Whether it's opening presents or the long-awaited Christmas dinner, the festive season involves plenty of things that could go wrong.

It's the little things that count at this time of year - and your etiquette is no exception.

The BBC has chatted with experts about potentially awkward moments you might face over the next few days, so you can try to avoid them.

A common festive issue is getting a present you do not like. Is it best to tell the person who gave it to you, or lie that you love it?

It depends on how well you know the person who gave you the gift, according to Rupert Wesson from professional coaching company Debrett's.

To lie - or not to lie

"There are some people [to whom] you can say the gift isn't for you, and for some you have to smile and tell them a little white lie that you like it," he tells the BBC.

But whatever you do, "don't make a funny face" at the gift when you open it, warns etiquette coach Laura Windsor.

"Just pretend you do [like it], and make a little comment on how useful the gift will be," she says. "The etiquette is always to be kind."

Both etiquette coaches say it's fine to give an unwanted present to charity or re-gift it for someone else in the future.

Mr Wesson suggests you should "always" keep a gift receipt when buying a present just in case - and he has these words of reassurance: "We can't all be perfect at buying exactly the right thing."

Open up about the cost

While the cost of turkey and Brussels sprouts have gone down this year, the price of root vegetables have gone up and some families are feeling the pinch this winter.

Ms Windsor advises that you can make a "Christmas pot" that everyone contributes to ahead of the big day.

Alternatively, she says you could ask each guest - or family member - to buy an item of food or drink each.

"There's no shame in this day and age in saying: 'I'm getting people together for Christmas, would you be able to provide this?'," Mr Wesson adds.

Stay upbeat - and avoid certain subjects

Sometimes petty arguments can flare up when the whole family is together - perhaps having eaten or drank too much.

Ms Windsor says "don't take it personally, just try to smooth it over," adding that you should not give people the "power to keep them complaining".

She advises to try and change the topic of conversation, but to avoid difficult subjects.

"You've got to keep the conversation upbeat."

If there are any existing tensions among the guests ahead of 25 December, Mr Wesson suggests attempting to address them upfront when you're putting together your plans before Christmas Day.

"Almost make the invitation [to guests or extended family] conditional that someone isn't going to kick off," he says.

Is it possible to say 'thank you' too much?

Ms Windsor advises against saying "thank you" to the host too much as it "loses its value".

She suggests showing your appreciation to the host in other ways, including offering to help them with anything, bringing a gift for them - such as a bottle of wine or a plant - and mingling with other guests.

"Mix it up a bit by complimenting them on the quality of the food," Mr Wesson says.

"Appreciation of how good the food is goes a long way."

Both etiquette experts advise sending a thank you note to the host after Christmas Day which is something that Mr Wesson calls "the gold standard of thank yous".

Be upfront about dietary requirements

If you have dietary requirements, such as being vegetarian or vegan, let whoever is hosting your Christmas dinner know ahead of time and not on 25 December, Ms Windsor stresses.

"It's about prevention, preventing discord - everything has to be organised beforehand," she says.

Mr Wesson adds: "It does fall to the host to really identify what the requirements are and then the host can plan."

Ms Windsor says that if there is any tension between people about the dietary requirements, "be empathetic" but stop the conversation.

"If they make a non-cordial remark, don't take it to heart."

The Christmas dinner rules

If your stomach is growling for Christmas dinner and you're growing impatient at how long it's taking to cook, Mr Wesson suggests you could offer to help.

"Then you're going to find the lay of the land and maybe suggest we can share something [to eat ahead of Christmas dinner]," he says.

But when you're finally tucking into the dinner, what do you do if you don't like it?

Say "yes" when asked if you're enjoying the food, Ms Windsor says.

"If you don't want to eat it, leave it," she adds - and you could always just say you've "had enough" to eat.

Mr Wesson advises to "try and draw as little attention" as possible to the fact you are not eating the meal.

To prevent this situation happening, try to see if the host will let everyone plate up their own food and then "don't pile too much on" in case you dislike it.

What to do if cards and gifts arrive after Christmas

Work, childcare, school - lots of things in life can get in the way and cause you to miss the cut-off date for sending Christmas cards and presents in time for 25 December.

Ms Windsor says organisation is "very, very important" because it shows that "you've put a lot of thought and put in the time and effort to make sure they get it in time for Christmas".

However, she says that you have to "take into account people's daily situation".

Mr Wesson says that "better late than never is the way ahead" but advises people to send a message to whoever the card or present is addressed to, letting them know it is on the way and apologise for the lateness.

'The golden rule'

Christmas Day all comes down to preparation - both organising the day and planning around family relationships, Mr Wesson says.

"It's trying to expect the best but also accept the possibility things might go a little awry," he says.

"Often these things aren't really that serious and often doesn't ruin the whole day."

"The golden rule: treat others as you'd like to be treated," Ms Windsor adds. "You won't go wrong with that."

Giovanni Pernice, a former professional dancer on Strictly Come Dancing, has won an Italian dance show months after he left the UK following a BBC investigation into allegations about his behaviour.

Pernice said his Ballando Con Le Stelle win with partner Bianca Guaccero, who is also his girlfriend, was a dream, adding: "after a difficult year I'm back".

The show is Italy's version of Strictly Come Dancing and its US spin-off Dancing With The Stars.

It comes after the BBC upheld "some, but not all" of the complaints made against him by his 2023 Strictly partner Amanda Abbington.

Pernice and Guaccero, who is an actress and singer, won the 19th season of Ballando Con Le Stelle, after performing dances including the Argentinian Tango and the Charleston.

The pair had recently confirmed their status as a romantic couple.

Italian-born Pernice shared several posts on Instagram about his win and thanked UK fans for their support.

In September, the BBC apologised to Pernice's former partner Amanda Abbington and upheld findings of harassment and verbal bullying against him but he was cleared of allegations of physical aggression.

Abbington, who played Mary Morstan in Sherlock, has since said she felt vindicated and that she had "no regrets" after making the complaints.

Pernice said at the time he was "relieved that the allegations that I was threatening and abusive were found not to be true."

On Instagram on Sunday, Pernice said: "We did it!! WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS !! after a difficult year."

He added: "It felt amazing to be in the final again doing what I love - and then to win as well was a dream and definitely something I will never forget!"

The day before he addressed his "dear friends in the UK, saying that he and his partner could tell where the votes for the show were coming from as it is "all about likes on social media".

Pernice wrote: "We just want to say a massive thank you, because realistically, we couldn't do anything without you.

"We can totally see which part of the votes are coming from the UK and you are being unbelievably amazing."

Belfast City Airport's runway will be closed for the rest of Sunday after an Aer Lingus plane suffered an emergency incident while landing during strong winds.

The plane had flown from Edinburgh to Belfast at about 16:00 GMT with four crew members but no passengers on board.

Pictures appear to show the aircraft with a collapsed nose wheel sitting on the runway.

It is understood no-one was seriously hurt.

It was a "positioning flight" operated by Emerald Airlines on behalf of Aer Lingus.

Emerald Airlines said it "experienced a hard landing upon arriving into Belfast City Airport due to adverse weather conditions".

Two flights - from London City and Leeds Bradford - due to land at the airport have since arrived at Belfast International Airport after being diverted.

A woman has been charged with the murder of a five-year-old boy.

Lincoln Button died at an address in Windstar Drive in South Ockendon, Essex, on 15 December.

A woman was taken to hospital for treatment and she was arrested and questioned after her condition improved.

Claire Button, 35, of Windstar Drive, South Ockendon, has been charged with murder and is due to appear before magistrates in Southend on Monday.

Det Ch Insp Alan Blakesley, from Essex Police, said: "This continues to prove to be an immensely complex investigation into the death of a young child.

"My thoughts and the thoughts of all the investigative team remain with the family of Lincoln Button as we continue to support them through this awful time.

"It has taken a huge amount of work and dedication from the investigative team to reach this stage in our investigation and I would continue to call upon the public to refrain from speculating about the circumstances around this case."

In a statement released last week, Bonnygate Primary School said it was working closely with the authorities as Lincoln's death was investigated.

"His love for school, laughter and cuddles will be remembered and missed dearly," said a spokesperson.

"The school's priority is to support those within the community who need help to come to terms with this tragic loss."

Members of his family also said in a statement: "Link was a cherished, loved, sweet, beautiful young soul who was adored by all and will be sorely missed every day."

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Teen magazine tips on "how to secretly have a poo without your boyfriend knowing" had a lasting impression on Jen Moore.

She said one tip even suggested taking an over-the-counter medication to prevent a woman needing a poo while staying overnight with a partner.

The 35-year-old only recently realised she had adopted some of these habits, but that embarrassment had masked a serious health condition.

When she and her husband first met, she would wait for him to leave the house before she "went for a poo", or if he was upstairs she "would run the taps".

"I have such a visceral memory of reading this article and I obviously internalised it and hadn't even realised until fairly recently."

Last year she was "forced to be open about something I had kept to myself for years" when she experienced rectal bleeding.

It was the first time she talked about the issue with her husband, Chris, despite being together nearly 15 years.

Four months after excision surgery for endometriosis, and a hysterectomy for adenomyosis, she was worried the bleeding was a sign of delayed complications.

But a later unrelated MRI confirmed it was deep endometriosis over her bowel.

The women's health campaigner - originally from Swansea, but now living in Cambridge - said: "I talk about my body parts and periods online all the time, I didn't think I had taboos about my body. But there it was."

She laughed recalling her medical notes detail that she "is known for constipation".

"I have been constipated for as long as I can remember, there were occasions where I would go once a week.

"In fact, I thought if people were in the bathroom really regularly there was something wrong with them - I was raised in the generation where girls are told they fart glitter and rainbows."

Embarrassment might have held Jen back from speaking up, but that was not the case for Emma Williams-Tully.

The 39-year-old from Wrexham also has endometriosis. She said she felt "fobbed off" when she told doctors about her constipation and rectal bleeding.

"When I had constipation no matter what medication I took I couldn't go to the toilet for 10 days at a time and would be in absolute agony.

"I went to different specialists over the border in England and every single colonoscopy came back normal."

When she was diagnosed with endometriosis at 21, she remembers her consultant admitting: "We thought you'd been making it up all this time."

She praised the team of doctors supporting her now, but described the years of endometriosis as "torturous".

She has had 11 surgeries in total, including a hysterectomy and the removal of her colon, leaving her with an ileostomy stoma.

"I don't want to scare people and think just because they have diarrhoea or constipation that this will happen to them. But it's about advocating for yourself."

Julie Cornish, a colorectal surgeon from Cardiff and Vale health board said by the time patients reached her they had "typically been suffering for some time".

"Things have escalated, because people are too embarrassed to speak up.

"Constipation is common, it affects about 20% of the population", she said, but added in the worst cases patients will have a poo as infrequently as once a month.

"It's extreme, but we are seeing patients in their early 20s who have had problems opening their bowels since they were small and it's never gone away. They've taken lots and lots of laxatives over time and have ended up having their colon removed."

She added there were simple steps that could help.

"The bowel is one of the vital organs of the body, if it doesn't work well - you know about it. But we don't talk about it, that's the issue.

"We need a public health campaign around the bladder and bowel."

Tips for a healthy poo habit

Don't put it off: "You can get people who decide they are only going to go to the toilet in their own house," said Julie Cornish.

"If they go on holiday for a week they take something to stop them going to the toilet because they don't want to do it anywhere else. Or they feel it's unpleasant or embarrassing to go at work, so they withhold."

Water: "Make sure you drink plenty of water. Caffeine is very good for the bowels in terms of making it work more, but if you're getting diarrhoea that's not very good."

Exercise: "Just a simple walk of 15 to 20 minutes - your core abdominal muscles work a bit like a washing machine and will help the bowels move."

Diet: "You can increase the amount of fruit and fibre in your diet. You can look for things like psyllium husk, flaxseed and chia seeds to encourage it to move."

What should a poo look like? How often should I go?

"A lot of people don't actually look at their poo, but you should," said Julie Cornish.

"Is there any blood in there? What's the consistency of the poo look like?

"Look at the Bristol Stool chart. If it's type one or type two which is sort of rabbit pellets or Maltesers stuck together, that suggests you need a bit more water or fibre in your diet.

"If you're struggling to empty, or have a lot of bloating, it may be that you're constipated or have some pelvic floor dysfunction - you probably need to see a physiotherapist.

"Generally opening your bowel every one to three days, with a smooth stool is considered normal.

"If you get a significant change in your bowel habit - an increase or decrease in frequency, or if you start to get significant pain, bloating, weight loss or blood in the stool, please go and see your GP."

Amanda Walker felt trapped in a flat she couldn't sell because of its flammable cladding.

When it turned out that no government scheme would cover the costs of removing the dangerous material from her newly built flat in south London, she started campaigning.

She spent four years trying to get justice for herself, and for millions caught up in the scandal exposed by the Grenfell Tower fire.

Then, at the age of 51, she was found dead in her one-bedroom apartment by her mother and sister. An inquest recently recorded a verdict of death by misadventure.

"She would often phone me late at night when she just couldn't deal with it any more," her mother Glenda recalls.

"I wish she could phone me now."

Half a year earlier, in July 2023, Amanda had addressed peers in the House of Lords investigating the impact of the cladding problem on flat owners.

"It's devastating. It's just a quagmire. It's just chaos," she told them. "It's so unjust. I had done nothing wrong and it's destroyed my life already."

The video of Amanda's address to the Lords is now treasured by her mother, who's speaking for the first time since the inquest's verdict.

Glenda thinks Amanda, an office manager at a hedge fund in the City of London, started drinking to deal with the anxiety of having to face unaffordable bills to fix the cladding, running into the tens of thousands.

"I'm not ashamed for her for that because it was her way of coping. She used the term 'seeking oblivion'."

Amanda wrote countless letters to MPs, local authorities and other responsible bodies - but "always got the statutory response", her mother continues.

"There are still over a million people in this situation and [MPs and civil servants] would write these platitudinous letters saying 'oh we're doing this, we're doing that'."

She doesn't just see those as unhelpful - but as evidence that nobody really understood the scale of the problem and how seriously it was affecting people.

The government did eventually launch a scheme - the Building Safety Fund - to pay to remove the type of dangerous cladding that is on the outside of Amanda's flat.

She was hoping that changes enshrined in a separate landmark law called the Building Safety Act - brought in after the Grenfell tragedy - would help her correct internal fire safety defects, like insufficient fire stopping between flats.

But they didn't. There were significant exceptions to who qualified.

Since some of the other flat owners in her development had bought a share of the building's freehold, she became what's known as a "non-qualifying" leaseholder - meaning she still faced huge uncapped bills to contribute towards the repair costs.

Several proposed amendments to the Building Safety Act that would've protected people in Amanda's position were voted down in the last parliament.

What always scared Amanda was the threat of having to pay unpayable sums. She described it as a "sword of Damocles over my head for three long years". For a brief moment there was hope. "And then they vote against us, on everything," she told peers.

Amanda's drinking increased and her family sought medical help. She agreed to be hospitalised. GPs and psychiatrists were clear in their reports: Amanda's drinking, stress and anxiety were down to the impact of the cladding crisis on her mental state. She was prescribed anti-depressants.

She continued campaigning with her mother, but things began to spiral downhill.

Glenda believes the anti-depressants she was given were not benefiting her. "I think she was over-medicated and her head was all over the place. She wasn't depressed, she kept saying: 'I am not depressed, I'm angry.'"

Amanda's partner split up with her as cladding campaigning consumed more and more of her life. Her mother and sister would make trips to see her to try to offer support.

• If you've been affected by the issues in this story, help and support is available via the BBC Action Line

Things came to a head one day this January.

Glenda was growing ever-more nervous about her daughter, and knew she needed urgent medical attention.

She says she'd written a "fairly assertive" letter to a hospital where her daughter had been previously treated, warning her condition was getting serious.

Travelling to London through the rain, she found herself "phoning and phoning and phoning" the hospital to try to get doctors to intervene again.

The following day Amanda was found dead.

Asked if she'd ever thought that her daughter might kill herself, Glenda says: "Manda had talked about it. She'd talked about it."

She says she can understand her daughter's state of mind that weekend.

"Yeah, I've seen it so often. I'm different from her and she felt despair… She wanted justice and she felt it was just awful. I think she lost faith in the government completely."

The government says that work is already underway through the Remediation Acceleration Plan "to make sure those responsible for the cladding crisis pay their fair share".

It says it is "continuing to look at all options to ensure residents no longer have to deal with the nightmare of living in unsafe buildings".

Amanda's flat has now passed to her parents to deal with.

Its exterior cladding has now been replaced and they are trying to sell - but they still haven't been able to, due to structural fire issues inside the property.

Unless the Building Safety Act is amended by fresh legislation, Amanda's parents or any future purchaser will be liable for paying to fix those problems.

Amanda's mother hopes that speaking about her daughter's death has not been in vain, and that her story can be a catalyst.

"You go through grief… and perhaps the anger's getting in there a little bit now.

"For her sake, we'd love to think that she had caused some small change."

A local fire brigade has paid tribute to a nine-year-old killed in an attack on a German Christmas market.

André Gleißner died after a car drove into a crowd of shoppers at the market in Magdeburg on Friday evening, according to the Schöppenstedt fire department.

In a statement they said he was a member of the children's fire brigade in Warle, which is about an hour's drive from Magdeburg.

Four women, aged 45, 52, 67 and 75, also died in the attack. Authorities are holding a suspect in pre-trial detention on counts of murder, attempted murder and dangerous bodily harm.

The Saudi authorities, I am told, are currently working flat out to collate everything they have on the Magdeburg market suspect, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, and to share it with Germany's ongoing investigation "in every way possible".

Inside the imposing sand coloured and fortress-like walls of the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Riyadh there is a perhaps justifiable sense of pique.

The ministry previously warned the German government about al-Abdulmohsen's extremist views.

It sent four so-called "Notes Verbal", three of them to Germany's intelligence agencies and one to the foreign ministry in Berlin. There was, the Saudis say, no response.

Part of the explanation for this may lie in the fact that Taleb al-Abdulmohsen was granted asylum by Germany in 2016, one year after the former Chancellor Angela Merkel threw open her country's borders to let in more than a million migrants from the Middle East, and 10 years after al-Abdulmohsen had taken up residence in Germany.

Coming from a country where Islam is the only religion permitted to be practiced in public, al-Abdulmohsen was a very unusual citizen.

He had turned his back on Islam, making himself a heretic in the eyes of many.

Born in the Saudi date palm oasis town of Hofuf in 1974, little is known about his early life before he decided to leave Saudi Arabia and move to Europe aged 32.

Active on social media, on his Twitter (later X) account he labels himself as both a psychiatrist and founder of Saudi rights movement, together with the tag @SaudiExMuslims.

He founded a website aimed at helping Saudi women flee their country to Europe.

The Saudis say he was a people trafficker and the Ministry of Interior's investigators, the Mabaatheth, are said to have an extensive file on him.

There have been reports in recent years of dissident Saudis coming under hostile surveillance from Saudi government agents, in Canada, the US and in Germany.

There is no question that the German authorities, both federal and state, have made some serious errors of omission in the case of al-Abdulmohsen.

Whatever their reasons for not responding, as the Saudis claim, to the repeated warnings about his extremism, he was clearly a danger to his adopted host country.

There is also, separately, the failure to close off, or at least guard, the emergency access route to Magdeburg Alter Markt that allowed him to allegedly drive his BMW into the crowds.

German authorities have defended the market's layout and said an investigation into the suspect's past is ongoing.

But a complicating factor here is that Saudi Arabia, although considered a friend and ally of the West, has a poor human rights record.

Until June 2018 Saudi women were forbidden to drive and even those women who publicly called for that ban to be lifted before then have been persecuted and imprisoned.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, still only in his 30s, just, is immensely popular in his own country.

While Western leaders largely distanced themselves from him after his alleged involvement in the grisly murder of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, which the crown prince denies, at home his star is still in the ascendant.

Under his de-facto rule, Saudi public life has transformed for the better, with men and women allowed to associate freely, and cinemas reopening, along with big, spectacular sports and entertainment events, even gigs performed by Western artists like David Guetta and the Black Eyed Peas.

But there is a paradox here.

While Saudi public life has flourished there has been a simultaneous crackdown on anything that even hints at more political or religious freedom.

Harsh prison sentences of 10 years or more have been handed down for simple tweets.

No-one is permitted to even question the way the country is run.

It is against this backdrop that Germany appears to have dropped the ball with Taleb al-Abdulmohsen.

Cyclone Chido has killed 94 people in Mozambique since it made landfall in the east African country last week, local authorities have said.

The country's National Institute of Risk and Disaster Management (INGD) said 768 people were injured and more than 622,000 people affected by the natural disaster in some capacity.

Chido hit Mozambique on 15 December with winds of 260 km/h (160mph) and 250mm of rainfall in the first 24 hours.

The same cyclone had first wreaked havoc in the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, before moving on to Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe.

In Mozambique, the storm struck northern provinces that are regularly battered by cyclones. It first reached Cabo Delgado, then travelled further inland to Niassa and Nampula.

The country's INGD said the cyclone impacted the education and health sector. More than 109,793 students were affected, with school infrastructure severely damaged.

Some 52 sanitary units were damaged, the INGD said, which further risks access to essential health services. This is exacerbated further in areas where access to healthcare facilities were already limited before the cyclone.

Daniel Chapo, leader of Mozambique's ruling party, told local media the government is mobilising support on "all levels" in response to the cyclone.

Speaking during a visit to Cabo Delgado on Sunday, one of the most badly affected areas, Chapo said the government is working alongside the INGD to ensure those affected in the provinces of Mecúfi, Nampula, Memba and Niassa can rebuild.

In Mayotte, Chido was the worst storm to hit the archipelago in 90 years, leaving tens of thousands of people reeling from the catastrophe.

The interior ministry in its latest update confirmed 35 people had died.

Mayotte's prefect previously told local media the death toll could rise significantly once the damage was fully assessed, warning it would "definitely be several hundred" and could reach thousands.

More than 1,300 officers were deployed to support the local population.

One week on, many residents still lack basic necessities, while running water is making a gradual return to the territory's capital. The ministry has advised people to boil water for three minutes before consuming it.

Around 100 tonnes of equipment are being delivered each day, the ministry said, as an air bridge was built between Mayotte, Reunion and mainland France.

In a statement on Friday, interior minister Bruno Retailleau said 80 tonnes of food and 50 tonnes of water had been distributed across Mayotte that day.

Tropical cyclones are characterised by very high wind speeds, heavy rainfall, and storm surges, which are short-term rises to sea-levels. This often causes widespread damage and flooding.

The cyclone, the INGD said, "highlights once again, the vulnerability of social infrastructures to climate change and the need for resilient planning to mitigate future impacts".

Assessing the exact influence of climate change on individual tropical cyclones can be challenging due to the complexity of these storm systems. But rising temperatures do affect these storms in measurable ways.

The UN's climate body, the IPCC, previously said there is "high confidence" that humans have contributed to increases in precipitation associated with tropical cyclones, and "medium confidence" that humans have contributed to the higher probability of a tropical cyclone being more intense.

A local fire brigade has paid tribute to a nine-year-old killed in an attack on a German Christmas market.

André Gleißner died after a car drove into a crowd of shoppers at the market in Magdeburg on Friday evening, according to the Schöppenstedt fire department.

In a statement they said he was a member of the children's fire brigade in Warle, which is about an hour's drive from Magdeburg.

Four women, aged 45, 52, 67 and 75, also died in the attack. Authorities are holding a suspect in pre-trial detention on counts of murder, attempted murder and dangerous bodily harm.

The Saudi authorities, I am told, are currently working flat out to collate everything they have on the Magdeburg market suspect, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, and to share it with Germany's ongoing investigation "in every way possible".

Inside the imposing sand coloured and fortress-like walls of the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Riyadh there is a perhaps justifiable sense of pique.

The ministry previously warned the German government about al-Abdulmohsen's extremist views.

It sent four so-called "Notes Verbal", three of them to Germany's intelligence agencies and one to the foreign ministry in Berlin. There was, the Saudis say, no response.

Part of the explanation for this may lie in the fact that Taleb al-Abdulmohsen was granted asylum by Germany in 2016, one year after the former Chancellor Angela Merkel threw open her country's borders to let in more than a million migrants from the Middle East, and 10 years after al-Abdulmohsen had taken up residence in Germany.

Coming from a country where Islam is the only religion permitted to be practiced in public, al-Abdulmohsen was a very unusual citizen.

He had turned his back on Islam, making himself a heretic in the eyes of many.

Born in the Saudi date palm oasis town of Hofuf in 1974, little is known about his early life before he decided to leave Saudi Arabia and move to Europe aged 32.

Active on social media, on his Twitter (later X) account he labels himself as both a psychiatrist and founder of Saudi rights movement, together with the tag @SaudiExMuslims.

He founded a website aimed at helping Saudi women flee their country to Europe.

The Saudis say he was a people trafficker and the Ministry of Interior's investigators, the Mabaatheth, are said to have an extensive file on him.

There have been reports in recent years of dissident Saudis coming under hostile surveillance from Saudi government agents, in Canada, the US and in Germany.

There is no question that the German authorities, both federal and state, have made some serious errors of omission in the case of al-Abdulmohsen.

Whatever their reasons for not responding, as the Saudis claim, to the repeated warnings about his extremism, he was clearly a danger to his adopted host country.

There is also, separately, the failure to close off, or at least guard, the emergency access route to Magdeburg Alter Markt that allowed him to allegedly drive his BMW into the crowds.

German authorities have defended the market's layout and said an investigation into the suspect's past is ongoing.

But a complicating factor here is that Saudi Arabia, although considered a friend and ally of the West, has a poor human rights record.

Until June 2018 Saudi women were forbidden to drive and even those women who publicly called for that ban to be lifted before then have been persecuted and imprisoned.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, still only in his 30s, just, is immensely popular in his own country.

While Western leaders largely distanced themselves from him after his alleged involvement in the grisly murder of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, which the crown prince denies, at home his star is still in the ascendant.

Under his de-facto rule, Saudi public life has transformed for the better, with men and women allowed to associate freely, and cinemas reopening, along with big, spectacular sports and entertainment events, even gigs performed by Western artists like David Guetta and the Black Eyed Peas.

But there is a paradox here.

While Saudi public life has flourished there has been a simultaneous crackdown on anything that even hints at more political or religious freedom.

Harsh prison sentences of 10 years or more have been handed down for simple tweets.

No-one is permitted to even question the way the country is run.

It is against this backdrop that Germany appears to have dropped the ball with Taleb al-Abdulmohsen.

Amanda Walker felt trapped in a flat she couldn't sell because of its flammable cladding.

When it turned out that no government scheme would cover the costs of removing the dangerous material from her newly built flat in south London, she started campaigning.

She spent four years trying to get justice for herself, and for millions caught up in the scandal exposed by the Grenfell Tower fire.

Then, at the age of 51, she was found dead in her one-bedroom apartment by her mother and sister. An inquest recently recorded a verdict of death by misadventure.

"She would often phone me late at night when she just couldn't deal with it any more," her mother Glenda recalls.

"I wish she could phone me now."

Half a year earlier, in July 2023, Amanda had addressed peers in the House of Lords investigating the impact of the cladding problem on flat owners.

"It's devastating. It's just a quagmire. It's just chaos," she told them. "It's so unjust. I had done nothing wrong and it's destroyed my life already."

The video of Amanda's address to the Lords is now treasured by her mother, who's speaking for the first time since the inquest's verdict.

Glenda thinks Amanda, an office manager at a hedge fund in the City of London, started drinking to deal with the anxiety of having to face unaffordable bills to fix the cladding, running into the tens of thousands.

"I'm not ashamed for her for that because it was her way of coping. She used the term 'seeking oblivion'."

Amanda wrote countless letters to MPs, local authorities and other responsible bodies - but "always got the statutory response", her mother continues.

"There are still over a million people in this situation and [MPs and civil servants] would write these platitudinous letters saying 'oh we're doing this, we're doing that'."

She doesn't just see those as unhelpful - but as evidence that nobody really understood the scale of the problem and how seriously it was affecting people.

The government did eventually launch a scheme - the Building Safety Fund - to pay to remove the type of dangerous cladding that is on the outside of Amanda's flat.

She was hoping that changes enshrined in a separate landmark law called the Building Safety Act - brought in after the Grenfell tragedy - would help her correct internal fire safety defects, like insufficient fire stopping between flats.

But they didn't. There were significant exceptions to who qualified.

Since some of the other flat owners in her development had bought a share of the building's freehold, she became what's known as a "non-qualifying" leaseholder - meaning she still faced huge uncapped bills to contribute towards the repair costs.

Several proposed amendments to the Building Safety Act that would've protected people in Amanda's position were voted down in the last parliament.

What always scared Amanda was the threat of having to pay unpayable sums. She described it as a "sword of Damocles over my head for three long years". For a brief moment there was hope. "And then they vote against us, on everything," she told peers.

Amanda's drinking increased and her family sought medical help. She agreed to be hospitalised. GPs and psychiatrists were clear in their reports: Amanda's drinking, stress and anxiety were down to the impact of the cladding crisis on her mental state. She was prescribed anti-depressants.

She continued campaigning with her mother, but things began to spiral downhill.

Glenda believes the anti-depressants she was given were not benefiting her. "I think she was over-medicated and her head was all over the place. She wasn't depressed, she kept saying: 'I am not depressed, I'm angry.'"

Amanda's partner split up with her as cladding campaigning consumed more and more of her life. Her mother and sister would make trips to see her to try to offer support.

• If you've been affected by the issues in this story, help and support is available via the BBC Action Line

Things came to a head one day this January.

Glenda was growing ever-more nervous about her daughter, and knew she needed urgent medical attention.

She says she'd written a "fairly assertive" letter to a hospital where her daughter had been previously treated, warning her condition was getting serious.

Travelling to London through the rain, she found herself "phoning and phoning and phoning" the hospital to try to get doctors to intervene again.

The following day Amanda was found dead.

Asked if she'd ever thought that her daughter might kill herself, Glenda says: "Manda had talked about it. She'd talked about it."

She says she can understand her daughter's state of mind that weekend.

"Yeah, I've seen it so often. I'm different from her and she felt despair… She wanted justice and she felt it was just awful. I think she lost faith in the government completely."

The government says that work is already underway through the Remediation Acceleration Plan "to make sure those responsible for the cladding crisis pay their fair share".

It says it is "continuing to look at all options to ensure residents no longer have to deal with the nightmare of living in unsafe buildings".

Amanda's flat has now passed to her parents to deal with.

Its exterior cladding has now been replaced and they are trying to sell - but they still haven't been able to, due to structural fire issues inside the property.

Unless the Building Safety Act is amended by fresh legislation, Amanda's parents or any future purchaser will be liable for paying to fix those problems.

Amanda's mother hopes that speaking about her daughter's death has not been in vain, and that her story can be a catalyst.

"You go through grief… and perhaps the anger's getting in there a little bit now.

"For her sake, we'd love to think that she had caused some small change."

Cyclone Chido has killed 94 people in Mozambique since it made landfall in the east African country last week, local authorities have said.

The country's National Institute of Risk and Disaster Management (INGD) said 768 people were injured and more than 622,000 people affected by the natural disaster in some capacity.

Chido hit Mozambique on 15 December with winds of 260 km/h (160mph) and 250mm of rainfall in the first 24 hours.

The same cyclone had first wreaked havoc in the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, before moving on to Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe.

In Mozambique, the storm struck northern provinces that are regularly battered by cyclones. It first reached Cabo Delgado, then travelled further inland to Niassa and Nampula.

The country's INGD said the cyclone impacted the education and health sector. More than 109,793 students were affected, with school infrastructure severely damaged.

Some 52 sanitary units were damaged, the INGD said, which further risks access to essential health services. This is exacerbated further in areas where access to healthcare facilities were already limited before the cyclone.

Daniel Chapo, leader of Mozambique's ruling party, told local media the government is mobilising support on "all levels" in response to the cyclone.

Speaking during a visit to Cabo Delgado on Sunday, one of the most badly affected areas, Chapo said the government is working alongside the INGD to ensure those affected in the provinces of Mecúfi, Nampula, Memba and Niassa can rebuild.

In Mayotte, Chido was the worst storm to hit the archipelago in 90 years, leaving tens of thousands of people reeling from the catastrophe.

The interior ministry in its latest update confirmed 35 people had died.

Mayotte's prefect previously told local media the death toll could rise significantly once the damage was fully assessed, warning it would "definitely be several hundred" and could reach thousands.

More than 1,300 officers were deployed to support the local population.

One week on, many residents still lack basic necessities, while running water is making a gradual return to the territory's capital. The ministry has advised people to boil water for three minutes before consuming it.

Around 100 tonnes of equipment are being delivered each day, the ministry said, as an air bridge was built between Mayotte, Reunion and mainland France.

In a statement on Friday, interior minister Bruno Retailleau said 80 tonnes of food and 50 tonnes of water had been distributed across Mayotte that day.

Tropical cyclones are characterised by very high wind speeds, heavy rainfall, and storm surges, which are short-term rises to sea-levels. This often causes widespread damage and flooding.

The cyclone, the INGD said, "highlights once again, the vulnerability of social infrastructures to climate change and the need for resilient planning to mitigate future impacts".

Assessing the exact influence of climate change on individual tropical cyclones can be challenging due to the complexity of these storm systems. But rising temperatures do affect these storms in measurable ways.

The UN's climate body, the IPCC, previously said there is "high confidence" that humans have contributed to increases in precipitation associated with tropical cyclones, and "medium confidence" that humans have contributed to the higher probability of a tropical cyclone being more intense.

Magdeburg's Christmas market is a sad sight. This should have been the busiest weekend of the season, but the whole area has been cordoned off and all the stands are shut.

Police are the only people walking around the boarded-up mulled wine and gingerbread stalls.

On the pavement, red candles flicker, tributes laid for the victims.

Lukas, a truck driver, told me he felt compelled to come to pay his respects. "I wasn't there when it happened," he told me.

"But I work here in Magdeburg. I'm here every day. I've driven by here a thousand times."

"It's a tragedy for everyone here in Magdeburg. The perpetrator should be punished."

"We can only hope that the victims and their families find the strength to deal with it."

There is sorrow here – but there is anger too.

Many people here see this attack as a terrible lapse in security. That is a claim the authorities reject, although they have admitted the attacker entered the market using a route planned for emergency responders.

Michael, who also came to pay tributes to the victims, said "there should've been better security".

"We should have been prepared better but that was not done properly."

• Investigation: Police probe market security and warnings about suspect
• Explained: What we know so far about Magdeburg Christmas market attack
• From the scene: Eyewitness heard rumbling and shattering glass

Standing at the security cordon, I heard a group of locals complaining loudly about Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz and regional politicians.

"They are wasting our tax money, they are just looking out for themselves. They are not interested in us. We just hear empty promises," one man said.

"They are turning what happened here around and want to put the blame on the opposition and use it for their election campaign," he said.

On Saturday evening, around the same time as the square in front of Magdeburg's Gothic cathedral was filled with mourners watching a memorial service, a demonstration took place nearby.

Protesters held a banner that read "Remigration now!" – a concept popular among the far-right – and shouted "those who do not love Germany should leave Germany".

It is not clear yet what impact this attack may have on Germany's upcoming election.

Germany has been hit by a number of deadly Islamist attacks in the past, but investigators said the evidence they have gathered so far suggests a different picture in this case.

Germany's Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the suspect appears to have been "Islamophobic".

The suspect, Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen, is from Saudi Arabia, and his social media posts suggest he had been critical of Islam.

He also expressed sympathy on social media for Germany's far-right political party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), re-tweeting posts from the party's leader and a far-right activist.

A Church of England priest at the centre of a sexual abuse case was twice reappointed to a senior role during the Archbishop of York's time as Bishop of Chelmsford, the BBC can reveal.

A BBC investigation previously revealed how David Tudor remained in post nine years after Stephen Cottrell was first told of concerns about him.

New information shows Tudor's contract as area dean in Essex was renewed in 2013 and 2018, at which times Mr Cottrell knew he had paid compensation to a woman who says she was abused by him as a child.

The Archbishop of York said he regrets his handling of the case, with a spokesperson saying "he acknowledges this could have been handled differently".

They added that "all the risks around David Tudor were regularly reviewed" and that was the "main focus".

Rachel Ford, who told the investigation she was groomed by Tudor as a child, said the renewal of his contract as area dean was "an insult to all of his victims".

Ms Ford added that if responsibility for that lay with Mr Cottrell, it strengthened her feeling that he should resign.

The pressure on Mr Cottrell comes at a time of turmoil in the Church of England following a damning report into how it covered up prolific abuse by the barrister John Smyth.

The report led to the resignation of the Church's most senior figure, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. Mr Cottrell will take over his role temporarily for a few months in the New Year.

The BBC investigation showed Mr Cottrell was briefed in his first week as Bishop of Chelmsford about serious safeguarding issues surrounding Tudor.

These included that Tudor was convicted of indecently assaulting three underage girls and was jailed for six months in 1988, although the conviction was quashed on technical grounds. Mr Cottrell would also have known Tudor served a five-year ban from ministry.

By 2012, Mr Cottrell also knew Tudor had paid a £10,000 settlement to a woman who says she was sexually abused by him from the age of 11. In 2018, the Church of England issued an apology and a six-figure pay-out to another alleged victim.

Yet the priest was suspended only in 2019 when a police investigation was launched after another woman came forward alleging Tudor had abused her in the 1980s.

When first responding to the BBC's investigation, the Archbishop of York said he was "deeply sorry that we were not able to take action earlier", insisting he had acted at the first opportunity that was legally available to him.

Mr Cottrell also said he had been faced with a "horrible and intolerable" situation and that it was "awful to live with and to manage".

When Mr Cottrell became bishop in 2010, Tudor was into the second year of a five-year term as an area dean, a role overseeing 12 parishes in Essex.

His appointment to that post, under a different bishop, happened despite him working under a safeguarding agreement that barred him from being alone with children and entering schools.

The title was renewed twice under Mr Cottrell - in 2013 and 2018 - and he lost the title only when the term of office expired in 2020. It was not taken from him.

A spokesperson for the Archbishop said he "accepts responsibility for David Tudor remaining as Area Dean".

"No-one advised him that David Tudor should not continue as an Area Dean," said the Archbishop's office.

Another of Tudor's victims, who does not want to be identified, said she was "shocked and disappointed" to hear his tenure as area dean was twice renewed during Mr Cottrell's time as Bishop of Chelmsford.

"These are not the actions of a bishop dealing with a situation that was intolerable to him, in fact, quite the opposite. I call on him to do the honourable thing for the sake of the Church and resign," she says.

In 2015, under Mr Cottrell, Tudor was also made honorary canon of Chelmsford Cathedral.

The Archbishop's office insisted it happened because of a change in Church policy during Mr Cottrell's time as Bishop of Chelmsford, meaning area deans were automatically made honorary canons.

It was "not a promotion and not a personal reward".

However, a social media post from Tudor's Canvey Island parish in July 2015 suggests it was seen there as a reward.

Tudor's "hard work, determination and commitment to this place have been recognised by the diocese and this new position in the Church is very well-deserved," it said.

The BBC has also seen evidence - in leaked minutes from internal Church meetings in 2018 and 2019 - that Tudor's titles of area dean and honorary canon were discussed and there had been a suggestion Mr Cottrell could immediately have taken them away.

In October 2018, a meeting at Church House - the London headquarters of the Church of England - heard that Chelmsford diocese took the view that if Tudor "can be a parish priest, he can undertake the other roles".

A bishop from another diocese said "the Bishop of Chelmsford could remove DT's [David Tudor's] Canon and Area Dean titles straight away".

But in a follow-up discussion in November 2018, Chelmsford diocese advised it would not be appropriate because of "the difficulty of removing those titles without explaining why."

We asked Mr Cottrell's office why he had not followed the suggestion to remove Tudor's titles. We were told "it would not be appropriate to comment on any notes or decisions from a core group process which are confidential".

The investigation also highlighted the significant role played by former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey in the case.

We revealed Lord Carey had agreed to Tudor's return to priesthood after being suspended in 1989, and had also agreed to have Tudor's name removed from the list of clergy that had faced disciplinary action. He had also advocated for the priest.

After the BBC put this information to the former Archbishop of Canterbury, he wrote to give up his "permission to officiate", ending more than 65 years of ministry in the Church of England. Lord Carey made the announcement on Tuesday.

In October 2024, Tudor admitted sexual misconduct and was sacked by the Church. At no point has he responded to the BBC's attempts to speak with him.

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