A Bulgarian woman charged with being part of a Russian spy cell operating in the UK has denied knowing that information she gathered would be sent to Russia.

Katrin Ivanova, 33, is accused of spying for Russia in a series of elaborate operations in the UK and Europe.

She allegedly targeted a US military base in Germany and secretly filmed two investigative journalists regarded as enemies of the Russian state.

Jurors have heard there was a risk the journalists could be kidnaped or assassinated.

Giving evidence for the first time, Ms Ivanova denied being a spy.

She accepted following people targeted by the operations, and travelling around Europe, but said she did not know the true purpose of the activity.

She said she believed one operation targeting the investigative journalist Christo Grozev was itself a form of journalism and would reveal to the public that he was corrupt.

"The plan was to try and expose Mr Grozev," she said.

However, no information was ever published and "nothing actually happened", she said.

She said her then-partner Biser Dzhambazov – whom she told the jury she had trusted with her life – asked her to take part in surveillance operations.

"He has been my partner for over 10 years. Why would he do something that's going to hurt me," she said.

The operations were to help Dzhambazov's friend Orlin Roussev, who assisted the couple financially after they first moved to the UK in 2012, Ms Ivanova told the court.

The couple first met Roussev at East Croydon station in 2012, and went for dinner with him at a "posh" restaurant near the Thames, she said.

"I was very impressed with him," she said. "He was someone I always wanted to be. He was a typical hero immigrant story."

Both Dzhambazov and Roussev have already admitted conspiracy to spy for Russia.

Ms Ivanova wiped away tears in the witness box as she described learning how her partner was arrested in bed with the other alleged female spy in this trial, Vanya Gaberova, 30.

Jurors have heard that Dzhambazov and Ms Gaberova were in bed together when the police arrived to arrest them in February 2023.

She said Dzhambazov told her he had a brain tumour and went abroad for treatment. She now believes that was a lie so he could live a "parallel life" with Ms Gaberova.

The trial continues.

Tens of thousands of people throughout Slovakia are demonstrating against the government of Prime Minister Robert Fico, defying his warnings that provocateurs linked to the liberal opposition would use the protests to bring about a coup.

Rallies are being held in some 25 Slovak towns and cities, the latest in a series of protests against his populist-nationalist coalition.

Protesters are angry at what they say is Fico undermining the country's institutions, culture and position in the EU and Nato, especially his increasing attacks on Ukraine and rapprochement with Moscow.

Fico says he is pursuing a "sovereign" Slovak foreign policy aimed at "all four cardinal points of the compass".

He denies opposition claims he wants to take Slovakia out of the EU and Nato, saying his country's membership in both institutions was not in question.

The Dennik N website estimated that some 100,000 people across Slovakia attended the protests, with at least 40,000 in the capital alone.

Some 10,000 were reported to have taken to the streets of Banska Bystrica, a city of 75,000.

On Thursday, 15,000 demonstrated in Slovakia's second city, Kosice, to avoid a clash with a separate event being held there this evening.

There were no reports of violence or disorder, contrary to Fico's warnings this week that provocateurs would encourage demonstrators to attack public buildings, causing a police reaction leading to bigger protests.

Earlier on Friday Fico told reporters police would shortly begin deporting several foreign "instructors" he claimed were in Slovakia to help the opposition try to topple his government.

On Wednesday he called a meeting of the government's security council, saying the intelligence services had concrete proof that a group of foreign provocateurs who were involved in the recent protests in Georgia and in 2014 in Ukraine were active in Slovakia.

Slovakia's domestic intelligence service, the SIS, has confirmed the claims, but has given few details. The opposition has little faith in the SIS, as it is run by the son of an MP in Fico's Smer party.

Fico said a "large-scale" cyber attack that hit the country's health insurer on Friday was a textbook model "of how to liquidate a disobedient government which has unorthodox views on certain things" - a reference to his opposition to arming Ukraine and his efforts to mend relations with Moscow.

He said such activities were being carried out "by representatives of the opposition, NGOs organised from abroad, foreign instructors and the media."

Dennik N later reported the incident was actually a phishing attempt, not a cyber attack, and not particularly large in scale.

Slovak officials have claimed a previous cyber attack against the country's land registry could have come from Ukraine. Kyiv has flatly denied the accusation.

A judge has rejected a US mother's challenge to extradition over accusations she murdered two of her children in Colorado and "fled" to London.

Kimberlee Singler's nine-year-old daughter Elianna and seven-year-old son Aden were found dead on 19 December, 2023 in Colorado Springs.

Prosecutors acting on behalf of US officials said Ms Singler, 36, "fled" the US and was arrested in west London 11 days later.

District Judge John Zani told Westminster Magistrates' Court he rejected Ms Singler's challenge against extradition and said the case now passed to the home secretary to decide whether the 36-year-old should be sent back to the US.

Warning: This report contains descriptions of violence against children

In his ruling Judge Zani said he was not convinced that the defendant's rights, particularly her concerns about prison conditions and a possible life sentence without parole, would be infringed on by extradition.

"I am of the firm opinion that the defendant's extradition to the United States of America to face criminal prosecution complies with all of her Convention Rights within the meaning of the Human Rights Act 1998," Judge Zani said.

Ms Singler's legal team has said she intends to appeal against the judge's decision.

Previously, the court heard in September that Ms Singler's alleged crimes were "committed against the backdrop of acrimonious court proceedings" relating to the custody of her children with her ex-husband Kevin Wentz.

Prosecutor Joel Smith said on 19 December 2023 the Colorado Springs Police Department responded to a 911 call reporting a burglary at a Colorado residence at 00:29 local time (06:29 GMT).

When officers arrived at the defendant's address, they found two dead children and a "blood-stained handgun" which was discovered on the floor of the bedroom.

Mr Smith said DNA tests were carried out on the gun and a knife which revealed the presence of mixed profiles matching the children and Ms Singler.

A third child, who has not been named, was found with a serious injury to her neck. She was taken to hospital and survived.

Mr Smith said Ms Singler blamed her husband for the attack, but it was found he had been driving a "GPS-tracked truck" in Denver, giving what the prosecutor described as a "complete and verifiable alibi".

In the days that followed, the third child was moved into foster care and, on Christmas Day, she told her foster carer that Ms Singler had been responsible for the attack and had asked her to lie to police, Mr Smith said.

The prosecutor said the girl was interviewed by police on 26 December, during which time she recounted how the attack had unfolded after the defendant guided all three children into their bedroom.

The police investigation then led to a warrant being issued by Fourth Judicial District Court in El Paso County, Colorado, for Ms Singler's arrest.

Mr Smith said Ms Singler was arrested in the Chelsea area of west London on 30 December.

It is not for the court in London to carry out a criminal trial. However, at the same hearing in September, Ms Singler's defence barrister Edward Fitzgerald told the court she "denies she is responsible for the death of her two young children and the attempted murder of her third child".

"She is innocent," he said.

The Democratic Republic of Congo's president has cut short his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos as a deadly conflict escalates back home.

Fighting has intensified in DR Congo's eastern region since the start of the year, with the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels seizing control of more territory than ever.

More than 400,000 people have fled their homes since the start of this year as the M23 advances on the provincial capital of Goma, the United Nations says.

President Felix Tshisekedi flew back from Switzerland for urgent security meetings with top officials.

Over the past few weeks, the M23 has captured the towns of Masisi and Minova in North Kivu.

More than 200 civilians have been killed in areas captured by the M23, local leaders said on Thursday.

And according to the United Nations, two children died after bombs fell on a camp for displaced people.

The fall of Goma - a city of over a million that lies close to the border with Rwanda - would be a major coup for the rebels. They briefly took over the city during a rebellion in 2012, but withdrew after a deal was brokered.

Numerous roads leading towards the city have now been blocked, sparking concerns that food supplies in the city might run out.

"The town of Goma is held in a vice, the town is suffocated, there are no more entrances, there are no more exits… this population is suffering enormously" local union leader Bahala Shamavu Innocent told the BBC.

Espoir Ngalukiye, a member of the opposition party Ensemble pour la Republique, is also worried about access to food.

"In Goma we are not safe for real," Mr Ngalukiye said. "No-one who lives in Goma can tell you that he doesn't have fear."

On Thursday the rebels captured the nearby town of Sake, according to the United Nations, the United Kingdom and various other sources.

But the Congolese army said it had repelled the attack on Sake, which lies just 20 km (12 miles) from Goma.

Residents of Sake and the wider area - many of whom were already displaced by the conflict - have fled their homes.

People are escaping carrying mattresses and other such essentials on their backs, while dozens pile into overcrowded wooden boats.

Thousands of panicked families have fled towards Goma, where hospitals have been overwhelmed with injured civilians.

The M23 has taking control of vast swathes of mineral-rich eastern DR Congo since 2021. As a consequence, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced.

Last year, it was also feared the rebels would seize Goma. There was a lull in fighting in late July, but heavy fighting resumed in October, and worsened towards the end of the year.

The DR Congo and the UN say the M23 is backed by Rwanda. The Rwandan authorities neither confirm nor deny this.

On Friday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the current conflict risks escalating into a broader regional war.

Mr Guterres called on "all actors to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and to put an end to all forms of support to armed groups," a statement said.

More BBC stories on DR Congo:

• Nurses working in fear: BBC visits mpox epicentre
• 'Hell behind bars' - life in DR Congo's most notorious jail
• TikTokers quit vaping over mining concerns

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

Hamas is expected to hand over to Israel the names of four hostages to be released on Saturday under the Gaza ceasefire deal.

It is thought they will be soldiers and civilians, all female.

They will be freed in exchange for 180 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

It will be the second exchange since the ceasefire came into effect last Sunday. Three hostages and 90 prisoners were released in the first swap.

The ceasefire halted the war which began when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken back to Gaza as hostages.

More than 47,200 Palestinians, the majority civilians, have been killed in Israel's offensive, Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says.

Hamas is also expected to provide information about the remaining 26 hostages due to be released over the next five weeks.

This includes the Bibas family - two parents and two children, one of whom, Kfir, was 10 months old when taken captive and is the youngest hostage. It is unclear if this information will include the names or just the number of living or dead hostages.

• What we know about the ceasefire in Gaza
• Hamas hostages: Stories of the people taken from Israel

The prisoners who will be released are of a more serious category than those freed in the first exchange. They will include those who have killed, some of whom are serving sentences of more than 15 years.

Israel has insisted that no-one who was involved in the 7 October attacks will be freed.

The ceasefire deal was reached after months of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas, led by the US, Qatar and Egypt.

It will be implemented in three stages, with the second stage due to begin six weeks into the truce. About 1,900 Palestinian prisoners will be released during the first stage in exchange for 33 hostages. Israeli forces will also begin withdrawing from positions in Gaza and hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians will be able to return to areas they had fled or been forced from.

The ceasefire is meant to lead to a permanent end to the war in Gaza.

Ninety-one hostages taken on 7 October 2023 are still held in Gaza. Fifty-seven of them are assumed by Israel to still be alive. Three others - two of whom are alive - have been held for a decade or more.

A Pakistani YouTube star has been ordered to create 12 animal welfare videos as punishment for illegally owning a lion cub.

Rajab Butt, who has 5.6 million subscribers, was pictured with the cub after he was given it at his wedding last month by the owner of another YouTube channel.

Under a community service order, Mr Butt has been ordered to produce a five-minute video per month for a year to educate his audience.

The cub has been moved to the Lahore Safari Zoo by authorities and named Bhatti.

In a statement, Mr Butt said he regretted accepting the cub and acknowledged that "keeping wild animals in such circumstances is inappropriate".

"As a social media influencer, I should create positive content. I was not authorised to keep the lion cub, and by doing so, I set a wrong example," he added.

A court also ordered the wildlife department to help Mr Butt produce his educational content.

A wildlife officer reported Mr Butt to the police after seeing a video he posted to his YouTube channel last month, where he received the cub at his wedding.

It was given to him in a cage by Umar Dolla, who runs another YouTube channel called Lion Hub.

Mr Dolla claimed to the court that he was still the animal's legal owner. However, the judge ruled it had been seized by Butt, local media reported.

Mr Butt said he would "provide community service through my social media platforms and spread a positive message about the rights of wild animals".

Tariq Janjua, director of Lahore Safari Zoo, told local media that lions cannot be domesticated and keeping them was both cruel to the animal and a danger to humans.

The Democratic Republic of Congo's president has cut short his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos as a deadly conflict escalates back home.

Fighting has intensified in DR Congo's eastern region since the start of the year, with the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels seizing control of more territory than ever.

More than 400,000 people have fled their homes since the start of this year as the M23 advances on the provincial capital of Goma, the United Nations says.

President Felix Tshisekedi flew back from Switzerland for urgent security meetings with top officials.

Over the past few weeks, the M23 has captured the towns of Masisi and Minova in North Kivu.

More than 200 civilians have been killed in areas captured by the M23, local leaders said on Thursday.

And according to the United Nations, two children died after bombs fell on a camp for displaced people.

The fall of Goma - a city of over a million that lies close to the border with Rwanda - would be a major coup for the rebels. They briefly took over the city during a rebellion in 2012, but withdrew after a deal was brokered.

Numerous roads leading towards the city have now been blocked, sparking concerns that food supplies in the city might run out.

"The town of Goma is held in a vice, the town is suffocated, there are no more entrances, there are no more exits… this population is suffering enormously" local union leader Bahala Shamavu Innocent told the BBC.

Espoir Ngalukiye, a member of the opposition party Ensemble pour la Republique, is also worried about access to food.

"In Goma we are not safe for real," Mr Ngalukiye said. "No-one who lives in Goma can tell you that he doesn't have fear."

On Thursday the rebels captured the nearby town of Sake, according to the United Nations, the United Kingdom and various other sources.

But the Congolese army said it had repelled the attack on Sake, which lies just 20 km (12 miles) from Goma.

Residents of Sake and the wider area - many of whom were already displaced by the conflict - have fled their homes.

People are escaping carrying mattresses and other such essentials on their backs, while dozens pile into overcrowded wooden boats.

Thousands of panicked families have fled towards Goma, where hospitals have been overwhelmed with injured civilians.

The M23 has taking control of vast swathes of mineral-rich eastern DR Congo since 2021. As a consequence, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced.

Last year, it was also feared the rebels would seize Goma. There was a lull in fighting in late July, but heavy fighting resumed in October, and worsened towards the end of the year.

The DR Congo and the UN say the M23 is backed by Rwanda. The Rwandan authorities neither confirm nor deny this.

On Friday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the current conflict risks escalating into a broader regional war.

Mr Guterres called on "all actors to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and to put an end to all forms of support to armed groups," a statement said.

More BBC stories on DR Congo:

• Nurses working in fear: BBC visits mpox epicentre
• 'Hell behind bars' - life in DR Congo's most notorious jail
• TikTokers quit vaping over mining concerns

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 United Nations (UN) says it has suspended all movement in Houthi-held areas of Yemen after a number of UN personnel were detained by the armed group in the capital, Sanaa.

The UN said that it was actively engaging with senior Houthi officials to try to secure the release of all its detained employees. There has been no official statement from the Houthis as yet.

This is not the first time that the group has detained UN workers - a number of staff members were held last year. The Houthis have also detained some 20 Yemeni employees of the US embassy for the past three years.

Human rights groups also accuse the movement of having kidnapped, tortured and held in arbitrary detention hundreds of civilians.

The Iranian-backed Houthis have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen for almost a decade. The conflict, which erupted after the Houthis forced out the then Yemeni government, has largely been at a standstill for the past two years.

But the Houthis have drawn renewed international attention with their targeting of ships in the Red Sea and their firing of rockets towards Israel in the past fifteen months, which they say is in support of Hamas and the Palestinians.

Their actions have triggered reprisal strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen from the US, Israel and the UK.

Since the ceasefire in Gaza began, the Houthis have said they will decrease their attacks on shipping and stop firing at Israel if it continues with the truce.

One of President Trump's first acts on taking office has been, however, to order the Houthis to be put back on the US list of foreign terrorist organisations.

Despite all this, the group remains in control of large areas of Yemen.

The country was the poorest in the Middle East before the war began in 2015. Hundreds of thousands of people have since died in the fighting or from disease and hunger exacerbated by the conflict.

UN agencies provide a vital lifeline for millions of Yemenis with their food and medical aid.

But they have regularly had problems reaching people in more remote areas outside the major towns and cities, with Houthi officials regularly reported to have obstructed the delivery of humanitarian assistance in the regions they control.

A judge has rejected a US mother's challenge to extradition over accusations she murdered two of her children in Colorado and "fled" to London.

Kimberlee Singler's nine-year-old daughter Elianna and seven-year-old son Aden were found dead on 19 December, 2023 in Colorado Springs.

Prosecutors acting on behalf of US officials said Ms Singler, 36, "fled" the US and was arrested in west London 11 days later.

District Judge John Zani told Westminster Magistrates' Court he rejected Ms Singler's challenge against extradition and said the case now passed to the home secretary to decide whether the 36-year-old should be sent back to the US.

Warning: This report contains descriptions of violence against children

In his ruling Judge Zani said he was not convinced that the defendant's rights, particularly her concerns about prison conditions and a possible life sentence without parole, would be infringed on by extradition.

"I am of the firm opinion that the defendant's extradition to the United States of America to face criminal prosecution complies with all of her Convention Rights within the meaning of the Human Rights Act 1998," Judge Zani said.

Ms Singler's legal team has said she intends to appeal against the judge's decision.

Previously, the court heard in September that Ms Singler's alleged crimes were "committed against the backdrop of acrimonious court proceedings" relating to the custody of her children with her ex-husband Kevin Wentz.

Prosecutor Joel Smith said on 19 December 2023 the Colorado Springs Police Department responded to a 911 call reporting a burglary at a Colorado residence at 00:29 local time (06:29 GMT).

When officers arrived at the defendant's address, they found two dead children and a "blood-stained handgun" which was discovered on the floor of the bedroom.

Mr Smith said DNA tests were carried out on the gun and a knife which revealed the presence of mixed profiles matching the children and Ms Singler.

A third child, who has not been named, was found with a serious injury to her neck. She was taken to hospital and survived.

Mr Smith said Ms Singler blamed her husband for the attack, but it was found he had been driving a "GPS-tracked truck" in Denver, giving what the prosecutor described as a "complete and verifiable alibi".

In the days that followed, the third child was moved into foster care and, on Christmas Day, she told her foster carer that Ms Singler had been responsible for the attack and had asked her to lie to police, Mr Smith said.

The prosecutor said the girl was interviewed by police on 26 December, during which time she recounted how the attack had unfolded after the defendant guided all three children into their bedroom.

The police investigation then led to a warrant being issued by Fourth Judicial District Court in El Paso County, Colorado, for Ms Singler's arrest.

Mr Smith said Ms Singler was arrested in the Chelsea area of west London on 30 December.

It is not for the court in London to carry out a criminal trial. However, at the same hearing in September, Ms Singler's defence barrister Edward Fitzgerald told the court she "denies she is responsible for the death of her two young children and the attempted murder of her third child".

"She is innocent," he said.

US President Donald Trump has pardoned 23 anti-abortion activists, including some convicted of blockading a reproductive health clinic and intimidating staff and patients.

The pardons were part of a round of executive orders signed by Trump on Thursday, one of several in the first week of his presidency.

Trump described the convictions as "ridiculous", but abortion rights campaigners said the move was evidence of his opposition to abortion access.

The orders came a day before anti-abortion protesters were due to come to Washington DC for the annual March for Life, which the president is due to address by videolink.

In 2020, Trump became the first sitting president to attend the rally in person, though George W Bush and Ronald Reagan have also addressed it remotely.

Vice President J D Vance will attend in person this time.

• Live updates on Trump's second term
• What Trump has done since taking power

The rally has been held in the US capital every year since 1974, a year after abortion was legalised by the Supreme Court in Roe v Wade.

Abortion rights have been a key issue in recent presidential races and the court overturned the ruling in 2022.

Signing the pardons, Trump said of the activists: "They should not have been prosecuted. Many of them are elderly people... This is a great honour to sign this. They'll be very happy."

US media report that one of those pardoned is Lauren Handy, leader of the group Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU).

The group was convicted of conspiring in 2020 to storm a Washington reproductive health clinic and block access to intimidate patients and staff. Members forced their way into the Surgi-Clinic, injuring a nurse, and spent several hours inside.

Handy was found guilty in August 2023 and sentenced in May 2024.

Her supporters have hailed the pardons, saying that the convictions were political.

The president of Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said the protesters were targeted by Joe Biden's Department of Justice and she thanked Trump for "immediately delivering on his promise" to pardon them.

But abortion rights activists said the pardons confirmed their belief that Trump was anti-abortion, despite him declaring during his presidential campaign that it was up to individual states to decide whether to allow the practice.

Ryan Stitzlein of the national abortion rights organisation Reproductive Freedom for All told AP news agency: "Donald Trump on the campaign trail tried to have it both ways - bragging about his role in overturning Roe v Wade while saying he wasn't going to take action on abortion.

"We never believed that that was true, and this shows us that we were right."

• ANALYSIS: Six Trump executive orders to watch
• IN DEPTH: Relationship with Europe this time may be very different
• PARDONS: Jan 6 defendants get nearly everything they wanted
• WATCH: Bishop asks Trump to show mercy to LGBT people and migrants

Nigeria's authorities have officially declared the Lakurawa armed group - which flogs people for listening to music - a terrorist organisation and banned it across the country.

Lakurawa is a new militant group which carries out attacks, targeting local communities in north-western Nigeria and across the border with Niger.

Nigerian officials say Lakurawa is affiliated with jihadist factions in Mali and Niger, and its militants have for years settled in communities along the Nigeria-Niger border, marrying local women and recruiting youths.

This adds to Nigeria's security concerns, as it is already fighting against several armed groups, from Islamist militants Boko Haram to kidnapping gangs.

The Nigerian government submitted a document to a High Court in the capital, Abuja, on Thursday, detailing the activities of the group.

It said Lakurawa had been involved in acts of terrorism, including cattle rustling, kidnapping for ransom, hostage-taking and attacks on top government officials.

The group was also accused of spreading harmful ideology within local communities and encouraging locals to disregard authorities, "resulting in injuries, and loss of lives and property to innocent citizens of Nigeria".

• Chibok girls feel let down 10 years after Nigeria kidnapping
• Nigeria's mass abductions: What lies behind the resurgence?
• A father's grief after daughter killed in accidental drone strike

The group emerged few years ago in some villages in Sokoto and Kebbi states and people had notified authorities of its existence but nothing was done.

At first, Lakurawa members promised to tackle banditry and help protect local people from cattle thieves.

"But things escalated when they started asking to check people’s phones and would flog those that have music in them before deleting them," the man said.

In the court papers, Nigeria's Attorney-General and Minister of Justice Lateef Fagbemi said the group's activities posed a serious threat to national security.

Last year, military spokesperson Maj Gen Edward Buba said the emergence of Lakurawa was directly linked to political instability in neighbouring Mali and Niger.

The military has seized power in both countries, partly because of the pressure of an Islamist insurgency.

In a swift decision, Justice James Omotosho declared the group "a terrorist organisation and extended the ban to similar groups across Nigeria, with a specific focus on the North West and North Central regions".

This move will give the Nigerian government sweeping powers to take strong actions against the group.

Security agencies now have broad mandates to disrupt and dismantle the group's operations, including arrests, prosecution, asset freezes, and increased surveillance.

It could also lead to public stigma and isolation for individuals associated with the designated group.

Across the country, especially in northern Nigeria, people fear another scenario similar to when Boko Haram emerged in the late 2000s.

Boko Haram means "Western education is forbidden", and it has repeatedly targeted secular schools as part of its attempts to establish its version of Islamic rule in the region.

The group gained notoriety internationally when it kidnapped more than 200 school girls from the north-eastern town of Chibok in 2014.

You may also be interested in:

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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

Hamas is expected to hand over to Israel the names of four hostages to be released on Saturday under the Gaza ceasefire deal.

It is thought they will be soldiers and civilians, all female.

They will be freed in exchange for 180 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

It will be the second exchange since the ceasefire came into effect last Sunday. Three hostages and 90 prisoners were released in the first swap.

The ceasefire halted the war which began when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken back to Gaza as hostages.

More than 47,200 Palestinians, the majority civilians, have been killed in Israel's offensive, Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says.

Hamas is also expected to provide information about the remaining 26 hostages due to be released over the next five weeks.

This includes the Bibas family - two parents and two children, one of whom, Kfir, was 10 months old when taken captive and is the youngest hostage. It is unclear if this information will include the names or just the number of living or dead hostages.

• What we know about the ceasefire in Gaza
• Hamas hostages: Stories of the people taken from Israel

The prisoners who will be released are of a more serious category than those freed in the first exchange. They will include those who have killed, some of whom are serving sentences of more than 15 years.

Israel has insisted that no-one who was involved in the 7 October attacks will be freed.

The ceasefire deal was reached after months of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas, led by the US, Qatar and Egypt.

It will be implemented in three stages, with the second stage due to begin six weeks into the truce. About 1,900 Palestinian prisoners will be released during the first stage in exchange for 33 hostages. Israeli forces will also begin withdrawing from positions in Gaza and hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians will be able to return to areas they had fled or been forced from.

The ceasefire is meant to lead to a permanent end to the war in Gaza.

Ninety-one hostages taken on 7 October 2023 are still held in Gaza. Fifty-seven of them are assumed by Israel to still be alive. Three others - two of whom are alive - have been held for a decade or more.

Five new fires have erupted in southern California ahead of US President Donald Trump's visit to the state.

The blazes - named Laguna, Sepulveda, Gibbel, Gilman and Border 2 - flared up on Thursday in Los Angeles, San Diego, Ventura and Riverside.

Meanwhile, firefighters have made progress in bringing the 10,000-acre Hughes Fire in Los Angeles under control, containing it by 36% since it broke out on Wednesday.

Fires have devastated the US state over the last few weeks, with the Palisades and Eaton fires scorching a combined total of more than 37,000 acres and killing at least 28 people.

Here are some details about the latest fires, based on updates from California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire):

• The Border 2 fire in San Diego spans 800 acres. Evacuation orders are currently in place
• Laguna fire in Ventura, which covers 94 acres and 70% of it has been brought under control
• The Sepulveda fire in Los Angeles spans 45 acres and is 60% contained. In an update posted on X, the Los Angeles Fire Department said they had stopped the blaze from spreading and evacuation orders had been lifted
• The Gibbel Fire erupted in the Riverside County, covering 15 acres. Fire crews have managed to stop the fire from progressing
• A bush fire dubbed "Gilman Fire" in San Diego covers two acres, but the blaze's progress has been stopped

Trump is set to visit Los Angeles on Friday to examine the wildfire damage.

The newly inaugurated president has been critical of the response to the fires and has threatened to withhold federal assistance if California fails to alter the way it manages water supplies.

He has criticised California Governor Gavin Newsom and repeatedly made claims that the state had water issues because it diverted supplies to save a small fish called a smelt.

When asked by US media if he would cut off funding to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), Trump said: "I might have to do that. Sometimes that's the only thing you can do. California's a great example of it.

"If you actually poll the people, they don't want sanctuary cities, but Gavin Newsom does. And these radical left politicians do."

Brian Rice, the president of the California Professional Firefighters, told the BBC that he hopes Trump does not deny the state federal aid.

"The most important focus we have is getting federal aid into California, into these communities where people have lost their lives, their homes," he said.

"In the history of this country, federal disaster aid has never been tied to if you do this, you get that. This is the discussion that's going on, it's never happened."

The Hughes fire - the third largest blaze in the state after the Palisades and Eaton fires - forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate after it broke out on Wednesday.

According to Cal Fire, crew managed to make progress in containing the fast-moving blaze on Thursday.

In an update posted on Friday, the US National Weather Service has said dry weather and "elevated wildfire conditions" will persist in southern California, before rain over the weekend is expected to bring relief to the fire-stricken areas.

Ukraine reportedly hit a Russian oil refinery and targeted Moscow during an attack involving a wave of at least 100 drones, one of the largest single operations of its kind during the war.

Video footage verified by the BBC shows a fireball rising over the refinery and pumping station in the Ryazan region, southeast of Moscow, which Ukrainian officials said was a target.

Russia said it had shot down 121 drones that had targeted 13 regions, including Ryazan and Moscow, but reported no damage.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian authorities said three people were killed and one was injured when a Russian drone hit a residential building in the Kyiv region.

Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine's centre for countering disinformation, said on Telegram that an oil refinery in Ryazan had been hit, as well as the Kremniy plant in Bryansk. Kyiv says the facility produces components for missiles and other weapons.

Bloggers on the social media site Telegram posted images and videos of fires raging in Ryazan. Footage verified as genuine by the BBC shows people fleeing from the site in cars as a blaze takes hold.

Russian state-owned news agency RIA cited a statement from the Kremniy plant in Bryansk, which said work had been suspended after an attack involving six drones. Pavel Malkov, the regional governor, said emergency services were responding.

The Kremlin acknowledged the attacks but made no mention of damage or casualties.

It claimed to have destroyed 121 Ukrainian drones, including six over the Moscow region, 20 in the Ryazan region, and a number over the border region of Bryansk.

Sergei Sobyanin, Moscow's mayor, said the city's air defences had intercepted attacks by Ukrainian drones at four locations.

He said air defences southeast of the capital in Kolomna and Ramenskoye had also repelled drones, without specifying how many. He said there was no damage.

Russian news agencies quoted Rosaviatsiya, the federal aviation agency, as saying two Moscow airports, Vnukovo and Domodedovo, had resumed flights after suspending operations for a time. Six flights were redirected to other airports.

In the city of Kursk, Mayor Igor Kutsak said overnight attacks had damaged power lines and cut off electricity to one district.

In Ukraine, officials said that its air defences had destroyed 25 of 58 drones launched overnight by Russia.

The interior ministry said debris from one of the drones had killed two men and a woman in Hlevakha, Kyiv region, and that another person had been injured.

A man has been jailed for 30 years for attempting to murder two people with a meat cleaver outside the former Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo in 2020.

Zaheer Mahmood, 29, from Pakistan, attacked and badly wounded two employees of the Premieres Lignes news agency, days after Charlie Hebdo had republished cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

He was unaware Charlie Hebdo had moved offices to a secret location after 12 people were killed there in a gun attack claimed by al-Qaeda following the original publication of the cartoons in 2015.

Mahmood was convicted of attempted murder and terrorist conspiracy. He will be banned from France when his sentence is served.

Five other Pakistani men, some of whom were under 18 at the time of their crimes, were jailed for between three and 12 years on terrorist conspiracy charges for supporting Mahmood.

The trial was held in the juvenile court in Paris due to their ages.

The court heard that Mahmood had planned his attack after Charlie Hebdo republished its cartoons of the Prophet in September 2020 to mark the opening of the trial of some of those responsible for the 2015 massacre.

The court was told that Mahmood was influenced by radical Pakistani preacher Khadim Hussain Rizvi, who had urged him to "avenge the Prophet".

Armed with a meat cleaver, he arrived at Hebdo's former offices in the French capital's 11th district, and attacked and seriously wounded two employees of the Premieres Lignes news agency, which has offices nearby.

Witnesses at the time described how they saw their colleagues "bloodied, being chased by a man with a machete".

His victims, a woman named "Helene", 32, and a 37-year-old man, were present at the sentencing but did not comment on its outcome.

Neither has accepted Mahmood's pleas for forgiveness.

"It broke something within me," the 37-year-old said, as he told the court of his lengthy rehabilitation process.

Mahmood arrived in France illegally in 2017, although initially claimed to arrive in 2019. He also lied about his age, claiming to be 18.

Mahmood's defence lawyer, Alberic de Gayardon, said his client lived and worked with Pakistanis and felt disconnected from France.

"He does not speak French, he lives with Pakistanis, he works for Pakistanis," Mr Gayardon added. "In his head he had never left Pakistan."

Julia Ramadan was terrified - the war between Israel and Hezbollah was escalating and she'd had a nightmare that her family home was being bombed. When she sent her brother a panicked voice note from her apartment in Beirut, he encouraged her to join him in Ain El Delb, a sleepy village in southern Lebanon.

"It's safe here," he reassured her. "Come stay with us until things calm down."

Earlier that month, Israel intensified air campaigns against Hezbollah in Lebanon, in response to escalating rocket attacks by the Iran-backed armed group which had killed civilians, and displaced tens of thousands more from homes in northern Israel.

Ashraf was confident their family's apartment block would be a haven, so Julia joined him. But the next day, on 29 September, it was subject to this conflict's deadliest single Israeli attack. Struck by Israeli missiles, the entire six-storey building collapsed, killing 73 people.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says the building was targeted because it was a Hezbollah "terrorist command centre" and it "eliminated" a Hezbollah commander. It added that "the overwhelming majority" of those killed in the strike were "confirmed to be terror operatives".

But a BBC Eye investigation verified the identity of 68 of the 73 people killed in the attack and uncovered evidence suggesting just six were linked to Hezbollah's military wing. None of those we identified appeared to hold a senior rank. The BBC's World Service also found that the other 62 were civilians - 23 of them children.

Among the dead were babies only a few months old, like Nouh Kobeissi in apartment -2B. In apartment -1C, school teacher Abeer Hallak was killed alongside her husband and three sons. Three floors above, Amal Hakawati died along with three generations of her family - her husband, children and two granddaughters.

Ashraf and Julia had always been close, sharing everything with each other. "She was like a black box, holding all my secrets," he says.

On the afternoon of 29 September, the siblings had just returned home from handing out food to families who had fled the fighting. Hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon had been displaced by the war.

Ashraf was in the shower, and Julia was sitting in the living room with their father, helping him upload a video to social media. Their mother, Janan, was in the kitchen, clearing up.

Then, without warning, they heard a deafening bang. The entire building shook, and a massive cloud of dust and smoke poured into their apartment.

"I shouted, 'Julia! Julia!,'" says Ashraf.

"She replied, 'I'm here.'

"I looked at my dad, who was struggling to get up from the sofa because of an existing injury to his leg, and saw my mother running toward the front door."

Julia's nightmare was playing out in real life.

"Julia was hyperventilating, crying so hard on the sofa. I was trying to calm her down and told her we needed to get out. Then, there was another attack."

Video footage of the strike, shared online and verified by the BBC, reveals four Israeli missiles flying through the air towards the building. Seconds later, the block collapses.

Ashraf, along with many others, was trapped under the rubble. He began calling out, but the only voice he could hear was that of his father, who told him he could still hear Julia and that she was alive. Neither of them could hear Ashraf's mother.

Ashraf sent a voice note to friends in the neighbourhood to alert them. The next few hours were agonising. He could hear rescuers sifting through the debris - and residents wailing as they discovered loved ones dead. "I just kept thinking, please, God, not Julia. I can't live this life without Julia."

Ashraf was finally pulled from the rubble hours later, with only minor injuries.

He discovered his mother had been rescued but died in hospital. Julia had suffocated under the rubble. His father later told him Julia's last words were calls for her brother.

In November, a ceasefire deal was agreed between Israel and Hezbollah with the aim of ending the conflict. The deal gives a 60-day deadline for Israeli forces to withdraw from southern Lebanon and for Hezbollah to withdraw its forces and weapons north of the Litani River. As this 26 January deadline approaches, we sought to find out more about the deadliest single Israeli attack on Lebanon in years.

In the apartment below Julia and Ashraf's, Hawraa and Ali Fares had been hosting family members displaced by the war. Among them was Hawraa's sister Batoul, who, like Julia, had arrived the previous day - with her husband and two young children. They had fled intense bombardment near the Lebanon-Israel border, in areas where Hezbollah has a strong presence.

"We hesitated about where to go," says Batoul. "And then I told my husband, 'Let's go to Ain El Delb. My sister said their building was safe and that they couldn't hear any bombing nearby.'"

Batoul's husband Mohammed Fares was killed in the Ain El Delb attack. A pillar fell on Batoul and her children. She says no-one responded to her calls for help. She finally managed to lift it alone, but her four-year-old daughter Hawraa had been fatally crushed. Miraculously, her baby Malak survived.

Three floors below Batoul lived Denise and Moheyaldeen Al-Baba. That Sunday, Denise had invited her brother Hisham over for lunch.

The impact of the strike was brutal, says Hisham.

"The second missile slammed me to the floor… the entire wall fell on top of me."

He spent seven hours under the rubble.

"I heard a voice far away. People talking. Screams and… 'Cover her. Remove her. Lift the stone. He's still alive. It's a child. Lift this child.' I mean… Oh my God. I thought to myself, I'm the last one deep underground. No-one will know about me. I will die here."

When Hisham was finally rescued, he found his niece's fiance waiting to hear if she was alive. He lied to him and told him she was fine. They found her body three days later.

Hisham lost four members of his family - his sister, brother-in-law and their two children. He told us he had lost his faith and no longer believes in God.

To find out more about who died, we have analysed Lebanese Health Ministry data, videos, social media posts, as well as speaking to survivors of the attack.

We particularly wanted to interrogate the IDF's response to media - immediately following the attack - that the apartment block had been a Hezbollah command centre. We asked the IDF multiple times what constituted a command centre, but it did not give clarification.

So we began sifting through social media tributes, gravesites, public health records and videos of funerals to determine whether those killed in the attack had any military affiliation with Hezbollah.

We could only find evidence that six of the 68 dead we identified were connected to Hezbollah's military wing.

Hezbollah memorial photos for the six men use the label "Mujahid", meaning "fighter". Senior figures, by contrast, are referred to as "Qaid", meaning "commander" - and we found no such labels used by the group to describe those killed.

We asked the IDF whether the six Hezbollah fighters we identified were the intended targets of the strike. It did not respond to this question.

One of the Hezbollah fighters we identified was Batoul's husband, Mohammed Fares. Batoul told us that her husband, like many other men in southern Lebanon, was a reservist for the group, though she added that he had never been paid by Hezbollah, held a formal rank, or participated in combat.

Israel sees Hezbollah as one of its main threats and the group is designated a terrorist organisation by Israel, many Western governments and Gulf Arab states.

But alongside its large, well-armed military wing, Hezbollah is also an influential political party, holding seats in Lebanese parliament. In many parts of the country it is woven into the social fabric, providing a network of social services.

In response to our investigation, the IDF stated: "The IDF's strikes on military targets are subject to relevant provisions of international law, including taking feasible precautions, and are carried out after an assessment that the expected collateral damage and civilian casualties are not excessive in relation to the military advantage expected from the strike."

It had earlier also told the BBC it had executed "evacuation procedures" for the strike on Ain El Delb, but everyone we spoke to said they had received no warning.

Watch on YouTube if outside the UK

UN experts have raised concerns about the proportionality and necessity of Israeli air strikes on residential buildings in densely populated areas in Lebanon.

This pattern of targeting entire buildings - resulting in significant civilian casualties - has been a recurring feature of Israel's latest conflict with Hezbollah, which began when the group escalated rocket attacks in response to Israel's war in Gaza.

Between October 2023 and November 2024, Lebanese authorities say more than 3,960 people were killed in Lebanon by Israeli forces, many of them civilians. Over the same time period, Israeli authorities say at least 47 civilians were killed by Hezbollah rockets fired from southern Lebanon. At least 80 Israeli soldiers were also killed fighting in southern Lebanon or as a result of rocket attacks on northern Israel.

The missile strike in Ain El Delb is the deadliest Israeli attack on a building in Lebanon for at least 18 years.

The village remains haunted by its impact. When we visited, more than a month after the strike, a father continued to visit the site every day, hoping for news of his 11-year-old son, whose body had yet to be found.

Ashraf Ramadan, too, returns to sift through the rubble, searching for what remains of the memories his family built over the two decades they lived there.

He shows me the door of his wardrobe, still adorned with pictures of footballers and pop stars he once admired. Then, he pulls a teddy bear from the debris and tells me it was always on his bed.

"Nothing I find here will make up for the people we lost," he says.

Additional reporting by Scarlett Barter and Jake Tacchi

Julia Ramadan was terrified - the war between Israel and Hezbollah was escalating and she'd had a nightmare that her family home was being bombed. When she sent her brother a panicked voice note from her apartment in Beirut, he encouraged her to join him in Ain El Delb, a sleepy village in southern Lebanon.

"It's safe here," he reassured her. "Come stay with us until things calm down."

Earlier that month, Israel intensified air campaigns against Hezbollah in Lebanon, in response to escalating rocket attacks by the Iran-backed armed group which had killed civilians, and displaced tens of thousands more from homes in northern Israel.

Ashraf was confident their family's apartment block would be a haven, so Julia joined him. But the next day, on 29 September, it was subject to this conflict's deadliest single Israeli attack. Struck by Israeli missiles, the entire six-storey building collapsed, killing 73 people.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says the building was targeted because it was a Hezbollah "terrorist command centre" and it "eliminated" a Hezbollah commander. It added that "the overwhelming majority" of those killed in the strike were "confirmed to be terror operatives".

But a BBC Eye investigation verified the identity of 68 of the 73 people killed in the attack and uncovered evidence suggesting just six were linked to Hezbollah's military wing. None of those we identified appeared to hold a senior rank. The BBC's World Service also found that the other 62 were civilians - 23 of them children.

Among the dead were babies only a few months old, like Nouh Kobeissi in apartment -2B. In apartment -1C, school teacher Abeer Hallak was killed alongside her husband and three sons. Three floors above, Amal Hakawati died along with three generations of her family - her husband, children and two granddaughters.

Ashraf and Julia had always been close, sharing everything with each other. "She was like a black box, holding all my secrets," he says.

On the afternoon of 29 September, the siblings had just returned home from handing out food to families who had fled the fighting. Hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon had been displaced by the war.

Ashraf was in the shower, and Julia was sitting in the living room with their father, helping him upload a video to social media. Their mother, Janan, was in the kitchen, clearing up.

Then, without warning, they heard a deafening bang. The entire building shook, and a massive cloud of dust and smoke poured into their apartment.

"I shouted, 'Julia! Julia!,'" says Ashraf.

"She replied, 'I'm here.'

"I looked at my dad, who was struggling to get up from the sofa because of an existing injury to his leg, and saw my mother running toward the front door."

Julia's nightmare was playing out in real life.

"Julia was hyperventilating, crying so hard on the sofa. I was trying to calm her down and told her we needed to get out. Then, there was another attack."

Video footage of the strike, shared online and verified by the BBC, reveals four Israeli missiles flying through the air towards the building. Seconds later, the block collapses.

Ashraf, along with many others, was trapped under the rubble. He began calling out, but the only voice he could hear was that of his father, who told him he could still hear Julia and that she was alive. Neither of them could hear Ashraf's mother.

Ashraf sent a voice note to friends in the neighbourhood to alert them. The next few hours were agonising. He could hear rescuers sifting through the debris - and residents wailing as they discovered loved ones dead. "I just kept thinking, please, God, not Julia. I can't live this life without Julia."

Ashraf was finally pulled from the rubble hours later, with only minor injuries.

He discovered his mother had been rescued but died in hospital. Julia had suffocated under the rubble. His father later told him Julia's last words were calls for her brother.

In November, a ceasefire deal was agreed between Israel and Hezbollah with the aim of ending the conflict. The deal gives a 60-day deadline for Israeli forces to withdraw from southern Lebanon and for Hezbollah to withdraw its forces and weapons north of the Litani River. As this 26 January deadline approaches, we sought to find out more about the deadliest single Israeli attack on Lebanon in years.

In the apartment below Julia and Ashraf's, Hawraa and Ali Fares had been hosting family members displaced by the war. Among them was Hawraa's sister Batoul, who, like Julia, had arrived the previous day - with her husband and two young children. They had fled intense bombardment near the Lebanon-Israel border, in areas where Hezbollah has a strong presence.

"We hesitated about where to go," says Batoul. "And then I told my husband, 'Let's go to Ain El Delb. My sister said their building was safe and that they couldn't hear any bombing nearby.'"

Batoul's husband Mohammed Fares was killed in the Ain El Delb attack. A pillar fell on Batoul and her children. She says no-one responded to her calls for help. She finally managed to lift it alone, but her four-year-old daughter Hawraa had been fatally crushed. Miraculously, her baby Malak survived.

Three floors below Batoul lived Denise and Moheyaldeen Al-Baba. That Sunday, Denise had invited her brother Hisham over for lunch.

The impact of the strike was brutal, says Hisham.

"The second missile slammed me to the floor… the entire wall fell on top of me."

He spent seven hours under the rubble.

"I heard a voice far away. People talking. Screams and… 'Cover her. Remove her. Lift the stone. He's still alive. It's a child. Lift this child.' I mean… Oh my God. I thought to myself, I'm the last one deep underground. No-one will know about me. I will die here."

When Hisham was finally rescued, he found his niece's fiance waiting to hear if she was alive. He lied to him and told him she was fine. They found her body three days later.

Hisham lost four members of his family - his sister, brother-in-law and their two children. He told us he had lost his faith and no longer believes in God.

To find out more about who died, we have analysed Lebanese Health Ministry data, videos, social media posts, as well as speaking to survivors of the attack.

We particularly wanted to interrogate the IDF's response to media - immediately following the attack - that the apartment block had been a Hezbollah command centre. We asked the IDF multiple times what constituted a command centre, but it did not give clarification.

So we began sifting through social media tributes, gravesites, public health records and videos of funerals to determine whether those killed in the attack had any military affiliation with Hezbollah.

We could only find evidence that six of the 68 dead we identified were connected to Hezbollah's military wing.

Hezbollah memorial photos for the six men use the label "Mujahid", meaning "fighter". Senior figures, by contrast, are referred to as "Qaid", meaning "commander" - and we found no such labels used by the group to describe those killed.

We asked the IDF whether the six Hezbollah fighters we identified were the intended targets of the strike. It did not respond to this question.

One of the Hezbollah fighters we identified was Batoul's husband, Mohammed Fares. Batoul told us that her husband, like many other men in southern Lebanon, was a reservist for the group, though she added that he had never been paid by Hezbollah, held a formal rank, or participated in combat.

Israel sees Hezbollah as one of its main threats and the group is designated a terrorist organisation by Israel, many Western governments and Gulf Arab states.

But alongside its large, well-armed military wing, Hezbollah is also an influential political party, holding seats in Lebanese parliament. In many parts of the country it is woven into the social fabric, providing a network of social services.

In response to our investigation, the IDF stated: "The IDF's strikes on military targets are subject to relevant provisions of international law, including taking feasible precautions, and are carried out after an assessment that the expected collateral damage and civilian casualties are not excessive in relation to the military advantage expected from the strike."

It had earlier also told the BBC it had executed "evacuation procedures" for the strike on Ain El Delb, but everyone we spoke to said they had received no warning.

Watch on YouTube if outside the UK

UN experts have raised concerns about the proportionality and necessity of Israeli air strikes on residential buildings in densely populated areas in Lebanon.

This pattern of targeting entire buildings - resulting in significant civilian casualties - has been a recurring feature of Israel's latest conflict with Hezbollah, which began when the group escalated rocket attacks in response to Israel's war in Gaza.

Between October 2023 and November 2024, Lebanese authorities say more than 3,960 people were killed in Lebanon by Israeli forces, many of them civilians. Over the same time period, Israeli authorities say at least 47 civilians were killed by Hezbollah rockets fired from southern Lebanon. At least 80 Israeli soldiers were also killed fighting in southern Lebanon or as a result of rocket attacks on northern Israel.

The missile strike in Ain El Delb is the deadliest Israeli attack on a building in Lebanon for at least 18 years.

The village remains haunted by its impact. When we visited, more than a month after the strike, a father continued to visit the site every day, hoping for news of his 11-year-old son, whose body had yet to be found.

Ashraf Ramadan, too, returns to sift through the rubble, searching for what remains of the memories his family built over the two decades they lived there.

He shows me the door of his wardrobe, still adorned with pictures of footballers and pop stars he once admired. Then, he pulls a teddy bear from the debris and tells me it was always on his bed.

"Nothing I find here will make up for the people we lost," he says.

Additional reporting by Scarlett Barter and Jake Tacchi

"It's like the United States doesn't actually understand what I did for this country, it's a betrayal," Abdullah tells the BBC.

He fled Afghanistan with his parents amid the US withdrawal in August 2021 and is now a paratrooper for the US military. He worries he can't help his sister and her husband escape too, because of President Donald Trump's executive order suspending a resettlement programme.

The order cancels all flights and applications for Afghan refugees, without any exemption for families of active servicemembers.

Trump argues the decision addresses "record levels of migration" that threaten "the availability of resources for Americans".

But Abdullah and several other Afghan refugees have told the BBC they feel the US has "turned its back" on them, despite years of working alongside American officials, troops and non-profit organisations in Afghanistan. We are not using their real names, as they worry doing so could jeopardise their cases or put their families at risk.

As soon as Abdullah heard about the order, he called his sister. "She was crying, she's lost all hope," he said. He believes his work has made her a target of the Taliban government which took power in 2021.

"The anxiety, it's just unimaginable. She thinks we'll never be able to see each other again," he says.

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During the war, Abdullah says he was an interpreter for US forces. When he left Afghanistan, his sister and her husband couldn't get passports in time to board the flight.

Suhail Shaheen, a spokesperson for the Taliban government, told the BBC there is an amnesty for anyone who worked with international forces and all Afghans can "live in the country without any fear". He claims these refugees are "economic migrants".

But a UN report in 2023 cast doubt on assurances from the Taliban government. It found hundreds of former government officials and armed forces members were allegedly killed despite a general amnesty.

Abdullah's sister and her husband had completed the medical exams and interviews required for resettlement in the US. The BBC has seen a document from the US Department of Defense endorsing their application.

Now Abdullah says Trump's insistence that immigration is too high does not justify his separation from his family. He describes sleepless nights, and says the anxiety is affecting his work in his combat unit, serving the United States.

Babak, a former legal adviser to the Afghan Air Force, is still in hiding in Afghanistan.

"They're not just breaking their promise to us - they're breaking us," he says.

The BBC has seen letters from the United Nations confirming his role, as well as a letter endorsing his asylum claim by a Lt Colonel in the US Air Force. The endorsement adds that he provided advice on strikes targeting militants linked to both the Taliban and the Islamic State group.

Babak can't understand the president's decision, given that he worked alongside US troops. "We risked our lives because of those missions. Now we're in grave danger," he says.

He has been moving his wife and young son from location to location, desperately trying to stay hidden. He claims his brother was tortured for his whereabouts. The BBC cannot verify this part of his story, given the nature of his claims.

Babak is appealing to Trump and his National Security Adviser Mike Waltz to change their minds.

"Mike Waltz, you served in Afghanistan. Please encourage the president," he tells us.

Before saying goodbye, he adds: "The one ray of light we've been holding onto has been extinguished."

Ahmad managed to fly out to the US amid the chaos of the withdrawal but is now separated from his family. He felt he had no choice but to leave his father, mother and teenage siblings behind.

If he and his father had not worked with the US, he says, his family would not be targets of the Taliban government. "I can't sleep knowing I'm one of the reasons they're in this situation," he adds.

Before the Taliban takeover, Ahmad worked for a non-profit called Open Government Partnership (OGP), co-founded by the US 13 years ago and headquartered in Washington. He says the work he's proudest of is establishing a special court to address abuses against women.

But he claims his work at OGP and his advocacy for women made him a target and he was shot by Taliban fighters in 2021 before the Taliban took over the country.

The BBC has seen a letter from a hospital in Pennsylvania assessing "evidence of injury from bullet and bullet fragments" which they say is "consistent with his account of what happened to him in Kabul".

Making matters worse, he says his family is also in danger because his father was a colonel with the Afghan army and assisted the CIA. The BBC has seen a certificate, provided by the Afghan National Security Forces, thanking his father for his service.

Ahmad says the Taliban government has harassed his parents, brothers and sisters, so they fled to Pakistan. The BBC has seen photos showing Ahmad's father and brother being treated in a hospital for injuries he claims were inflicted by people from the Taliban government.

His family had completed several steps of the resettlement programme. He says he even provided evidence that he has enough funds to support his family once they arrive in the US, without any government help.

Now Ahmad says the situation is critical. His family are in Pakistan on visas that will expire within months. He has contacted the IOM and has been told to "be patient".

The head of #AfghanEvac, a non-profit group helping eligible Afghan refugees resettle, said he estimated 10,000-15,000 people were in the late stages of their applications.

Mina, who is pregnant, has been waiting for a flight out of Islamabad for six months. She worries her terror will threaten her unborn child. "If I lose the baby, I'll kill myself," she told the BBC.

She says she used to protest for women's rights, even after the Taliban government took control of Afghanistan. She claims she was arrested in 2023 and detained overnight.

"Even then I didn't want to leave Afghanistan. I went into hiding after my release, but they called me and said next time, they'd kill me," she says.

Mina worries the Pakistani government will send her back to Afghanistan. That's partly because Pakistan will not grant Afghan refugees asylum indefinitely.

The country has taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees from its neighbour, over decades of instability in the region. According to the UN refugee agency, the country hosts three million Afghan nationals, about 1.4 million of whom are documented.

As cross-border tensions with the Taliban government have flared, there has been growing concern over the fate of Afghans in Pakistan, with reports of alleged intimidation and detentions. The UN special rapporteur has said he's concerned and Afghans in the region deserve better treatment.

Pakistan's government says it is expelling foreign nationals who are in the country illegally back to Afghanistan and confirmed search raids were conducted in January.

According to the IOM, more than 795,000 Afghans have been expelled from Pakistan since last September.

The Afghan refugees we've spoken to feel caught between a homeland where their lives are in danger, and a host country whose patience is running out.

They had been pinning their hopes on the US - but what seemed a safe harbour has been abruptly blocked off by the new president until further notice.

The Trump administration emailed thousands of federal employees on Wednesday, ordering them to report any efforts to "disguise" diversity initiatives in their agencies or face "adverse consequences".

The request came after President Donald Trump banned diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices and programmes throughout the government.

Emails seen by the BBC directed workers to "report all facts and circumstances" to a new government email address within 10 days.

Some employees interpreted it as a demand to sell out their colleagues to the White House.

"We're really freaked out and overwhelmed," said one employee at the Department Health and Human Services (HHS).

The Office of Personnel Management, which manages the federal workforce, issued guidance requiring agency heads to send a notice to their staff by 17:00 eastern time on Wednesday. It included an email template that many federal staffers ultimately received that night.

Some employees, like those at the Treasury Department, got slightly different versions of the email.

The Treasury Department email excluded the warning about "adverse consequences" for not reporting DEI initiatives, according to a copy shared with the BBC.

In one of his first actions as president, Trump signed two executive orders ending "diversity, equity, and inclusion" or "DEI" programmes within the federal government and announced any employees working in those roles would immediately be placed on paid administrative leave.

Such programmes are designed to increase minority participation in the workforce and educate employees about discrimination.

But critics of DEI, like Trump, argue that the practice itself is discriminatory because it takes race, gender, sexual identity or other characteristics into consideration.

Trump and his allies attacked the practice frequently during the campaign.

In a speech Thursday at the World Economic Conference in Davos, Switzerland, Trump declared he was making America a "merit-based country".

Critics of DEI have praised Trump's decision.

"President Trump's executive orders rescinding affirmative action and banning DEI programs are a major milestone in American civil rights progress and a critical step towards building a colour-blind society," Yukong Mike Zhao, president of the Asian American Coalition for Education, said in a statement.

The group had supported a successful effort at the US Supreme Court to overturn affirmative action programmes at US universities.

But current federal employees, who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation, said that the email they received felt more like an attempt to intimidate staff than to make the government more fair.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

President Trump has signed a torrent of executive orders since he took office, including a hiring freeze in the federal government, an order for workers to return to the office and an attempt to reclassify thousands of government employees in order to make them easier to fire.

The HHS employee who spoke to the BBC criticised the government's DEI practices, believing that while it was important to build a diverse staff and create opportunities in health and medical fields, "identity politics have played into how we function normally and that's not beneficial to the workforce".

"But that doesn't mean I want my colleagues to get fired," the employee added.

He described the the impact the email and the DEI orders had on his agency as "very calculated chaos".

The employee's division had been thrown into confusion, he said, with questions about hiring practices going forward, as well as what programmes and directives were allowed to continue, given Trump's broad definition of DEI.

A second HHS employee said that hiring and research grants had been frozen and the entire department staff was waiting to see what they could do next.

The HHS, and one of its subsidiary agencies, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), issue millions of dollars in federal grants to universities and researchers across the globe to advance scientific research.

Agency employees feared that the DEI order could have an impact outside the government as well. One questioned if grants that allowed laboratories to create more opportunities for hiring minority scientists and medical professionals would now get the axe.

An employee who worked at the Food and Drug Administration told the BBC that she had not received the email, but all DEI-related activities had been paused.

"We have been told by seniors to keep doing our jobs," she said. "But there is a sense of fear about how it's going to have an impact on our work in general."

Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family who control it have agreed to pay up to $7.4bn (£6bn) to settle claims regarding its powerful prescription painkiller OxyContin.

The deal represents an increase of more than $1bn on a previous settlement that was rejected in 2024 by the US Supreme Court, according to news agencies AP and Reuters.

Under the terms of the settlement, the Sacklers agreed to pay up to $6.5bn and Purdue to pay $900m.

Oxycontin, often an entryway into harder drugs like heroin, has been blamed for supercharging the deadly opioid crisis in America, and generated billions of dollars for the Sackler family.

"We are extremely pleased that a new agreement has been reached that will deliver billions of dollars to compensate victims, abate the opioid crisis, and deliver treatment and overdose rescue medicines that will save lives," Purdue said in a statement.

The deal still needs court approval, and some of the details are yet to be ironed out, but AP says it is among the largest settlements reached in a series of lawsuits by local, state, Native American tribal governments and others seeking to hold companies responsible for the deadly epidemic.

Under President Donald Trump, the federal government is not expected to oppose the new deal, according to AP.

Connecticut attorney General William Tong told Reuters that the settlement would help provide closure to victims of the opioid crisis.

"It's not just about the money," Tong said. "There is not enough money in the world to make it right."

Since 1999, a few years after the drug became available, deaths from opioid overdoses surged to tens of thousands annually.

Court filings allege the Sackler family was long aware of the legal risks, and withdrew some $11bn from the company in the decade before its bankruptcy. They stashed much of the money overseas, while using some of it to pay company taxes, making recovery difficult.

A new fast-moving wildfire has erupted in Los Angeles County, triggering evacuations in a region already reeling from the most destructive fires in its history.

The Hughes fire ignited north of the city on Wednesday afternoon, near Castaic Lake in a mountainous area that borders several residential areas and schools.

The out-of-control blaze has grown to more than 5,000 acres in just two hours fuelled by strong winds. No homes or businesses have been damaged.

The new fire is burning north of the two mammoth blazes - which are still burning - that destroyed multiple neighbourhoods in Los Angeles County earlier this month.

Two other fires have ignited further south near San Diego and Oceanside, officials said.

They are both smaller - 85 acres for the Lilac fire near Oceanside and 3.9 acres for the Bernardo fire - but were burning in populated areas. Fire crews appeared to have a handle on both of the blazes and evacuation orders had been mostly lifted and forward progress stopped.

In Los Angeles County, local news showed those near the Hughes fire hosing down their homes and yards with water and others rushing to evacuate neighbourhoods.

Orange flames lined the mountains as aircraft dropped water and flame retardant.

The region is once again under a red flag warning, which cautions of a high fire risk due to strong winds and dry, low-humid conditions.

Winds in the area are blowing around 20 to 30 mph but are forecast to strengthen throughout the day, which could allow the blaze to grow and make it harder for air crews to continue their battle from above.

One woman who evacuated her home told NBC 4 that she was stuck on Interstate 5, a major highway that cuts through the area and runs north and south through California.

"It looked like a cloud, but as you got close, it looked like we were driving into hell," she said of the dark smoke and red flames she saw. "It was pretty terrifying to be honest with you."

She acknowledged being on edge after watching the Palisades and Eaton fires burn nearby, killing at least 28 people and decimating more than 10,000 homes and businesses.

"I don't know why they keep popping up," she said. "It's definitely a scary time in this area."

Everything gets mixed up together. The child's multi-coloured backpack. A running shoe. A steel pot perforated by shrapnel. Bits of beds, chairs, cookers, lampshades; the glass of broken windows, mirrors, drinking glasses. Scraps of clothing.

These last shredded, dust covered items can be markers. Often they belong to the dead lying near the surface of the rubble.

"Since the Israeli occupation forces withdrew from Rafah, we have had about 150 calls from civilians about the presence of their relatives' bodies under houses," says Haitham al-Homs, director of Emergency and Ambulance Services for the Civil Defence agency in Rafah, at the southernmost end of the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian health authorities estimate that 10,000 people are missing. Where there is no obvious marker like clothing at the surface, the search teams rely on information from relatives and neighbours, or they follow the smell of death that radiates from the ruins.

WARNING: This story contains distressing content

The Israeli government has banned the BBC and other international news organisations from entering Gaza and reporting independently. We depend on trusted local journalists to record the experiences of people like those who are searching for the missing.

At the end of every day, Mr Homs updates the list of those found. His team excavates the rubble with care, aware that they are searching for fragments of broken humanity. Often what is recovered is no more than a pile of bones. Israel's high explosive bombs blasted and mangled into pieces many of the dead. The bones and scraps of clothing are placed in white body bags upon which Mr Homs writes the Arabic word "majhoul". It means "unidentified".

A resident of Rafah, Osama Saleh, went back to his home after the ceasefire and found a skeleton inside. The skull was fractured. Mr Saleh reckons the body lay there for four to five months. "We are humans with feeling…I can't convey to you how miserable the tragedy is," he says. To be surrounded every day by the smell of decomposing bodies is a deeply unsettling experience, as those who have witnessed the aftermath of mass death will often testify.

"The bodies are terrifying. We are seeing terror," Osama Saleh says. "I swear it is a painful feeling, I have cried."

Families have also been arriving at hospitals to search for remains. In the courtyard of the European Hospital in southern Gaza, collections of bones and clothing are spread out on body bags.

Abdul Salam al-Mughayer, 19, from Rafah, went missing in the Shaboura area; according to his uncle, Zaki, it was a place you didn't come back from if you went there during the war. "So, we didn't go to look for him there for that reason. We wouldn't have returned."

Zaki believes a set of bones and clothes in front of him belong to the missing Abdul Salam. He is standing with a hospital worker, Jihad Abu Khreis, waiting for Abdul Salam's brother to arrive.

"It's 99% certain the body is his," Mr Abu Khreis says, "but now we need the final confirmation from his brother, the closest people to him, to make sure that the trousers and shoes are his."

Soon after the brother arrived from the tented refugee camp of al-Mawasi, also in southern Gaza. He had a photograph of Abdul Salam on his phone. There was a photo of his running shoes.

He knelt before the body bag and pulled back the cover. He touched the skull, the clothes. He saw the shoes. There were tears in his eyes. The identification was complete.

Another family moved along the row of body bags. There was a grandmother, her son, an adult sister, and a toddler. The child was kept at the back of the group while the elderly woman and her son looked under the cover of the body bag. They stared for a few seconds and then embraced each other in grief.

After this, the family, helped by hospital workers, carried away the remains. They were weeping, but nobody cried aloud.

Aya al-Dabeh was 13 years old and was living with her family and hundreds of other refugees at a school in Tal al-Hawa, in Gaza City in the north. She was one of nine children. One day at the start of the war Aya went to go to the bathroom upstairs at the school and - her family says - she was shot in the chest by an Israeli sniper. The Israel Defense Forces say they do not target civilians and blame Hamas for attacking from civilian areas. During the war the UN Human Rights Office said that that there has been "intense shooting by Israeli forces in densely populated areas resulting in apparently unlawful killings, including of unarmed bystanders."

The family buried Aya beside the school, and her mother Lina al- Dabah, 43, wrapped her in a blanket "to protect her from the rain and the sun" in case the grave was disturbed and exposed to the elements.

When the Israeli military took over the school Lina fled south. She went with four other children - two daughters and two sons - to reunite with her husband who'd gone earlier with the couple's other children. Lina had no option but to leave her daughter where she lay, hoping to come back and recover the remains for a proper burial once peace came.

"Aya was a very kind girl, and everyone loved her. She used to love everyone, her teachers and her studies, and she was very good at school. She wished well for everyone," Lina says. When the ceasefire came Lina asked relatives still living in the north to check up on Aya's grave. The news was devastating.

"They informed us that her head was in one place, her legs were in another, while her ribs were somewhere else. The one who went to visit her was shocked and sent us the pictures," she says.

"When I saw her, I couldn't understand how my daughter was taken out of her grave, and how did the dogs eat her? I can't control my nerves."

The relatives have collected the bones and soon Lina and her family will travel north to carry Aya's remains to a proper grave. For Lina, there is grief with no end, and a question that has no answer - the same question that sits with so many parents who lost children in Gaza. What could they have done differently, the circumstances of the war being what they were? "I couldn't take her from where she was buried," says Lina. Then she asks: "Where could I have taken her?"

With additional reporting by Malak Hassouneh, Alice Doyard, Adam Campbell.

A French woman who stopped having sex with her husband has won a ruling from Europe's highest human rights court, which has stated she should not have been blamed for their divorce.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) sided with the 69-year-old on Thursday, saying courts should not consider a refusal to engage in sexual relations as grounds for fault in divorce.

The unanimous decision found that France had violated her right to respect for private and family life under European human rights law - ending a legal dispute which has dragged on for almost a decade.

The French woman, identified as Ms H.W, celebrated the decision as a step forward in ending "rape culture" and promoting consent within marriage.

The case has sparked a debate about attitudes toward marital consent and women's rights in France. Lilia Mhissen, H.W.'s lawyer, said the decision dismantled the outdated concept of "marital duty" and called for French courts to align with modern views on consent and equality.

Women's rights groups supporting H.W. said French judges continue to impose an "archaic vision of marriage," which perpetuates harmful stereotypes.

H.W., who lives in Le Chesnay near Paris, married her husband, JC, in 1984. They had four children, including a daughter with a disability who required constant care, a responsibility H.W. took on.

Their marital relations deteriorated after the birth of their first child and by 1992, H.W. began experiencing health problems. In 2002, her husband started physically and verbally abusing her. Two years later, she stopped having sex with him and petitioned for divorce in 2012.

The woman did not dispute the divorce, which she had also requested, but objected to the grounds on which it was granted.

In 2019, an appeals court in Versailles rejected her complaints and ruled in favour of her husband. The Court of Cassation, France's highest court, later dismissed her appeal without explanation. She then brought her case to the ECHR in 2021.

The ECHR ruled that governments should only intervene in matters like sexuality for very serious reasons. It stated that the idea of "marital duties" in French law ignored the importance of consent in sexual relations.

The court emphasised that agreeing to marry does not mean agreeing to have sex in the future. Suggesting otherwise, the ruling said, would effectively deny that marital rape is a serious crime.

The ruling comes amid growing attention to consent in France, following the high-profile trial of Dominique Pélicot, who drugged his wife and invited men to rape her. Pélicot and the 50 men involved were convicted last month, and the case raised concerns about how French law addresses consent.

Feminist groups argue that the ECHR decision reinforces the need to update French laws and cultural attitudes.

A recent report by French MPs has recommended including the concept of non-consent in the legal definition of rape, stating that consent must be freely given and can be withdrawn at any time.

Two Russian ships linked to its military have docked at the Kremlin's naval base on the Syrian coast at Tartous, with experts suggesting that an anticipated evacuation of the facility has finally begun.

The Sparta and the Sparta II docked in Tartous on Tuesday. Both ships are sanctioned by the US and have been linked to the transportation of Russian arms by Ukraine.

Analysts anticipated that Russia would reduce its military footprint from Syria following the fall of the Assad regime in December - which it supported throughout the civil war.

Large quantities of military hardware have been moved to the port in recent weeks and have been visible in satellite photos analysed by BBC Verify.

The imagery appears to show dozens of vehicles and other equipment sitting at the port. The hardware first appeared in mid-December following footage of large columns of Russian vehicles moving north towards the base - indicating they had been redirected from other outposts across the country.

The ships arrival coincides with reports in Syrian media that Russia's lease for the port has been cancelled. The new transitional government in Damascus refused to confirm the reports to the BBC, while Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also declined to comment when asked during a news conference in Moscow.

Tartous has been a key base for Russia in recent years, allowing it to refuel, resupply and repair vessels in the Mediterranean.

The Kremlin has appeared keen to retain control over the base, and said in December that Russian officials were speaking to the new authorities about a continued presence.

Analysts have suggested that the Sparta and the Sparta II - which are ultimately owned by Oboronlogistika LLC - a shipping company which operates as part of the Russian ministry of defence, were denied permission to dock at Tartous while discussions continued. The ships have spent several weeks off the coast of Syria in the Mediterranean Sea.

Marine tracking sites show the ships finally docked on Tuesday evening, after which they switched off their transponders.

The weather in recent days has made it difficult to obtain clear satellite pictures. But images from the EU's Sentinel radar satellites - which are low resolution but capable of penetrating cloud cover - revealed that the ships were in the military section of the port.

Until now, no Russian military vessels had been spotted at Tartous since the fall of Assad regime in early December. In earlier high-resolution satellite imagery dozens of military vehicles could be seen parked near where the vessels are now docked. Also nearby were cranes which may be used to load equipment.

It is possible that two other Russian naval vessels are also present in the port, naval analyst Frederik Van Lokeren told BBC Verify. He said the vessels, Ivan Gren and the Alexander Otrakovsky, could also be involved in an evacuation - a sentiment echoed by Ukrainian military intelligence to BBC Verify.

"With the 49 year lease being cancelled it has become very clear for Russia that it can no longer hope to maintain a military presence in Tartous and as such, there appears to be no point in staying there and delaying the maritime evacuation any longer," Mr Van Lokeren added.

The evacuation of all of Russia's equipment may take some though, according to Anton Mardasov from the Middle East Institute's Syria programme.

"Over the years much more has been brought in there than these ships and vessels can take," Mr Mardasov told BBC Verify.

Meanwhile, there has also been continued activity at the main Russian airbase in Syria, Hmeimim. Satellite images have shown large Russian aircraft being loaded with military equipment on various dates since the fall of the Assad regime.

Ukrainian military intelligence said Russia flights had transferred military personnel and equipment from Hmeimim to airbases in Libya at least 10 times since mid-December. The Kremlin is already supporting the Tobruk-based warlord Khalifa Haftar in the east of Libya.

Moscow has long maintained a presence at two of the bases mentioned by Ukrainian intelligence - Al-Khadim and Al-Jufra. A former member of the UN's working group on mercenaries, Dr Sorcha MacLeod, told BBC Verify that the facilities were previously run by the Wagner Group.

She said that Russia's defence ministry has taken over responsibility for the bases through its new Africa Corps. The force is run directly by Moscow and has taken over much of the Wagner Group's former role.

Dr Macleod added that the relocation of Russian forces to the country "makes sense given that Libya has become such a big hub for Africa Corps operations and access into West Africa".

Additional reporting by Ned Davies and Joshua Cheetham. Graphics by Mesut Ersoz.

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The conservative opposition leader tipped to lead Germany following next month's elections has promised far-reaching changes to border and asylum rules after a group of children were targeted in a deadly knife attack in Bavaria.

Friedrich Merz promised in effect to close Germany's borders to all irregular migrants, including those with a right to protection.

A two-year-old boy of Moroccan origin and a man aged 41 were killed in Wednesday's attack in Aschaffenburg, and several others were hurt.

An Afghan man aged 28 was due to appear in court on Thursday accused of murder and grievous harm.

Wednesday's stabbing in Aschaffenburg is the latest in a string of violent and fatal attacks that have involved suspects who have sought asylum in Germany.

In a matter of hours, the stabbings prompted a hardened tone from Chancellor Olaf Scholz as well as Merz, the centre-right opposition leader.

Scholz promised quick action and called it an "act of terror" – although officials have not, so far, said that they believe there was a terrorist motive.

Merz, whose Christian Democrats lead the opinion polls ahead of 23 February federal elections, refused to accept that attacks in Mannheim last May, Solingen in August and Magdeburg last month, would be "the new normal".

The Afghan suspect in yesterday's attack arrived in Germany in 2022 and was linked to three previous acts of violence, according to Bavarian officials. He had agreed to leave Germany last month but was still receiving psychiatric treatment and living in asylum accommodation.

An investigating judge will decide whether he should be remanded in custody or placed temporarily in a psychiatric hospital.

Merz said that on his first day as chancellor he would instruct the interior ministry to take permanent control of Germany's borders.

"We see before us the ruins of 10 years of misguided asylum and immigration policy in Germany," he said. "We reached the limit."

Under his party colleague, Angela Merkel, Germany welcomed more than a million refugees during Europe's 2015-16 migrant crisis.

Criticising EU asylum rules as as "recognisably dysfunctional", he said Germany should now "exercise its right to the primacy of national law".

Germany has already reinstated checks on its borders to combat illegal immigration, which is allowed temporarily under the EU's border-free Schengen rules as a "last-resort" measure, but not on permanent basis.

Merz also said it was time to significantly increase the number of places available for detention ahead of deportation.

Merz's promise to close the borders to illegal entries on day one at the chancellery in Berlin has a Trumpian ring to it.

The US president has pushed through a flurry of executive orders and actions to tackle illegal immigration since he re-entered the White House this week.

In Germany, both the centre-left chancellor and Merz are conscious that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has been consistently polling second, has made immigration a signature issue.

AfD leader Alice Weidel has called for a vote in the German parliament next week on closing Germany's borders and turning back irregular migrants. "The knife terror of Aschaffenburg must have consequences now," she said on social media.

Some critics will argue that Scholz and Merz's move to take a tougher stance now comes too late. Others will argue that a rightwards shift by mainstream parties could simply bolster the AfD's arguments.

In any case German politics does not lend itself to a presidential-style set of day-one decrees, given the necessity of forming coalitions with other parties.

The leader of the liberal Free Democratic Party, Christian Lindner, said Merz would not be able to introduce such changes if he went into coalition with the Social Democrats or Green party.

Nancy Faeser, who is both interior minister and a party colleague of Olaf Scholz, suggested that "some people are now making largely fact-free arguments in election campaign mode".

"I can only warn very clearly against abusing such a terrible act for populism, that only benefits the right-wing populists with their contempt for humanity," she said.

The 41-year-old man who was killed in Wednesday's knife attack has been praised, apparently for coming to the aid of the kindergarten group and saving the lives of other children.

Another two-year-old of Syrian origin suffered knife wounds to her neck.

A man of 72 suffered serious stab wounds and a kindergarten teacher suffered a broken arm.

The top prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) says he will seek arrest warrants against senior leaders of the Taliban government in Afghanistan over the persecution of women and girls.

Karim Khan said there were reasonable grounds to suspect Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani bore criminal responsibility for crimes against humanity on gender grounds.

ICC judges will now decide whether to issue an arrest warrant.

The ICC investigates and brings to justice those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, intervening when national authorities cannot or will not prosecute.

In a statement, Mr Khan said the two men were "criminally responsible for persecuting Afghan girls and women, as well as persons whom the Taliban perceived as not conforming with their ideological expectations of gender identity or expression, and persons whom the Taliban perceived as allies of girls and women".

Opposition to the Taliban government is "brutally repressed through the commission of crimes including murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, enforced disappearance, and other inhumane acts", he added.

The persecution was committed from at least 15 August 2021 until the present day, across Afghanistan, the statement said.

Akhundzada became the supreme commander of the Taliban in 2016, and is now leader of the so-called Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. In the 1980s, he participated in Islamist groups fighting against the Soviet military campaign in Afghanistan.

Haqqani was a close associate of Taliban founder Mullah Omar and served as a negotiator on behalf of the Taliban during discussions with US representatives in 2020.

The Taliban government is yet to comment on the ICC statement.

The Taliban regained power in Afghanistan in 2021, 20 years after a US-led invasion toppled their regime in the fallout of the 9/11 attacks in New York, but its government has not been formally recognised by any other foreign power.

"Morality laws" have since meant women have lost dozens of rights on the country.

Afghanistan is now the only country in the world where women and girls are prevented from accessing secondary and higher education - some one-and-a-half million have been deliberately deprived of schooling.

The Taliban has repeatedly promised they would be re-admitted to school once a number of issues were resolved - including ensuring the curriculum was "Islamic". This has yet to happen.

Beauty salons have been shut down and women are prevented from entering public parks, gyms and baths.

A dress code means they must be fully covered and strict rules have banned them from travelling without a male chaperone or looking a man in the eye unless they're related by blood or marriage.

In December, women were also banned from training as midwives and nurses, effectively closing off their last route to further education in the country.

Officials are investigating the "mysterious deaths" of over a dozen people - most of them children - in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir.

At least 17 people, including 12 children, have died in Badhal village in Jammu's Rajouri district since 7 December.

The victims initially displayed symptoms similar to food poisoning but suddenly lost consciousness, health officials said.

The village has been declared a containment zone, but officials have stated that the disease does not appear to be infectious, and there is no fear of an epidemic.

Dr AS Bhatia, the chief of a local hospital, said that the first five patients - including four children - who were admitted had symptoms similar to food poisoning, including vomiting and diarrhoea. Others complained of sore throats and breathing problems.

But then, all of them would abruptly lose consciousness, he added.

The federal government has ordered an investigation. A special investigation team set up by the local administration, comprising police officers, pathologists and other specialists, has questioned dozens of people so far.

According to initial investigations, consumption of contaminated food and water may have been the cause. Residents of the village have been asked not to drink water from a local spring after a test sample showed it contained traces of tests found pesticides.

The deaths occurred between 7 December and 19 January and the victims were members of three related families. Six of the children who died were siblings, with ages ranging from seven to 15 years. Their houses have been sealed.

Though doctors have ruled out the possibility of an infection, an administrative order says that people identified as close contacts of the three families are being shifted to a government hospital in Rajouri, where their condition will be monitored. The order also asks all other residents of Badhal to only consume food and water provided by the administration.

"All edible materials in the infected households shall be seized by the authorities," the order said.

At least 10 people have been admitted to hospitals in Rajouri, Jammu and Chandigarh city and are being treated.

Dr Shuja Quadri, an epidemiologist at the Government Medical College in Rajouri, said that the disease is localised and that they have ruled out the possibility of viral, bacterial, protozoal and zoonotic infections.

Among the second cluster of patients who were admitted on 12 December, five people, including a one-year-old child, have recovered.

"This was a ray of hope for us," Dr Bhatia said.

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As Thailand's long-awaited equal marriage law comes into effect on Thursday, police officer Pisit "Kew" Sirihirunchai hopes to be the first in line to marry his long-term partner Chanatip "Jane" Sirihirunchai.

Some 180 same-sex couples are registering their unions at one of Bangkok's grandest shopping malls, in an event city officials helped organise to celebrate this legal milestone.

"We have been ready for such a long time," Pisit says. "We have just been waiting for the law to catch up and support us."

The two men have been together for seven years. Eager to formalise their relationship, they have already gone to a Buddhist monk to give them an auspicious new last name they can share – Sirihirunchai. They have also asked local officials to issue a letter of intent, which they both signed, pledging to get married.

But they say having their union recognised under Thai law is what they really dreamed of. It means LGBTQ+ couples now have the same rights as any other couple to get engaged and married, to manage their assets, to inherit and to adopt children.

They can make decisions about medical treatment if their partner becomes ill and incapacitated, or extend financial benefits – such as Pisit's government pension – to their spouse.

"We want to build a future together – build a house, start a small business together, maybe a café," he adds, making a list of all that the law has enabled. "We want to build our future together and to take care of each other."

Prisit says he has the full support of his colleagues in the police station, and hopes he can encourage others working in government service to be open about their sexuality: "They should feel emboldened because they can see us coming out with no repercussions, only positive responses."

As a younger couple Prisit and Chanatip - both in their mid-30s - have experienced fewer obstacles than those who came out much earlier.

But for their community, it has been a long journey. Despite Thailand's famed tolerance towards LGBTQ+ people, activists say it took a sustained campaign to win legal recognition.

"We've been waiting for this day for 18 years - the day everyone can recognise us openly, when we no longer need to be evasive or hide," says 59-year-old Rungtiwa Thangkanopast, who will marry her partner of 18 years in May.

She had been in a marriage, arranged by her family, to a gay man, who later died. She had a daughter, through IVF, but after her husband's death began spending time, and later helping run, one of the first lesbian pubs in Bangkok. Then she met Phanlavee, who's now 45 and goes by her first name only.

On Valentine's Day 2013 the two women went to the Bang Rak district office in central Bangkok to ask to be officially married - a popular place for marriage registration because the name in Thai means "Love Town".

This was the time when LGBTQ+ couples began challenging the official view of marriage as an exclusively heterosexual partnership by attempting to get marriage certificates at district offices.

There were around 400 heterosexual couples waiting with them on that day. Rungtiwa and Phanlavee were refused, and the Thai media mocked their effort, using derogatory slang for lesbians.

Still, activists managed to persuade the government to consider changing the marriage laws. A proposed civil partnership bill was put before parliament, offering some official recognition to same-sex couples, but not the same legal rights as heterosexual couples.

A military coup in 2014 which deposed the elected government interrupted the movement. It would be another decade before full marriage equality was approved by parliament, in part because of the rise of young, progressive political parties that championed the cause.

Their message resonated with Thais – and attitudes too had changed. By this time, same-sex marriage was legalised in many Western countries and same-sex love had become normalised in Thai culture too.

Such was the shift in favour of the law that it was passed last year by a thumping majority of 400 votes to just 10 against. Even in the notoriously conservative senate only four opposed the law.

And couples like Rungtiwa and Phanleeva now have their chance to have their love for each other recognised, without the risk of public derision.

"With this law comes the legitimacy of our family," Rungtiwa says, "We're no longer viewed as weirdos just because our daughter isn't being raised by heterosexual parents."

The new law takes out gender-specific terms like man, woman, husband and wife from 70 sections of the Thai Civil Code covering marriage, and replaces them with neutral terms like individual and spouse.

However, there are still dozens of laws in the Thai legal code which have not yet been made gender-neutral, and there are still obstacles in the way of same-sex couples using surrogacy to have a family..

Parents are still defined under Thai law as a mother and a father. The law also does not yet allow people to use their preferred gender on official documents; they are still stuck with their birth gender. These are areas where activists say they will still need to keep pushing for change.

Yet it is a historic moment for Thailand, which is an outlier in Asia in recognising marriage equality. And it is especially significant for older couples, who have had to ride out the shifts in attitude.

"I really hope people will put away the old, stereotypical ideas that gay men cannot have true love,"says Chakkrit "Ink" Vadhanavira.

He and his partner Prinn, both in their 40s, have been together for 24 years.

"The two of us have proved that we genuinely love each other through thick and thin for more than 20 years," Chakkrit says."We have been ready to take care of each other since our first day together. We are no different from heterosexual couples."

While Chakkrit's parents quickly accepted their partnership, it took Prinn's parents seven years before they could do so.

The couple also wanted to share the production business they ran together, and other assets, as a couple, so they asked Prinn's parents to adopt Chakkrit officially, giving him the same family name. Prinn says the new law has brought welcome legal clarity to them.

"For example, right now when a same sex couple buy something together – a large item - they cannot share ownership of it," said Prinn. "And one of us passes away, what both have us have earned together cannot be passed on to the other. That's why marriage equality is very significant."

Today, says Prinn, both sets of parents treat them as they would just like any other married children.

And when they had relationship problems like any other couple, their parents helped them.

"My dad even started reading gay magazines to understand me better. It was quite cute to see that."

Additional reporting by Thanyarat Doksone and Ryn Jirenuwat in Bangkok

The world's largest iceberg is on a collision course with a remote British island, potentially putting penguins and seals in danger.

The iceberg is spinning northwards from Antarctica towards South Georgia, a rugged British territory and wildlife haven, where it could ground and smash into pieces. It is currently 173 miles (280km) away.

Countless birds and seals died on South Georgia's icy coves and beaches when past giant icebergs stopped them feeding.

"Icebergs are inherently dangerous. I would be extraordinarily happy if it just completely missed us," sea captain Simon Wallace tells BBC News, speaking from the South Georgia government vessel Pharos.

Around the world a group of scientists, sailors and fishermen are anxiously checking satellite pictures to monitor the daily movements of this queen of icebergs.

It is known as A23a and is one of the world's oldest.

It calved, or broke off, from the Filchner Ice Shelf in Antarctica in 1986 but got stuck on the seafloor and then trapped in an ocean vortex.

Finally, in December, it broke free and is now on its final journey, speeding into oblivion.

The warmer waters north of Antarctica are melting and weakening its vast cliffs that tower up to 1,312ft (400m), taller than the Shard in London.

It once measured 3,900 sq km, but the latest satellite pictures show it is slowly decaying. It is now around 3,500 sq km, roughly the size of the English county of Cornwall.

And large slabs of ice are breaking off, plunging into the waters around its edges.

A23a could break into vast segments any day, which may then hang around for years, like floating cities of ice cruising uncontrollably around South Georgia.

This isn't the first huge iceberg to threaten South Georgia and Sandwich Islands.

In 2004 one called A38 grounded on its continental shelf, leaving dead penguin chicks and seal pups on beaches as massive ice chunks blocked their access to feeding grounds.

The territory is home to precious colonies of King Emperor penguins and millions of elephant and fur seals.

"South Georgia sits in iceberg alley so impacts are to be expected for both fisheries and wildlife, and both have a great capacity to adapt," says Mark Belchier, a marine ecologist who advises the South Georgia government.

Sailors and fisherman say icebergs are an increasing problem. In 2023 one called A76 gave them a scare when it came close to grounding.

"Chunks of it were tipping up, so they looked like great ice towers, an ice city on the horizon," says Mr Belchier, who saw the iceberg while at sea.

Those slabs are still lingering around the islands today.

"It is in bits from the size of several Wembley stadiums down to pieces the size of your desk," says Andrew Newman from Argos Froyanes, a fishing company that works in South Georgia.

"Those pieces basically cover the island - we have to work our way through it," says Captain Wallace.

The sailors on his ship must be constantly vigilant. "We have searchlights on all night to try to see ice - it can come from nowhere," he explains.

A76 was a "gamechanger", according to Mr Newman, with "huge impact on our operations and on keeping our vessel and crew safe".

All three men describe a rapidly changing environment, with glacial retreat visible year-to-year, and volatile levels of sea ice.

Climate change is unlikely to have been behind the birth of A23a because it calved so long ago, before much of the impacts of rising temperatures that we are now seeing.

But giant icebergs are part of our future. As Antarctica becomes more unstable with warmer ocean and air temperatures, more vast pieces of the ice sheets will break away.

Before its time comes to an end though, A23a has left a parting gift for scientists.

A team with the British Antarctic Survey on the Sir David Attenborough research vessel found themselves close to A23a in 2023.

The scientists scrambled to exploit the rare opportunity to investigate what mega icebergs do to the environment.

The ship sailed into a crack in the iceberg's gigantic walls, and PhD researcher Laura Taylor collected precious water samples 400m away from its cliffs.

"I saw a massive wall of ice way higher than me, as far as I could see. It has different colours in different places. Chunks were falling off - it was quite magnificent," she explains from her lab in Cambridge where she is now analysing the samples.

Her work looks at what the impact the melt water is having on the carbon cycle in the southern ocean.

"This isn't just water like we drink. It's full of nutrients and chemicals, as well as tiny animals like phytoplankton frozen inside," Ms Taylor says.

As it melts, the iceberg releases those elements into the water, changing the physics and chemistry of the ocean.

That could store more carbon deep in the ocean, as the particles sink from the surface. That would naturally lock away some of the planet's carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to climate change.

Icebergs are notoriously unpredictable and no-one knows what exactly it will do next.

But soon the behemoth should appear, looming on the islands' horizons, as big as the territory itself.