UK military personnel and equipment are being sent to Belgium to help it bolster its defences after drone incursions on its airspace, suspected of being carried out by Russia.

The new head of the UK military, Sir Richard Knighton, told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that his Belgian counterpart asked for assistance earlier this week and that kit and personnel were on the way.

Belgium's main airport Zavantem was forced to close temporarily on Thursday night after drones were spotted nearby. They were also spotted in other locations, including a military base.

"The defence secretary and I agreed that we would deploy our people and our equipment to Belgium to help them," he told the BBC.

Sir Richard did not confirm if the drones were from Russia, but added it was "plausible" they had been ordered by Moscow.

Alongside Nato allies, he added that the UK would help Belgium "by providing our kit and capability" which he said was already being deployed.

It comes after Sir Richard warned in of an "increasingly certain world" in a Sunday Telegraph opinion column to mark Remembrance Sunday.

Citing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he said: "This conflict reminds us that peace is never guaranteed. It [the UK] must be defended, and sometimes at great cost".

About 3,000 Brussels Airlines passengers were affected by the disruption, and the carrier said it faced "considerable costs" from cancelling or diverting dozens of flights.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius and the Belgian security services have said they suspect Russia, but Belgian Defence Minister Theo Francken has previously admitted there is no accompanying evidence.

"At first, drones flying over our military bases were seen as our problem," Francken said earlier this week.

"Now it has become a serious threat affecting civilian infrastructure across multiple European countries."

A number of drone sightings have caused major flight disruptions across Europe in recent months, including in Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

Despite some officials blaming "hybrid warfare" by Russia, the Kremlin has denied any involvement.

Pistorious has suggested the latest sightings could be linked to European Union discussions to use frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine in the form of a €140bn loan.

While there is no public proof of Russia's involvement, suspicions have been fuelled by more serious airspace incursions by Russia in Eastern Europe over recent months, involving fighter jets and larger attack drones.

The UK has recently sent RAF Typhoon jets to take part in defence missions over Poland as part of Nato's mission to bolster the eastern flank in response to incursions.

The BBC's leadership is treating allegations over "systemic bias" with "the seriousness that this demands", the culture secretary has said.

Lisa Nandy's comments to the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme came after reports a Panorama documentary misled viewers by editing a speech by US President Donald Trump.

The Telegraph published details of a leaked internal BBC memo suggesting the programme edited two parts of Trump's speech together so he appeared to explicitly encourage the Capitol Hill riots of January 2021.

BBC chair Samir Shah will provide a response to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Monday. The BBC is expected to apologise for the way the speech was edited.

The leaked memo came from Michael Prescott, a former independent external adviser to the broadcaster's editorial standards committee. He left the role in June.

Nandy said the Panorama issue was "very serious" but there were a series of "very serious allegations" that had been made about the broadcaster, "the most serious of which is that there is systemic bias in the way that difficult issues are reported at the BBC".

She added she had "complete confidence" Shah and BBC director general Tim Davie were treating allegations seriously.

Mr Prescott raised concerns over the documentary 'Trump: A Second Chance?' which was broadcast last year and made for the BBC by independent production company October Films Ltd, which was also approached for comment.

In his speech in Washington DC on 6 January 2024, Trump said: "We're going to walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women."

However, in the Panorama edit he was shown saying: "We're going to walk down to the Capitol... and I'll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell."

The two sections of the speech that were edited together were more than 50 minutes apart.

The "fight like hell" comment was taken from a section where President Trump discussed how "corrupt" US elections were. In total, he used the words "fight" or "fighting" 20 times in the speech.

The culture secretary added: "I do want to see [Shah's] response to the select committee, and I will, of course, consider it and have further conversations with them about the action that they're taking."

Nandy said she had two primary concerns in relation to the BBC, including the use of "inconsistent" language when reporting.

She said: "What tends to happen at the BBC is that decisions about editorial standards, editorial guidelines, the sort of language that is used in reporting is entirely inconsistent.

"It doesn't always meet the highest standards, it's not always well thought through, and often it's left to individual journalists or newsreaders to make decisions.

"That's something I have discussed at length with the director general and the chair, and it's something I expect them to grip.

"My second concern about the BBC is that increasingly, they're operating in a news media environment where news and fact is often blurred with polemic and opinion, and I think that is creating a very, very dangerous environment in this country where people can't trust what they see."

As well as the Panorama documentary, the BBC has come under scrutiny over a number of different issues in recent weeks.

The Telegraph also reported that Mr Prescott raised concerns about a lack of action to address "systemic problems" of bias in BBC Arabic's coverage of the Israel-Gaza war.

In response, a BBC spokesperson said "where mistakes have been made or errors have occurred we have acknowledged them at the time and taken action".

And added: "We have also previously acknowledged that certain contributors should not have been used and have improved our processes to avoid a repeat of this."

Reports also said Mr Prescott raised concerns about the BBC's coverage around trans issues.

On Thursday, the BBC upheld 20 impartiality complaints over the way presenter Martine Croxall altered a script she was reading live on the BBC News Channel, which referred to "pregnant people" earlier this year.

The presenter changed her script to instead say "women", and the BBC's Executive Complaints Unit said it considered her facial expression as she said this gave the "strong impression of expressing a personal view on a controversial matter."

The Philippines is bracing for the arrival of another potentially devastating typhoon, less than a week after a different storm killed at least 200 people and left a trail of destruction.

Fung-wong, known locally as Uwan, is forecast to intensify to a super typhoon - with sustained winds of at least 185km/h (115mph) - before making landfall on the island of Luzon on Sunday evening local time at the earliest.

The Philippine meteorological service (Pagasa) says the storm will also bring heavy rain and the risk of life-threatening storm surges.

Several schools have either cancelled classes on Monday or moved them online, while Philippine Airlines has cancelled a number of local flights.

Typhoon Fung-wong is expected to weaken rapidly once it makes landfall but will likely remain a typhoon as it travels over Luzon.

Eastern parts of the Philippines have already begun experiencing heavy rains and winds, a Pagasa official said in a briefing on Saturday evening local time.

While much of the country is expected to be impacted, there are particular concerns about those areas that could take a direct hit - including the small island of Catanduanes, which lies off the coast of southern Luzon.

Residents there, as well as in other low-lying and coastal areas, have been urged to move to higher ground ahead of the storm's arrival.

A civil defence spokesman said evacuations had to be carried out by Sunday morning at the latest and should not be attempted during heavy rain and strong winds.

• How do hurricanes or typhoons form and are they getting stronger?

Typhoon Fung-wong has also forced the suspension of rescue operations following the passage of Kalmaegi, one of the strongest typhoons this year.

Heavy rainfall sent torrents of mud down hillsides and into residential areas. Some poorer neighbourhoods were obliterated by the fast-moving flash floods.

At least 204 people are now known to have died in the Philippines as a result of the earlier storm, while more than 100 are still missing.

Five people also died in Vietnam, where strong winds uprooted trees, tore off roofs, and smashed large windows.

The Philippines government declared a state of calamity across the country after Typhoon Kalmaegi and in preparation for the coming storm.

It has given government agencies more power to access emergency funds and fast-track the procurement and delivery of essential goods and services to those in need.

For some Filipinos, the devastation wrought by Typhoon Kalmaegi earlier this week has left them even more anxious about the storm to come.

"We decided to evacuate because the recent typhoon brought floods in our area, and now I just want to keep my family safe," Norlito Dugan told the AFP news agency.

He is among those who have taken shelter in a church in the city of Sorsogon in Luzon.

Another resident, Maxine Dugan said: "I'm here because the waves near my house are now huge, I live near the shore. The winds there are now very strong, and the waves are huge."

The Philippines is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to tropical cyclones, due to its location on the Pacific Ocean where such weather systems form.

About 20 tropical cyclones form in that region every year, half of which impact the country directly.

Climate change is not thought to increase the number of hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones worldwide.

However, warmer oceans coupled with a warmer atmosphere - fuelled by climate change - have the potential to make those that do form even more intense. That can potentially lead to higher wind speeds, heavier rainfall, and a greater risk of coastal flooding.

King Charles III will lead the nation in a two-minute silence at 11:00 GMT on Sunday during the National Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph..

He is set to lay a wreath at the monument in central London as part of the service to remember those who died in conflict.

He will be joined by other senior royals and political leaders, including Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer at the ceremony in Whitehall.

Some 10,000 armed forces veterans will take part in the Royal British Legion's march-past, alongside around 20 World War Two veterans.

Events will take place around the country to mark Remembrance Sunday, which is observed on the closest Sunday to Armistice Day on 11 November - when World War One ended in 1918.

The prime minister said the nation would pause "to honour all those who have served our country".

"We reflect on the extraordinary courage of our armed forces in the world wars and subsequent conflicts, whose service secured the freedoms we cherish today."

On Saturday evening, the King was joined by Prince George, Queen Camilla and Catherine, Princess of Wales, at this year's Festival of Remembrance in London's Royal Albert Hall.

The audience stood and a fanfare played as the royals entered the concert hall to commemorate those who lost their lives in service, on the eve of Remembrance Sunday.

Sir Keir and his wife Victoria also attended the annual event, which this year marked the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two.

It also came 25 years after the end of a decades-long ban on gay people serving in the armed forces, and the event reflected on the discrimination faced by LGBT personnel.

It was believed to be 12-year-old George's first time attending the annual concert. He sat next to his mother, Catherine, who wore a handmade poppy made of silk, glass and other natural materials.

At the Festival of Remembrance, the Royal Family stood and applauded as the Chelsea Pensioners - retired British Army veterans - entered the auditorium and marched across the stage, while an orchestra performed the Boys Of The Old Brigade.

The Prince of Wales was not present as he was travelling back from Brazil, where he gave a speech to world leaders gathering for the COP30 UN climate change summit and visited a remote island.

The culture secretary has apologised for breaking rules by failing to declare she had received donations from the man she picked to be England's new football regulator.

On Thursday, the commissioner for public appointments published a report which found that David Kogan had made two separate donations of £1,450 to Lisa Nandy, when she was running to be Labour leader in 2020.

Speaking to the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Nandy said: "We didn't meet the highest standards - that is on me."

The Conservatives have said Nandy's actions were "a serious breach of public trust" and called for a further investigation into Sir Keir Starmer, who also received donations from Mr Kogan.

Mr Kogan, a sports rights executive, was initially longlisted for the football regulator role under the previous Conservative government.

Nandy became involved in the process after Labour won the 2024 general election and she took on the role of culture secretary.

In April, she announced that Mr Kogan would be her preferred pick to fill the vacancy.

However, a month later she removed herself from the appointment process after Mr Kogan revealed to a parliamentary committee that he had donated "very small sums" to Nandy in 2020.

The UK's tax body is reviewing its decisions to strip child benefit from about 23,500 claimants after it used travel data to conclude they had left the country permanently.

Normally the benefit runs out after eight weeks living outside the UK, but many people affected complained that HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) had stopped their money after they went on holiday for just a short time.

The move came after MPs on the Treasury Select Committee demanded answers from the tax authority.

HMRC has apologised for any errors and says anyone who thinks their benefits have been stopped incorrectly should contact them.

In September, the government began a crackdown on child benefit fraud which it believes could save £350m over five years.

The new system allows HMRC records to be compared with Home Office international travel data, and the tax authority had used this data to stop payments to thousands of families.

But it is now reviewing all of the cases following a growing number of complaints from people affected who said they had been on holiday, and had returned to the UK after a short time.

Eve Craven went on a five-day break with her son to New York. She told the BBC's Money Box programme that about 18 months after the trip she received a letter saying the child benefit for her son had been stopped.

The letter cited her trip to the US, saying it had no record of her return.

"It gave me a month basically to give them all the requested information to prove that I'd come back to the UK," she said.

"It's just a very big ask for something that they've messed up on, and they should have been able to sort out themselves."

Eve's child benefit has now been reinstated with missing payments backdated.

The issue was first identified in Northern Ireland, where some families had flown out of the UK from Belfast, but then returned to Dublin – which is in the EU - before driving home over the border.

UK and Irish citizens can travel freely into each other's countries under the Common Travel Area arrangement.

There are no routine passport checks when travelling through the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, meaning the UK government has no data to show that someone may have returned to Northern Ireland.

It is not clear how many errors have been made in total, or how.

HMRC told Money Box it would be reviewing all past cases "using PAYE data and where continued UK employment is found, will be reinstating payments and making any back payments necessary".

It is aiming to complete its review by the end of next week.

MPs on the Treasury Select Committee are also now investigating.

Additional reporting by Nick Edser

Flu strikes every winter, but something seems to be different this year.

A seasonal flu virus suddenly mutated in the summer; it appears to evade some of our immunity; has kick-started a flu season more than a month early and is a type of flu that history suggests is more severe.

The NHS has now issued a "flu jab SOS" as fears grow that this will add up to a brutal winter.

There is a lot of nuance and uncertainty, but leading flu experts have told me they would not be shocked if this was the worst flu season for a decade.

"We haven't seen a virus like this for a while, these dynamics are unusual," says Prof Nicola Lewis, the director of the World Influenza Centre at the Francis Crick Institute.

"It does concern me, absolutely," she says. "I'm not panicking, but I am worried."

So what's going on? And what can we do?

Scientists track the evolution of influenza viruses because they mutate constantly and the seasonal flu vaccine has to be updated each year to keep up.

This evolution happens in a rhythm known as "shift and drift".

Most of the time the virus drifts along making minor changes and then every so often there is a sudden abrupt shift as the virus mutates substantially.

That happened in June this year.

Seven mutations appeared in a strain of H3N2 seasonal flu and led to a "fast increase" in reports of the mutated virus, says Prof Derek Smith, the director of the centre for pathogen evolution at the University of Cambridge.

Unusually, this happened outside flu season in the middle of the northern hemisphere's summer.

"It almost certainly will sweep the world, so from that standpoint, it's something that will come up quickly," says Prof Smith.

By September, as children went back to school, the nights drew in and the temperatures started to drop, there was an uptick in cases.

Exactly what the mutations are doing is still being explored, but they are probably helping the virus to evade some of the immunity we have built up over years of flu infections and vaccines.

The result is the virus is finding it easier to infect people and spread – that is why the flu season is so early in the UK and other countries including Japan.

If the virus can spread more easily then it does not have to wait for more favourable wintery conditions – when we spend more time indoors with the heating on and the windows shut – to start the flu season.

"We're miles ahead," says Prof Lewis, "I think it's going to be a strong flu season".

If you remember your R numbers from the pandemic (that is the number of people each infected person passes the virus on to), they suggest the new mutant has an edge.

Seasonal flu usually has an R number of around 1.2, while the early estimate for this year is 1.4, said Prof Lewis.

So very roughly, if 100 people had flu, they would pass it to 120 in a typical year and 140 this year.

Worst flu season for a decade?

"It's highly likely it's going to be a bad flu season and it's going to happen quite soon, we're already well into it," says Prof Christophe Fraser, from the Pandemic Sciences Institute at the University of Oxford.

"There are indicators that this could be worse than some of the flu seasons we've seen in the last 10 years."

In a typical flu season around one-in-five of us get infected, but that could be higher this year, he warns.

But all these predictions are still clouded in uncertainty.

Some look to Australia for clues as it had the worst flu season on record this year, although it did not face the same mutated H3N2 we have.

We know the virus is spreading very well in children in the germ-fest that is the school playground.

But the immunity a 10-year-old has developed will be very different from that of their grandparents whose immune defences may have been shaped by six times as many flu seasons.

So, experts will be watching closely as the virus starts infecting older age groups in the coming weeks.

'It's a nastier virus'

History suggests that the form of influenza we are facing this year is more severe, particularly for older people.

There are multiple types of flu and you may have heard some of the names like H1N1 swine flu, which caused a pandemic in 2009, or H5N1 which is the current flu killing birds around the world.

The fresh mutations have happened in a group of H3N2 influenzas.

"H3 is always a hotter virus, it's a nastier virus, it's more impactful on the population," said Prof Lewis.

It is worth remembering that some of us will get flu and develop no symptoms at all, while others get a sudden fever, body aches and exhaustion, but the virus can be deadly in older and more vulnerable groups.

Last year, nearly 8,000 people died from flu, and in the 2022-23 flu season there were nearly 16,000 deaths. The NHS is already anticipating a tough flu season.

So what can we do about it?

The clear advice is to get the seasonal flu vaccine – the NHS in England issued a "flu jab SOS" saying there were 2.4 million vaccine slots available in the next week.

Prof Lewis argues this is "absolutely the most important year" to get vaccinated and that "if you have been called by your GP, please get your flu vaccine as soon as possible".

However, this year's vaccine is not a perfect match to the mutated virus.

The decision on the design of the vaccine was made in February to give enough time to produce the millions of doses necessary - and then the new mutant emerged in June.

"Some protection is better than no protection, but this year is likely to be one of the years where the amount of protection is less than it is in years when the match is better, it's not an ideal situation," said Prof Fraser.

The vaccine will still trigger the body to produce antibodies that can recognise and stick to flu.

But the biggest benefits are anticipated to be in lessening the severity of the disease rather than stopping you get ill or slowing the spread of the virus.

Meanwhile, doctors have been sent advice reminding them that early antiviral treatment reduces the risk of complications from flu.

Japan is also going through an early flu season and has closed schools to help contain outbreaks.

These are not Covid-style lockdowns, but short-term measures the country uses to disrupt the spread of the virus.

Nobody knows for certain what will happen in the coming months.

"It might all go away by next week," says Prof Lewis, "but I don't think it will."

Human rights groups in Kenya say two activists who disappeared in neighbouring Uganda five weeks ago have turned up alive and well.

Eyewitnesses reported seeing Bob Njagi and Nicholas Oyoo being forced into a car by masked uniformed men after a political event where they were supporting the Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine.

On Saturday, activist organisation Vocal Africa confirmed the men were safe, and being transported from Busia in Uganda to Kenya's capital, Nairobi.

"Let this moment signal an important shift towards upholding the human rights of East Africans anywhere in East African Community," the organisation wrote on its Instagram page.

Ugandan police denied the men were in their custody, but Kenyan rights groups lobbied the Ugandan authorities to free them.

In a joint statement, Vocal Africa, the Law Society of Kenya and Amnesty International thanked the Kenyan and Ugandan governments, activists, journalists, diplomats and "all active citizens who have tirelessly campaigned for this moment".

Former pop star Bobi Wine is running for the presidency in next year's elections, challenging President Yoweri Museveni, 80, who has held power since 1986.

Wine accused the Ugandan government of targeting the two Kenyans for associating with him.

Ugandan security agencies have often been accused of orchestrating the detention of opposition politicians and supporters while not in uniform. Some of those arrested have later resurfaced in court facing criminal charges.

The latest disappearances mirror past incidents involving politicians and activists across the East African region.

Last year, Njagi was picked up in Kenya by masked men during a wave of abductions believed to have been targeting government critics in the country.

He surfaced a month later, after a court ordered police to produce him. He later recounted the harrowing conditions in captivity, where he said he was often isolated and denied food.

Earlier this year, Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi and his Ugandan counterpart Agather Atuhaire were detained in Tanzania and held incommunicado for days before being abandoned at their respective national borders.

They later recounted being brutally mistreated, including sexual torture at the hands of the Tanzanian authorities – allegations which police dismissed as "hearsay".

Last year, another Uganda opposition figure, Kizza Besigye, mysteriously disappeared in Nairobi only to surface four days later in a military court in Uganda, where he faces treason charges.

The cases have since sparked widespread condemnation and concerns that East African governments could be collaborating to contain dissent.

You may also be interested in:

• How a Ugandan opposition leader disappeared in Kenya and ended up in military court
• 'We live in fear' - forced expulsions taint Kenya's safe haven image
• Uganda's Yoweri Museveni: How an ex-rebel has stayed in power for 35 years
• Bobi Wine: Uganda's 'ghetto president'

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

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