More than 100 female prisoners were raped and then burned alive during a jailbreak in the Congolese city of Goma, according to the UN.
Hundreds of prisoners broke out of Munzenze prison last Monday, after fighters from the M23 rebel group began to take over the city.
Between 165 and 167 women were assaulted by male inmates during the jailbreak, an internal UN document seen by the BBC says.
The report states that most of the women were killed after the inmates set fire to the prison.
The BBC has not been able to verify the reports.
Goma, a major city of more than a million people, was captured after the Rwanda-backed M23 executed a rapid advance through eastern DR Congo.
The city was plunged into chaos, with bodies lying in the streets and missiles reportedly flying over residential homes.
Footage from last week’s jailbreak showed people fleeing from the building as smoke rose in the background. Heavy gunfire could also be heard.
In a separate video, people believed to be the escaped prisoners, filed through Goma’s streets.
The UN says at least 2,900 people were killed during the fighting, with 2,000 bodies buried and another 900 still in the city’s morgues.
Earlier this week, the rebels announced a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds.
However, the M23 launched a new offensive on Wednesday, sources say, reportedly capturing the mining town of Nyabibwe.
Nyabibwe is about 100 km (60 miles) from Bukavu – the east’s second-largest city, and the reported target of the rebels’ most recent advance.
The Congolese authorities have enlisted hundreds of civilian volunteers to help defend Bukavu.
Meanwhile, Malawi has announced it will start preparations for a withdrawal of its peacekeeping forces from the country. This follows the killing of three of its soldiers in the fighting around Goma.
They were part of a southern African force, led by South Africa. Although 14 South Africans have been killed, President Cyril Ramaphosa has vowed to keep his forces in the country.
Back in Goma, where residents are adapting to life under the M23, there are fears of a cholera outbreak.
Stephan Goetghbuer, a regional lead from the charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said: “Access to water has been cut for days, corpses have been lying in the streets and waterborne diseases such as cholera are a real threat.
“Some of our cholera treatment centres are full and have been expanded.”
Black Sabbath previously played a farewell concert in 2017
Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath are reuniting for one last time, to play a fund-raising concert in Birmingham on 5 July.
The heavy metal pioneers will headline a spectacular one-day festival at Villa Park, featuring dozens of bands they inspired, including Metallica, Pantera, Slayer, Gojira and Anthrax.
The concert will mark the first time that Black Sabbath’s original line-up – Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward – have played together in 20 years.
Osbourne, who has largely been forced to stop touring due to a combination of Parkinson’s and spinal injuries, will play a short solo set before joining his bandmates.
His wife, Sharon, told BBC News he was determined to put on one final show.
“He’s doing great. He’s doing really great,” she said. “He’s so excited about this, about being with the guys again and all his friends. It’s exciting for everyone.”
However, she said the concert would definitively be the 76-year-old’s final show.
“Ozzy didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to his friends, to his fans, and he feels there’s no been no full stop.
“This is his full stop.”
Heavy metal icons
The concert, dubbed Back To The Beginning, was announced at Villa Park on Wednesday by Sharon, and Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi.
Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello, who is serving as the event’s musical director, said it would be “the greatest heavy metal show ever”.
Proceeds from the show will support Cure Parkinson’s, the Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Acorn Children’s Hospice, a Children’s Hospice supported by Aston Villa.
Other acts on the line-up include Alice In Chains, Halestorm, Lamb Of God and Mastodon.
In addition, the concert will feature a “supergroup”, with stars like Billy Corgan, Slash, Fred Durst, Wolfgang Van Halen and Tom Morello.
“It’s an endless amount of people,” said Sharon Osbourne. “They’re going to be doing some Sabbath songs, some Ozzy songs, and they’ll all mix together.
“Different little groups will be coming on, but they’re all icons.”
Getty Images
Black Sabbath are widely regarded as the inventors of heavy metal
Black Sabbath formed in 1968, and held their first rehearsal at Newtown Community Centre, a stone’s throw from Villa Park.
They previously played a farewell show to a sold out audience of 16,000 people at the city’s NEC Arena in 2017.
The set consisted mainly of songs from their early days – including War Pigs, N.I.B and Black Sabbath – before finishing on their breakthrough hit and signature song, Paranoid.
The concert came at the end of an extensive, 81-date world tour, and Osbourne thanked the fans for their support over the band’s career.
“I’ve got to tell you something, what a journey we’ve all had,” he said.
“We started this in 1968 and now it’s 2017 – I don’t believe that, man. But you know what? We wouldn’t survive if it wasn’t for the fan base. So if you’re a veteran fan, great. If you’re new, welcome. But I can’t tell you enough how grateful we are for your support.”
Following that concert, Osbourne released two solo albums – Ordinary Man and Patient Number 9. However, he suffered a spinal injury in 2003 after a crash involving an ATV, exacerbated by a late-night fall in 2019, that required several rounds of extensive surgery.
He revealed his Parkinson’s diagnosis in 2020 and largely stepped back from touring after playing the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in 2022.
However, he recently told Rolling Stone UK of his desire to return to the stage.
“I’m taking it one day at a time, and if I can perform again, I will,” he said. “But it’s been like saying farewell to the best relationship of my life.”
He added: “I’m not going to get up there and do a half-hearted Ozzy looking for sympathy. What’s the [expletive] point in that? I’m not going up there in a [expletive] wheelchair.”
Reddit has temporarily banned one of its communities – and removed another – after X owner Elon Musk claimed comments made by the site’s users about his employees were breaking the law.
The r/WhitePeopleTwitter subreddit, which typically invites people to share funny posts from X, has been banned for 72 hours after some users posted comments calling for violence against members of the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).
They were responding to reports which suggested some Doge staff have been granted access to sensitive personal information of millions of Americans.
Musk – who frequently champions his commitment to free speech – shared a post on X containing the comments, and stated: “they have broken the law”.
The subreddit was banned soon afterwards.
Reddit declined to comment, but directed the BBC to a public post it had made following the ban.
“Over the last few days, we’ve seen an increase in content in several communities that violate Reddit Rules,” the post reads.
“Debate and dissent are welcome on Reddit – threats and doxing are not.”
Musk has previously criticised legal action being taken against people for making comments online.
In 2024, he responded to a video of a person purportedly being arrested for offensive comments online by asking “is this Britain or the Soviet Union?”.
Imran Ahmed, head of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) said there was “rich irony” in Musk’s comments.
“It is always one rule for Elon, another rule for everyone else,” he said.
“Oh, he’s about freedom alright – the freedom to do whatever he wants, no matter the cost to people, their families, and the fundamentals of democracy.”
Musk sued the CCDH in 2023 over claims it took “unlawful” steps to access data from X after it claimed hate speech had risen on the platform.
A US judge dismissed the case in 2024.
Tensions grow
Tensions have escalated between the billionaire and Reddit users in recent weeks, after more than 100 subreddits banned users from posting links to X in protest at Musk’s controversial arm gesture at a rally celebrating Donald Trump’s return to office.
The billionaire twice extended his arm out straight as he thanked the crowd for “making it happen” – critics, including some historians, said it was a Nazi salute, while Musk dismissed that, saying comparisons with Hitler were “tired” and “dirty tricks”.
Elon Musk draws scrutiny over arm gesture at post-inauguration rally
The moderators of the r/WhitePeopleTwitter subreddit removed many of the offending comments after they became publicised, but this was not enough to prevent a temporary ban.
Any attempt to access the subreddit now displays a message reading that it has been “temporarily banned due to a prevalence of violent content”.
“Inciting and glorifying violence or doxing are against Reddit’s platform-wide rules,” it states, adding the subreddit will reopen in 72 hours.
Reddit has also taken action to issue a subreddit entitled r/IsElonDeadYet – in which a user posted near-daily that Musk had not passed away – with a permanent ban.
Bans and threats
The posts came in response to moves being reportedly made by the Doge – which is not a government department, but a team within the administration.
The team has been given the job of radically reducing regulation and federal government spending.
US media has reported the Trump administration gave Musk’s deputies access to the federal payments system that controls the flow of trillions of dollars in government funds every year.
It has led to backlash online with people criticising the decision, and the names of the Doge staff involved being shared publicly.
But the decision to remove the subreddit may have been about more than Reddit enforcing its policies.
On Monday, a prosecutor appointed by Trump said the FBI was investigating the “targeting” of Doge staff.
“Our initial review of the evidence presented to us indicates that certain individuals and/or groups have committed acts that appear to violate the law in targeting Doge employees,” said United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Edward Martin.
In a letter to Musk he posted on X, Mr Martin said he would “not tolerate threats against Doge workers or law-breaking by the disgruntled”.
“Any threats, confrontations, or other actions in any way that impact their work may break numerous laws,” he wrote.
“We will pursue any and all legal action against anyone who impedes your work or threatens your people.”
X-ray scans and AI have meant the inside of ancient scroll can be revealed
A badly burnt scroll from the Roman town of Herculaneum has been digitally “unwrapped”, providing the first look inside for 2,000 years.
The document, which looks like a lump of charcoal, was charred by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD and is too fragile to ever be physically opened.
But now scientists have used a combination of X-ray imaging and artificial intelligence to virtually unfurl it, revealing rows and columns of text.
More work is needed to make the scroll fully legible to decipher its contents, but the team behind the project say the results are very promising.
Bodleian Library
The ancient scroll was burnt to a crisp by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius
“We’re confident we will be able to read pretty much the whole scroll in its entirety, and it’s the first time we’ve really been able to say that with high confidence,” said Stephen Parsons, project lead for the Vesuvius Challenge, an international competition attempting to unlock the Herculaneum scrolls.
Some letters are already clearly visible in the ancient text and the team believes it’s a work of philosophy.
Vesuvius Challenge
Some Greek letters can be seen on the papyrus scroll
Hundreds of carbonised scrolls were discovered in Herculaneum, which like its neighbour Pompeii was buried beneath metres of volcanic ash.
In the past, some of the documents, which are made from a thick paper-like material called papyrus, were prised open but they crumbled into pieces.
The University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library holds several of the scrolls. Thought to be unreadable, they had been left untouched for decades.
“We’ve never been convinced before that any of the techniques would be safe enough or effective enough to get any information from the scrolls,” explained Nicole Gilroy, head of book conservation.
But the promise of a hi-tech solution prompted the team to get one of the precious scrolls out of storage.
Tony Jolliffe/BBC
Diamond Light Source used X-ray imaging to see inside the scroll
It was placed in a specially made case and taken to Diamond Light Source in Oxfordshire.
Inside this huge machine, which is called a synchrotron, electrons are accelerated to almost the speed of light to produce a powerful X-ray beam that can probe the scroll without damaging it.
“It can see things on the scale of a few thousandths of a millimetre,” explained Adrian Mancuso, director of physical sciences at Diamond.
The scan is used to create a 3D reconstruction, then the layers inside the scroll – it contains about 10m of papyrus – have to be identified.
“We have to work out which layer is different from the next layer so we can unroll that digitally,” said Dr Mancuso.
After that artificial intelligence is used to detect the ink. It’s easier said than done – both the papyrus and ink are made from carbon and they’re almost indistinguishable from each other.
So the AI hunts for the tiniest signals that ink might be there, then this ink is painted on digitally, bringing the letters to light.
Bodleian library
Handling the charred scroll is a difficult job – they are extremely fragile
“We can tell the entire scroll is full of text,” said Stephen Parsons.
“Now we can work on making it show up more clearly. We’re going to go from a handful of words to really substantial passages.”
Last year, a Vesuvius Challenge team managed to read about 5% of another Herculaneum scroll.
Its subject was Greek Epicurean philosophy, which teaches that fulfilment can be found through the pleasure of everyday things.
The Bodleian’s scroll is likely to be on the same subject – but the Vesuvius team is calling for more human and computing ingenuity to see if this is the case.
For Nicole Gilroy, the work is providing a link to the past.
“I just love that connection with whoever collected them, whoever wrote them, whoever rolled those scrolls up and put them on the shelves. There’s a real human aspect to it that I just think is really precious,” she said.
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Watch: CCTV footage shows gunmen firing outside Brussels metro station
Belgian police are looking for armed men after a shooting was reported outside a metro station in the centre of Brussels.
CCTV footage broadcast by local media shows at least two men wearing balaclavas and carrying weapons at the entrance of Clémenceau station in the Belgian capital early on Wednesday.
Video from the scene shows an exchange of fire at about 06:15 local time (05:15 GMT).
Sarah Frederickx, spokeswoman for Brussels police, said the suspects may have fled into the tunnels of the metro system.
The spokeswoman said there were no injuries in the shooting.
Police are looking for “a small group of people, probably two or three individuals”, Ms Frederickx said, adding that they may still be armed and that police did not want to take any risks.
BruxellesToday reported the suspects were carrying what appeared to be Kalashnikov weapons.
The BBC has verified footage of the incident circulating on social media, which showed two men brandishing what looked like rifles and shooting. From the video, it is unclear who they are aiming at.
Reuters
Multiple metro stations closed for hours this morning and interrupted service at Clémenceau station and the nearby Brussels-Midi station, which also serves as a terminal for Eurostar trains. They have since reopened and lines are gradually returning to their usual service.
A command post to coordinate the search has been set up at the Anderlecht town hall, west of the Belgian capital’s city centre.
No arrests have been made yet and nobody was injured in the shooting, the prosecutor’s office said in a recent update. They add that, at this time, authorities don’t believe there was a “terrorist” motive behind the attack.
Belgium’s interior minister, Bernard Quintin, joined police and Anderlecht’s mayor at the town hall on Wednesday morning.
“We are following the situation closely,” he said in a post on X.
Reuters
Reports on Belgian media suggest the events might have been linked to drug trafficking. The area around Brussels-Midi has long had a reputation for violence and crime.
Tram lines that were disrupted – namely between Lemonnier and Berkendael and between Port d’Anderlecht and Gare du Midi stations – have now resumed service.
Thousands of commuters were impacted by the incident, which took place during the morning rush hour.
One local resident told Belgium’s VRT broadcaster he heard five or six shots. Another resident, also unnamed by the broadcaster, said she was scared.
“I went outside and wondered what is happening. Is this war? We have to send our children to school, we take the metro. We are scared, yes.”
Thousands of employees at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) will be placed on leave from Friday night, the agency says.
A USAID statement said the order would affect all “direct-hire personnel” except those on “mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs”.
It follows a string of cuts President Donald Trump has made to government-funded programmes since returning to office last month. His administration has said USAID is wasting money and needs to align with its policy priorities.
Trump’s earlier decision to freeze foreign assistance has upended the global aid system, with effects already felt in countries such as Syria and Afghanistan.
In a statement on its website on Tuesday, USAID said it would work with the US Department of State to arrange and pay for return travel for its many personnel posted outside the US within the month.
Those employees who are part of the exceptions will be told by 15:00 EDT (20:00 GMT) on Thursday.
The statement concludes with the message: “Thank you for your service.”
The agency, which provides humanitarian aid to more than 100 countries, employs 10,000 people worldwide. Two-thirds of those people work overseas, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Given that some of its staff work in countries where conflict is taking place, it was not immediately clear how they would be withdrawn.
Since returning to the White House last month, Trump and his allies have prioritised slashing government funding – and have applied their focus to USAID.
Earlier this week, Trump’s top diplomat, Marco Rubio, became the acting head of USAID as part of its reported merger into the state department.
Questions remain about whether the administration has the authority to shut down programmes without consulting Congress. Democratic lawmakers called the reported merger an “illegal, unconstitutional” move.
On Tuesday, many USAID staffers received an email notifying them they had been placed on paid administrative leave.
The email, obtained by BBC News, told employees they must remain “available” by telephone and email during business hours, but were not allowed to enter USAID buildings.
Elon Musk, the billionaire Tesla CEO who was appointed to run a new agency to identify spending cuts in the US government, has suggested USAID should be shut down entirely, as it is “beyond repair”.
Many have cautioned that closing the agency’s doors would have devastating effects on vulnerable populations across the world.
USAID’s activities range from providing prosthetic limbs to soldiers injured in Ukraine, to clearing landmines and containing the spread of Ebola in Africa.
Democrats in Washington DC have been particularly critical of the move.
“[USAID is] a foreign policy tool with bipartisan origins that is critical in this dangerous global environment,” New Jersey Democratic Senator Andy Kim, who previously worked at USAID, wrote on social media.
“Gutting it means gutting our ability to compete and keep America safe.”
The agency, founded in 1961, has bases in 60 countries and works in dozens of others.
USAID managed more than $40bn (£32.25bn) in fiscal year 2023, according to the Congressional Research Service.
The US military plane in Amritsar, where authorities say they have put in place measures to process deportees
A US deportation flight carrying about 100 Indian nationals accused of entering the country illegally has landed in the state of Punjab.
The military aircraft, which left Texas late on Tuesday, is now in the city of Amritsar where authorities say they have put measures in place to process the deportees.
President Donald Trump has made the mass deportation of undocumented foreign nationals a key policy. The US is said to have identified about 18,000 Indian nationals it believes entered illegally.
Trump has said India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi had assured him that the country would “do what’s right” in accepting US deportations.
Authorities in Punjab say they have set up special counters to receive the deportees, adding the individuals would be treated in a “friendly” manner.
Journalists have gathered outside police barricades near an Indian Air Force building in Amritsar.
There are 104 Indian deportees on the flight and they will be processed separately from regular passengers before boarding buses to their home states, including Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.
Trump is increasingly using US military planes to return individuals to their home countries.
However, deportation flights to India are not new. In the US fiscal year 2024, which ended in September, more than 1,000 Indian nationals had been repatriated by charter and commercial flights.
In October, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported more than 100 Indian nationals who lacked legal grounds to stay in the US on a chartered flight, part of a rising trend in removals to India.
That flight carrying adult men and women was also routed to Punjab, close to many deportees’ places of origin. No precise breakdown of hometowns was provided.
Much of the migration from India to US appears to originate from the Sikh-dominated state of Punjab and neighbouring Haryana, which has traditionally seen people migrating overseas. The other source of origin is Gujarat, Modi’s home state.
“That has been part of a steady increase in removals from the US of Indian nationals over the past few years, which corresponds with a general increase in encounters that we have seen with Indian nationals in the last few years as well,” Royce Bernstein Murray, assistant secretary at the US Department of Homeland Security told a media briefing in October.
Encounters refer to instances where non-citizens are stopped by US authorities while attempting to cross the country’s borders with Mexico or Canada.
A total of 5,477 Indians have been deported from the US by ICE between 2018 and 2023, according to official figures. More than 2,300 were deported in 2020, the highest in recent years.
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Migrants from India share water in the intense heat after walking into the US from Mexico last year
The number of undocumented Indian immigrants in the US is disputed.
New data from Pew Research Center estimates 725,000 people as of 2022, making them the third-largest group after Mexico and El Salvador.
In contrast, the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) puts the figure at 375,000, ranking India fifth among origin countries. Unauthorised immigrants make up 3% of the US population and 22% of the foreign-born population.
In November, 1.44 million non-citizens in the US remain on ICE’s “non-detained docket with final orders of removal”, according to an ICE document, accessed by Fox News.
The highest numbers come from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico, each with over 200,000 individuals awaiting deportation.
China has 37,908 cases, while India has 17,940 on the list.
The ICE document says the US government expects foreign nations to accept their citizens but faces resistance.
ICE currently classifies 15 countries as “uncooperative”, including China, India, Iran, Russia and Venezuela. Eleven others, such as Iraq, Nicaragua and Vietnam, are considered at risk of non-compliance.
“Factors that could lead to a country being classified as uncooperative include hindering ICE’s removal efforts by refusing to conduct consular interviews when necessary; refusing to accept charter removal missions; having an unacceptable ratio of releases when compared to removals and/or unacceptable average time from executable final order of removal to removal; and/or denying or delaying issuance of travel documents, such as passports,” the document says.
India’s foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said recently that India was “firmly opposed to illegal migration, especially as it is linked to other forms of organised crime”.
“As part of India-US migration and mobility cooperation, both sides are engaged in a process to deter illegal migration, while also creating more avenues for legal migration from India to the US. We are keen to continue this cooperation.
“At the same time, the government of India would need to do the required verification, including nationality of the concerned individuals before they are deported to India.”
Last year, under former US President Joe Biden, 271,000 migrants were deported to 192 countries.
Handout/Press secretary of the presidency of El Salvador
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio could not have been more complimentary about the deal he struck with the president of El Salvador on Monday.
The Trump administration’s top diplomat appeared delighted yet stunned by the fact that President Nayib Bukele should have “agreed to the most unprecedented, extraordinary, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world”.
Bukele had offered to take in people deported from the US, regardless of their nationality, and house them in El Salvador’s mega-jail.
“We can send them and he will put them in his jails,” Rubio said.
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Nayib Bukele, sporting his trademark sunglasses, received Rubio at his picturesque lake-side residence
While that was already a win for President Donald Trump, whose priority has been to speed up the removal of undocumented migrants from the US, the real surprise came in the part of the deal Rubio mentioned next.
“He [Bukele] has also offered to do the same for dangerous criminals currently in custody and serving their sentences in the United States even though they’re US citizens or legal residents,” Rubio said.
The Salvadorean leader confirmed that he had “offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system”.
He clarified that El Salvador would be “willing to take in only convicted criminals” and that his government would do so “in exchange for a fee”.
Bukele also revealed where he would house those deported from the US: “our mega-prison”.
Watch: Rare video shows El Salvador inmates in their cells in mega-jail
The mega-jail, also known as Cecot (short for Terrorism Confinement Centre), has become emblematic of Bukele’s iron-fist approach to crime and punishment.
The maximum-security prison, one of the largest in Latin America, opened in January 2023 and can house 40,000 inmates, according to government figures.
Getty
It is not clear how many inmates are incarcerated at Cecot at present, but the government says it can hold 40,000
Inmates are confined to windowless cells, sleep on bare metal bunks and are constantly monitored by armed guards – some of whom watch over them from atop the lattice ceiling.
BBC News Mundo’s Leire Ventas, who was allowed to take an official tour of the facility last year after the BBC had repeatedly asked for access, described how temperatures in the cells would reach 35C.
Take a look at graphics and maps of the mega-jail
With access to the prison severely restricted and journalists only allowed on occasional and carefully choreographed official tours, the number of inmates per cell is not clear.
Some rights groups put it at 80 prisoners while others say it can go up to more than 150.
Asked by our journalist what the maximum capacity was, the prison’s director responded “where you can fit 10 people, you can fit 20”.
Read a BBC journalist’s account of her visit to the mega-jail
Prisoners are locked up inside their cells 24 hours a day – except for 30 minutes of group exercise in a windowless corridor.
The layout of the jail is no coincidence.
Following a particularly bloody weekend in 2022, when more than 70 people were killed in the small Central American nation, President Bukele wrote on social media: “Message for the gangs: because of your actions, your ‘homeboys’ will not be able to see a ray of sunshine.”
Building of the Cecot mega-jail started shortly afterwards.
Getty Images
The first prisoners were transferred to Cecot in early 2023
Conditions at the facility and the treatment of inmates has come under severe criticism from human rights groups.
Miguel Sarre, a former member of the United Nations Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture, has described it as a “concrete and steel pit”.
So could the Trump administration send US citizens there?
On Tuesday, Trump told reporters he would embrace the idea but questioned its legality.
“If we had the legal right to do it, I would do it in a heartbeat,” he said during an executive order signing ceremony in the Oval Office. “I don’t know if we do or not.
“We’re looking at that right now, but we could make deals where we’d get these animals out of our country.”
Handout/El Salvador presidency
The Salvadorean government often releases photos of heavily tattooed inmates inside Cecot prison
But any attempt to deport US citizens or people lawfully resident in the US to a foreign jail is bound to face legal challenges.
US citizens who were born in the United States enjoy legal protection from deportation.
There are some cases, however, in which naturalised citizens – those who were not born in the US and who obtained US citizenship after birth through a legal process – can have their citizenship revoked.
This tends to occur when the person in question used fraud to obtain the citizenship in the first place.
Alex Cuic, an immigration lawyer and professor at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, told the BBC that naturalised US citizens suspected of ties to criminal gangs or terrorist organisations – such as the Tren de Aragua criminal gang or the Mara Salvatrucha, known as MS-13 – could also, in theory, be stripped of US citizenship.
“If they find out you were a member of any group that persecuted or threatened to persecute others, they can try to denaturalise you,” Mr Cuic added.
“So, if you had gang ties and never disclosed them, they could use that as a reason to denaturalise you.”
Once a person has been “denaturalised”, they are at risk of deportation.
Mr Cuic pointed out that any such move would have to be preceded by a “formal court process” conducted in a federal court.
But the lawyer warned that “citizenship is not something that is definitively forever if you are naturalised”.
He stressed, though, that he had “never heard” of cases of natural-born US citizens being sent abroad for imprisonment for crimes committed and prosecuted in the US.
Shev Dalal-Dheini, the director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, similarly said that she had “never heard of such a suggestion” as sending American citizens to serve US prison sentences overseas.
While she acknowledged that there were various scenarios in which naturalised US citizens could lose their citizenship, she said that “you can’t denaturalise a natural-born citizen”.
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Members of MS-13 often get tattoos showing their gang affiliation
The status of lawful permanent residents in the US, however, is more precarious than that of US citizens.
They can be deported if they violate certain provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which include committing drug offences, violent crimes or crimes such as theft, fraud or assault.
Like naturalised citizens, they can also be deported if they obtained their residency through fraud.
Permanent lawful residents who are involved in terrorism, espionage or any activity threatening US national interest could also be deported.
This last point is important in light of the executive order President Trump issued on his inauguration day in which he designated drug cartels as “foreign terrorist organisations”.
Two criminal organisations named in the executive order, Tren de Aragua and MS-13, were also mentioned last week by Trump’s special envoy for Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone.
The dimensions of the prison compound can be appreciated in this aerial view
Speaking at a briefing about Marco Rubio’s trip to El Salvador, Claver-Carone not only praised Bukele’s handling of the MS-13 – a gang which is deeply rooted in El Salvador and has long terrorised its citizens – but also said that Bukele could offer the answer on how to deal with the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Claver-Carone also appeared to argue that the mere prospect of being sent to a Salvadoran jail could drive Venezuelan gang members back to their homeland.
“I bet they’re going to want to go back to Venezuela instead of dealing with the Mara prisons in El Salvador,” he said of members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
Rubio, too, seemed to stress that the Trump administration would first and foremost want to send members of these two notorious gangs to El Salvador’s prisons.
“Any unlawful immigrant and illegal immigrant in the United States who is a dangerous criminal – MS-13, Tren de Aragua, whatever it may be – he has offered his jails,” Rubio said after his talks with Bukele.
While it is by no means clear who – if anyone – will be sent from the US to El Salvador’s mega-prison, what is certain is that with his “unprecedented offer of friendship”, Bukele has landed firmly in Trump’s favour at a time when relations between the US and its neighbours have been rocked by the US president’s threats to impose tariffs on their goods.
With additional reporting by the BBC’s Bernd Debusmann Jr in Washington, DC.
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Swedish police say 10 people have died in a shooting at an adult education centre in the city of Orebro. The suspected gunman also died.
It is the worst school shooting ever to happen in Sweden, where school violence is rare. The suspected gunman is among the dead.
Details are still emerging, but this is what we know so far:
What happened?
Police first received reports of a shooting taking place in Orebro, a city 200km (124 miles) west of Stockholm, at 12:33 local time (11:33 GMT) on Tuesday.
The shooting was at Campus Risbergska – a type of school for adults known as Komvux in Swedish, which is primarily for people who did not finish primary or secondary education. There are other schools also on the campus.
Teachers have described hearing shots ring out, leading to them fleeing classrooms or barricading themselves inside.
Maria Pegado told Reuters she took all of her 15 students out into the hallway and they started running. “I saw people dragging injured out, first one, then another. I realised it was very serious,” she said.
Another teacher, Lena Warenmark, told public broadcaster SVT she was in her study when she heard gunshots: “There were a few shots first in short succession, a short pause and then a few more”.
Police locked down six schools and a restaurant in the area, and people were told to stay away or stay inside their homes.
Footage on social media also appeared to show students hiding under desks.
And a video filmed from a balcony also appeared to show the sound of shots fired in quick succession, as people rushed away:
Video appears to show moment gunshots are heard near Swedish school
How many people were hurt?
Police said 11 people had died, including the suspected gunman, while the number of those injured remains unclear.
In a news conference on Tuesday afternoon, police said all of those who died were found inside the school building.
It is also still not clear how many people were wounded, but Sweden’s justice minister said at a news conference there were “many others injured”.
In the first few hours after the attack, there was confusion over the number of people hurt.
Despite media reports of casualties, when the police first gave an official briefing at 15:30 local time, they said only that five people had been injured.
Swedish media continued to report that several people had died, before police confirmed in an update at 23:55 thatat least 11 people were dead.
What do we know about the gunman?
Police said the attacker was a man who they believe had acted alone.
In an update at 00:39 on Wednesday, police said there was no information to suggest the perpetrator acted based on an ideological motive.
He was not known to police before the shooting and had no connection to a gang, said Roberto Eid Forest, Orebro’s local police chief.
Officers also do not believe there was a terror motive to the attack.
“We’re working with secret services but as far as I know, it’s a person unknown to police,” said Forest, when asked if the perpetrator lived in Orebro.
Forest added that he “can’t say anything about the kind of weapon” that was used “other than it was a firearm”.
Asked about reports the gunman shot himself, police said they did not have any information about that.
What do we know about the victims?
Police say they are still working to identify those killed and notifying the relatives.
They invited relatives to an event at 10:00 on Wednesday, where they will update them on what is known of the incident.
The school it happened at provided municipal adult education, which Sweden’s national agency for education explains is for people aged over 20 who did not finish primary or secondary school.
Teacher Ms Warenmark said there were unusually few students at the school on Tuesday as many had gone home for the day after sitting a national exam.
How rare are school shootings in Sweden?
Very rare. While there have been school shootings in Sweden before, they have not been of this magnitude.
It is “the worst mass shooting in Sweden’s history” said Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, as he urged people not to speculate about the motive.
Last September, there was a school shooting south of Stockholm, when a 15-year-old is suspected to have wounded a classmate – although that attack was linked to Sweden’s problem of gang violence.
Thieves in the US state of Pennsylvania have stolen more than 100,000 eggs – worth $40,000 (£32,000) – from a single grocer.
The heist targeted the back of a lorry at Pete & Gerry’s Organics in Greencastle on 1 February, police say.
It comes as the price of eggs has risen amid a bird flu epidemic, making them an unexpectedly costly menu option. The national chain Waffle House has just hiked their egg charge.
Prices for eggs have surged more than 65% in the last year, US government data shows. The agriculture department predicted the cost will increase by about 20% in 2025.
On Tuesday, Waffle House announced a $0.50 surcharge for customers to shell out per egg.
The US diner chain called it a “temporary targeted surcharge tied to the unprecedented rise in egg prices”.
The bird flu epidemic started in 2022 and has led to outbreaks across the US in recent months, according to the agriculture department.
The agency noted prices increased by more than 8% in December alone.
Data from the department also shows the average price for a carton was $2.51 in December 2023 and hit $4.15 a year later. The surge has seen reports of bare shelves in some stores.
The bird flu epidemic has been reported in birds, cattle and mammals across the US, though infection of humans is very rare.
Alphabet, the parent company of technology giant Google, is no longer promising that it will never use artificial intelligence (AI) for purposes such as developing weapons and surveillance tools.
The firm has rewritten the principles guiding its use of AI, dropping a section which ruled out uses that were “likely to cause harm”.
In a blog post Google senior vice president James Manyika, and Demis Hassabis, who leads the AI lab Google DeepMind, defended the move.
They argue businesses and democratic governments need to work together on AI that “supports national security”.
There is debate amongst AI experts and professionals over how the powerful new technology should be governed in broad terms, how far commercial gains should be allowed to determine its direction, and how best to guard against risks for humanity in general.
There is also controversy around the use of AI on the battlefield and in surveillance technologies.
The blog said the company’s original AI principles published in 2018 needed to be updated as the technology had evolved.
“Billions of people are using AI in their everyday lives. AI has become a general-purpose technology, and a platform which countless organisations and individuals use to build applications.
“It has moved from a niche research topic in the lab to a technology that is becoming as pervasive as mobile phones and the internet itself,” the blog post said.
As a result baseline AI principles were also being developed, which could guide common strategies, it said.
However, Mr Hassabis and Mr Manyika said the geopolitical landscape was becoming increasingly complex.
“We believe democracies should lead in AI development, guided by core values like freedom, equality and respect for human rights,” the blog post said.
“And we believe that companies, governments and organisations sharing these values should work together to create AI that protects people, promotes global growth and supports national security.”
The blog post was published just ahead of Alphabet’s end of year financial report, showing results that were weaker than market expectations, and knocking back its share price.
That was despite a 10% rise in revenue from digital advertising, its biggest earner, boosted by US election spending.
In its earnings report the company said it would spend $75bn ($60bn) on AI projects this year, 29% more than Wall Street analysts had expected.
The company is investing in the infrastructure to run AI, AI research, and applications such as AI-powered search.
Google’s AI platform Gemini now appears at the top of Google search results, offering an AI written summary, and pops up on Google Pixel phones.
Originally, long before the current surge of interest in the ethics of AI, Google’s founders, Sergei Brin and Larry Page, said their motto for the firm was “don’t be evil”. When the company was restructured under the name Alphabet Inc in 2015 the parent company switched to “Do the right thing”.
Since then Google staff have sometimes pushed back against the approach taken by their executives. In 2018 the firm did not renew a contract for AI work with the US Pentagon following a resignations and a petition signed by thousands of employees.
They feared “Project Maven” was the first step towards using artificial intelligence for lethal purposes.
Billionaire philanthropist and spiritual leader Aga Khan has died at the age of 88, his charity the Aga Khan Development Network has announced.
Prince Karim Aga Khan was the 49th hereditary imam of the Ismaili Muslims, who trace his lineage directly to the Prophet Muhammad.
He “passed away peacefully” in Lisbon, Portugal, surrounded by his family, his charity said in a statement on social media.
Born in Switzerland, he had British citizenship and lived in a chateau in France.
The King has been made aware of the death of the philanthropist, who was a friend of both himself and his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II.
It is understood that the King is deeply saddened at the loss of a personal friend of many years and is in touch with the family privately.
The Aga Khan’s charities ran hundreds of hospitals, educational and cultural projects, largely in the developing world.
He enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, with a private island in the Bahamas, a super-yacht and a private jet.
The Aga Khan Development Network said it offered its “condolences to the family of His Highness and to the Ismaili community worldwide”.
“We continue to work with our partners to improve the quality of life for individuals and communities across the world, as he wished, irrespective of their religious affiliations or origins,” it added.
The Ismailis, a Muslim sect, have a worldwide population of about 15 million, including 500,000 in Pakistan. There are also large populations in India, Afghanistan and Africa.
PA Media
The Aga Khan was friends with the late Queen Elizabeth II and the King is understood to be deeply saddened by his death
Prince Karim Aga Khan succeeded his grandfather as imam of the Ismaili Muslims in 1957 at the age of 20.
The prince had an estimated fortune of $1bn (£801m) in 2008, according to Forbes magazine. His inherited wealth was boosted by numerous business interests, including horse-breeding.
He became a leading owner and breeder of race horses in the UK, France and Ireland, breeding Shergar, once the most famous and most valuable racehorse in the world.
Shergar won the Derby at Epsom in 1981 by 10 lengths in the Aga Khan’s emerald green racing silks with red epaulets but was kidnapped in Ireland two years later and never found.
Despite losing his beloved horse, he told the BBC in 2011 – on the 30th anniversary of Shergar’s biggest triumph – that he did not contemplate deserting his Irish breeding operation.
PA Media
Shergar with the Aga Khan (in top hat)
Of Shergar’s triumph, he said: “It’s a memory that can never, never go away.
“I’ve seen that film I don’t know, tens or hundreds of times. I keep trying to analyse where this remarkable performance came from. Every time I see the film, I feel that I have learned something.
“If you’re in racing, the Epsom Derby is one of the greats. It always has been, so to win a race of that quality in itself is an extraordinary privilege. To win it the way he won it was more than that.
“I had watched quite enough races to be able to determine what the jockey was feeling, how the horse was going at the time and when he came around Tattenham Corner, I couldn’t believe my eyes, frankly.
“His victory up to this point in time was unique. Two things I found stunning – one was the ease with which that horse moved and second was the fact that during the finishing straight he just kept going away, going away, going away. That was really remarkable.”
The Aga Khan went on to win the big race another four times with Shahrastani (1986), Kahyasi (1988), Sinndar (2000) and Harzand (2016).
Other notable successes included the 2008 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe with the brilliant unbeaten filly Zarkava.
The prince was also the founder of the Aga Khan Foundation charity prince and gave his name to bodies including a university in Karachi, and the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Aga Khan Trust for Culture was key to the restoration of the Humayun’s Tomb site in Delhi. There is an annual Aga Khan Award for Architecture.
And he founded the Nation Media Group, which has become the largest independent media organisation in east and central Africa.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif paid tribute to the prince describing him as a “man of vision, faith, and generosity” and a “remarkable leader”.
“Through his tireless efforts in poverty alleviation, healthcare, and gender equality, he championed the cause of the marginalized, leaving an indelible mark on countless lives,” he said.
Activist and Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai said: “His legacy will continue to live on through the incredible work he led for education, health and development around the world.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described him as a “symbol of peace, tolerance and compassion in our troubled world”.
The US Postal Service (USPS) says it has stopped accepting parcels from mainland China and Hong Kong until further notice.
Letters will not be affected by the suspension, according to a statement on the company’s website.
USPS did not offer a reason for the decision but it comes after US President Donald Trump imposed an additional 10% tariff on all goods imported to the US from China.
Trump’s executive order also eliminated an exemption that allowed goods worth $800 (£641) or less to enter the US without having to pay duties or certain taxes.
The so-called de minimis tax loophole faced increased scrutiny in recent years as Chinese e-commerce giants like Shein and Temu used it to reach millions of US customers.
In responseChina said it would implement tariffs on some US imports.
From 10 February coal and liquefied natural gas products (LNG) will face a 15% levy. Crude oil, agricultural machinery and large-engine cars will be subject to a 10% tariff.
President Trump is expected to speak to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in the coming days.
“Trump’s tariff changes are especially sharp if goods were previously shipped via e-commerce directly from China to the US,” said trade expert Deborah Elms.
Close to half of all parcels entering the US under de minimis were sent from China, according to a 2023 report by the US Congressional committee on China.
US officials have pointed out that the large flow of parcels entering the country through this exemption made it increasingly difficult to screen them for possible illegal goods.
The BBC has contacted USPS to request more details about the decision.
When US President Donald Trump began speaking 10 days ago of Gaza as a demolition site, calling to “clean out that whole thing”, it wasn’t clear how far these were off-the-cuff remarks.
But in the lead up to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit, in his Oval Office comments before the meeting, and in the press conference itself, it’s now clear he is profoundly serious about his proposals.
They amount to the most radical upending in the established US position on Israel and the Palestinians in the recent history of the conflict; and will be seen as flying in the face of international law.
As well as how the announcement will be absorbed by ordinary people on the ground, it could also have a significant impact on the more immediate phased ceasefire and hostage release process, at a critical juncture.
Trump and his officials are framing his call to – in his language – permanently “resettle” all Palestinians out of Gaza as a humanitarian gesture, saying there is no alternative for them because Gaza is a “demolition site”.
Under international law, attempts to forcibly transfer populations are strictly prohibited, and Palestinians as well as Arab nations will see this as nothing short of a clear proposal aimed at their expulsion and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land.
That’s why Arab leaders have already categorically rejected his ideas, made with increasing frequency over the last 10 days, when he suggested Egypt and Jordan could “take” Palestinians from Gaza.
In a statement on Saturday, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League said that such a move could “threaten the region’s stability, risk expanding the conflict, and undermine prospects for peace and coexistence among its peoples”.
It has long been a desire of the ultranationalist far right in Israel to expel Palestinians from the occupied territories and expand Jewish settlements in their place.
Since the 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel, these groups – leaders of whom have been part of Netanyahu’s coalition – have demanded the war against Hamas continues indefinitely, vowing ultimately to re-establish Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip.
They have continued their calls and opposed the current ceasefire and hostage release deal.
In his White House press conference with the Israeli prime minister, Trump went further even than his recent growing calls for the Palestinians in Gaza to be “relocated” to Egypt and Jordan, saying that the United States would then take the territory over and rebuild it.
When asked whether Palestinians would be allowed back, he said “the world’s people” would live there, saying it would be an “international, unbelievable place”, before adding “also Palestinians”.
His Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff earlier in the day summed up much of the tone around the proposal, saying of Trump “this guy knows real estate”.
Trump said it would be the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
Asked whether American troops would be involved in the take over of Gaza, Mr Trump said “we’ll do what is necessary”.
His proposals amount to the most radical transformation in the US position on the territory since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the war of 1967, which saw the start of Israel’s military occupation of land including the Gaza Strip.
Gaza was already home to Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes in the wars surrounding Israel’s creation.
They and their descendants make up the vast majority of Gaza’s population to this day.
Trump’s proposals, if enacted, would involve that population, now more than two million people, being forced elsewhere in the Arab world or even beyond, says Trump, to “resettle… permanently”.
The proposals would wipe out the possibility of a future two-state solution in any conventional sense and will be categorically rejected by Palestinians and the Arab world as an expulsion plan.
Much of Netanyahu’s political base and the ultranationalist settler movement in Israel will champion President Trump’s words, seeing them as the fulfilment of a means as Netanyahu puts it to stop “Gaza being a threat to Israel”.
For ordinary Palestinians, it would amount to a mass act of collective punishment.
A team of medical experts have outlined what they say is “significant new evidence” in Lucy Letby’s case
Child killer Lucy Letby did not murder any babies, a panel of international medical experts reviewing evidence in her case has claimed.
Chairman Dr Shoo Lee told a press conference “in all cases death or injury were due to natural causes or just bad medical care”.
Letby, who is serving 15 whole life sentences for murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others between 2015 and 2016, has already lost two bids to appeal against her convictions.
The panel’s findings are likely to form part of an application which has been made by her lawyers to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) for her case to be investigated as a potential miscarriage of justice.
PA Media
Retired medic Dr Shoo Lee, during a press conference to announce “new medical evidence” regarding the safety of the convictions of Lucy Letby
The lengthy and medically technical press conference was organised by Letby’s legal team who had said the panel would present “significant new medical evidence”.
Dr Lee, a Canadian neonatal care expert, said there were alternative explanations for each of Letby’s convictions for murder or attempted murder.
He said he became involved in the case after learning that an academic paper he co-authored on air embolism, one of the methods Letby was said to have used to attack babies, had formed part of the prosecution case in her trial.
Dr Lee said the 14 experts, including medical professionals from Canada, the US, Japan, Germany, Sweden and the UK, had looked at 17 cases at the heart of Letby’s prosecution and had compiled an “impartial evidence-based report”.
The report presented at the conference was a summary of the panel’s findings, and the full report would be submitted to Letby’s legal team, Dr Lee said.
Dr Lee provided what he said were highly detailed grounds baby-by-baby for concluding that none of the murders occurred.
He added: “We did not find any murders. In all cases, death or injury were due to natural causes or just bad medical care.”
“Lucy was charged with seven murders and seven attempted murders”, he said.
“In our opinion, the medical opinion, the medical evidence doesn’t support murder in any of these babies.
“Our full report will go to Lucy’s barrister later this month, and then it’ll be up to him and the courts to decide what next to do.”
During Letby’s trial, the prosecution referred to the 1989 paper by Dr Lee that looked at cases of air embolus, referring to injuries caused when air is injected into a baby’s arteries or veins after staff at the Countess of Chester reported skin discoloration on some of the babies.
In the cases Dr Lee analysed in his paper, those injuries had happened accidentally.
The prosecution argued that one of the methods Letby used to injure or kill babies was to inject air into their veins and used Dr Lee’s paper to back that claim.
In the paper, Dr Lee described a distinct discoloration on the babies’ skin in 10% of cases.
‘Scrutinised’
However, at the press conference Dr Lee said in all of the cases in his paper air was injected into the babies’ arteries, not their veins.
He said that the skin discolouration described in the paper was not possible when air was injected into the veins.
Dr Lee said he had recently updated his academic paper and found no cases of skin discolouration linked to air embolism by the venous system.
He prefaced his remarks by saying that the thoughts of each panel member were with the families of the babies who had died.
Former neonatal nurse Letby, now 35, lost two bids to challenge her convictions at the Court of Appeal last year.
The prosecution’s medical case was scrutinised by the Court of Appeal in May last year and found to be safe – and the judges noted Letby herself did not present any experts at her trial offering an alternative view.
Dr Lee had offered to give evidence to the Court of Appeal as part of Letby’s application for permission to appeal, but three senior judges said his conclusions did not undermine her convictions.
The judges concluded there had been no prosecution expert evidence diagnosing air embolus solely on the basis of skin discolouration.
Earlier, the CCRC said Letby’s lawyers had applied to the commission to investigate her case as a potential miscarriage of justice.
The body said it would now assess the application and determine whether there was new evidence which presented a reasonable chance of a conviction being overturned.
A CCRC spokesperson said: “We are aware that there has been a great deal of speculation and commentary surrounding Lucy Letby’s case, much of it from parties with only a partial view of the evidence.
“We ask that everyone remembers the families affected by events at the Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016.”
Mark McDonald, Letby’s barrister, said that because her previous legal team had not called a medical expert at her trial, the information presented was “new, fresh evidence”.
He said the nurse was convicted because of the medical evidence, and if that was wrong any circumstantial evidence would “fall away”.
“The most important thing, the reason why Lucy Letby was convicted, was because of the medical evidence that was presented to the jury that today has been demolished,” he said.
Veteran MP Sir David Davis, who has been assisting Letby’s legal team, described her convictions as “one of the major injustices of modern times”.
The BBC joined Anton Yaremchuk as he evacuated people from the city of Pokrovsk
As he prepares to set off on another rescue mission on Ukraine’s eastern front, 35-year-old Anton Yaremchuk is grateful for the fog. It will shield him and his colleague Pylyp from Russian drones hunting from the skies. His armoured van will provide more protection – but only up to a point. Every journey could be the last.
In December shrapnel from a drone attack ripped through a clearly marked armoured vehicle used by his team, causing injuries but no deaths.
“We were extremely lucky,” he says.
Anton’s regular destination these days is the industrial city of Pokrovsk, which he says is “being attacked night and day”.
Russian forces are closing in – they are now less than 2km (1.2 miles) away.
“The last few days we were coming in, there was hell,” Anton tells us. “There are around 7,000 people still there. We’ll try to get some people out of that nightmare.”
He’s been doing just that since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
With his country under attack, the Ukrainian cinematographer left his life and career in Berlin, came home and co-founded a small aid organisation, Base UA. Since then, he and his team have managed to get about 3,000 civilians out of harm’s way, taking them away from front lines to safer areas.
Goktay Koraltan/ BBC
Very few residents – mostly elderly – remain, as they wait for Pokrovsk to fall
Pokrovsk used to be one of those places.
“It’s crazy,” he says as we head for the city, “because this used to be the haven, the safest city in the region and the biggest hospital. The evacuation train was departing from Pokrovsk.”
If and when Russian forces take the city, it will deprive the Ukrainian military of a key supply and transport hub.
Ukraine has already lost the output from a crucial coal mine in the area – the only one producing coking coal for its steel industry. Operations were suspended last month because of the Russian advance.
We join Anton for the journey to Pokrovsk. He has a tourniquet, and a separate medical kit attached to the front of his body armour. His white high-visibility jacket bears the slogan “leave no-one behind”.
Before we set off, there’s a warning. “When we park, get out of the vehicles and don’t stand nearby,” Anton tells us, “in case they are targeted.”
The closer we get the more explosions we hear. War has left its mark, draining the city of life. Streets are deserted, and houses boarded up. Some buildings have been flattened. There’s no smoke from the chimneys on snow-capped rooves. We pass a parked car with a white flag.
But we find Olga, already waiting by the roadside, wrapped up in a lilac winter coat and furry hood. She’s one of six people on Anton’s list for evacuation this time.
She goes to lock up her home – moving quickly despite her 71 years. And then she gets into the van and does not look back.
Goktay Koraltan/ BBC
The escalation in fighting has forced Olga to leave her home of 65 years
“I have been in this house for 65 years,” Olga says.
“It’s hard to leave everything behind. But it’s not life anymore, it’s like hell. In the beginning we thought maybe we will sit it out, but now the ground is shaking.”
Her children and grandchildren have already fled the bombing. I ask if she thinks she will be able to come back one day. “Who knows,” she replies, “but we hope.”
Along the way, whenever Anton spots people out on the street – and there aren’t many – he urges them to go. He stops the car to hand out leaflets explaining that evacuation is free, and help, including a place to stay and ongoing payments, is available in the city of Pavlohrad to the west. But some are hard to persuade.
“I have to stay,” one elderly woman says. “My son has died, and I need to be near his grave.”
“I don’t think he would want this,” Anton says.
Goktay Koraltan/ BBC
Pokrovsk was considered a safe hub but now the Russian army is closing in on the city
We drive on and pass a group of three who have been out collecting water. Anton shouts another warning. “There will be street battles,” he says, “unfortunately, I promise you this. I am doing this from the very first day. It’s the same everywhere. This is the final stage.”
One of the women comes forward to take a leaflet. “God keep you safe,” she tells him before going on her way.
Anton moves fast from address to address. When there’s no answer at one house, he climbs over a high metal gate to investigate. He knocks. He shouts. He speaks to a neighbour. With no sign of the woman he hoped to evacuate, we drive on.
I ask what he’s expecting for 2025, now President Trump is back in the White House and pushing for peace talks.
“I stopped looking too much ahead,” he says. “I think nobody really knows what’s going to happen. I personally don’t think that even if some kind of negotiations will start, they will bring a ceasefire anytime soon.”
More than this he expects fighting will worsen if talks do start, as both sides will try to gain leverage.
Goktay Koraltan/ BBC
Anton drives around the city urging people to evacuate
The last pick up of the day is 75-year-old Lyuba – her white hair peeping out from under a scarf. Her long life is now compressed into a few plastic bags. She looks bereft and flinches at every explosion we hear.
“It has been bad,” she tells me. “Bad. We were left alone. There are no authorities. People are just getting killed under the sky,” she says, gesturing upwards. “There’s no gas, no water, no electricity.”
Lyuba is helped into the van, which is now full, with five elderly evacuees – their memories and their fears – and one black cat peering out from a pet carrier. No one speaks.
Goktay Koraltan/ BBC
Seventy-five-year-old Lyuba says there is no gas, water or electricity in the city
For Anton this is a familiar picture, but still a painful one.
We first travelled with him in the heat of summer in 2022. He was then evacuating civilians from another front-line city – Lysychansk – as Russian shells rained down.
Now in Ukraine’s third winter of war he – and other volunteers – are still trying to outrun moving front lines and save whoever they can.
“To be honest every time I see this I break down,” he says, “because it’s just these innocent people leaving everything behind. These are human tragedies, and you can never really get used to it. But I am glad that we manage to get people out to safety.”
That comes at a cost, and it is increasing.
Since we travelled to Pokrovsk, one of Anton’s teams has come under fire from a Russian drone. A 28-year-old British volunteer lost an arm and a leg – saving civilians – but is now stable in hospital.
Following the attack, Anton’s group have suspended evacuations from Pokrovsk, and from other front-line areas.
A Ukrainian police unit called the White Angels is still doing rescue missions in the city. They tell us they are “trying to be very cautious and careful”.
Inside the city, in freezing basements and unlit homes, the remaining residents – mostly elderly – are at the mercy of Russian glide bombs and artillery, as they wait for Pokrovsk to fall.
Additional reporting from Wietske Burema, Goktay Koraltan and Volodymyr Lozhko
South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has moved to defuse a row with the new US administration over a new land law by speaking to Elon Musk.
Mr Musk is a close adviser to US President Donald Trump, who on Sunday threatened to cut all future funding to South Africa over allegations that it was confiscating land and “treating certain classes of people very badly”.
The South Africa-born tech billionaire joined in the criticism asking on X why Ramaphosa had “openly racist ownership laws”.
Ramaphosa’s office said that in the call to Mr Musk the president “reiterated South Africa’s constitutionally embedded values of the respect for the rule of law, justice, fairness and equality”.
Last month, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed into law a bill that allows land seizures without compensation in certain circumstances.
Land ownership has long been a contentious issue in South Africa with most private farmland owned by white people, 30 years after the end of the racist system of apartheid.
There have been continuous calls for the government to address land reform and deal with the past injustices of racial segregation.
In his initial response to Trump, the South Africa’s president said that his “government has not confiscated any land”.
On Sunday, Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social: “I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!”
He later said, in a briefing with journalists, that South Africa’s “leadership is doing some terrible things, horrible things”.
“So that’s under investigation right now. We’ll make a determination, and until such time as we find out what South Africa is doing — they’re taking away land and confiscating land, and actually they’re doing things that are perhaps far worse than that.”
South Africa’s new law allows for expropriation without compensation only in circumstances where it is “just and equitable and in the public interest” to do so.
This includes if the property is not being used and there is no intention to either develop or make money from it, or when it poses a risk to people.
Land ownership has been a burning issue in South Africa for more than a century. In 1913, the British colonial authorities passed legislation that restricted the property rights of the country’s black majority.
The Natives Land Act left the vast majority of the land under the control of the white minority and set the foundation for the forced removal of black people to poor homelands and townships in the intervening decades until the end of apartheid three decades ago.
Anger over these forced removals intensified the fight against white-minority rule.
In 1994, leader of the African National Congress (ANC) Nelson Mandela became the country’s first democratically elected president after all South Africans were given the right to vote.
But until the recently passed law, the government was only able to buy land from its current owners under the principle of “willing seller, willing buyer”, which some feel has delayed the process of land reform.
In 2017, a government report said that of the farmland that was in the hands of private individuals, 72% was white-owned. According to the 2022 census white people make up 7.3% of the population.
However, some critics have expressed fears that the new land law may have disastrous consequences like in Zimbabwe, where seizures wrecked the economy and scared away investors.
Beijing has made its decision. After days of warning of counter measures and urging Washington to enter negotiations and “meet China halfway”, it has decided to hit back – or at least threaten to retaliate with its own tariffs.
China said it would implement a 15% tariff on coal and liquefied natural gas products as well as a 10% tariff on crude oil, agricultural machinery and large-engine cars imported from the US from 10 February.
The date is important. It means there is still time for the world’s two largest economies to step back from the brink of a trade war.
The two leaders have scheduled a call later this week, according to the White House, and there are signs, despite today’s announcement, that China is in listening mode and is keeping the door open for talks.
Firstly, China’s counter measures are limited in scope compared to Donald Trump’s levy of 10% on all Chinese goods heading to the US.
America is the biggest exporter of liquid natural gas across the world, but China accounts for only around 2.3% of those exports and its major car imports are from Europe and Japan.
This calculated and selective targeting of goods may just be an opening shot by Beijing, a way of gaining some bargaining power and leverage ahead of any talks.
Officials in China may be encouraged by the cordial start to the US-China relationship since Trump took office.
The US president said he had a “very good” phone call with President Xi days before his inaugural ceremony, which was attended by the highest-level Chinese official ever to be dispatched to such an event. He has also suggested that he hopes to work with Xi on resolving Russia’s war in Ukraine.
President Xi might not want to pick a fight with Trump just yet as he is busy trying to shore up his own ailing economy.
This is also familiar territory for both leaders – although they might not be keen to relive the past. There was a honeymoon period in US-China relations during Trump’s last term, before the relationship soured.
Reuters
Large-engine cars are among the US imports that Beijing has said it will tax
To deal or not to deal
It will also be far more difficult for Trump to do a deal with China than with Mexico and Canada – and much will depend on what he wants from Beijing.
China is Washington’s chief economic rival and cutting the country off from major supply chains has been a goal of the Trump administration.
If Trump asks for too much, Xi might feel he can walk away and there will be limits on just how far he is willing to be pushed.
The US president is dealing with a far more confident China than he did back then. Beijing has expanded its global footprint, and it is now the lead trade partner for more than 120 countries.
Over the past two decades, it has also steadily tried to reduce the importance of trade to its economy and ramped up domestic production. Today, imports and exports account for around 37% of China’s GDP, compared with more than 60% in the early 2000s, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
The 10% tariff will sting, but Beijing may feel it can absorb the blow – for now.
The fear will be that President Trump is serious about ramping up that percentage to the 60% he pledged during his campaign or that he will continue to use the threat of tariffs as a recurring diplomatic tool to hold over Xi’s head.
If that happens, Beijing will want to be ready and that means having a clear strategy in case this escalates.
Learning from the past
The last time the leaders signed a deal it did not end well.
The two countries issued tit-for-tat tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of goods from 2018.
It lasted more than two years until eventually China agreed to spend an extra $200bn (£161bn) a year on US goods in 2020.
Washington hoped the deal would bring down the huge trade deficit between China and the US, but the plan was derailed by the Covid pandemic and that deficit now sits at $361bn, according to Chinese customs data.
There are also key challenges for China as it is thinking several steps ahead in any negotiation.
Beijing still sells nearly four times more goods to the United States than it buys – and during Trump’s first term in office, it ran out of items to target.
Analysts believe that China is now looking at a wider range of measures than just tariffs to retaliate if the trade war ramps up.
The clock is ticking. This is not a full trade war, yet. Businesses around the world will be watching to see if the two leaders can reach some kind of settlement later this week.
Actor Jesse Eisenberg says he “doesn’t want to think of himself as associated” with Mark Zuckerberg
Jesse Eisenberg, who starred as Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in 2010 film The Social Network, has told BBC News he no longer wants to think of himself “as someone associated with someone like that”.
“It’s like this guy is… doing things that are problematic, taking away fact-checking,” Eisenberg told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “[There are] safety concerns. Making people who are already threatened in the world more threatened.”
Meta announced last month it would no longer use independent fact-checkers on Facebook and Instagram, replacing them with X-style “community notes”, where commenting on the accuracy of posts is left to users.
In a video posted alongside a blog post, Mr Zuckerberg said third-party moderators were “too politically biased” and it was “time to get back to our roots around free expression”.
Getty Images
Mr Zuckerberg (left) at President Trump’s inauguration
But Eisenberg told BBC News he was “concerned”.
“These people have billions upon billions of dollars, like more money than any human person has ever amassed and what are they doing with it?” he said.
“Oh, they’re doing it to curry favour with somebody who’s preaching hate.
“That’s what I think… not as like a person who played in a movie. I think of it as somebody who is married to a woman who teaches disability justice in New York and lives for her students are going to get a little harder this year.”
Legal settlement
Meta’s move came as Mr Zuckerberg and other technology executives sought to improve relations with US President Donald Trump, ahead of his inauguration.
Trump and his Republican allies had criticised Meta’s fact-checking policy, as censorship of right-wing voices.
And after the changes were announced, Trump told a news conference he was impressed by Mr Zuckerberg’s decision and Meta had “come a long way”.
Last week, Trump signed a legal settlement that will see Meta pay out roughly $25m (£20m).
He had sued the company and Mr Zuckerberg, in 2021, over the suspension of his accounts after the 6 January Capitol riots.
Oscar nomination
Eisenberg is promoting A Real Pain, which he wrote, directed and stars in – a comedy drama about two cousins who travel to Poland together to visit Holocaust sites to honour their late grandmother.
The grandmother is based on Eisenberg’s real-life Aunt Doris and was filmed at the home his family used to live in, in Poland.
In the movie, the cousins struggle to reconcile their own modern life problems against the backdrop of one of the 20th Century’s most devastating and horrific events.
Eisenberg’s screenplay has received an Oscar nomination, as has his co-star, Kieran Culkin.
“Grandchildren of Holocaust survivors should wake up every morning and go outside and kiss the ground that they’re alive and thank whatever god they pray to – as the world didn’t want them to be alive,” Eisenberg told Today.
He said he had “tried to connect to bigger things” since making the film.
“I live in a world that feels hedonistic, my life is maybe too easy.”
He added that it was essential the film had a comic feel.
“It would be so sanctimonious without any humour in it.”
Eisenberg was also nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Mr Zuckerberg in The Social Network.
Just a day ago, Donald Trump was threatening a multi-front trade war with Canada, Mexico and China that would take the global economy into uncharted territory.
Twenty-four hours later, we’re in a rather different place with the tariffs – or taxes – against America’s closest neighbours and trading partners on hold for 30 days.
But the 10% tariffs on all goods imports from China have gone ahead, and Beijing has responded in kind. So what are the potential economic consequences of these opening salvos and could this turn into a broader trade war?
China is subject to significant US tariffs already and has been since Trump’s first term. But the blanket nature of today’s new levies from the White House on every single goods import from China – from toys, to mobile phones, to clothes – is new and significant.
Beijing’s promised tariff retaliation – including new levies on imports from the US of oil, agricultural machinery and some cars – is far less sweeping. Yet the retaliation moves us into the arena of tit-for-tat action, where the country experiencing the tariffs feels it has no choice but to hit back to show its own citizens it can’t be pushed around by a foreign power.
This is the dictionary definition of a trade war – and economic historians warn they tend to generate their own momentum and can rapidly spiral out of control.
Trump has used just about every justification under the sun for tariffs, from raising more tax revenue to boosting American manufacturing and rebalancing trade. But one thing recent days confirm is the new president regards them as a powerful way to compel other nations to do what he wants.
He threatened massive and punitive tariffs on Colombia when it initially refused to accept US flights of its deported nationals, but he lifted the threat when Bogota acquiesced.
The White House might also point to the response of Mexico and Canada yesterday as evidence tariff threats yield results. He had threatened to ride roughshod over his own North American free trade deal unless those nations tightened up on border control. Although how much extra those two countries actually promised yesterday on border security relative to what they were already doing is open to question.
Yet the problem with the White House using tariff threats in this way is that if other countries don’t back down – or agreements are not reached – Trump might well feel he has no choice but to follow through or risk losing all credibility. And the targeted country might feel it has to respond with its prepared countermeasures, even if they would prefer not to.
That high-risk dynamic – where things could slip out of control in an atmosphere of distrust and political pressure – is why many analysts and economists are far from comforted by how things have played out with Mexico and Canada this week.
The other reason many economists fear Trump’s intimidatory tariff diplomacy is its potentially chilling impact on business investment and confidence. US car firms have a deeply integrated industrial base across America, Mexico and Canada. Automotive parts cross those borders multiple times in the vehicle assembly process.
The levying of 25% tariffs on each of those movements would be disastrous for these businesses. Those North American tariffs have been paused for now, but it’s very hard to see US or Canadian automotive executives committing to further investment in those cross-border supply chains any time soon – and perhaps for many years to come.
That will have negative implications for their productivity – and also for the wages of their employees in all three countries. The view of many economists is having cross-border supply chains makes these firms more productive than they would otherwise be and this raises US workers’ wages relative to where they would be if they only manufactured in America.
These same effects apply on a global scale. In light of Trump’s tariff threats against the European Union, how many US firms are likely to be going ahead with planned investments in Europe – and vice versa?
Countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia benefitted indirectly from the US tariffs imposed on China in Donald Trump’s first presidential term, as multinationals shifted manufacturing out of China and into their territories to avoid the taxes and to continue exporting to America. But what if Trump now threatens tariffs against them too?
The huge uncertainty Trump’s tariff threats have injected into the global economy – even if they don’t always translate into actual new taxes – will likely already be doing damage.
Vogue editor Dame Anna Wintour has “firmly” told King Charles she will not stop working, as she removed her signature sunglasses to receive an award at Buckingham Palace.
Dame Anna, the longest-serving editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine, was made Companion of Honour for her services to fashion.
She was honoured in the 2023 King’s Birthday Honours and joins the likes of Dame Judi Dench, Sir Elton John, David Hockney and Sir Paul McCartney in the select group.
“It makes me even more convinced that I have so much more to achieve,” she said.
Dressed in Alexander McQueen, Dame Anna told reporters on Tuesday she was “completely surprised and overwhelmed” to receive her second accolade at Buckingham Palace.
She was made a dame in 2017 by Queen Elizabeth II, who honoured her for her contribution to fashion and journalism.
“The last time I was here the Queen gave me a medal and we both agreed that we had been doing our job a very long time, and then this morning His Majesty asked me if this meant I was going to stop working and I said firmly, no,” she said.
PA Media
…and with the dark glasses on again outside Buckingham Palace.
Last month, she also went without her trademark shades as former US President Joe Biden presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom – America’s highest civilian honour – at the White House.
The 75-year-old previously told the BBC the glasses are a “prop”.
“They help me be seen and not be seen,” she said.
One of the most significant players in fashion, Dame Anna has been editor-in-chief of Vogue since 1988 and, among other charities, has helped raise more than $20m (£16m) for Aids research.
She has organised annual fundraiser the Met Gala, in New York, since 1995 and has also raised money for UK arts organisations following funding cuts in 2022.
The Order of the Companions of Honour is an exclusive group, limited to 65 people at any one time.
Appointments go to those who have made a long-standing contribution to the arts, science, medicine or government.
Reuters
Artist Dame Tracey Emin poses for a photo with her medal
Tracey Emin, 61, one of Britain’s most acclaimed artists, was also honoured at the investiture ceremony on Tuesday as she was made a dame.
Speaking afterwards, she said her 2020 bladder cancer diagnosis had made her focus on “helping other people”.
In March 2023 her Tracey Emin Foundation opened its doors in Margate, offering rent-free space to art students.
“I think if you come from an impoverished background, it’s almost impossible to even get your qualifications and get into university,” said Dame Tracey.
“But one thing I would say is: do not be put off by the fees.
“Go to university and worry about it afterwards, because otherwise, if you don’t have the education, you can’t change anything.”
Her notable works include My Bed, an art installation at the Tate Gallery exhibiting her own unmade bed and a floor littered with empty vodka bottles, cigarette butts and condoms.
The work, shortlisted for the 1999 Turner prize, sold at auction for £2.2m.
Police say around 10 people have been killed in a shooting at an education centre in central Sweden, including the suspected gunman.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson described Tuesday’s attack at Risbergska school in Orebro, 200km (124 miles) west of the capital city Stockholm, as the “worst mass shooting in Swedish history”.
Police said they believe the male perpetrator to be among the dead and that he was not previously known to them. There was no immediately identifiable motive and he was believed to be acting alone, they said.
“It is difficult to take in the magnitude of what has happened today,” Kristersson said at an evening news conference.
Police earlier warned the death toll could continue to rise as several people had been injured.
A number of the injured have been taken to hospital, with at least four people undergoing operations.
Police initially said five people had been shot, and the incident was being investigated as an attempted murder, arson and an aggravated weapons offence.
Local media later began reporting that several people had died, before police said “around 10” people had been killed but they “could not be more specific” about the number of fatalities.
They also confirmed there did not appear to be a “terror” motive behind the attack.
Police heard reports of a shooting taking place at Risbergska school – an adult education centre – at 12:33 local time (11:44 GMT). The facility sits on a campus that is home to other schools.
These centres are attended primarily by people who have not finished primary or secondary school.
Earlier, students at several nearby schools were being kept indoors “for security purposes”.
“We don’t want members of the public to go there,” Orebro police chief Roberto Eid Forest warned.
Nearby hospitals had cleared their emergency rooms and intensive care units to free up space for patients, local media reported.
Orebro University Hospital said five people injured by gunshot wounds were treated at its emergency room. An additional sixth person, not injured by a gun, had “minor injuries” treated, it said.
No children were among the people being treated there, the municipality for Orebro County said in an update.
Teacher Lena Warenmark told SVT, Swedish public radio, she heard around 10 gunshots close to her study.
The Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said today is “a very painful day for all in Sweden” as he shared that those who had a “normal school day” replaced “with terror” are all in his thoughts.
“Being confined to a classroom with fear for your own life is a nightmare that no one should have to experience,” Kristersson said in a post on X.
“The government is in close contact with the Police Authority and is closely monitoring developments.”
His justice minister, Gunnar Strommer, echoed those remarks, telling local broadcaster SVT “the news of an attack at Orebro is very serious”.
Thousands of residents are fleeing Santorini after hundreds of earthquakes were recorded near the Greek island in the last 48 hours.
About 9,000 people have left the island since Sunday, with additional emergency flights scheduled to leave on Tuesday.
More than 300 earthquakes have been recorded in the past two days near the island, and some experts say tremors could continue for weeks. Authorities have closed schools and warned against large indoor gatherings, but Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has urged calm.
Santorini is a popular tourist destination but most of those leaving are locals, as February is outside the peak tourist season.
Dozens of tremors have been recorded in the Aegean Sea north-east of Santorini so far on Tuesday, with a large earthquake measuring magnitude 5 striking mid-afternoon.
Several days of continuous seismic activity has led some residents to sleep in their cars – afraid to spend the night in their homes in case walls or ceilings cave in.
No major damage has been reported on the island so far, but emergency measures are being taken as a precaution.
Hundreds of people queued at a port in the early hours of Tuesday morning to board a ferry leaving for the mainland.
“Everything is closed. No-one works now. The whole island has emptied,” an 18-year-old local resident told Reuters news agency before boarding the vessel.
Local media reports around 6,000 people have left the island by ferry since Sunday, and a further 2,500 to 2,700 passengers will have flown from Santorini to Athens via plane on Monday and Tuesday, according to Aegean Airlines.
The carrier said it had added nine emergency flights to its schedule following a request from the Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection.
In recent days, an estimated 9,000 people in total have fled Santorini – a small island with a population of just 15,500.
The island welcomes millions of tourists annually, but bookings this time of year are minimal, so local residents and workers make up the majority of evacuees.
Kostas Sakavaras, a tour guide who has lived on Santorini for 18 years, left the island with his wife and children on Monday.
“We considered it’s a better choice to come to the mainland as a precaution,” he told BBC News.
“Nothing has been falling, or anything like that,” he said, adding that the worst part had been the sound. “That’s the most scary part of it,” said Mr Sakavaras, who plans to return home once schools reopen.
Schools are scheduled to stay closed on the island until Friday. Authorities have also warned people to avoid certain areas of the island and empty their swimming pools.
Santorini’s Mayor, Nikos Zorzos, said the island was prepared for seismic activity that “may last many weeks”. The island must approach it “with patience and calm”, he said on Tuesday.
He added that plans were in place to build shelters and provide food for the population should larger tremors emerge.
On Tuesday morning, representatives from the government, armed forces and emergency services met at the Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection to discuss the situation.
The prime minister will chair a similar meeting on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Mitsotakis said on Monday that Greece was working to manage “a very intense geological phenomenon”.
Seismologists consider the recent tremors to be minor, but preventative measures have been put in place in case a larger quake occurs.
Emergency services have warned residents to leave the areas of Ammoudi, Armeni and the Old Port of Fira due to landslides.
The South Aegean Regional Fire Department has been placed on general alert and rescue teams have been dispatched, with crews standing watch by large yellow medical tents on the island.
Concern remains high over the hundreds of earthquakes in the region of the Greek Cyclades Islands, with scientists rapidly analysing data to better understand the phenomenon.
Most of the strongest earthquakes are originating from an area around the tiny islet of Anydros, north-east of Santorini.
With seismic activity remaining intense in the region, scientists are on alert not only for Santorini, but also for Amorgos, Anafi and Ios.
In the event of a larger earthquake, the main issue is the resistance of buildings, especially in Santorini, due to the peculiarities of the soil.
Santorini is on what is known as the Hellenic Volcanic Arc – a chain of islands created by volcanoes – but the last major eruption was in the 1950s.
Greek authorities have said that the recent tremors were related to tectonic plate movements instead of volcanic activity.
Scientists cannot currently predict the exact timing, size or location of earthquakes.
But there are areas of the world where they are more likely to occur which helps governments to prepare.
Earthquakes occur as the result of tectonic plates moving either past, below each other or apart. This results in stress that is built up and then released as earthquakes along or near the boundaries of these plates – known as fault lines. Santorini and the Greek Islands are near such a line.
As scientists cannot predict such events, the best way to prevent damage or loss of life is for authorities to reduce the vulnerability of their populations. This can be through designing and constructing earthquake-resistant buildings or evacuating residents when earthquakes begin.
