Under growing pressure from his own party, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced he will step down and end his nine-year stretch as leader.

Trudeau said he would stay on in office until his Liberal Party can choose a new leader, and that parliament would be prorogued - or suspended - until 24 March.

"This country deserves a real choice in the next election and it has become clear to me that if I'm having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election," he said during a press conference Monday.

Trudeau's personal unpopularity with Canadians had become an increasing drag on his party's fortunes in advance of federal elections later this year.

"Last night, over dinner, I told my kids about the decision that I'm sharing with you today," he told the news conference in Ottawa.

"I intend to resign as party leader, as prime minister, after the party selects its next leader through a robust nationwide competitive process," he said.

The president of the Liberal Party, Sachit Mehra, said a meeting of the party's board of directors would be held this week to begin the process of selecting a new leader.

Who might replace Trudeau as Liberal Party leader?

Why the Trudeau era has come to an end now

What happens next for Canada?

In a statement, he added: "Liberals across the country are immensely grateful to Justin Trudeau for more than a decade of leadership to our Party and the country."

"As Prime Minister, his vision delivered transformational progress for Canadians," he said, citing programmes his government has implemented like the Canada Child Benefit and the establishment of dental care and pharmacare coverage for some medication.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said "nothing has changed" following Trudeau's resignation.

"Every Liberal MP and Leadership contender supported EVERYTHING Trudeau did for 9 years, and now they want to trick voters by swapping in another Liberal face to keep ripping off Canadians for another 4 years, just like Justin," Poilievre wrote on X.

Trudeau, 53, had faced growing calls to quit from inside his Liberal Party, which ramped up in December when deputy prime minister and long-time ally Chrystia Freeland abruptly resigned.

In a public resignation letter, Freeland cited US President-elect Donald Trump's threats of tariffs on Canadian goods, and accused Trudeau of not doing enough to address the "grave challenge" posed by Trump's proposals.

Trump has promised to impose a tax of 25% on imported Canadian goods - which economists have warned would significantly hurt Canada's economy - unless the country takes steps to increase security on its shared border.

Trudeau said Monday that he had hoped Freeland would have continued as deputy prime minister, "but she chose otherwise".

Canada has since announced that it will implement sweeping new security measures along the country's US border in response to the threat.

In an online post, Trump claimed that pressure over tariffs led to Trudeau's resignation and repeated his jibe that Canada should become "the 51st State".

"If Canada merged with the U.S., there would be no Tariffs, taxes would go way down, and they would be TOTALLY SECURE from the threat of the Russian and Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them," he wrote.

Since 2019, the Liberal Party has governed as a minority party.

Following Freeland's resignation, Trudeau lost the backing of parties that had previously helped keep the Liberals in power - the left-leaning New Democrats, who had a support agreement with the Liberals, and the Quebec nationalist party, Bloc Quebecois.

The largest opposition party, the Conservatives, have maintained a significant two-digit lead over the Liberals in polls for months - suggesting that if a general election were held today, the Liberals could be in for a significant defeat.

Liberals will now choose a new leader to take the party into the next election, which must be held on or before 20 October.

A senior government official told the BBC that the race is an open contest, and that the Prime Minister's Office will fully stay out of the process, leaving it to Liberal Party members to decide their future.

Speaking to reporters, the Bloc Quebecois leader Yves-François Blanchet suggested that an early election be called once the Liberals choose their new leader.

End of the Trudeau era

Trudeau is the son of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who dominated the country's politics in the 1970s and '80s.

The younger Trudeau became prime minister after the Liberal Party won a sweeping majority in 2015 amid a promise to usher in a new, progressive era of "Sunny Ways".

His record includes a commitment to gender equality in his cabinet, which continues to be 50% women; progress on reconciliation with Indigenous people in Canada; bringing in a national carbon tax; implementing a tax-free child benefit for families; and legalising recreational cannabis.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak praised Trudeau's track record on indigenous issues following his resignation, saying in a statement that he "has taken meaningful steps to address issues that matter to First Nations".

"While much work remains, these actions have laid a foundation for future governments to build upon."

Clouds began to hang over Trudeau's government in recent years, which weathered a series of often self-inflicted scandals, including a controversy over a deal with a Canadian firm facing corruption charges and photos that emerged of the prime minister wearing brownface makeup.

Vaccine mandates and other restrictions were also met with fierce backlash by some Canadians, leading to the Freedom Convoy truck protests in early 2022. Trudeau eventually used unprecedented emergency powers to remove the protesters.

As Canada began to emerge from the pandemic, housing and food prices skyrocketed, and his government pulled back on ambitious immigration targets as public services began to show strain.

By late 2024, Trudeau's approval rating was at its lowest - just 22% of Canadians saying they thought he was doing a good job, according to one polling tracker.

In Ottawa, a small group of protestors danced outside Parliament Hill in celebration of his resignation.

One passer-by, however, said he thinks things were fine under Trudeau's watch.

"I'm a carpenter," Hames Gamarra, who is from British Columbia, told the BBC. "I mind my own business, I get my wages, I pay the bills. It's been OK."

Another Canadian, Marise Cassivi, said it feels like the end of an era. Asked if she feels any hints of sadness, she replied: "No."

"It's the right thing."

At least five people have died in a winter storm that has seized a swathe of the US in its icy grip, leading to mass school closures, travel chaos and power cuts.

Seven US states declared emergencies: Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky and Arkansas.

More than 2,000 flights have been cancelled, with about 6,500 delays also reported owing to the extreme weather caused by the polar vortex of icy cold air that usually circles the North Pole.

More than a quarter of a million people were without power on Monday afternoon, with snowfall forecast to continue into the night on the East Coast.

According to meteorologists, cold Arctic air is expected to keep conditions icy across a chunk of the country for several more weeks.

In Washington DC - where lawmakers met on Monday to certify Donald Trump's win in November's election - about 5-9in (13-23cm) of snow fell, with up to a foot recorded in parts of nearby Maryland and Virginia.

• Live Updates: Major winter storm brings heavy snow and travel disruption

In front of the Washington Monument, hundreds of local residents gathered at a local park for a snowball fight, a now 15-year-old tradition.

"Just having fun," one local man told the BBC. "Never done a snowball fight before."

Former US Olympic skier Clare Egan was found cross-country skiing on the National Mall, the central thoroughfare of the US capital city.

She told the Associated Press she had thought "my skiing days were maybe behind me".

Washington DC's weather emergency is declared until the early hours of Tuesday as a result of the system, which was named Winter Storm Blair by the Weather Channel.

Children who had been due to go back to classes on Monday after the Christmas and Hanukkah break were instead enjoying a snow day as school districts closed from Maryland to Kansas.

In other parts of the US, the winter storm brought with it dangerous road conditions.

In Missouri, the state's highway patrol said at least 365 people had crashed on Sunday, leaving dozens injured and at least one dead.

In nearby Kansas, one of the worst-hit states, local news reported that two people were killed in a car crash during the storm.

In Houston, Texas, a person was found dead from cold weather in front of a bus stop on Monday morning, authorities said.

In Virginia, where 300 car crashes were reported between midnight and Monday morning, authorities warned local residents to avoid driving in large parts of the state.

At least one motorist was killed, according to local media reports.

Matthew Cappucci, a senior meteorologist at the weather app MyRadar, told the BBC that Kansas City had seen the heaviest snow in 32 years.

Some areas near the Ohio River in Kansas and Missouri turned to "skating rinks" in the frigid temperatures, he added.

"The ploughs are getting stuck, the police are getting stuck, everybody's getting stuck - stay home," he said.

Data from Poweroutage.us, a tracking website, shows that over 260,000 people were without power on Monday afternoon, across the storm's path through Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia.

A senior Hamas official has shared with the BBC a list of 34 hostages that the Palestinian group says it is willing to release in the first stage of a potential ceasefire agreement with Israel.

It is unclear how many hostages remain alive.

Among those named are 10 women and 11 older male hostages aged between 50 and 85, as well as young children that Hamas previously said had been killed in an Israeli air strike.

A number of hostages that Hamas says are sick are also included on the list.

Reports from Hamas-run Gaza say Israeli air strikes killed more than 100 people there at the weekend.

The Israeli prime minister's office denied reports that Hamas had provided Israel with a list of hostages.

Ceasefire negotiations resumed in Doha, Qatar, over the weekend, but the talks do not appear to have made significant progress yet.

A Hamas official told Reuters news agency any agreement to return Israeli hostages would depend on a deal for Israel to withdraw from Gaza and a permanent ceasefire or end to the war.

"However, until now, the occupation continues to be obstinate over an agreement over the issues of the ceasefire and withdrawal, and has made no step forward," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Earlier, Hamas posted a video of 19-year-old Israeli captive Liri Albag urging her government to make a deal.

She was captured along with six other female conscript soldiers at the Nahal Oz army base on the Gaza border during Hamas's attack on 7 October 2023.

On that day Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage.

Israel's military campaign to destroy Hamas had killed at least 45,805 people in Gaza as of Saturday, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

The same source says Israeli air strikes killed 88 people in Gaza on Saturday itself while on Sunday, Reuters news agency quoted health sources as saying a further 17 had died in four separate Israeli attacks on the territory.

The Israeli military said on Sunday that its air force had attacked more than 100 "terrorist" sites across the Gaza Strip over the weekend, killing dozens of Hamas militants.

US President Joe Biden has announced a ban on offshore oil and gas drilling along most of America's coastline, weeks before Donald Trump takes office.

Trump had pledged to massively increase US fossil fuel production.

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President-elect Donald Trump has asked a New York judge to halt the sentencing in his felony hush money case, which is scheduled for 10 January.

His lawyers announced on Monday that Trump would appeal the decision by Justice Juan Merchan ordering that the sentencing would proceed.

In court filings, Trump's attorneys wrote they would seek "a dismissal of this politically motivated prosecution that was flawed from the very beginning".

Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in May 2024, making him the first former president convicted of a crime.

The charges stemmed from Trump's attempt to disguise reimbursements for a hush money payment to an adult film star as legal expenses.

Trump pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing. His lawyers said that filing an appeal should halt the criminal proceedings in his New York case.

The sentencing had been delayed repeatedly by the 2024 presidential election and Trump's attempt to have the case thrown out based on a claim of presidential immunity. Justice Merchan ultimately rejected the immunity argument in December.

On 3 January, Justice Merchan issued an order saying he would move ahead with the sentencing before Trump took office, but wrote that he would not consider any sentence of incarceration.

He ordered Trump to appear virtually or in-person for the hearing.

"The American People elected President Trump with an overwhelming mandate that demands an immediate end to the political weaponisation of our justice system and all of the remaining Witch Hunts," said Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump's presidential transition.

Trump's team has not publicly commented on whether the president-elect will be in court, but in its response Monday afternoon to the request for a stay, the Manhattan district attorney's office referred to "defendant's decision to appear for sentencing virtually instead of in person". The reference to a virtual hearing was repeated again several pages later.

In the response, the district attorney asked the judge to deny Trump's request for an immediate stay of his sentencing, and argued he would not be prejudiced by such a decision.

The weeks after the election featured a flurry of legal filings from both Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case, and Trump's legal team.

Bragg's office had previously indicated that they would not oppose delaying Trump's sentencing until after he finishes his term in office, four years from now.

But after Justice Merchan decided to move ahead with the sentencing, Bragg has asked the judge to proceed with the sentencing on Friday.

In his order last week, Justice Merchan wrote that "it is this court's firm belief that only by bringing finality to this matter" will the legal quandaries at play be resolved.

However, the judge left the door open to the possibility that Trump would seek to appeal the sentencing, writing that he "must be permitted to avail himself of every available appeal".

Apple has said it will update, rather than pause, a new artificial intelligence (AI) feature that has generated inaccurate news alerts on its latest iPhones.

The company, in its first acknowledgement of the concerns, on Monday said it was working on a software change to "further clarify" when the notifications are summaries that have been generated by the Apple Intelligence system.

The tech giant is facing calls to pull the technology after its flawed performance.

The BBC complained last month after an AI-generated summary of its headline falsely told some readers that Luigi Mangione, the man accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, had shot himself.

On Friday, Apple's AI inaccurately summarised BBC app notifications to claim that Luke Littler had won the PDC World Darts Championship hours before it began - and that the Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal had come out as gay.

This marks the first time Apple has formally responded to the concerns voiced by the BBC about the errors, which appear as if they are coming from within the organisation's app.

"These summarisations by Apple are spreading misinformation which does not reflect – and in some cases completely contradicts – the original BBC content," the BBC said on Monday.

"They are harming trust not only in the BBC, but in news and information more widely. It is imperative that Apple addresses these issues urgently."

• What is AI and how does it work?
• A simple guide to help you understand AI

Apple said its update would arrive "in the coming weeks".

It has previously said its notification summaries - which group together and rewrite previews of multiple recent app notifications into a single alert on user's lock screens - aim to allow users to "scan for key details".

"Apple Intelligence features are in beta and we are continuously making improvements with the help of user feedback," the company said in a statement on Monday, adding that receiving the summaries is optional.

"A software update in the coming weeks will further clarify when the text being displayed is summarization provided by Apple Intelligence. We encourage users to report a concern if they view an unexpected notification summary."

The feature, along with others released as part of its broader suite of AI tools was rolled out in the UK in December. It is only available on its iPhone 16 models, iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max handsets running iOS 18.1 and above, as well as on some iPads and Macs.

Several instances of the technology appearing to interpret messages in a highly blunt, literal way have gone viral on social media.

In November, a ProPublica journalist highlighted erroneous Apple AI summaries of alerts from the New York Times app suggesting it had reported that Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested.

The BBC has not been able to independently verify the screenshots, and the New York Times declined to comment.

Reporters Without Borders, an organisation representing the rights and interests of journalists, called on Apple to disable the feature in December.

It said the attribution of a false headline about Mr Mangione to the BBC showed "generative AI services are still too immature to produce reliable information for the public".

Apple is not alone in having rolled out generative AI tools that can create text, images and more content when prompted by users - but with varying results.

Google's AI overviews feature, which provides a written summary of information from results at the top of its search engine in response to user queries, faced criticism last year for producing some erratic responses.

At the time a Google spokesperson said that these were 'isolated examples' and that the feature was generally working well.

US Vice-President Kamala Harris will on Monday preside over the official certification in Congress of the result of November's presidential election - a contest that she lost to Donald Trump.

The date also marks the fourth anniversary of a riot at the US Capitol, when Trump's supporters tried to thwart the certification of Democratic President Joe Biden's election victory in 2020. Normally the occasion is a mere formality.

Heavy security is in place in Washington DC, and Biden has vowed there will be no repeat of the violence on 6 January 2021 - which led to several deaths.

As lawmakers meet in Washington DC, heavy snow forecast for the American capital could prove disruptive.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has vowed to go ahead with the certification at 13:00 EST (18:00 GMT) in spite of the weather, telling Fox News: "Whether we're in a blizzard or not, we're going to be in that chamber making sure this is done."

As the current vice-president, Harris is required by the US Constitution to officially preside over the certification of the result, after Trump beat her in the nationwide poll on 5 November.

Trump won all seven of the country's swing states, helping him to victory in the electoral college, the mechanism that decides who takes the presidency. It will be Harris's job on Monday to read out the number of electoral college votes won by each candidate.

Trump's second term will begin after he is inaugurated on 20 January. For the first time since 2017, the president's party will also enjoy majorities in both chambers of Congress, albeit slender ones.

• Just how big was Trump's victory?
• What next for Harris, after her bruising election defeat?
• Who has joined Trump's top team?
• What happens to Trump's legal cases?

Trump's win marked a stunning political comeback from his electoral defeat in 2020, and a criminal conviction in 2024 - a first for a current or former US president.

Amid the dramatic recent presidential campaign, Trump also survived a bullet grazing his ear when a gunman opened fire at one of his rallies in Pennsylvania.

While away from the White House, he has faced a slew of legal cases against him - including over his attempts to overturn the 2020 result, which he continues to dispute.

Following his defeat that year, Trump and his allies made baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud - claiming the election had been stolen from them.

In a speech in Washington DC on certification day, 6 January 2021, Trump told a crowd to "fight like hell" but also asked them to "peacefully" make their voices heard.

He also attempted to pressurise his own vice-president, Mike Pence, to reject the election result - a call that Pence rejected.

• What Trump said in speech before riot

Rioters went on to smash through barricades and ransack the Capitol building before Trump ultimately intervened by telling them to go home. Several deaths were blamed on the violence.

Trump's pledges after returning to office include pardoning people convicted of offences over the attack. He says many of them are "wrongfully imprisoned", though has acknowledged that "a couple of them, probably they got out of control".

Conversely, Biden has called on Americans never to forget what happened.

"We must remember the wisdom of the adage that any nation that forgets its past is doomed to repeat it," Biden wrote in the Washington Post over the weekend.

For Trump's Republican Party, the new Senate Majority Leader John Thune has signalled a desire to move on, telling the BBC's US partner CBS News: "You can't be looking in the rearview mirror."

• How these new recruits will be vetted
• What Trump can and can't do on day one
• How undocumented migrants feel about deportations
• Can RFK Jr make America healthy again?
• What Trump's Ukraine envoy has said about war

Austria's president Alexander Van der Bellen has tasked the leader of the far-right Freedom Party, Herbert Kickl, with forming a coalition government.

If the talks are successful, Austria will, for the first time, have a government led by the Eurosceptic, Russia-friendly Freedom Party (FPO).

The FPO has been in power before, but only as a junior coalition partner.

The party came first in September's elections, with roughly 29% of the vote, but was then sidelined.

President Van der Bellen infuriated the FPO by not tasking it with forming a government soon after the election.

At the time, the leaders of all of the other parties ruled out making an alliance with Kickl.

In October, Van der Bellen gave the conservative People's Party (OVP), which came second in the election with 26%, the task of forming a coalition.

The former leader of the OVP, Chancellor Karl Nehammer, had called Kickl a conspiracy theorist and a threat to security.

But Nehammer's attempts to form a three-party and then a two-party centrist coalition collapsed this weekend.

He then resigned and the new leader of the conservatives, Christian Stocker, said his party would be willing to hold talks with Kickl.

President Van der Bellen has now tasked Kickl with forming a government.

The step is a dramatic reversal for the president, a former leader of the Green Party, who has long been critical of the FPO and has expressed reservations about Kickl as Chancellor.

On Monday, Van der Bellen said he had not taken "this step lightly". He said he would "continue to ensure that the principles and rules of our constitution are correctly observed and adhered to".

In recent months, Van der Bellen has repeatedly said he will remain vigilant to ensure "cornerstones of democracy" including human rights, independent media and Austria's membership of the European Union are respected.

The Freedom Party and the OVP overlap on a number of issues and both take a tough line on migration.

However they have clashed on the EU and the Freedom Party's opposition to aid for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

There is no timeframe for the coalition talks, which would usually take two or three months, but could be quicker.

If the talks fail, a snap election is likely. Polls suggest that support for the Freedom Party has grown since September.

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has gone on trial in Paris, accused of taking millions of euros of illicit funds from the late Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi to finance his 2007 election campaign.

In exchange, the prosecution alleges Sarkozy promised to help Gaddafi combat his reputation as a pariah with Western countries.

Sarkozy, 69, was the president of France from 2007 to 2012.

He has always denied the charges, saying they were brought against him by people with motivations to bring him down.

The investigation was opened in 2013, two years after Saif al-Islam, son of the then-Libyan leader, first accused Sarkozy of taking millions of his father's money for campaign funding.

The following year, Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine - who for a long time acted as a middleman between France and the Middle East - said he had written proof that Sarkozy's campaign bid was "abundantly" financed by Tripoli, and that the €50m (£43m) worth of payments continued after he became president.

Twelve other people - accused of devising the pact with Gaddafi - are standing trial along Sarkozy. They all deny the charges.

Sarkozy's wife, Italian-born former supermodel and singer Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, was charged last year with hiding evidence linked to the Gaddafi case and associating with wrongdoers to commit fraud, both of which she denies.

Since losing his re-election bid in 2012, Sarkozy has been targeted by several criminal investigations.

He also appealed against a February 2024 ruling which found him guilty of overspending on his 2012 re-election campaign, then hiring a PR firm to cover it up. He was handed a one-year sentence, of which six months were suspended.

In 2021, he was found guilty of trying to bribe a judge in 2014 and became the first former French president to get a custodial sentence. In December, the Paris appeals court ruled that he could serve his time at home wearing a tag instead of going to jail.

Sarkozy was not wearing the tag as he arrived in court in Paris on Monday morning.

However, that is only because the details of that sentence have yet to be worked out.

It is likely that in the course of this three-month trial over the so-called Libya connection, the former president will appear wearing the device.

The trial is set to continue until 10 April. If found guilty, Sarkozy faces up to 10 years in prison.

Donald Trump Jr is planning to visit Greenland, two weeks after his father repeated his desire for the US to take control of the island - an autonomous Danish territory.

The US president-elect's son plans to record video footage for a podcast during the one-day private visit, US media report.

Donald Trump reignited controversy in December when he said "ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity" for US national security.

He had previously expressed an interest in buying the Arctic territory during his first term as president. Trump was rebuffed by Greenland's leaders on both occasions.

"We are not for sale and we will not be for sale," the island's Prime Minister, Mute Egede, said in December. "Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland."

Greenland lies on the shortest route from North America to Europe, making it strategically important for the US. It is also home to a large US space facility.

The president-elect's eldest son played a key role during the 2024 US election campaign, frequently appearing at rallies and in the media.

But he will not be travelling to Greenland on behalf of his father's incoming administration, according to the Danish foreign ministry.

"We have noted the planned visit of Donald Trump Jr to Greenland. As it is not an official American visit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark has no further comment to the visit," the ministry told BBC News.

• Greenland profile

Hours after President-elect Trump's latest intervention, the Danish government announced a huge boost in defence spending for Greenland. Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen described the announcement's timing as an "irony of fate".

On Monday Denmark's King Frederik X changed the royal coat of arms to more prominently feature representations of Greenland and the Faroe Islands.

Some have seen this as a rebuke to Trump, but it could also prove controversial with Greenland's separatist movement.

King Frederik used his New Year's address to say the Kingdom of Denmark was united "all the way to Greenland", adding "we belong together".

But Greenland's prime minister used his own New Year's speech to push for independence from Denmark, saying the island must break free from "the shackles of colonialism".

Trump is not the first US president to suggest buying Greenland. The idea was first mooted by the country's 17th president, Andrew Johnson, during the 1860s.

Separately in recent weeks, Trump has threatened to reassert control over the Panama Canal, one of the world's most important waterways. He has accused Panama of charging excessive fees for access to it.

Panama's president responded by saying "every square metre" of the canal and surrounding area belonged to his country.

For months now, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been asked variations of the same question: "Will you step down?"

But though he vowed to stay on as Liberal Party leader - despite deepening frustrations amongst voters and a political rival surging in the polls - even the self-described "fighter" could not withstand the growing chorus of members of his own party calling for him to resign.

"This country deserves a real choice in the next election, and it has become clear to me that if I'm having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election," Trudeau conceded on Monday, announcing his resignation in front of Rideau Cottage, his official residence for most of the last decade.

He will stay on as prime minister until a new Liberal Party leader is chosen, at a date yet to be set by the party.

• Follow developments live
• Who might replace Trudeau as Liberal Party leader?

Trudeau swept to power nearly a decade ago, heralded as the fresh face of progressive politics.

In 2015, swayed by his youthful charisma and a hopeful political message, voters catapulted the Liberals from a third-place party to holding a majority of seats in parliament - unprecedented in Canadian political history.

Now, he remains the only leader left standing among peers when he came into office, from Barack Obama to Angela Merkel, Shinzo Abe and David Cameron, and is currently the longest-serving leader in the G7.

But in the years since his ascent to the global stage, and over two general elections, Trudeau and his brand have become a drag on the party's fortunes.

Paul Wells, a Canadian political journalist and the author of Justin Trudeau on the Ropes, recently told the BBC he believes Trudeau will be remembered "as a consequential" prime minister, notably for providing genuine leadership on issues like indigenous reconciliation and, to some extent, climate policy.

But he is also one "who felt increasingly out of touch with public opinion and was increasingly unable to adjust to changing times".

A series of ethics scandals began to take the sheen off the new government - he was found to have violated federal conflict of interest rules in the handling of a corruption inquiry – the SNC-Lavalin affair - and for luxury trips to the Bahamas.

In 2020, he faced scrutiny for picking a charity with ties to his family to manage a major government programme.

In a general election in 2019, his party was reduced to a minority status, meaning the Liberals had to rely on the support of other parties to stay in power.

A snap election in 2021 did not improve their fortunes.

More recently, Trudeau faced headwinds from cost of living increases and inflation that have contributed to election upsets around the world.

And after more than nine years in power, he is among Canada's longest serving prime ministers, and there is a general sense of fatigue and frustration with his government.

The writing was on the wall. Over the summer, voters rejected Liberal candidates in a handful of special elections in once-safe Liberal seats, leading to the beginning of internal party unrest.

Public opinion polls also reached new depths.

A survey conducted over the holidays by the Angus Reid Institute suggested the lowest level of support for the party in their tracking, dating back to 2014.

But the shock resignation of his key deputy, former Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, in mid-December proved to be the final straw, as members of his own party made it clear they no longer supported his leadership.

Exactly 10 years after the jihadist gun-attack that killed most of its editorial staff, France's Charlie Hebdo has put out a special issue to show its cause is still kicking.

Things changed for France on 7 January 2015, marking in bloodshed the end of all wilful naivety about the threat of militant Islamism.

Brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi burst into a meeting at the Paris office of the satirical weekly, murdering its star cartoonists Cabu, Wolinski, Charb and Tignous.

Overall, 12 people were killed by the brothers, including a Muslim policeman on duty outside. Two days later they were cornered and shot dead by police at a sign-making business near Charles-de-Gaulle airport.

That same day saw Amedy Coulibaly – a one-time prison associate of Cherif – kill four Jews in a synchronised hostage-taking at a supermarket in eastern Paris. Coulibaly – who was then shot dead by police – had killed a policewoman the day before.

A decade on, Charlie Hebdo continues to bring out a weekly edition and has a circulation (print and online combined) of around 50,000.

It does so from an office whose whereabouts are kept secret, and with staff who are protected by bodyguards.

But in an editorial in Tuesday's memorial edition, the paper's main shareholder said its spirit of ribald anti-religious irreverence was still very much alive.

"The desire to laugh will never disappear," said Laurent Saurisseau – also known as Riss – a cartoonist who survived the 7 January attack with a bullet in the shoulder.

"Satire has one virtue that has got us through these tragic years – optimism. If people want to laugh, it is because they want to live.

"Laughter, irony and caricature are all manifestations of optimism," he wrote.

• Charlie Hebdo attack: Three days of terror
• Charlie Hebdo and its place in French journalism
• French terror attacks: Victim obituaries
• Paris attacks: 'I am not Charlie'

Also in the 32-page special are the 40 winning entries in a cartoon competition on the theme of "Laughing at God".

One contains the image of a cartoonist asking himself: "Is it okay to draw a picture of a man drawing a picture of a man drawing a picture of Muhammed?"

The Charlie Hebdo and Hypercacher attacks appear now as the overture to a grim and deadly period in modern France, during which – for a time – fear of jihadist terrorism became part of daily life.

In November 2015, there followed gun attacks at the Bataclan theatre and nearby bars in Paris. In the following July, 86 people were killed on the promenade in Nice.

Some 300 French people have died in Islamist attacks in the last decade.

Today the frequency has fallen sharply, and the defeat of the Islamic State group means there is no longer a support base in the Middle East.

But the killer individual, self-radicalised over the Internet, remains a constant threat in France as elsewhere.

The original pretext for the Charlie Hebdo murders – caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad – are now strictly off-limits to publications everywhere.

In 2020, a French teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded outside his school by a jihadist after he showed one of the Charlie cartoons in a discussion over freedom of speech.

And this week the trial opens in Paris of a Pakistani man who – a short time before Paty's murder – seriously injured two people with a butcher's cleaver at the Paris offices he thought were still being used by Charlie-Hebdo (in fact they had long since moved).

So as with every anniversary since 2015, the question once again being asked in France is: what - if anything - has changed? And what - if anything - survives of the great outpouring of international support, whose clarion call in the days after the murders was Je suis Charlie?

That was when a march of two million people through the centre of Paris was joined by heads of state and government from countries all over the world at the invitation of then President François Hollande.

Today, pessimists say the battle is over and lost. The chances of a humorous newspaper ever taking up the cudgel against Islam – in the way that Charlie Hebdo used regularly and scabrously to do against Christianity and Judaism – are zero.

Worse, for these people, is that parts of the political left in France are also now clearly distancing themselves from Charlie Hebdo, accusing it of becoming overly anti-Islam and adopting positions from the far-right.

Jean-Luc Melenchon, who leads the France Unbowed party, has accused the weekly of being a "bag-carrier for (right-wing magazine) Valeurs Actuels", and the Greens' Sandrine Rousseau said Charlie Hebdo was "misogynistic and at times racist".

This has in turn led to accusations aimed at the far-left that it has betrayed the free-speech spirit of Je suis Charlie in order to curry electoral support among French Muslims.

But speaking in the run-up to the anniversary, Riss – who counted the dead among his greatest friends and says he does not go through a day without reliving the moment of the attack – refused to renounce hope.

"I think [the Charlie spirit] is anchored more deeply in society than one might think. When you talk to people, you can see it's very much alive. It's a mistake to think it's all disappeared.

"It is part of our collective memory."

More Vietnamese attempted small-boat Channel crossings in the first half of 2024 than any other nationality. Yet they are coming from one of the world's fastest-growing economies. Why, then, are so many risking their lives to reach Britain?

Phuong looked at the small inflatable boat and wondered whether she should step in. There were 70 people packed in, and it was sitting low in the water. She recalls the fear, exhaustion and desperation on their faces. There weren't enough lifejackets to go around.

But Phuong was desperate. She says she had been stuck in France for two months, after travelling there from Vietnam via Hungary, sleeping in tents in a scrubby forest.

Already she had refused to travel on one boat because it seemed dangerously overcrowded, and previously had been turned back in the middle of the Channel three times by bad weather or engine failure.

Her sister, Hien, lives in London, and recalls that Phuong used to phone her from France in tears. "She was torn between fear and a drive to keep going.

"But she had borrowed so much - around £25,000 - to fund this trip. Turning back wasn't an option." So, she climbed on board.

Today Phuong lives in London with her sister, without any legal status. She was too nervous to speak to us directly, and Phuong is not her real name. She left it to her sister, who is now a UK citizen, to describe her experiences.

In the six months to June, Vietnamese made up the largest number of recorded small boat arrivals with 2,248 landing in the UK, ahead of people from countries with well-documented human rights problems, including Afghanistan and Iran.

The extraordinary efforts made by Vietnamese migrants to get to Britain is well documented, and in 2024 the BBC reported on how Vietnamese syndicates are running successful people-smuggling operations.

It is not without significant risks. Some Vietnamese migrants end up being trafficked into sex work or illegal marijuana farms. They make up more than one-tenth of those in the UK filing official claims that they are victims of modern slavery.

And yet Vietnam is a fast-growing economy, acclaimed as a "mini-China" for its manufacturing prowess. Per capita income is eight times higher than it was 20 years ago. Add to that the tropical beaches, scenery and affordability, which have made it a magnet for tourists.

So what is it that makes so many people desperate to leave?

A tale of two Vietnams

Vietnam, a one-party Communist state, sits near the bottom of most human rights and freedom indexes. No political opposition is permitted. The few dissidents who raise their voices are harassed and jailed.

Yet most Vietnamese have learned to live with the ruling party, which leans for legitimacy on its record of delivering growth. Very few who go to Britain are fleeing repression.

Nor are the migrants generally fleeing poverty. The World Bank has singled Vietnam out for its almost unrivalled record of poverty reduction among its 100 million people.

Rather, they are trying to escape what some call "relative deprivation".

Despite its impressive economic record, Vietnam started far behind most of its Asian neighbours, with growth only taking off well after the end of the Cold War in 1989. As a result, average wages, at around £230 a month, are much lower than in nearby countries like Thailand, and three-quarters of the 55-million-strong workforce are in informal jobs, with no security or social protection.

"There is a huge disparity between big cities like Hanoi and rural areas," says Nguyen Khac Giang, a Vietnamese academic at the Institute of South East Asian Studies-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. "For a majority of workers with limited skills, there is a glass ceiling. Even if you work 14 hours a day you cannot save enough to build a house or start a family."

This was what Phuong felt, despite coming from Haiphong, Vietnam's third-largest city.

Her sister Hien had made it to Britain nine years earlier, smuggled inside a shipping container. It had cost her around £22,000 but she was able to pay that back in two years, working long hours in kitchens and nail salons. Hien married a Vietnamese man who already had British citizenship, and they had a daughter; all three are now UK citizens.

In Haiphong, jobs were scarce after the pandemic and at 38 years old, Phuong wanted what her sister had in London: the ability to save money and start a family.

"She could survive in Vietnam, but she wanted a home, a better life, with more security," explains Hien.

Lan An Hoang, a professor in development studies at Melbourne University, has spent years studying migration patterns. "Twenty to thirty years ago, the urge to migrate overseas was not as strong, because everyone was poor," she says. "People were happy with one buffalo, one motorbike and three meals a day.

"Suddenly a few people successfully migrated to countries like Germany or the UK, to work on cannabis farms or open nail salons. They started to send a lot of money home. Even though the economic conditions of those left behind have not changed, they feel poor relative to all these families with migrants working in Europe."

'Catch up, get rich'

This tradition of seeking better lives overseas goes back to the 1970s and 80s, when Vietnam was allied to the Soviet Union following the defeat of US forces in the south.

The state-led economy had hit rock bottom. Millions were destitute; some areas suffered food shortages. Tens of thousands left to work in eastern bloc countries like Poland, East Germany and Hungary.

This was also a time when 800,000 mainly ethnic Chinese boat people fled the communist party's repressive actions, making perilous sea journeys across the South China Sea, eventually resettling in the USA, Australia or Europe.

The economic hardships of that time threatened the legitimacy of the communist party, and in 1986 it made an abrupt turn, abandoning the attempt to build a socialist system and throwing the doors open to global markets. The new theme of Vietnam's national story was to catch up, and get rich, any way possible. For many Vietnamese, that meant going abroad.

"Money is God in Vietnam," says Lan An Hoang. "The meaning of 'the good life' is primarily anchored in your ability to accumulate wealth. There is also a strong obligation to help your family, especially in central Vietnam.

"That is why the whole extended family pools resources to finance the migration of one young person because they believe they can send back large sums of money, and facilitate the migration of other people."

New money: spoils of migration

Drive through the flat rice fields of Nghe An, one of Vietnam's poorer provinces lying south of Hanoi, and where there were once smaller concrete houses, you will now find large, new houses with gilded gates. More are under construction, thanks, in part, to money earned in the West.

The new houses are prominent symbols of success for returnees who have done well overseas.

Vietnam is now enjoying substantial inflows of foreign investment, as it is considered an alternative to China for companies wanting to diversify their supply chains. This investment is even beginning to reach places like Nghe An, too.

Foxconn, a corporate giant that manufactures iPhones, is one of several foreign businesses building factories in Nghe An, offering thousands of new jobs.

But monthly salaries for unskilled workers only reach around £300, even with overtime. That is not enough to rival the enticing stories of the money to be made in the UK, as told by the people smugglers.

From travel agents to labour brokers

The business of organising the travel for those wishing to leave the province is now a very profitable one. Publicly, companies present themselves as either travel agents or brokers for officially-approved overseas labour contracts, but in practice many also offer to smuggle people to the UK via other European countries. They usually paint a rosy picture of life in Britain, and say little about the risks and hardships they will face.

"Brokers" typically charge between £15,000 and £35,000 for the trip to the UK. Hungary is a popular route into the EU because it offers guest-worker visas to Vietnamese passport holders. The higher the price, the easier and faster the journey.

The communist authorities in Vietnam have been urged by the US, the UK and UN agencies to do more to control the smuggling business.

Remittances from abroad earn Vietnam around £13bn a year, and the government has a policy of promoting migration for work, although only through legal channels, mostly to richer Asian countries.

More than 130,000 Vietnamese workers left in 2024 under the official scheme. But the fees for these contracts can be high, and the wages are much lower than they can earn in Britain.

The huge risks of the illicit routes used to reach the UK were brought home in 2019, when 39 Vietnamese people were found dead in Essex, having suffocated while being transported inside a sealed container across the Channel.

Yet this has not noticeably reduced demand for the smugglers' services. The increased scrutiny of container traffic has, however, pushed them to find alternative Channel crossings, which helps explain the sharp rise in Vietnamese people using small boats.

'Success stories outweigh the risks'

"The tragedy of the 39 deaths in 2019 is almost forgotten," says the cousin of one of the victims, Le Van Ha. He left behind a wife, two young children and a large debt from the cost of the journey. His cousin, who does not want to be named, says attitudes in their community have not changed.

"People hardly care anymore. It's a sad reality, but it is the truth.

"I see the trend of leaving continuing to grow, not diminish. For people here, the success stories still outweigh the risks."

Three of the victims came from the agricultural province of Quang Binh. The headteacher of a secondary school in the region, who also asked not to be named, says that 80% of his students who graduate soon plan to go overseas.

"Most parents here come from low-income backgrounds," he explains. "The idea of [encouraging their child to] broaden their knowledge and develop their skills is not the priority.

"For them, sending a child abroad is largely about earning money quickly, and getting it sent back home to improve the family's living standards."

In March the UK Home Office started a social media campaign to deter Vietnamese people from illegal migration. Some efforts were also made by the Vietnamese government to alert people to the risks of using people-smugglers. But until there are more appealing economic opportunities in those provinces, it is likely the campaigns will have little impact.

"They cannot run these campaigns just once," argues Diep Vuong, co-founder of Pacific Links, an anti-trafficking organisation. "It's a constant investment in education that's needed."

She has first-hand experience, leaving Vietnam to the US in 1980 as part of the exodus of Vietnamese boat people.

"In Vietnam, people believe they have to work hard, to do everything for their families. That is like a shackle which they cannot easily escape. But with enough good information put out over the years, they might start to change this attitude."

But the campaigns are up against a powerful narrative. Those who go overseas and fail – and many do – are often ashamed, and keep quiet about what went wrong. Those who succeed come back to places like Nghe An and flaunt their new-found wealth. As for the tragedy of the 39 people who died in a shipping container, the prevailing view in Nghe An is still that they were just unlucky.

Top image credit: Getty Images

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