The Chancellor Rachel Reeves is travelling to China in a bid to boost trade and economic ties, as she faces pressure over government borrowing costs hitting their highest level in years.

The three day-visit has been criticised by some Conservatives who claim she should have cancelled the trip to prioritise dealing with economic issues at home.

Government borrowing costs have hit their highest levels for several years, meaning that uses up more tax revenue, leaving less money to spend on other things.

Economists have warned this could mean spending cuts affecting public services or tax rises that could hit people's pay or businesses' ability to grow.

On Thursday, the pound fell to its lowest level in more than a year - but the Treasury said markets continued to "function in an orderly way".

Travelling to China with the chancellor are senior financial figures, including the governor of the Bank of England and the chair of HSBC.

There she will meet China's Vice Premier He Lifeng in Beijing before flying to Shanghai for discussion with UK firms operating in China.

The government is looking to revive an annual economic dialogue with China that has not been held since the pandemic.

Ties have been strained in recent years by growing concerns about the actions of China's Communist leaders, allegations of Chinese hacking and spying and its jailing of pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong.

The Conservatives have criticised the chancellor for proceeding with the planned trip rather than staying in the UK to address the cost of government borrowing and slide in the value of the pound.

Shadow chancellor Mel Stride accused Reeves of being "missing in action" and said she should have stayed in the UK.

But Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones, standing in for Reeves in the Commons on Thursday, said the trip was "important" for UK trade and there was "no need for an emergency intervention".

Former chancellor Philip Hammond also told the World at One programme on Thursday that he "wouldn't personally recommend the chancellor cancels her trip to China. This can wait until she gets back next week".

Governments generally spend more than they raise in tax so they borrow money to fill the gap, usually by selling bonds to investors.

Interest rates - known as the yield - on government bonds have been going up since around August, a rise that has also affected government bonds in the US and other countries.

The yield on a 10-year bond has surged to its highest level since 2008, while the yield on a 30-year bond is at its highest since 1998, meaning it costs the government more to borrow over the long term.

Reeves has previously committed only to make significant tax and spend announcements once a year at the autumn Budget.

But if higher borrowing costs persist, there is the possibility of cuts to spending before that or at least lower spending increases than would otherwise happen.

Any further spending cuts could be announced in the chancellor's planned fiscal statement on 26 March , ahead of a spending review that has already asked government departments to find efficiency savings worth 5% of their budgets.

On a clear day, the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv are visible from the hill above Karnei Shomron, an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.

"I do feel different from Tel Aviv," said Sondra Baras, who has lived in Karnei Shomron for almost 40 years. "I'm living in a place where my ancestors lived thousands of years ago. I do not live in occupied territory; I live in Biblical Judea and Samaria."

For many settlers here, the line between the State of Israel, and the territory it captured from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war, has been erased from their narrative.

The visitors' audio-guide at the hill-top viewpoint describes the West Bank as "a region of Israel" and the Palestinian city of Nablus as the place where God promised the land to the Jews.

But formal annexation of this territory has so far remained a dream for settlers like Sondra, even while settlements - viewed as illegal by the UN's top court and most other countries - have mushroomed year after year.

Now many see an opportunity to go further, with the election of Donald Trump as the next US president.

"I was thrilled that Trump won," Sondra told me. "I very much want to extend sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. And I feel that's something Trump could support."

There are signs that some in his incoming administration might agree with her.

Mike Huckabee, nominated as Trump's new ambassador to Israel, signalled his support for Israeli claims on the West Bank in an interview last year.

"When people use the term 'occupied', I say: 'Yes, Israel is occupying the land, but it's the occupation of a land that God gave them 3,500 years ago. It is their land,'" he said.

Yisrael Gantz, head of the regional settlement council that oversees Karnei Shomron, says he has already noticed a change in tone from the incoming Trump administration as a result of the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, which triggered the war on Gaza.

"Both here in Israel and in the US, they understand that we must apply sovereignty here," he told me. "It's a process. I can't tell you it will be tomorrow. But in my eyes, the dream of a two-state solution is dead."

US President Joe Biden has always maintained the US position in support of a future Palestinian state alongside Israel. Asked whether he was hearing something different from the incoming Trump administration, Mr Gantz replied, "Of course, yes."

But there are also signs that Israelis lobbying for annexation of the West Bank - some of them in cabinet positions - might be disappointed in Trump's decisions.

Their hopes have been fuelled by memories of his first term as president, during which he broke with decades of US policy - and international consensus - by recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, which were captured from Syria in 1967.

But supporting annexation of the West Bank would be a much bigger and thornier issue for Trump.

It would likely alienate Washington's other key ally, Saudi Arabia, complicating Trump's chances for a wider regional deal.

It could also alienate some moderate Republicans in the US Congress, concerned about the impact on West Bank Palestinians, and their future status under Israeli rule.

Settler leader Sondra Baras told me that West Bank Palestinians who did not want to live in Israel could "go wherever they want".

Challenged on why they should leave their homeland, she said: "I'm not kicking them out, but things change. How many wars did they start? And they lost."

"If sovereignty were to go forward, there would be a lot of yelling and screaming, absolutely," she continued. "But at some point, you create a fact that's irreversible."

Shortly after Trump's election victory last November, Israel's far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, publicly called for annexing the Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

"2025 must be the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria," he said.

Whether or not the new US president agrees, many Palestinians say discussion of formal annexation misses the point - that Israel is, in practice, already annexing territory here.

One of them is Mohaib Salameh. He leads me across the rubble of his family home, built on private Palestinian land, on the outskirts of Nablus. The building was ruled illegal by an Israeli court last year and demolished.

Israel has full control over security and planning in 60% of the West Bank on an interim basis, as outlined in the Oslo peace accords three decades ago.

While settlements are expanding, permits for Palestinian homes are almost never granted. And lawyers say demolitions like this are increasing.

"This is all part of policies to force us to leave," Mohaib said. "It's a policy of forced migration. What difference does it make to them [Israelis] if I build here or not? We pose no threat to them."

Palestinians are also increasingly being forced off their land by violent Israeli settlers - who have been sanctioned by the US and UK, but largely left unchallenged by Israeli courts at home.

Activists say more than 20 Palestinian communities in the West Bank have been expelled over the past few years by increasingly violent attacks, and that settlers are now encroaching into new areas outside Israel's interim civil control.

Mohaib told me that no US president had ever protected Palestinians, and that he doesn't believe Donald Trump will either.

America's next president is widely seen as a friend of Israel.

But he's also a man who also likes closing deals - and avoiding conflicts.

Donald Trump has said that a meeting is being arranged between himself and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The US president-elect gave no timeline for when the meeting might take place.

"He wants to meet and we are setting it up," he said in remarks at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Trump has promised to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine soon after he takes office on 20 January and has expressed scepticism about US military and financial support for Kyiv.

Donald Trump has said that a meeting is being arranged between himself and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The US president-elect gave no timeline for when the meeting might take place.

"He wants to meet and we are setting it up," he said in remarks at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Trump has promised to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine soon after he takes office on 20 January and has expressed scepticism about US military and financial support for Kyiv.

Elon Musk took his endorsement of Germany's far-right party to the next level on Thursday, hosting a live chat with its frontwoman, Alice Weidel.

The 74-minute conversation ranged across energy policy, German bureaucracy, Adolf Hitler, Mars and the meaning of life.

The world's richest man unequivocally urged Germans to back Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in forthcoming elections.

It's the tech billionaire's latest, controversial foray into European politics.

There'd been a considerable build-up to this discussion as Elon Musk faced accusations of meddling in Germany's snap election.

But the interview, conducted in English, was arguably as much a chance for the AfD to reach international audiences via Musk's X platform.

Knowing of his close relationship with Donald Trump, Alice Weidel made sure to express her support for the US president-elect and his team.

She insisted her party was "conservative" and "libertarian" but had been "negatively framed" by mainstream media as extremist.

Sections of the AfD have been officially classed as right-wing extremist by German authorities.

A BBC News investigation last year found connections between some party figures and far-right networks, while one leading light on the party's hard right, Björn Höcke, was fined last year for using a banned Nazi phrase – though he denied doing so knowingly.

During the conversation, Weidel declared that Hitler had in fact been a "communist", despite the notable anti-communism of the Nazi leader, who invaded the Soviet Union.

"He wasn't a conservative," she said. "He wasn't a libertarian. He was this communist, socialist guy."

She also described Hitler as an "antisemitic socialist".

On other matters, she and Musk chimed – and at times giggled - over Germany's infamous bureaucracy, its "crazy" abandonment of nuclear power, the need for tax cuts, free speech and "wokeness".

In a sometimes stilted and, at times, surprising conversation, one surreal moment came when Weidel asked Mr Musk if he believed in God.

The reply – for those who wish to know – was that he's open to the idea as he seeks to "understand the universe as much as possible".

Despite all the anticipation that exchange, surely, had not been on many people's bingo card.

The AfD, which also opposes Berlin's weapons aid to Ukraine, is polling second in Germany, with a snap federal election scheduled for 23 February.

However, it won't be able to take power as other parties won't work with it.

That hasn't stopped Elon Musk from hailing Weidel as the "leading candidate to run Germany".

He's justified his intervention by citing his significant investments in the country - notably a huge Tesla plant just outside Berlin.

And he's dismissed characterisation of the AfD as far-right while previously labelling the social democratic Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, a "fool".

Scholz, whose chances of retaining the chancellery look remote, later insisted that he was "staying cool" about Elon Musk's attacks.

A hardline Sri Lankan monk who is a close ally of ousted former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has been sentenced to nine months in prison for insulting Islam and inciting religious hatred.

Galagodaatte Gnanasara was convicted on Thursday for the remarks, which date back to 2016.

Sri Lanka rarely convicts Buddhist monks, but this marks the second time that Gnanasara, who has repeatedly been accused of hate crimes and anti-Muslim violence, has been jailed.

The sentence, handed down by the Colombo Magistrate's Court, comes after a presidential pardon he received in 2019 for a six-year sentence related to intimidation and contempt of court.

Gnanasara was arrested in December for remarks he made during a 2016 media conference, where he made several derogatory remarks against Islam.

On Thursday, the court said that all citizens, regardless of religion, are entitled to the freedom of belief under the Constitution.

he was also given a fine of 1,500 Sri Lankan rupees ($5; £4). Failure to pay the fine would result in an additional month of imprisonment, the court's ruling added.

Gnanasara has filed an appeal against the sentence.

He was a trusted ally of former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was forced to resign and flee abroad following mass protests over the island nation's economic crisis in 2022.

During Rajapaksa's presidency, Gnanasara, who also leads a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist group, was appointed head of a presidential task force on legal reforms aimed at protecting religious harmony.

After Rajapaksa's ouster, Gnanasara was jailed last year for a similar charge related to hate speech against the country's Muslim minority but was granted bail while appealing his four-year sentence.

In 2018, he was sentenced to six years for contempt of court and intimidating the wife of a political cartoonist who is widely believed to have been disappeared. However, he only served nine months of that sentence because he received a pardon by Maithripala Sirisena who was the country's president at the time.

The daughter of late Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos has been banned from drinking on planes and in airports after she and her husband got into a drunken brawl with another passenger on board a Jetstar flight.

Analisa Josefa Corr and James Alexander Corr caused a "disturbance" with their "disorderly behaviour" while intoxicated on a flight from Hobart to Sydney on 29 December, Australia police said.

Ms Corr has been accused of "grabbing and shaking another passenger while exiting the aircraft toilet", police said. The pair were escorted off the flight.

They pleaded not guilty to charges of not complying with safety instructions and consuming alcohol not provided by the crew, but on Friday agreed to a booze ban while on bail.

If found guilty, they could be fined up to A$13,750 ($8,520; £6,925) for each charge.

Ms Corr has also denied a charge of assaulting a fellow passenger on board the aircraft, which carries up to two years in prison.

They have each also been asked to offer up A$20,000, which would be forfeited they breach any bail conditions.

Ms Corr, 53, is Marcos' Australia-raised daughter with former Sydney model Evelin Hegyesi - which makes her the half-sister of the Philippines' current president Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

On Instagram Ms Corr describes herself as an interior designer.

Mr Corr, 45, is a former soldier, according to Australian media.

In its statement on the case, police urged travellers to be "mindful of their behaviour at airports".

"You don't want to start the new year with a significant fine or worse, behind bars," said Australian Federal Police Sergeant Luke Stockwell.

"The AFP is increasing patrols at all major airports during the holidays and will not tolerate dangerous, disruptive or abusive behaviour from travellers," he added.

Jetstar did not directly comment on the incident, but a spokesman said the company will "never tolerate disruptive behaviour on our aircraft".

"The safety and wellbeing of customers and crew is our number one priority," he added.

Benin forces have suffered heavy losses in an attack near the border with insurgency-hit Niger and Burkina Faso, authorities have said.

Colonel Faizou Gomina, the national guard's chief of staff, said one of Benin's most well-equipped military positions had been hit in the north on Wednesday evening.

"We've been dealt a very hard blow," Col Gomina added.

The country has in recent years witnessed increasing attacks in the northern region blamed on jihadist groups based in neighbouring countries.

More than 120 Beninese military officers were killed between 2021 and December 2024, a diplomatic source told AFP news agency.

Last month, gunmen killed three soldiers and wounded four others who were guarding an oil pipeline in the north-east.

Col Gomina did not provide a death toll for Wednesday's attack, but the main opposition party, The Democrats, said about 30 soldiers had been killed in the Alibori region, Reuters news agency reports.

A security source put the death toll at 28, according to AFP.

"We are continuing cleaning-up operations. Forty assailants have been neutralised so far," the military source added.

Col Gomina said the position attacked had been "one of the strongest and most militarised" and called on military commanders to improve their operational strategies in order to counter security threats.

"Wake up, officers and section chiefs, we have battles to win," he said.

In 2022, Benin deployed nearly 3,000 troops to curb cross-border incursions and reinforce security in the north.

You may also be interested in:

• 'I thought I would die' - freed captive tells BBC of life in West African jihadist base
• West Africa faces up to policing its terror triangle
• Find out more about Benin

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica

The planet has moved a major step closer to warming more than 1.5C, new data shows, despite world leaders vowing a decade ago they would try to avoid this.

The European Copernicus climate service, one of the main global data providers, said on Friday that 2024 was the first calendar year to pass the symbolic threshold, as well as the world's hottest on record.

This does not mean the international 1.5C target has been broken, because that refers to a long-term average over decades, but does bring us nearer to doing so as fossil fuel emissions continue to heat the atmosphere.

Last week UN chief António Guterres described the recent run of temperature records as "climate breakdown".

"We must exit this road to ruin - and we have no time to lose," he said in his New Year message, calling for countries to slash emissions of planet-warming gases in 2025.

Global average temperatures for 2024 were around 1.6C above those of the pre-industrial period - the time before humans started burning large amounts of fossil fuels - according to Copernicus data.

This breaks the record set in 2023 by just over 0.1C, and means the last 10 years are now the 10 warmest years on record.

The Met Office, Nasa and other climate groups are due to release their own data later on Friday. All are expected to agree that 2024 was the warmest on record, although precise figures vary slightly.

Last year's heat is predominantly due to humanity's emissions of planet-warming gases, such as carbon dioxide, which are still at record highs.

Natural weather patterns such as El Niño - where surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean become unusually warm - played a smaller role.

"By far and away the largest contribution impacting our climate is greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere," Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, tells the BBC.

The 1.5C figure has become a powerful symbol in international climate negotiations ever since it was agreed in Paris in 2015, with many of the most vulnerable countries considering it a matter of survival.

The risks from climate change, such as intense heatwaves, rising sea-levels and loss of wildlife, would be much higher at 2C of warming than at 1.5C, according to a landmark UN report from 2018.

Yet the world has been moving closer and closer to breaching the 1.5C barrier.

"When exactly we will cross the long-term 1.5C threshold is hard to predict, but we're obviously very close now," says Myles Allen of the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford, and an author of the UN report.

The current trajectory would likely see the world pass 1.5C of long-term warming by the early 2030s. This would be politically significant, but it wouldn't mean game over for climate action.

"It's not like 1.49C is fine, and 1.51C is the apocalypse - every tenth of a degree matters and climate impacts get progressively worse the more warming we have," explains Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, a research group in the US.

Even fractions of a degree of global warming can bring more frequent and intense extreme weather, such as heatwaves and heavy rainfall.

In 2024, the world saw blistering temperatures in west Africa, prolonged drought in parts of South America, intense rainfall in central Europe and some particularly strong tropical storms hitting north America and south Asia.

These events were just some of those made more intense by climate change over the last year, according to the World Weather Attribution group.

Even this week, as the new figures are released, Los Angeles has been overwhelmed with destructive wildfires fuelled by high winds and a lack of rain.

While there are many contributing factors to this week's events, experts say conditions conducive to fires in California are becoming more likely in a warming world.

It wasn't only air temperatures that set new marks in 2024. The world's sea surface also reached a new daily high, while the total amount of moisture in the atmosphere reached record levels.

That the world is breaking new records is not a surprise: 2024 was always expected to be hot, because of the effect of the El Niño weather pattern - which ended around April last year - on top of human-caused warming.

But the margin of several records in recent years has been less expected, with some scientists fearing it could represent an acceleration of warming.

"I think it's safe to say that both 2023 and 2024 temperatures surprised most climate scientists - we didn't think we'd be seeing a year above 1.5C this early," says Dr Hausfather.

"Since 2023 we've had around 0.2C of extra warming that we can't fully explain, on top of what we had expected from climate change and El Niño," agrees Helge Gößling, a climate physicist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany

Various theories have been suggested to explain this 'extra' warmth, such as an apparent reduction in the low-level cloud cover that tends to cool the planet, and prolonged ocean heat following the end of El Niño.

"The question is whether this acceleration is something persistent linked to human activities that means we will have steeper warming in the future, or whether it is a part of natural variability," Dr Gößling adds.

"At the moment it's very hard to say."

Despite this uncertainty, scientists stress that humans still have control over the future climate, and sharp reductions in emissions can lessen the consequences of warming.

"Even if 1.5 degrees is out the window, we still can probably limit warming to 1.6C, 1.7C or 1.8C this century," says Dr Hausfather.

"That's going to be far, far better than if we keep burning coal, oil and gas unabated and end up at 3C or 4C - it still really matters."

The planet has moved a major step closer to warming more than 1.5C, new data shows, despite world leaders vowing a decade ago they would try to avoid this.

The European Copernicus climate service, one of the main global data providers, said on Friday that 2024 was the first calendar year to pass the symbolic threshold, as well as the world's hottest on record.

This does not mean the international 1.5C target has been broken, because that refers to a long-term average over decades, but does bring us nearer to doing so as fossil fuel emissions continue to heat the atmosphere.

Last week UN chief António Guterres described the recent run of temperature records as "climate breakdown".

"We must exit this road to ruin - and we have no time to lose," he said in his New Year message, calling for countries to slash emissions of planet-warming gases in 2025.

Global average temperatures for 2024 were around 1.6C above those of the pre-industrial period - the time before humans started burning large amounts of fossil fuels - according to Copernicus data.

This breaks the record set in 2023 by just over 0.1C, and means the last 10 years are now the 10 warmest years on record.

The Met Office, Nasa and other climate groups are due to release their own data later on Friday. All are expected to agree that 2024 was the warmest on record, although precise figures vary slightly.

Last year's heat is predominantly due to humanity's emissions of planet-warming gases, such as carbon dioxide, which are still at record highs.

Natural weather patterns such as El Niño - where surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean become unusually warm - played a smaller role.

"By far and away the largest contribution impacting our climate is greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere," Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, tells the BBC.

The 1.5C figure has become a powerful symbol in international climate negotiations ever since it was agreed in Paris in 2015, with many of the most vulnerable countries considering it a matter of survival.

The risks from climate change, such as intense heatwaves, rising sea-levels and loss of wildlife, would be much higher at 2C of warming than at 1.5C, according to a landmark UN report from 2018.

Yet the world has been moving closer and closer to breaching the 1.5C barrier.

"When exactly we will cross the long-term 1.5C threshold is hard to predict, but we're obviously very close now," says Myles Allen of the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford, and an author of the UN report.

The current trajectory would likely see the world pass 1.5C of long-term warming by the early 2030s. This would be politically significant, but it wouldn't mean game over for climate action.

"It's not like 1.49C is fine, and 1.51C is the apocalypse - every tenth of a degree matters and climate impacts get progressively worse the more warming we have," explains Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, a research group in the US.

Even fractions of a degree of global warming can bring more frequent and intense extreme weather, such as heatwaves and heavy rainfall.

In 2024, the world saw blistering temperatures in west Africa, prolonged drought in parts of South America, intense rainfall in central Europe and some particularly strong tropical storms hitting north America and south Asia.

These events were just some of those made more intense by climate change over the last year, according to the World Weather Attribution group.

Even this week, as the new figures are released, Los Angeles has been overwhelmed with destructive wildfires fuelled by high winds and a lack of rain.

While there are many contributing factors to this week's events, experts say conditions conducive to fires in California are becoming more likely in a warming world.

It wasn't only air temperatures that set new marks in 2024. The world's sea surface also reached a new daily high, while the total amount of moisture in the atmosphere reached record levels.

That the world is breaking new records is not a surprise: 2024 was always expected to be hot, because of the effect of the El Niño weather pattern - which ended around April last year - on top of human-caused warming.

But the margin of several records in recent years has been less expected, with some scientists fearing it could represent an acceleration of warming.

"I think it's safe to say that both 2023 and 2024 temperatures surprised most climate scientists - we didn't think we'd be seeing a year above 1.5C this early," says Dr Hausfather.

"Since 2023 we've had around 0.2C of extra warming that we can't fully explain, on top of what we had expected from climate change and El Niño," agrees Helge Gößling, a climate physicist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany

Various theories have been suggested to explain this 'extra' warmth, such as an apparent reduction in the low-level cloud cover that tends to cool the planet, and prolonged ocean heat following the end of El Niño.

"The question is whether this acceleration is something persistent linked to human activities that means we will have steeper warming in the future, or whether it is a part of natural variability," Dr Gößling adds.

"At the moment it's very hard to say."

Despite this uncertainty, scientists stress that humans still have control over the future climate, and sharp reductions in emissions can lessen the consequences of warming.

"Even if 1.5 degrees is out the window, we still can probably limit warming to 1.6C, 1.7C or 1.8C this century," says Dr Hausfather.

"That's going to be far, far better than if we keep burning coal, oil and gas unabated and end up at 3C or 4C - it still really matters."

The Chancellor Rachel Reeves is travelling to China in a bid to boost trade and economic ties, as she faces pressure over government borrowing costs hitting their highest level in years.

The three day-visit has been criticised by some Conservatives who claim she should have cancelled the trip to prioritise dealing with economic issues at home.

Government borrowing costs have hit their highest levels for several years, meaning that uses up more tax revenue, leaving less money to spend on other things.

Economists have warned this could mean spending cuts affecting public services or tax rises that could hit people's pay or businesses' ability to grow.

On Thursday, the pound fell to its lowest level in more than a year - but the Treasury said markets continued to "function in an orderly way".

Travelling to China with the chancellor are senior financial figures, including the governor of the Bank of England and the chair of HSBC.

There she will meet China's Vice Premier He Lifeng in Beijing before flying to Shanghai for discussion with UK firms operating in China.

The government is looking to revive an annual economic dialogue with China that has not been held since the pandemic.

Ties have been strained in recent years by growing concerns about the actions of China's Communist leaders, allegations of Chinese hacking and spying and its jailing of pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong.

The Conservatives have criticised the chancellor for proceeding with the planned trip rather than staying in the UK to address the cost of government borrowing and slide in the value of the pound.

Shadow chancellor Mel Stride accused Reeves of being "missing in action" and said she should have stayed in the UK.

But Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones, standing in for Reeves in the Commons on Thursday, said the trip was "important" for UK trade and there was "no need for an emergency intervention".

Former chancellor Philip Hammond also told the World at One programme on Thursday that he "wouldn't personally recommend the chancellor cancels her trip to China. This can wait until she gets back next week".

Governments generally spend more than they raise in tax so they borrow money to fill the gap, usually by selling bonds to investors.

Interest rates - known as the yield - on government bonds have been going up since around August, a rise that has also affected government bonds in the US and other countries.

The yield on a 10-year bond has surged to its highest level since 2008, while the yield on a 30-year bond is at its highest since 1998, meaning it costs the government more to borrow over the long term.

Reeves has previously committed only to make significant tax and spend announcements once a year at the autumn Budget.

But if higher borrowing costs persist, there is the possibility of cuts to spending before that or at least lower spending increases than would otherwise happen.

Any further spending cuts could be announced in the chancellor's planned fiscal statement on 26 March , ahead of a spending review that has already asked government departments to find efficiency savings worth 5% of their budgets.

The death of a teenage boy sparked violent protests in a city in north-west China, the BBC has confirmed through verified video.

In the videos shared on social media, protesters can be seen hurling objects at police and officers beating some demonstrators in Pucheng in Shaanxi province.

Authorities said the teenager fell to his death on 2 January in an accident at his school dormitory. But following his death allegations began spreading on social media that there had been a cover-up.

Protests erupted soon after and lasted several days, before they were apparently quelled earlier this week. The BBC has seen no further evidence of protest in Pucheng since then.

Public demonstrations are not uncommon in China, but authorities have been particularly sensitive about them since the 2022 White Paper protests against Covid policies, which saw rare criticism of the Chinese Communist Party and President Xi Jinping.

State media has been silent on the protests in Pucheng. Any clips or mention of the demonstrations have been largely censored from Chinese social media, as is usually the case for incidents deemed sensitive by authorities.

But several videos have been leaked out of China and posted on X.

The BBC has confirmed these videos were filmed at the Pucheng Vocational Education Centre, and found no earlier versions online prior to the reported outbreak of the protests over the past few days.

When contacted by the BBC, a representative from the publicity department of the Pucheng government denied there had been protests. There was no answer when we rang an official handling media queries.

In a statement released earlier this week, local authorities said that the teenager surnamed Dang was a third-year student at the education centre in Pucheng.

Prior to his death, Dang had been woken up in the night by other students chatting in his dormitory, their statement said. He got into an argument and altercation with a boy, which was resolved by a school official.

Later that night, his body was found by another student at the foot of the dormitory block.

The statement described it as "an accident where a student fell from a height at school". It added that the police had conducted investigations and an autopsy, and "at present exclude it as a criminal case".

But allegations have swirled online for days that there was more to the story and that the school and authorities were hiding the truth. One account claimed, without proof, that Dang killed himself after he was bullied by the boy he'd fought with earlier.

Unverified remarks from his family have been circulating, alleging that the injuries on Dang's body were inconsistent with the authorities' version of events and that they were not allowed to examine his body for long.

The allegations appeared to have incensed many in Pucheng, sparking protests that drew at least hundreds of people.

Bullying has become a highly sensitive topic in China in recent years, with past cases of student deaths triggering protests. Last month, a Chinese court handed out lengthy jail sentences to two teenagers who murdered a classmate.

There are also videos posted on X on Monday, which the BBC has confirmed were filmed at the Pucheng Vocational Education Centre, showing people mourning the teenager's death. They placed flowers and offerings at the entrance of the school, and conducted a traditional mourning ritual by throwing pieces of paper from the rooftop of a school building.

Other videos circulating online appear to show demonstrators, many of them young, storming a building and clashing with police while shouting "give us the truth".

One verified clip shows a school official confronted by shouting protesters who shove him around. Others show destroyed offices in the compound, and protesters pushing down a barricade at the school entrance.

Another show protesters hurling objects such as traffic cones at groups of retreating police; and officers tackling and detaining people while beating them with batons. Some protesters are seen with blood on their heads and faces.

There is little information on what happened next, but reports on social media suggest a much larger police presence in Pucheng in recent days with no more reports of demonstrations.

Authorities have also urged the public not to "create rumours, believe in rumours, or spread rumours".

Commuters are being warned of icy roads and travel disruption, as temperatures plummeted again overnight across the UK.

Fresh weather warnings have been issued, with snow, ice and fog forecast across southern England, Wales, Northern Ireland and northern Scotland on Thursday.

It will be mainly dry elsewhere with winter sunshine, but temperatures could fall again to as low as -16C on Thursday night.

The cold snap has already brought heavy snowfall to some areas, and dozens of flood alerts and warnings are in place due to either heavy rain or melting snow.

On Wednesday the lowest temperature recorded was -8.4C (16F) in Shap, Cumbria, according to the Met Office.

It comes as an amber cold health alert remains in place for all of England until Sunday, meaning the forecast weather is expected to have significant impacts across health - including a rise in deaths.

The Met Office says travel disruption to road and rail services is likely on Thursday in areas covered by warnings, as well potential for accidents in icy places.

There are five warnings in place:

• A yellow warning for snow and ice is in place for northern Scotland until midnight on Thursday
• A yellow warning for ice has been issued until 10:30 across southern England and south-east Wales
• Two yellow warnings for snow and ice are in force until 11:00 GMT - one across western Wales and north-west England, and south-west England; and another for Northern Ireland
• A yellow warning for fog until 09:00 in Northern Ireland

On Wednesday snow caused some roads to close and motorists to be stationary for "long periods of time" in Devon and Cornwall, according to authorities there.

Gritters working into Thursday morning have been fitted with ploughs to clear routes in the area.

Car insurer RAC said it has seen the highest levels of demand for rescues in a three-day period since December 2022.

"Cold conditions will last until at least the weekend, so we urge drivers to remain vigilant of the risks posed by ice and, in some locations, snow," said RAC breakdown spokeswoman Alice Simpson.

National Rail have also advised passengers to check before they travel, as ice and snow can mean speed restrictions and line closures.

On Wednesday evening, poor weather was affecting Northern and Great Western Railway.

Buses are also replacing trains between Llandudno Junction and Blaenau Ffestiniog until Monday.

• Get the forecast in your area on BBC Weather

The wintry conditions have caused significant disruption across the UK since snow swept many parts of the country at the weekend.

Hundreds of schools were closed in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, including schools in Yorkshire, Merseyside, the Midlands and Aberdeenshire.

The country has also been hit by widespread flooding in recent days. Currently there are 68 flood warnings - meaning flooding is expected - in England and three in Wales.

The weather is expected to be less cold over the weekend.

US aviation giant Boeing has told BBC News it is donating $1m (£812,600) to an inauguration fund for President-elect Donald Trump.

Google has also confirmed that it has made a similar donation as the two firms join a growing list of major American companies contributing to the fund.

The list also includes oil producer Chevron and technology giants Meta, Amazon and Uber.

Trump's inauguration, marking the start of his second term in the White House, is set to take place on 20 January.

"We are pleased to continue Boeing's bipartisan tradition of supporting US Presidential Inaugural Committees," Boeing said.

The company added that it has made similar donations to each of the past three presidential inauguration funds.

Boeing is working to recover from a safety and quality control crisis, as well as dealing with the losses from a strike last year.

The company is also building the next presidential aircraft, known as Air Force One. The two jets are expected to come into service as early as next year.

During his first term as president, Trump forced the plane maker to renegotiate its contract, calling the initial deal too expensive.

Google became the latest big tech firm to donate to the fund, following similar announcements by Meta and Amazon. It also said it will stream the event around the world.

"Google is pleased to support the 2025 inauguration, with a livestream on YouTube and a direct link on our homepage," said Karan Bhatia, Google's global head of government affairs and public policy.

Car companies Ford, General Motors and Toyota have also donated a $1m each to the inaugural committee.

In the energy industry, Chevron confirmed that it has made a donation to the fund but declined to say how much.

"Chevron has a long tradition of celebrating democracy by supporting the inaugural committees of both parties. We are proud to be doing so again this year," said Bill Turene, Chevron's manager of global media relations.

US aviation giant Boeing has told BBC News it is donating $1m (£812,600) to an inauguration fund for President-elect Donald Trump.

Google has also confirmed that it has made a similar donation as the two firms join a growing list of major American companies contributing to the fund.

The list also includes oil producer Chevron and technology giants Meta, Amazon and Uber.

Trump's inauguration, marking the start of his second term in the White House, is set to take place on 20 January.

"We are pleased to continue Boeing's bipartisan tradition of supporting US Presidential Inaugural Committees," Boeing said.

The company added that it has made similar donations to each of the past three presidential inauguration funds.

Boeing is working to recover from a safety and quality control crisis, as well as dealing with the losses from a strike last year.

The company is also building the next presidential aircraft, known as Air Force One. The two jets are expected to come into service as early as next year.

During his first term as president, Trump forced the plane maker to renegotiate its contract, calling the initial deal too expensive.

Google became the latest big tech firm to donate to the fund, following similar announcements by Meta and Amazon. It also said it will stream the event around the world.

"Google is pleased to support the 2025 inauguration, with a livestream on YouTube and a direct link on our homepage," said Karan Bhatia, Google's global head of government affairs and public policy.

Car companies Ford, General Motors and Toyota have also donated a $1m each to the inaugural committee.

In the energy industry, Chevron confirmed that it has made a donation to the fund but declined to say how much.

"Chevron has a long tradition of celebrating democracy by supporting the inaugural committees of both parties. We are proud to be doing so again this year," said Bill Turene, Chevron's manager of global media relations.

The accused mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks on the US will no longer plead guilty on Friday, after the US government moved to block plea deals reached last year from going ahead.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two co-defendants reached agreements in July to plead guilty to all charges in exchange for not facing a death penalty trial.

In a filing with a federal appeals court, the justice department argued that the government would be irreparably harmed if the pleas were accepted.

In its decision, the court said it needed more time to weigh the case and put the proceedings on hold. It has not yet ruled on whether Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has the power to walk back the plea deal.

The ruling comes after a military judge and appeals panel rejected a previous move by Austin to revoke the agreements, which had been signed by a senior official he appointed.

Families of some of those killed in the 9/11 attacks had criticised the deals, while others saw them as a way of moving the complex and long-running case forward.

• Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and two co-defendants reached agreements
• Plea deal with accused 9/11 plotters revoked

In its filing, the government said going ahead with the deals would mean it was denied the opportunity to "seek capital punishment against three men charged with a heinous act of mass murder that caused the death of thousands of people and shocked the nation and the world".

"A short delay to allow this Court to weigh the merits of the government's request in this momentous case will not materially harm the respondents," it said.

Almost 3,000 people were killed in the 11 September 2001 attacks, when hijackers seized passenger planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside of Washington. Another plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back.

The three men have been in US custody for over 20 years and the pre-trial hearings in the case have lasted for more than a decade.

Arguments have focused on whether evidence has been tainted by torture the defendants faced in CIA custody after their arrests.

Mohammed was subjected to simulated drowning, or "waterboarding", 183 times while held in secret CIA prisons following his arrest in 2003. Other so-called "advanced interrogation techniques" included sleep deprivation and forced nudity.

Several family members of victims had criticised the deal struck last year as being too lenient.

Speaking to the BBC's Today Programme last summer, Terry Strada, whose husband, Tom, died in the attacks, described the deals as "giving the detainees in Guantanamo Bay what they want".

Others said they were disappointed by further delays to the case.

Stephan Gerhardt, whose younger brother Ralph was killed in the attacks, flew to Guantanamo Bay to watch Mohammed plead guilty.

He said that while the deals were "not a victory" for the families, he had accepted them as a way of moving forward.

"It's not the conclusion to this case that anyone wanted… [But] it is time to find a way to close this, to convict these men because they're not getting younger, they're not in great health," he said.

"Let's convict them so they don't die innocent because that would be the bigger moral tragedy that they die innocent and the families don't even have a conviction."

Police are searching for two sisters in Aberdeen who were last seen three days ago.

Eliza and Henrietta Huszti, both 32 and who live in Aberdeen city centre, were last seen in Market Street at Victoria Bridge at about 02:12 GMT on Tuesday.

They then crossed the bridge and turned into a footpath next to the River Dee in the direction of Aberdeen Boat Club.

Police Scotland said they are carrying "extensive enquires" and searches to find the sisters, including the use of police dogs and the marine unit.

Both Eliza and Henrietta are described as being white, slim build with long, brown hair.

Police said the side of Victoria Bridge in the Torry area, where they were last seen, contained many commercial and industrial units and searches are ongoing there.

It added it was urging businesses in and around the South Esplanade and Menzies Road area to review CCTV footage recorded in the early hours of Tuesday and dashcam footage.

Ch Insp Darren Bruce said: "We are continuing to speak to people who know Eliza and Henrietta and we urge anyone who has seen them or who has any information regarding their whereabouts to please contact 101 quoting incident number 0735 of Tuesday, 7 January, 2025."