has a slightly different explanation from his boss for the scams still operating under their noses. “We are just property developers,” he said. “I can guarantee that this kind of thing does not happen here.

“But even if it does, the local people have their own legal system, so it is their job to deal with it. Our job is just to provide good infrastructure, good buildings and supporting industries.”

But there is no legal system in this part of Myanmar, nor any government. It is ruled by the various armed groups which control different bits of territory along the Thai border.

Their commanders decide who can build or run a business, taking their cut to help fund their wars against the Myanmar military, or against each other. Many of them are known to be hosting scam compounds.

Mr He admitted that it was the war which had allowed Yatai to obtain the land so cheaply. Karen human rights groups have accused Saw Chit Thu of driving the original inhabitants off their land, with minimal compensation, though it is clear Yatai is also providing badly needed jobs for the locals.

It is the lawlessness of Karen State which makes it so appealing to illegal businesses – and that doesn’t help the image of Shwe Kokko.

Neither do recent headlines.

Last month a 22-year-old Chinese actor, Wang Xing, was rescued from a scam centre on the border after being lured to Thailand with an offer of work on a movie shoot. His disappearance spurred a barrage of questions on Chinese social media, forcing the Thai and Chinese authorities to mount a joint operation to free him.

Chinese tourists have been cancelling their holidays in Thailand, fearing for their safety. Other rescues have followed.

The BBC has been sent emails by some scam victims pleading for help; rescue organisations believe there are still thousands trapped. Nearly all are in smaller compounds along the border south of Shwe Kokko.

Yatai stressed to us that they are not the same as these rougher operations, some little more than a collection of sheds built in forest clearings. That is where all the bad things happen now, they said.

They talked about KK Park, a notorious compound south of the border town of Myawaddy, and Dongmei, a cluster of low-rise buildings run by a prominent Chinese crime lord called Wan Kuok Koi, better known as Broken Tooth.

That distinction hasn’t helped She Zhijiang, who once had the ear of politicians, police bosses and even minor royalty in Thailand. Today he appears to have lost even the influence he once had in prison, to buy himself special privileges. He has complained of being roughed up by the guards.

His lawyers are appealing against the Interpol red notice used to justify his arrest, but China’s voice will probably be loudest in determining his fate.

From our interview with him, Shi Zhijiang seemed genuinely outraged over his sudden reversal of fortune.

“Before, I had no understanding of human rights, but now I really understand how horrible it is to have human rights infringed upon,” he said.

“It is hard to imagine how the human rights of ordinary people in China are trampled upon when a respected businessman like me, who used to be able to go to the same state banquets as Xi Jinping, does not have his human rights and dignity protected in any way.”

It seems he really did believe he could build something which would one day transcend Shwe Kokko’s sordid origins as a scam city.

What happens to it now is hard to guess, but if the Thai and Chinese governments keep acting to shut down the scams, the money will start to dry up.

Finding and fighting the militants who have become the beating heart of the Islamic State (IS) group in Africa can be tough work as they hide deep in the mountains of north-eastern Somalia.

But in typical Donald Trump style, after the new US president ordered an airstrike on the area last weekend, he posted on social media: “WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!”

Trump said the hit, less than two weeks into his term, had targeted a senior IS attack planner and other militants in Somalia’s semi-autonomous region of Puntland and had “destroyed the caves they live in, and killed many terrorists without, in any way, harming civilians”.

He boasted that he had succeeded where former US President Joe Biden had failed.

“Biden and his cronies wouldn’t act quickly enough to get the job done. I did!”

The fact that Somalia was the target of America’s first major military operation under the new administration surprised many in the country who feared the US was planning to abandon them.

In his first term, Trump withdrew about 700 American troops, a decision reversed by his successor.

The $600,000 (£492,000) a year deal the Somalia government recently signed with top Washington lobbying firm, the BGR Group, is an indication of how worried it is.

Under Biden, US troops in Somalia were carrying out special operations, training an elite Somali force and conducting regular airstrikes.

A day before the airstrike, the Washington Post published an interview with Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in which he pleaded for the US “not to pull out the American advisers and consultants who are supporting the training of our special forces”.

A post on X from his office after the strike also had a touch of desperation about it, acknowledging “the unwavering support of the United States in the fight against international terrorism” and welcoming “the continued commitment under the decisive leadership of President Donald Trump”.

But airstrikes are different from troops on the ground and Trump did not stop aerial bombardments in his first term. In fact, he increased them to nearly 400.

“The strike does not mean that the US government is going to step up its military engagement in Somalia,” says Matt Bryden, the strategic adviser of Nairobi-based Sahan Research.

“Several American officials expected to assume leadership positions on African affairs no longer perceive Somalia’s federal government to be a credible partner and are deeply critical of the high levels of security assistance provided in recent years to very little appreciable effect.”

Puntland’s counter-terrorism approach is different from that of the national Somali government, with which it cut ties in March last year.

It is more self-reliant and not as heavily dependent on support from African Union troops – of which around 12,000 are on the ground – and global powers including the US and Turkey.

As Mohamed Mubarak, head of Puntland’s security co-ordination office, points out it is troops from the north-east that have been battling IS for years with little help or thanks from others.

“It is not fair to put the airstrike front and centre while we have been fighting and dying on the ground,” Mr Mubarak says.

“Regardless of what the rest of the world is doing, we are fighting IS, which is an international problem,” he says.

“We have not seen much support except from Kenya, Ethiopia and the UAE. We don’t know if the Americans will conduct more than one airstrike.”

Puntland says its forces have captured 48 caves and IS outposts – and destroyed dozens of drones and explosive devices – since launching its full-scale “hilaac” or “lightning” offensive last year.

Although IS has been active in Somalia for about a decade, it has posed less of a threat than the Islamist group al-Shabab, which controls large parts of the country and has been described as al-Qaeda’s most successful affiliate.

However, in recent times, IS has become more significant – locally, regionally and internationally.

The authorities in Puntland and unnamed US officials say IS-Somalia’s leader, the orange-bearded, bespectacled Abdulqadir Mumin, is now the global head of IS.

Initial reports suggested he had been killed in a US airstrike last May but have never been confirmed.

Whether or not Mumin is the head of IS or is alive or dead, IS-Somalia has become increasingly worrying for foreign states.

As Trump said: “These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States and our allies.”

According to Tricia Bacon, director of the policy anti-terrorism hub at American University in Washington DC, “IS-Somalia has taken on more responsibilities within the Islamic State network, particularly in Africa but beyond the continent as well”.

With branches of IS operating across the continent, from Mozambique to Mali, from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Nigeria, IS-Somalia serves as a crucial nerve centre.

Ms Bacon warns that IS-Somalia is looking beyond Africa too.

“It is positioned to facilitate and contribute to IS attacks in the West, including the United States. It also seeks to inspire attacks in the West,” she says.

“International partners should provide more support to Puntland’s ongoing efforts against the group.”

Mr Bryden says collusion with Iranian-backed Houthi rebels across the Red Sea in Yemen is also an issue.

“Like al-Shabab, IS-Somalia has received arms and training from the Houthis in Yemen, which is a source of concern for the US government and its allies,” he says.

A growing number of foreign fighters are joining the group, enhancing its strength in terms of numbers and expertise.

A major source of IS-Somalia recruits are thought to be Ethiopian migrants, who gather in Puntland’s port city of Bosaso in the hope of a sea crossing to a better life abroad.

IS offers them better pay than they would earn in the Gulf states and experts say that some of the group’s senior commanders are Ethiopian.

“We assess that IS-Somalia is 80% or more foreign fighters, mostly from North Africa, Ethiopia, Tanzania and the Middle East, in that order,” says Mr Mubarak.

He estimates the group is about 1,000-strong; UN monitors put it at around 600 to 700.

Last October, the head of the US Africa Command, Michael Langley, said he thought IS had grown in northern Somalia by about “two-fold” in a year.

The group staged one of its most sophisticated ever attacks in December, hitting a military base in Puntland’s Bari region.

The group released a statement saying not a single Somali was involved. The 12 attackers came from seven countries – Tanzania, Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen and Ethiopia.

The movement has also become more effective at raising money.

The US, UN and Somalia experts say a key part of IS’s financial infrastructure – the al-Karrar office – is based in Puntland, disbursing funds and expertise to other branches of the group in Africa and beyond.

The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said IS-Somalia had raised nearly $2m in the first half of 2022 by taxing local businesses, imports, nomads and farmers.

If Puntland’s forces are to succeed in driving out the militants, air support will prove invaluable.

Shortly after the US strike, Puntland police said the head of IS-Somalia’s assassination squad, Abdirahman Shirwa Aw-Said, had surrendered.

But experts say such strikes will need to be consistent to hunt down existing IS cells in Somalia and stop others mushrooming.

It is unclear whether the US and its unpredictable leader have the appetite to keep bombing Somalia’s north-eastern mountains.

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• Somalia’s men in sarongs taking on al-Shabab militants
• Somali piracy 2.0 – the BBC meets the new robbers of the high seas
• A quick guide to Somalia

America’s foreign aid agency could see its staff slashed from about 10,000 to fewer than 300 globally as the Trump administration makes major cuts to government spending.

All but a handful of essential staff are already set to be placed on administrative leave at midnight on Friday, including thousands based abroad. An online notice says a plan is being prepared for return travel and the termination of non-essential contractors.

One union representing employees, which is involved in a legal challenge to the plan, told the BBC’s US partner CBS News that just 294 staff have been deemed essential.

Trump’s cutbacks to USAID – championed by his adviser Elon Musk – have upended the global aid system.

Hundreds of programmes have already been frozen in countries around the world.

His team accuses USAID of wasting taxpayer money and failing to align with “America First” policy priorities.

Polling has indicated scepticism among many Americans for foreign aid. An AP-NORC poll from March 2023 suggested as many as nine in 10 Republicans felt the country was overspending.

The move is just one example of Trump’s efforts to slash federal spending since returning to the White House. He campaigned on overhauling the federal government and formed an advisory body named the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) – led by Musk – to cut the federal budget.

The US is by far the biggest single provider of humanitarian aid around the world. It has bases in more than 60 countries and works in dozens of others, with much of its work carried out by its contractors.

Former USAID chiefs have criticised the reported cutback plan. One of them, Gayle Smith, stressed to the BBC World Service’s Newsday programme that the US had always been the fastest to arrive during humanitarian crises around the world.

“When you pull all of that out, you send some very dangerous messages,” Smith said. “The US is signalling that we don’t frankly care whether people live or die and that we’re not a reliable partner.”

• ‘I’m alive thanks to US foreign aid’
• Turmoil as Trump and Musk take aim at top US aid agency
• What is USAID and why is Trump reportedly poised to close it?

The suggestion that only 294 staff were on the “essential” list was made by the American Foreign Service Association union (AFSA). It has teamed up with another labour group, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), to file a lawsuit challenging the plan.

As well as the president, the lawsuit takes aim at the US state department, USAID, the treasury department, the secretary of state and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The lawsuit argues that the president is violating the US Constitution and federal law by attempting to dismantle the agency. “Not a single one of defendants’ actions to dismantle USAID were taken pursuant to congressional authorization,” it says.

“And pursuant to federal statute, Congress is the only entity that may lawfully dismantle the agency.”

It calls for an independent acting director of USAID to be appointed, for USAID buildings to be reopened to employees, for the USAID website to be restored, for grants and contracts to be reinstated, and for mandatory evacuation notices to staff to be lifted.

It asks for a judge to immediately halt the implementation of the plan to “gut” USAID, which the lawsuit notes has been spearheaded by Elon Musk, due to the urgent need to resume to aid programmes.

“These actions have generated a global humanitarian crisis by abruptly halting the crucial work of USAID employees, grantees, and contractors. They have cost thousands of American jobs. And they have imperilled US national security interests,” the lawsuit says.

Thousands of USAID workers expect to be put on administrative leave from Friday night. A message posted on the agency’s website says this will apply to all direct hire personnel from 23:59 EST (04:59 GMT).

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat from Illinois, told the BBC the cuts were “horrible news for global public health”.

“There are ways to reform the USAID in a fashion that is much less harmful to the mission of the agency and to all the beneficiaries than the way in which it’s being conducted right now,” he said.

As the turmoil continues to be felt around the world, one leader of a non-government organisation (NGO) tackling HIV in Kenya – which is partly funded by USAID – described the impacts.

Nelson Otwoma told the BBC World Service that his NGO had been affected “adversely” by the freeze, describing massive job layoffs of individuals supported by USAID and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

This has led to fear and anxiety as people are not getting their medicine in facilities supported by USAID where layoffs occurred, he said. “We don’t know what tomorrow brings… things have ground to a halt.”

Earlier this week, reports suggested that the Trump administration planned to merge USAID with the state department. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he had become USAID’s acting head.

He has defended Trump’s moves, telling about 200 agency workers in Guatemala on Wednesday that the US did not plan to stop distributing aid to foreign countries. But he said that the programmes must align with US priorities.

“The United States is not walking away from foreign aid,” America’s top diplomat said. “It’s not. We’re going to continue to provide foreign aid and to be involved in programmes, but it has to be programmes that we can defend.”

“It has to be programmes that we can explain. It has to be programmes that we can justify. Otherwise, we do endanger foreign aid.”

The UK government has demanded to be able to access encrypted data stored by Apple users worldwide in its cloud service.

Currently only the Apple account holder can access data stored in this way. The tech giant itself cannot view it.

Legally, the notice, served by the Home Office under the Investigatory Powers Act, cannot be made public, and Apple declined to comment.

The news was first reported by the Washington Post quoting sources familiar with the matter, and the BBC has spoken to similar contacts.

The Home Office said: “We do not comment on operational matters, including for example confirming or denying the existence of any such notices.”

Privacy International called it an “unprecedented attack” on the private data of individuals.

“This is a fight the UK should not have picked,” said the charity’s legal director Caroline Wilson Palow.

“This overreach sets a hugely damaging precedent and will embolden abusive regimes the world over.”

The notice applies to all content stored using Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP), which encrypts the data meaning that Apple itself cannot see it.

This is an opt-in service and not all users choose to activate it because if they lose access to their account for any reason, the added encryption means that there is no way to retrieve your photos, videos and other information saved that way.

But the government notice does not mean the authorities are suddenly going to start combing through everybody’s data.

It is believed that the government would want to access this data if there were a risk to national security – in other words, it would be targeting an individual, rather than using it for mass surveillance.

Authorities would still have to follow a legal process, have a good reason and request permission for a specific account in order to access data – just as they do now with unencrypted data.

Apple has previously said it would pull security services from the UK market rather than comply with any government demands to weaken them by creating so-called “back doors” to grant the authorities access to user data on demand.

Cyber security experts agree that once such an entry point is in place, it is only a matter of time before bad actors also discover it.

And withdrawing the product from the UK might not be enough to ensure compliance – the Investigatory Powers Act applies worldwide to any tech firm with a UK market, even if they are not based in Britain.

Still, no Western government has yet been successful in attempts to force big tech firms like Apple to break their encryption.

The US government has previously asked for this, but Apple has pointedly refused.

The tech giant can appeal against the government’s demand but cannot delay implementing the ruling during the process even if it is eventually overturned, according to the legislation.

The government argues that encryption enables criminals to hide more easily, and the FBI in the US has also been critical of the ADP tool.

Professor Alan Woodward, cyber security expert from Surrey University, said he was “stunned” by the news, and privacy campaigners Big Brother Watch described the reports as “troubling”.

“This misguided attempt at tackling crime and terrorism will not make the UK safer, but it will erode the fundamental rights and civil liberties of the entire population,” the group said in a statement.

UK children’s charity the NSPCC has previously described encryption as being on the front line of child abuse because it enables abusers to share hidden content.

But Apple says that privacy for its customers is at the heart of all its products and services.

In 2024 the company contested proposed changes to the Investigatory Powers Act, calling it an “unprecedented overreach” of a government.

The changes also included giving the government the power to veto new security measures before they were implemented. They were passed into law.

“The main issue that comes from such powers being exercised is that it’s unlikely to result in the outcome they want,” said Lisa Forte, cyber security expert from Red Goat.

“Criminals and terrorists will just pivot to other platforms and techniques to avoid incrimination. So it’s the average, law abiding citizen who suffers by losing their privacy.”

Three former Harrods employees have accused Mohamed Al Fayed’s only surviving brother of sexually assaulting them while they were working for the department store.

Speaking publicly for the first time, the women say Ali Fayed, 82, assaulted them in the 1990s when he and his brothers, Mohamed and Salah, owned and ran Harrods.

A spokesperson for Mr Fayed, who lives in the US, said the businessman “will not be scapegoated” and he “unequivocally denies any and all the allegations of wrongdoing” and that “the incidents simply never took place”.

The alleged sexual assaults happened in London, Scotland, Switzerland and the United States. One of the women, a former interior designer for Harrods, says one assault happened on a work trip while she was staying with Ali Fayed and his family at their former home in Connecticut.

“His hands were everywhere,” she says, and he stopped because “one of his little boys started calling for him”.

All three women say prior to Ali Fayed’s alleged assaults, they had also been sexually abused by his older brother. Police say 111 women have now made allegations against Mohamed Al Fayed, who added the Arabic “Al” prefix to his surname sometime in the 1970s.

One of the women, Amy, has told the BBC she wants “an explanation” from Ali Fayed, and an “understanding of what was going on that can help [her] step forward and begin healing”.

All three say they didn’t feel able to speak out at the time.

“This is my chance to finally stand up for myself. I’m not going to be that scared 24-year-old who doesn’t know what to do,” says Frances – who, like Amy, has waived her right to anonymity.

Frances took a job working for Harrods in the store’s interior design studio in 1989.

It wasn’t long before Mohamed Al Fayed began to bully and sexually abuse her, she says. Frances says she recalls him regularly trying to grab her breasts and grope her while at work, or subjecting her to “foul” verbal tirades.

Despite not having much experience, Frances says she was tasked with renovating Mohamed Al Fayed’s sprawling Scottish Balnagown Estate, including a farmhouse belonging to his younger brother, Ali.

Frances describes Ali Fayed’s demeanour as calmer than that of Mohamed.

“I think for a moment I thought maybe he would be kinder to me,” she says. “But he wasn’t.”

Ali Fayed, like Mohamed, also had a private office and private apartment in 60 Park Lane in central London.

It was in Ali’s office where Frances says his sexual abuse started with him “trying to kiss” her, followed by him “groping” and “molesting” her.

She says both the Fayed brothers would regularly give her gifts. “With Mohamed, it would often be wads of cash, Ali would give jewellery or clothes. It would be a see-saw between abusive behaviour then praise for my work and these lavish items.”

The abuse escalated in 1992, she says, when she flew to Connecticut to discuss interior design plans with Ali Fayed’s wife.

“It was this huge private house and it was decorated in an English country house style. I don’t think I’d ever seen anything like it in my life,” says Frances.

“I remember his wife taking me into this picture-perfect American rich town.”

Frances says she was staying in a guest room at the family’s house when Ali Fayed told her to get changed for dinner one evening.

“I was in the bathroom and got undressed. When I came out in my underwear, he [Ali] was just standing there in the room. I hadn’t heard him come in or knock.”

Frances says Ali Fayed got her on the bed and tried to get on top of her. His hands were “inside my bra, inside my pants. I knew what his intention was”.

According to Frances the alleged attack stopped when one of Ali’s children called out for him. Afterwards, she says she sat on the bed, “frozen”.

A spokesperson for Ali Fayed said the businessman “is not a perpetrator” and will “robustly defend himself against these unsubstantiated claims”.

When Frances returned to work in London, she says Mohamed Al Fayed “exploded” and started “aggressively spitting abusive words” because he apparently believed she and Ali had had sex .

She says he told her: “I’m done with you… go be with my brother.”

“From that point, I’d still see Mohamed, and he’d still call me every name under the sun, but he didn’t actually physically abuse me,” says Frances.

“Now I was in fear of two of the owners and I knew if I spoke out it would get worse. I could be threatened, I could be fired. I just felt I had to keep on going and, at some point, this horror would pass.”

Frances says Ali Fayed sexually assaulted her again later that year on a trip to Balnagown, where she was adding the finishing interior touches to his farmhouse.

Ali called her into his private office, she says, then dragged her onto his lap and started kissing her neck and touching her breasts as he spun around in his chair.

She says she could feel he was aroused through his trousers.

“I remember him laughing,” recalls Frances, who says she eventually managed to break free and run out of the room. “Laughter is meant to be nice. It wasn’t. I left him there just laughing at me.”

Ali Fayed would often try to sexually touch her when they met, she says, “always laughing and joking and making out it was fun”.

The following year, Frances says she was fired for being in a relationship with another employee, something she says Mohamed Al Fayed forbade among staff. Harrods later settled a case she brought for unfair dismissal.

Frances describes her time after leaving Harrods as “going underground and shutting myself down”. She struggled to work and trust people and eventually moved away. She says Mohamed and Ali Fayed “took away” her confidence and dignity.

“To this day I suffer with terrible anxiety and panic attacks and I don’t like people in my space,” she says.

Mohamed Al Fayed and his younger brothers bought Harrods in 1985. While Mohamed was the chairman, running day-to-day operations of the luxury department store, Ali Fayed was a director and also helped oversee the House of Fraser group, which they owned in the early 1990s.

The new claims point to the “breadth of abuse” by Mohamed Al Fayed and “raise serious allegations” against his brother Ali, Harrods told the BBC in a statement.

“We could not possibly speak on behalf of any individual who can, and should, respond to these allegations directly,” it added.

The store, which came under new ownership in 2010, said it hoped survivors were looking at “every appropriate avenue to them in their pursuit of justice, whether that be Harrods, the police or the Fayed family and estate”.

Ali Fayed, who was granted British citizenship in 1999, co-owns luxury British shirtmaker Turnbull and Asser with his sons – but resigned as director on 8 December 2024, 10 days after these allegations were put to him by the BBC.

All three women alleging abuse by Ali Fayed initially spoke to filmmaker Keaton Stone, who has been investigating Mohamed Al Fayed since 2018 and whose work informed the BBC’s recent documentary and podcast about Mohamed’s predatory behaviour.

Mohamed Al Fayed never faced charges while he was alive, but the women believe his brother Ali should now be investigated by police.

“Whether any charges would be brought, I don’t know, but I believe he should be investigated for what he did,” says Amy.

She worked as a personal assistant to Mohamed Al Fayed for almost three years, and says he sexually abused her throughout her time at Harrods. The abuse escalated, Amy says, when Mohamed let himself into her room on a work trip to Paris and tried to rape her.

She says she “endured” the abuse, thinking “that was just what being a young woman meant, it was a hazard of the workplace”.

Amy says she remembers Ali Fayed coming into Mohamed’s Park Lane office – and also taking phone calls from him. “He gave me the nickname ‘Amy speaking’ which he thought was hilarious,” she recalls. “He would giggle when he spoke to me.”

A year or two into the job, Amy says Mohamed told her to go to Switzerland with Ali to help with some personal assistant duties like filing and paperwork.

The pair travelled together on a Harrods private jet, she says, and were driven to the upmarket resort of Gstaad, where the Fayed family owned a ski chalet.

“Once we got to the chalet, aside from the elderly housekeeper, it was myself and Ali alone for three days. It was strange,” says Amy. “No efforts were made to even create something for me to do.”

The trip was taken out of season and Amy says Ali Fayed seemed bored. He suggested they go to the local public swimming pool, she says, and when they got there it was deserted.

“That’s when Ali’s demeanour changed and he became giddy,” says Amy.

“He pulled me in under the water, and groped and fondled me, making me feel very, very uncomfortable – very much trapped. I was terrified thinking how am I going to get out of this.”

Amy says Ali Fayed laughed as he “groped” her, before she managed to break free of his clutches.

After the alleged assault, Amy says they both returned to the chalet and she was left alone for the rest of the evening, feeling isolated and afraid.

Like the other two women, Amy didn’t tell anyone about the alleged abuse by either of the brothers.

Amy says she didn’t want to upset her loved ones and didn’t necessarily feel people would believe her.

“By not saying anything, I think it’s a coping technique, to just put it away,” she adds.

Amy went back to work after the alleged assault took place in Gstaad, but eventually resigned.

She says she “escaped and ran away” to work abroad.

“I wanted to just remove myself from it all”, she says, but “the trauma” lived with her.

“To this day, in certain social situations, I don’t want to be noticed, I try to stay invisible,” she says.

Ali Fayed denies all the allegations of wrongdoing – said his spokesperson – and “will not allow false accusations to go unchallenged”.

A third woman, who we are calling Laura, told us she recalls Mohamed Al Fayed summoning her to his office and telling her “with a smirk on his face” that his brother Ali wanted to see her.

“I remember it vividly because I had no comprehension of who Ali was, I’d never even seen him,” she says. “I don’t know how I was spotted or ‘selected’ for him.”

• Al Fayed’s brother Salah also abused us, women say
• Police investigate more people over Al Fayed abuse

Laura had been working directly for Mohamed Al Fayed in Harrods’ HR department and says his sexual harassment towards her had become commonplace, escalating to two serious sexual assaults.

Laura says Mohamed sent her to their office building in Park Lane one evening, but when she arrived there was no work to be done. She says she was sent through to Ali Fayed’s apartment where he was waiting. Laura says he told her they would be having dinner, and then presented her with a bottle of wine from the year she was born and a necklace.

“I wondered how he knew things about me,” she says.

Alone in his apartment, Laura says Ali Fayed ordered her through to the bedroom where she says she was subjected to a serious sexual assault. She says she felt “numbed with fear” and had to do whatever she was told in order to “get out of there”.

“Afterwards he just told me I could go.”

Laura says she never saw Ali Fayed again but kept the necklace from that night and it has recently been valued at £6,500.

The abuse at Harrods “took its toll” says Laura – even after she left the store. She bottled it all up for 25 years, she says, and still hasn’t told some of her loved ones what she went through.

All three women are pursuing civil legal action against Harrods through Justice for Harrods Survivors.

“We applaud the bravery of the women who have spoken out on their allegations against Ali Fayed and reiterate our commitment to securing justice and accountability for all survivors,” says their barrister Maria Mulla.

“We repeat, no stone will be left unturned in pursuit of this aim.”

The BBC spoke to three other women who said they had been either raped, sexually assaulted or trafficked by the other Fayed brother, Salah, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2010.

The women who accuse Ali Fayed question what the three brothers knew about each other’s behaviour.

“Looking back now, maybe they found it amusing to see how far the boundaries were with us between the brothers,” says Amy. “Maybe there was competition. I really don’t know, but I do feel it was all amusing for them.”

Ali Fayed’s spokesperson says he “unequivocally denies any and all allegations of wrongdoing. The alleged incidents simply never occurred. Mr Fayed is not a perpetrator and will not be scapegoated. He will robustly defend himself against these unsubstantiated claims and will not allow false accusations to go unchallenged.”

A former senior minister in Singapore’s government, who was jailed following a high-profile trial last year, has been allowed to serve the remainder of his 12-month sentence from home.

Subramaniam Iswaran was imprisoned on 7 October after he pleaded guilty to accepting gifts worth more than S$403,000 ($300,000; £240,000) while in office, as well as obstructing the course of justice.

Iswaran’s case gripped Singapore, where a corruption case involving a public official is rare. The island nation that serves as South East Asia’s financial hub prides itself with its squeaky clean image.

He was transferred to home arrest on Friday, the Singapore Prison Service (SPS) told local media.

In Singapore, inmates may be transferred to home detention after being assessed on factors such as their conduct in prison and response to rehabilitation.

Authorities said Iswaran was found to be “of low risk of re-offending, did not commit any institutional offence in prison, and has strong family support”.

While in home detention he will be required to wear an electronic monitoring tag and report to prison authorities for counselling.

Local broadcaster Channel News Asia reported seeing Iswaran having a meal in his home on Friday.

Iswaran’s 12-month prison sentence was longer than what both his defence team and prosecutors sought during his trial.

During his sentencing in October, the judge said that public officials like Iswaran should also be seen as having “greater culpability in abusing their position to obtain valuable gifts”.

Iswaran is the first political office-holder in Singapore to be tried in court in the past 50 years.

The last time a minister faced a corruption probe was in 1986, when development minister Teh Cheang Wan was investigated for accepting bribes. He killed himself before he was charged.

Chappell Roan has responded to criticism of a speech she gave calling for artists to receive a living wage while accepting her Grammy for Best New Artist.

The Pink Pony Club hitmaker was honoured at the ceremony on Sunday and used the platform to urge music labels to provide more support, including healthcare, to developing musicians.

While she received a standing ovation from the audience, music executive Jeff Rabhan branded Chappell “disingenuous” because she’s profiting from the industry she’s calling out, adding she was “wildly misinformed”.

Responding on Instagram, the US singer says she’s donated $25,000 (£20,000) to support struggling artists and encouraged Jeff to match her donation.

The 26-year-old’s break-out hit Good Luck, Babe! catapulted her to mainstream success last year and she was recognised with a trophy in Los Angeles.

On stage, Chappell said she’d always told herself if she ever won a Grammy and had the chance to address “the most powerful people in music”, she would demand that “labels and the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists would offer a liveable wage and healthcare”.

Chappell, who was first signed when she was 17, shared that she struggled to find a job after being dropped by her label in 2020 and could not afford health insurance.

“It was so devastating to feel so committed to my art and feel so betrayed by the system and so dehumanised,” she said.

She added labels need to treat artists as “valuable employees”, asking them: “We got you, but do you got us?”

Despite a round of applause from the room, not everyone agreed with Chappell’s speech including Jeff – the former Chair of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.

In a column for The Hollywood Reporter, he said the speech was “noble… but wildly misinformed”, calling her “too uninformed to be the agent of change she aspires to be”.

Jeff, who has worked for the Atlantic Records label and with stars including Kelis and Kelly Clarkson, said labels “are businesses, not charities”, getting a share of profits in return for taking a risk on new artists.

While he acknowledged things could improve, he also described Chappell as “disingenuous” for criticising the industry that “elevated” her to mainstream success and then “continuing to profit from that very system”.

He added Chappell was “no longer a struggling artist” and that “she should do something about it – rather than just talk at it”.

In response, Chappell said on Instagram: “Mr Rabhan, I love how in the article you said ‘put your money where your mouth is’ – genius!

“Let’s link and build together and see if you can do the same,” she added, after revealing her donation.

The article has been criticised by stars like Halsey who said it generalised the experiences of artists.

“If you want to profit off of someone’s else’s art, that artist should have the basic living means to feel safe enough to create that art,” the Without Me singer said.

Up and coming artists have often spoken about the challenges they face trying to break into the industry.

A report in 2023 by the Help Musicians charity found a lack of sustainable income was a barrier to the careers of 44% of artists who took part in their survey and 23% said they were unable to support themselves or their families.

It’s not the first time Chappell has called out the music industry either.

She previously told the BBC she’d be “more successful if I wore a muzzle” after a backlash to her comments about “creepy” fan behaviour and taking a break to focus on her wellbeing.

BBC Newsbeat has reached out to Jeff Rabhan but has not had a response. PMC, which publishes The Hollywood Reporter, has also been approached for comment.

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or listen back here.

In the middle of a grand, high-ceilinged church in Orebro, Sweden, Jacob Kasselia, a Syrian orthodox priest, looked up towards the stained glass windows above him, then back down at his hands. He adjusted the gold cross hanging from his neck.

“The police say this man acted alone,” the priest said. “But this hate, it is coming from somewhere.”

A member of Kasselia’s congregation, 29-year-old Salim Iskef, was among those murdered in Orebro on Tuesday in Sweden’s first school shooting and the worst mass shooting in the country’s history. The gunman killed 10 students at an adult learning centre and then himself.

Among the dead are Syrians and Bosnians, according to residents and the embassies of those countries, but the police in Orebro have not given any details of the victims publicly.

Kasselia described Iskef as kind and thoughtful, keen to help other members of the community. He came to Sweden with his mother and sister, the priest said – refugees from Aleppo, where his father was killed in the war. Iskef was studying Swedish at the Risbergska school, the target of Tuesday’s attack.

“He was simply a good man,” the priest said. “He did not look for trouble. He showed only goodwill. He was a member of our community.”

The night after the attack, Kasselia sat with Iskef’s family to console them. Iskef was engaged and due to be married this summer. His fiancee Kareen Elia, 24, was “very badly affected”, the priest said, and was “going through a very difficult, very dark experience”.

At a memorial service in Orebro on Thursday night, Elia broke down in screams and tears and had to be carried out of the church.

In the days since the shooting, there has been a striking lack of information from the authorities. On Thursday night, police had still not confirmed the identity of the gunman – widely reported by Swedish media to be 35-year-old local Rickard Andersson – nor any details about his motive or the victims.

In a statement issued early on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after the attack, police said the shooter did not appear to be motivated by any ideology. On Thursday, Anna Bergkvist, who is leading the police investigation, appeared to walk the statement back.

“Why they said that, I cannot comment,” she told the BBC. “We are looking at different motives and we will declare it when we have it.”

Swedish police are usually cautious about naming suspects during an investigation, but the absence of official information has contributed to a feeling of fear and uncertainty among Orebro’s immigrant communities over the past few days.

“We are getting all our information from the media and I don’t know why,” said Nour Afram, 36, who was inside the Risbergska school when the attack began.

“We need more information,” she said. “We don’t know why he did it, why did he target this school? Was he sick or was it something else?”

Afram was waiting to go into class when she heard people screaming that there was a shooter – something so unbelievable to her she thought at first it was a prank.

“We started to run and then I heard the gunshots,” she said. “One at first, then tak tak tak – maybe ten shots. I was so scared I felt like my heart stopped in my chest.”

Afram, who immigrated from Syria to Orebro as a child, said she was afraid for the first time to send her three children to school in Sweden.

Zaki Aydin, a 50-year-old Syriac language teacher in Orebro, said he was afraid for the first time for his young students, who are mostly from the Middle East. “We are foreigners, we have to be careful now,” he said.

Aydin used to have the doors of his classroom and the church building open when he taught. “Now we are closing them,” he said. “And yesterday I asked someone to stand outside to prevent anyone we didn’t know already from coming in.”

One of the pupils at the school, 18-year-old Gabriel, said a “nightmare had come true” for Orebro.

“The problem is we have no motive, only speculation,” he said. “A lot of people my age are frightened to go to school, we feel like Sweden has become like America. The things you see on television have happened here.”

In the absence of any official news about the motive, all that the residents here in Orebro know is that the killer appears to have been a reclusive white Swedish man and that he targeted a school with a large immigrant student base.

Tomas Poletti Lundstrom, an academic researcher in racism at Uppsala University, who happens to live just a few minutes from the site of the attack and heard police helicopters fly over his home on Tuesday, said Orebro was facing a “deeply horrible time”.

“You can really sense it everywhere here, it is affecting everyone,” Lundstrom said. “We don’t know the motives of the shooter yet, but we are living in a very racist time and this is a school for a lot of immigrants.”

Attacks like the one at Risbergska were “the outcome of how our society looks at the moment, how our politicians talk, and how we talk about one another”, he said.

“The government and the main opposition support anti-immigrant policies and use anti-immigrant rhetoric,” he added. “This is what happens when politicians speak the way they are speaking.”

At the cordoned off entrance to Risbergska school early on Thursday morning, people were stopping by to leave flowers, light candles, or simply to stand and take in the scene. From the street, you can clearly see the front door through which the killer was filmed appearing to go from classroom to classroom with a rifle.

Among those who came alone and stood for a while by the collection of candles and flowers was the city’s mayor, John Johansson, who had made an official visit to the site the day before alongside the prime minister and the king and queen but stopped there again on his way to work on Thursday to pay his respects.

“I hope that the police will find conclusions soon,” Johansson said. “The city needs answers, our society needs answers, and the families of the victims need to know why this happened.”

But it was not time to “speculate or rush ahead”, he said. “We do not want to contribute to any false rumours, and so we hope the police will find answers as early as possible.”

Tony Estroem, a salesman from Eskilstuna, about 80km from Orebro, also stopped by the school on Thursday morning. “This kind of shooting, at a school, you read about it elsewhere but not in Sweden,” he said.

“It looks to be a Swedish guy, and perhaps that is better than if it had been an immigrant responsible,” he added. “Of course it is a terrible event either way, but we do not want to add more fuel to the fire.”

Police have given out some limited information about their investigation. They said that about 130 officers responded to the shooting in total, and that they were met by an “inferno” in the school. They said that they believe the gunman acted alone.

Family members, former school friends and neighbours have told Swedish media he had become a recluse in recent years and may have suffered with psychological issues.

There have been complaints about the handling of the case. The Bosnian ambassador Bojan Sosic, who also visited the site of the shooting, learned from residents that a Bosnian was among the dead.

“I find it odd, to say the least, that the police chooses to withhold information that pertains to foreign citizens from respective embassies,” he said.

Others, including members of the Syrian community, said they trusted the police were doing the right thing and only hoped to learn more soon. Kasselia, the Syrian Orthodox priest, said that the wider community “does not know what the police are thinking, but we trust that they have their own plan”.

Hundreds of people came to Kasselia’s church on Thursday night from the Syrian, Turkish, Iraqi and other migrant communities. A picture of Salim Iskef, one of the shooting’s victims, sat on an easel. Children from the congregation sung hymns. Iskef’s family, sitting in a pew near the front, were consumed by grief.

It is difficult to understand why these sorts of attacks happen even when the motive is known. Without it, it is even more confounding. A few hours before the memorial service began, Kasselia had been sitting in a pew in his empty church, trying to make sense of it.

“People die, of course. They become sick, they have some accident,” he said. “But this, how can we understand this? To be shot dead in a school. We could not dream of this. We cannot even describe it. Why?”

There was some comfort in hearing from the police that the gunman acted alone, Kasselia said. It left less anxiety of another attack.

“But this man had something in his heart, some kind of hate, that he gathered from somewhere,” the priest said. “We cannot say there are not others.”

A US judge has temporarily halted President Donald Trump’s plan offering incentives to federal workers to voluntarily resign before a Thursday midnight deadline.

Federal Judge George O’Toole Jr said the plan would be paused until a hearing on Monday when he could determine the merits of a lawsuit filed by federal employee unions, reported CBS, the BBC’s US partner.

The offer is part of an ongoing effort by the Trump administration to slash the size of the federal government.

The White House says more than 40,000 employees have accepted the offer to resign in exchange for pay until 30 September. Some workers have voiced confusion about the terms of the deal.

The order came hours before Thursday’s 23:59 EST (04:59 GMT Friday) deadline for federal workers to accept the offer.

A lawyer for the justice department said federal employees would be notified that the deadline had been paused, CBS reported.

The White House appeared to see the temporary halt as a way to increase the number of resignations.

“We are grateful to the Judge for extending the deadline so more federal workers who refuse to show up to the office can take the Administration up on this very generous, once-in-a-lifetime offer,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

An Office of Personnel Management (OPM) statement said the agency would continue processing resignations until an extended deadline of 23:59 local time on Monday.

“The program is NOT being blocked or canceled,” it said. “The government will honor the deferred resignation offer.”

The Trump administration, which previously said it hoped for as many as 200,000 employees to accept its offer, told US media they expected a spike in participation just ahead of the deadline.

“It’s going to save the American people tens of millions of dollars,” Leavitt told reporters outside the White House’s West Wing before the judge paused the programme.

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The American Federation of Government Employees, a union, filed the lawsuit against the OPM, arguing it had violated the law, that it could not fund the deal, and that it had given conflicting guidance about its terms.

The union said in an email to members that the offer was part of an “effort to dismantle the civil service and replace the skilled, professional workforce with unqualified political appointees and for-profit contractors”.

The union noted that Congress has not passed a budget for funding beyond mid-March, arguing that it was unclear whether agencies could pay workers until September.

On Thursday, the union said it was “pleased” by the judge’s actions.

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Some federal employees have described their shock at the buy-out proposal, which was delivered in the form of a late-night email with the subject line “Fork in the Road”. Some thought the email was spam.

“The tone of the initial email was like ‘you may be cut anyway,'” Monet Hepp, a medical support specialist at the US Department of Veterans Affairs, previously told BBC. “People were blindsided by it.”

Democrats have questioned the legality of the resignation package and warned it would lead to a “brain drain” that would be “felt by every American”.

“Without the expertise and institutional knowledge that so many federal employees bring to their work, our government will be incapable of responding effectively to national emergencies, serving the American public, or even carrying out routine operations,” Democrats on the House Oversight Committee wrote in a letter to President Trump.

On Tuesday, the Central Intelligence Agency became the first national security department to extend the offer to its staff. Former US intelligence officials and several lawmakers have raised concerns that this offer could undermine US national security.

There are also reports of impending cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the weather-forecasting agency, and the Department of Health and Human Services.

A notorious conman who spent four years in a British jail has now been sentenced to six years in France for ramming his car into two policemen while trying to avoid questioning.

Robert Hendy-Freegard, 53, had moved to a rural area of central France to breed beagles illegally several years ago under a false name.

Neighbours had already been suspicious of him before two Netflix documentaries highlighted his activities as a conman.

Hendy-Freegard had posed as an MI5 spy to con women and students out of £1m, but he was released after four years when some of his convictions were overturned on appeal.

Representing himself at the court in Gueret, he said he had not been aggressive but he was worried sick.

“I had enough. I panicked,” he told the court, apologising to the two gendarmes he had driven into in the tiny village of Vidaillat west of Clermont-Ferrand.

“I didn’t stop because I’m a human being with emotions.”

Prosecutor Alexandra Pethieu said the rural area was not a war zone: “And yet that day ended up with a bewildering scene worthy of Mad Max.”

One officer was knocked down and another was thrown against the car windscreen for several metres.

Hendy-Freegard, who told the court his real name was David Hendy, was released several years early on appeal in the UK after his kidnapping charges were quashed.

Witnesses at his 2005 trial in the UK had described how they had been subjected to years of poverty because of the power he had over them. Coercive or controlling behaviour eventually became a criminal offence in 2015 in England and Wales.

Hendy-Freegard was released from prison in 2009, and moved to France in 2015 to start a beagle dog breeding business with his partner Sandra Clifton.

However neighbours began to suspect Clifton was under his control.

When an initial documentary came out in 2022, The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman, they contacted her children who had used the programme to appeal for help in finding her.

Clifton’s son travelled to the village and the beagles were being removed by a local charity when Hendy-Freegard arrived. As the two gendarmes asked the ex-conman questions he drove off, hitting the officers and escaping to Belgium.

He was later extradited and has spent more than two years in custody before going on trial for running over the two officers.

Hendy-Freegard denied that his partner had been under his coercive control, telling the court that his neighbours had a problem with him because of the documentary.

However, Martine Laporte, the mayor of Vidaillat, said that what had emerged from the trial was that “he is manipulative to the end and that isn’t going to change”.

“He really has to be stopped because if he gets out he’ll start again and that’s worrying,” she was quoted as saying by French media.

King Charles and Queen Camilla are to host actor Stanley Tucci at a formal dinner on Friday evening to mark the confirmation of a state visit to Italy later this year.

The royal couple will travel to Italy in April and meet Pope Francis and Italian leaders, as well as carry out engagements in Rome and the ancient city of Ravenna, Buckingham Palace has confirmed.

It is expected to coincide with the King and Queen’s 20th wedding anniversary on 9 April.

Tucci – who presented Searching For Italy, a BBC programme celebrating Italian food and culture – will make a speech at an event at the royals’ Highgrove estate in Gloucestershire.

The Palace’s confirmation of the state visit to Italy suggests the King is well enough for an overseas journey, as he continues with his cancer treatment.

Tucci – an American of Italian descent starred in the Oscar-nominated Vatican thriller Conclave and has spoken about his experiences of throat cancer, which he said adversely affected his sense of taste.

The Italian-inspired evening at Highgrove will also be attended by the Italian ambassador to the UK, Inigo Lambertini.

Chef Francesco Mazzei will use local ingredients to cook an Italian menu, with the dishes reflecting the “slow food” style of cooking, which advocates fresh, regional dishes cooked in traditional ways.

Mixologist Alessandro Palazzi will be on hand to make drinks using Italian flavours and herbs grown at Highgrove.

The King – an enthusiast for art, culture and religion – has been a regular visitor to Italy, with this upcoming trip to be his 18th official visit.

State visits are carried out on behalf of the Foreign Office and there are likely to be meetings with senior Italian government figures – an effort to build relations with an important European partner – though full details of the itinerary are still to be revealed.

While there, the King and Queen may celebrate 20 years since their wedding in April 2005.

The date of the ceremony had to be changed because of the death of Pope John Paul II, with the then Prince Charles travelling to Rome to attend the funeral.

The visit to meet Pope Francis also coincides with 2025 being a special “jubilee” year for the Catholic church, held every 25 years.

The King and Queen will join the Pope for the celebrations as “Pilgrims of Hope”, according to the Palace.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visited the Pope on the last such jubilee year in 2000.

The King has met Pope Francis on previous occasions, including at the Vatican in 2019 when the English-born Cardinal John Henry Newman was canonised as a saint.

This will be the first time they have met since Charles became monarch and supreme governor of the Church of England.

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India’s central bank has cut interest rates for the first time in nearly five years to counter slowing growth in Asia’s third largest economy.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reduced its repo rate from 6.5% to 6.25%, in line with the expectations of many economists.

The repo rate is the level at which the central bank lends to commercial banks.

The latest cut happens when India’s GDP growth is seen slowing to a four year low of 6.7%.

RBI governor Sanjay Malhotra said the bank was keeping its policy stance “neutral”, which would open more space to support growth, signalling further rate cuts.

Investment growth and urban consumption in the world’s fastest growing major economy have been flagging. Corporate profits have also shrunk in the first half of this financial year.

But moderating inflation, an increase in rural demand and good agricultural output will help growth, said Mr Malhotra.

The rate cut could lead to marginally lower mortgage and credit card interest rates as well as cheaper borrowing costs for companies.

The central bank’s rate reduction follows a range of measures previously announced, including an injection of $18bn (£14.48bn) into the domestic banking system, to ease a cash shortage in the economy.

It had also cut the cash reserve ratio – or the reserves commercial banks need to maintain with the RBI – by half a percent in December.

The RBI’s rate move follows the Union Budget’s $12bn tax cut for the struggling middle class.

Despite this, Mr Modi’s government aims to curb spending to reduce the budget deficit. With limited room for fiscal stimulus, economists expect the central bank to cut rates further by 0.5% –1% to support growth, according to various estimates.

However, global uncertainties due to US President Donald Trump’s tariff war, an outflow of foreign investor money and a depreciating currency – which could further weaken if rates come down – have complicated the RBI’s task.

The Indian rupee is trading near record lows due to heavy foreign investor outflows from stock markets in recent months.

US authorities are looking for a small plane carrying 10 people that has been reported missing in the state of Alaska.

The US Coast Guard for the Alaska region said a Cessna Caravan craft was 12 miles (19km) offshore on a flight from Unalakleet to Nome when “its position was lost”.

The two cities are some 146 miles from each other across the Norton Sound, an inlet of the Bering Sea on Alaska’s western coast.

Search and rescue crews “are working to get to the last known coordinates” of the flight, state officials said in a statement.

They said they had been notified of an “overdue” aircraft operated by the airline Bering Air at 16:00 local time on Thursday (01:00 GMT).

The 10 people on board comprised nine passengers and a pilot, the update from the Alaska Department of Public Safety said. There was no information immediately available about who was on board.

The volunteer fire department in the landing city Nome said the pilot had told air traffic controllers that “he intended to enter a holding pattern while waiting for the runway to be cleared”.

The BBC has contacted Bering Air for comment.

Giving information about its search and rescue mission, the coastguard said a plane had been sent to search for the last known positions of the missing craft.

The search plane – which includes specialised equipment to locate objects and people with no visible conditions – will fly in a grid pattern over the water and shoreline.

Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage has also sent flight support.

South Korean singer Koo Jun-yup has paid tribute to his late wife Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu who died last week, saying his “angel went back to heaven”.

In a post on Instagram, Koo added that he was going through “indescribable grief” and a time of “gut-wrenching pain”.

Hsu, one of the biggest stars in the Mandarin-speaking world, is believed to have fallen ill and later died while she was visiting Japan with her family members.

The sudden death of the 48-year-old star sent shockwaves across the entertainment industry. She was best known for her role in the 2001 TV series Meteor Garden, which became a hit across large parts of Asia.

“On 2 February, 2025, my angel returned to heaven… Right now, I am going through a time of gut-wrenching pain,” Koo wrote in a post on Instagram late on Thursday.

In his post, Koo, better known by his stage name DJ Koo, also called for his family to be left alone in their grief.

“Even before I could properly mourn and grieve this tremendous loss, some heartless people have begun to defame my family and our love.

“Please, can you just let Hsu rest in peace?” Koo wrote.

His comments come after several Chinese language media published reports on who would inherit Hsu’s estate, which reportedly includes a property portfolio worth several million dollars. The BBC is unable to verify these details.

“All of Hsu’s assets were earned through her hard work to support the family she loved, so I have decided to give full authority over them to my mother-in-law,” Koo went on to say.

“As for the children’s share, I will take legal measures through a lawyer to ensure that bad people cannot touch it, protecting it until they reach adulthood.”

Hsu and Koo first met in 1998. At the time, Hsu and her sister were hosts on a popular variety programme, and Koo, who was part of a K-pop duo, Clon, was an interviewee on the show.

They eventually started dating but later broke up, reportedly because Koo’s management was opposed to the relationship.

Hsu later married Chinese businessman Wang Xiaofei, with whom she had two children. The couple were married for 10 years, before an acrimonious divorce in 2021.

After their divorce, Hsu reconnected with Koo and they were married in 2022.

Her death shocked fans across Asia, where Meteor Garden – an adaptation of the Japanese manga series Boys Over Flowers – was aired and dubbed in local languages.

Hsu was also known for hosting Taiwanese variety shows, often with younger sister Dee. In the 1990s, the sisters were part of a pop duo SOS, which gave them their respective stage names, Big S and Little S.

Her remains were flown back to Taiwan on Thursday, local media reported.

Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter of Los Angeles Dodgers baseball star Shohei Ohtani, has been sentenced to nearly five years in prison for a fraud and gambling scheme.

He was ordered to pay back nearly $17m (£13.6m) that he’d stolen from the star athlete and another $1m to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in taxes.

Mizuhara, who had been Ohtani’s English interpreter since his US Major League Baseball (MLB) debut in 2018, was fired amid media reports last year about his gambling activities, which prompted investigations into Ohtani’s finances.

A probe revealed Mizuhara stole nearly $17m from the athlete to pay off debts owed to a southern California bookmaker.

He then lied on tax records to hide his actions. He pleaded guilty to bank and tax fraud charges.

“Mr Mizuhara had a unique position of trust that gave him power, brought him fame, and paid him well,” said Acting United States Attorney Joseph McNally. “Unfortunately, he exploited this dream job to steal millions of dollars from his friend and confidant.”

“This is a sad tale of an American success story gone wrong – so wrong that Mr Mizuhara will be spending years inside a prison cell.”

Sitting in a courtroom in Santa Ana, California, Mizuhara was wearing a light black suit with his hands folded in his lap, staring straight ahead at the judge as he delivered his ruling.

When the verdict was announced, he was motionless.

Before being sentenced, he apologised for his actions.

“I am truly sorry to Mr Ohtani for what I have done. I know an apology will not fix the crime I committed,” he said. “This mistake will impact me for the rest of my life and I’m prepared to accept the consequences.”

The scheme threatened to derail Ohtani’s career – currently one of baseball’s biggest global stars – as questions swirled about whether he was involved in the gambling scheme.

His translator, at first, claimed the star was aware of his gambling addiction and loaned him funds – a claim that Ohtani initially confirmed. He later clarified that his comments to reporters were not accurate and part of Mizuhara’s scheme, saying “all of this has been a complete lie”.

The MLB has strict rules against sports betting and it is illegal in California, though it is allowed in 38 other US states.

Ohtani has largely remained silent on the matter but released a statement on the scandal back in March saying: “I am very saddened and shocked that someone who I trusted has done this.”

In court, Judge John Holcomb said that after Mizuhara is released from prison, he will be on three years of probation, which will include drug and alcohol testing and continuing treatment for his gambling addiction.

Mizuhara has been granted a 45-day surrender date and will turn himself in on 24 March to serve his 57-month sentence.

Mizuhara, who was born in Japan, could also face deportation following the completion of his sentence.

Asked outside of the courthouse by the BBC about whether he will appeal, Mizuhara’s attorney said “no comment.”

Beyond the stolen funds, Mizuhara also purchased several autographed baseball cards using Ohtani’s money.

These cards, valued at approximately $325,000, were intended for resale, but Ohtani has since petitioned a federal judge to gain ownership of the cards as part of the recovery process.

Mizuhara admitted to falsifying his 2022 tax return and underreporting $4.1m in income derived from the scheme. He owes about $1.15m in unpaid taxes, plus penalties and interest.

• Ohtani interpreter charged with stealing over $16m from baseball star
• Ohtani: How ‘Shotime’ became Japan’s biggest baseball export
• Ohtani-mania sweeps LA as Dodgers go on to win World Series

His sentencing was delayed several times before Thursday.

It was originally scheduled for 25 October last year, which would have coincided with the first game of the World Series in which Ohtani was playing, but prosecutors agreed to move it to 20 December. The Dodgers ended up winning the series.

The December date was then delayed to allow a forensic psychiatrist to evaluate Mizuhara’s gambling addiction. Mizuhara’s legal team used that report to argue for leniency, citing his co-operation and efforts to address his addiction.

During a previous court appearance, Mizuhara admitted to the charges against him and acknowledged his struggles with betting.

“I deeply regret my actions and the harm I have caused to Mr Ohtani and his family,” Mizuhara said. “I let my personal issues spiral out of control, and I betrayed the trust of someone who gave me everything.”