China is not feeling the shock of war in the Middle East - yet.

But it is feeling the ripples.

In the short-term, it has enough oil supplies for several months, after which it could turn to neighbour Russia for help.

But China will be calculating what this could mean long-term - not just for its investments in the Middle East, but also for its ambitions.

This week, thousands of Communist Party delegates are meeting in Beijing to discuss a roadmap for the world's second-largest economy as it continues to battle low consumption, a prolonged property crisis and huge local debt.

For the first time since 1991, the Chinese government has lowered its expectations of economic growth, despite the rapid development in high-tech and renewables industries.

China may have hoped to export its way out of economic trouble. But it has spent a year fighting a trade war with the United States, and now faces the prospect of upheaval in the Middle East, which supplies both its major shipping routes and a lot of its energy needs.

The longer the war drags on, the more it could hurt, especially if traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked.

"A prolonged period of turmoil and insecurity in the Middle East will disrupt other regions of importance for China," says Philip Shetler-Jones from the Royal United Services Institute.

"African economies, for instance, have been the beneficiary of substantial and steady flows of Gulf capital. If the investment tide goes out, this risks wider instability that undermines the sustainability of China's broader and longer-term interests."

That is, given China's global footprint, its investments and markets beyond the Middle East are also vulnerable to a protracted war. And like so many other countries, China too is wary of this fresh bout of unpredictability.

"I think China is thinking the same as everyone else," says Professor Kerry Brown, from Kings College London. "What is the game plan? Surely the Americans didn't go into this with no game plan."

But then, he adds: "Probably, along with everyone else, they would also be thinking, oh God, they really have gone into this with no plan at all. Right, we don't want to get dragged into this like we don't want to get dragged into anything else, but we also need to do something."

Iran was always designated as an "ally" of China by many in the West.

They have certainly been very friendly. The last foreign trip taken by Tehran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was to Beijing in 1989. He had his photograph taken by the Great Wall.

The partnership between them deepened when Xi Jinping visited Tehran in 2016 and the two countries eventually signed a 25-year strategic partnership in 2021.

China promised to invest $400bn (£300bn) in Iran over 25 years and, in exchange, Iran would keep the oil flowing.

However, analysts believe only a fraction of that money has reached the Iranians. But the oil kept flowing.

China imported 1.38 million barrels of crude per day from Iran in 2025, according to the Center on Global Energy Policy - around 12% of China's total crude oil imports. Many of these barrels are alleged to have been relabelled as Malaysian to disguise their origin.

The research centre at Columbia University released a report claiming there are more than 46 million barrels of Iranian oil in floating storage in Asia, and even more in bonded storage, which is yet to be cleared by customs, in the Chinese ports of Dalian and Zhoushan, where the National Iranian Oil Company leases tanks.

There have also been allegations of arms sales between the two countries. China has denied selling Tehran anti-ship cruise missiles, but US intelligence has accused Beijing of supporting Iran's ballistic missile programme by training engineers and supplying components.

Rights groups have alleged that Iran's brutal crackdowns against protesters and critics of the regime has been fuelled by Chinese facial recognition and surveillance tech, shared by Beijing.

It may sound like the two were firm friends.

All of this even prompted tabloid headlines lumping China and Iran together as an "axis of upheaval" alongside North Korea and Russia. All four do want to challenge the US-led world order, but in truth their relationship was transactional.

"There's no real ideological or cultural reason why China would get on with Iran," Prof Brown says.

"China's almost 'divide and rule' strategy was sometimes well-served by Iran being a constant irritant to the US. So I think there are largely negative reasons for China wanting a relationship with Iran, rather than positive reasons.

"That's a really fragile basis for a relationship, and it worked - up to a point. But it wasn't a very deep relationship."

China does not view its "alliances" in the same way the West does. It does not sign mutual defence treaties and will not come rushing to its ally's aid.

Instead, Beijing is keen to stay out of any conflict.

But that does not mean China isn't deeply troubled by what is happening in the Middle East.

Beijing issued a predictable and muted condemnation and called for a ceasefire.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said it was "unacceptable for the US and Israel to launch attacks against Iran... still less to blatantly assassinate a leader of a sovereign country and instigate regime change".

The truth is Washington's actions in Venezuela in January, and now in Iran, have highlighted the limits of those countries' partnerships with China.

On both occasions, Beijing has been left on the sidelines as an observer, incapable of helping those within its orbit.

China is trying to position itself as a "responsible counter-balance" to the US, says Philip Shetler-Jones from the Royal United Services Institute, but "in terms of military balance, the US is demonstrating what being a superpower really means, which is the ability to force outcomes in theatres across the globe".

Beijing, he argues, is not "a superpower on the same level" despite its economic might. "It is not equipped to protect its friends against this kind of action, even if it wanted to."

To counter these concerns, Xi will continue positioning himself as a stable and predictable global leader, in contrast to Donald Trump.

"China's argument will be that Donald Trump has once again demonstrated beyond any doubt the extent of western hypocrisy and western talk of the liberal international order," says Professor Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China institute.

Disruptions to energy supply and air travel as a result of this conflict will "have far greater ramifications economically in the Global South than in the West", he adds.

"Some countries are going to have food shortage in a few months... and those are Global South countries. We're also already seeing the rupturing of the Western alliance, with the UK, Spain, being singled out for attack."

Beijing may also see a chance to help mediate talks along with other countries. Foreign Minister Wang Yi has already spoken to his counterparts in Oman and France, and China has announced it will send a special envoy to the Middle East.

Still, China is treading carefully because one of the biggest calculations for them is the mercurial US president, who is due to arrive for a much-awaited meeting later this month.

None of China's criticisms of US and Israeli strikes on Iran have targeted Trump directly, which may make a handshake a little easier.

Some have speculated if the visit can still go ahead. But there are signs it is still on. Officials from both sides are due to meet to discuss the trip, Reuters reports.

China may see this as a chance to "look for cues", says Shetler-Jones, on how Trump may respond to other flashpoints like Taiwan, the self-governed island it claims.

"To the extent this war proves unpopular, it might contribute to a growing trend of 'restraint' in US foreign and security policy that – if put into effect by a future administration – give China a freer hand to pursue its interests in its own region and the wider world."

This crisis presents some in China with an opportunity to paint Washington as warmongers, which the People's Liberation Army has done across social media.

But having such "an unpredictable and a dysfunctional actor" may be a source of unease for Beijing, Prof Brown says.

"I don't think China wants a world that's dominated by the US, but they don't really want a world where the US is such an unstable actor."

For a sixth day, the US and Israel are battering targets in Iran, waging war from the air. Could there soon be boots on the ground? Maybe. But not American ones.

Iranian Kurdish opposition groups in exile in northern Iraq have told the BBC they have plans to cross the border - and have had them for decades - but they flatly deny claims that their fighters have already done so.

"We have been preparing for this for the past 47 years, since the age of the Islamic Republic," said Hana Yazdanpana, of the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), which claims to have the biggest armed force.

But she insisted that "not a single Peshmerga has moved". The Kurdish word peshmerga means "those who face death".

Yazdanpana told us that six opposition groups - which recently formed a coalition – were co-ordinating with each other politically and militarily. "No-one moves alone," she told us. "We will know if our brothers are going to move."

She does not expect fighters to advance this week. First, the US needs to pave the way.

"We can't move if the air above us is not cleaned," she said. "And we need the regime's weapons depots to be destroyed. Otherwise, it would be suicidal. The regime is very brutal, and the most advanced weapon we have is a Kalashnikov."

She wants the US to impose a no-fly zone to protect Kurdish fighters. "We have asked for this many times," she said. "I was the one who sent the emails saying 'we need it urgently'."

The White House has denied a report that US President Donald Trump was considering arming the Kurds - many of whom were trained by US forces in the past to fight against the Islamic State (IS) group in Iraq.

But as the chatter about a possible advance by Iranian Kurdish forces increases, so do Tehran's attacks on them. We saw the aftermath of strikes on two different groups, including a ballistic missile attack which tore through a PAK base, killing one fighter.

Some groups have emptied their bases and moved their forces to try to shield them from attack.

Joining the battle against the regime would be a huge risk, and it's unclear what Trump may be offering in return.

The Kurds, which are the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East, are scattered between Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. They have a long history of being persecuted and betrayed. As the Kurdish saying goes, "we have no friends but the mountains".

Can the US be trusted to keep any promises it may make? Many Kurds in Syria - staunch US allies in the battle against IS - were angered recently when Trump sided with the transitional government in Damascus against them.

But some senior Iranian Kurdish leaders take a pragmatic view.

"America and Israel did not begin this war for our hopes, but for their own interests," said Mustafa Mauludi, vice-president of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI). "But they are targeting bases of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps [IRGC], and this will be good for us and help us to go in."

At 67, he has been waiting most of his lifetime for the fall of the Islamic regime.

Wearing traditional Kurdish dress, he recounted a painful family history - one cousin killed by the regime aged 13 and another who remains in prison after 31 years on suspicion of collaborating with the opposition. He said 60% of his family had been arrested and badly treated because of his political activities.

Mauludi already has a mental picture of his first moments back on home soil.

"When I get to the first village," he told us, "I will say with a loud voice: 'I have been fighting for you, you are my people, and now I will fight even more.'" He believes he will be there in time to celebrate the Kurdish new year festival, Nowruz, which falls on 21 March.

The Kurds account for about 10% of Iran's population of 90 million. Their leaders here are calling on the international community to back Trump, and to back them.

"We are the most politically organised group in Iran," said Abdullah Mohtadi, secretary general of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan. "And we won't let this opportunity [for change] be wasted."

He is disappointed with the UK's stance.

"I'm astonished that Britain is the only country in the continent [of Europe] that has not registered the IRGC as a terrorist organisation," Mohtadi said. He also criticised Britain's "hesitation" over allowing the US to use its bases to strike Iran.

It is hard to gauge how many troops the Kurds could muster. "It may be several thousand, including some already inside," according to one local journalist, who is Kurdish himself.

"They want to be part of the change in Iran, to ensure they are part of the future. Despite the lessons of history, they continue to hope."

Some Iranian Kurds say it is time to act - without or without American promises.

"If we have the slightest hope of seeing our homeland, that is ok for us," said one woman in the city of Sulaymaniyah, close to the Iranian border.

"We call it [Iran] the Islamic regime of the executioner. We hate them so much. They have killed so many people."

All of this leaves Iraq in a difficult position, fearful of getting dragged into the war next door. The government in Baghdad has said it will not allow groups "to infiltrate or cross the Iranian border to carry out terrorist acts from Iraqi territory".

If Kurdish forces cross the border, it will be a bittersweet moment for the PAK's Hana Yazdanpana.

"Going back to my land will be very emotional," she said. "My uncles and grandparents died here [in northern Iraq]. I don't know how to feel, happy or sad, because those who really deserve to see this day are gone."

Additional reporting by Wietske Burema, Matthew Goddard and Bizhar Shareef

The US has asked Ukraine for help defending Gulf allies against Iranian drones, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.

He said Ukraine's partners had been reaching out and there had been "requests from the American side". The Pentagon declined to comment.

Zelensky made clear Ukraine would help only on the condition that its own defence was not weakened and that there were diplomatic gains for Kyiv - suggesting, in particular, that Ukraine would be willing to swap its interceptor drones for more US Patriot air defences to protect against Russian ballistic missiles.

The war in the Middle East has raised fears Ukraine could suffer if its allies are distracted by the conflict.

There have also been concerns about a potential shortage of interceptor missiles and Russia benefiting from rising oil prices, the proceeds from which are a key source of funding for its war effort.

Zelensky has acknowledged these risks but also seems keen to take advantage of the crisis to further Ukraine's national interest.

He has spoken to counterparts across the Gulf - in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait - and is promising what he calls "concrete steps" to help them defend their military bases and civilian infrastructure from Iranian attack.

"It is clear what their main request to Ukraine is," Zelensky said on social media.

"Anyone who has faced Iranian strikes encounters a serious challenge - Shaheds, which are difficult to intercept without the proper expertise and adequate weapons."

He added: "It is in our common interest to help people defend themselves and to restore stability in critically important supply routes.

"Partners are reaching out to Ukraine for assistance in defending against Shaheds - for expertise and practical support. There have also been requests from the American side."

Ukraine has for years been subject to strikes by Russian-made Shahed drones - one-way unmanned aircraft based on an Iranian design.

The irony of the US asking for help has not been lost on Ukrainians who have suffered from US President Donald Trump's erratic policy towards their defence against Russia's full-scale invasion.

The US has ceased direct military support under his administration but continues to provide vital intelligence that helps Ukraine both defend against drones and missiles, and strike targets deep within Russia.

Now, after years of Ukraine asking for help, the tables have been turned and it seems clear Zelensky wants to use this moment as a diplomatic, military and financial opportunity.

Ukraine may hope for US gratitude if it can help American allies in the Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia.

It may also hope to win favour among Arab nations, some of which have traditionally had close links with Russia and have tried to avoid taking sides in the Ukraine conflict.

Delegations from the Gulf have already arrived in Kyiv for discussions. One source said some had been told to stay in Ukraine's capital until they agreed a deal. The UK is said to be looking for ways of helping Qatar.

Zelensky may also hope that, by giving Gulf partners adequate air defences, he will discourage them from using expensive and scarce Patriot missiles to bring down cheap drones.

Ukraine faces a shortage of Patriot air defences, and Kyiv will not want too many diverted and wasted in the Middle East.

Zelensky told journalists on Thursday that about 800 Patriot PAC-3 missiles had been used already in recent days – more than Ukraine has received during the entire war.

He suggested a swap: "We would like to quietly work with countries – both those we can name and those we cannot – to obtain for ourselves some of the deficit missiles for Patriot systems and transfer the appropriate number of [drone] interceptors."

But any help Ukraine gives will be qualified. Zelensky said in his social media post: "Of course, any assistance we provide will only be on the condition that it does not weaken our own defence in Ukraine and that it serves as an investment in our diplomatic capabilities".

Ihor Fedirko, head of the Ukrainian Council of Defence Industry, told the BBC that Ukraine could scale up interceptor-drone production to up to 10,000 a month.

But any discussion of deliveries to partners abroad, however, would require political approval at the highest level in Ukraine, he said.

And even if Ukraine's top political leadership approved such transfers in the future, Fedirko warned that it would be much harder to provide allies with the training and expertise they need to learn how to use air defences effectively.

"The weapons are just plastic and metal, without teaching and training," he said.

"We can send you these goods. But what will you do with them? How will you apply the weaponry? Who will teach you?

"At the moment, our training centres in Ukraine are totally booked by our armed forces as well as our civilians."

The war in the Middle East has spilled over Iran's northern border, with Azerbaijan saying Iranian drones struck its Nakhchivan exclave on Thursday.

The airport terminal was hit, a drone exploded near a school, injuring civilians, and another drone was shot down.

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev condemned the incident as an "act of terror", demanded an explanation and apology from Tehran, while placing Baku's armed forces on high alert.

He also touched on Iran's ethnic Azerbaijani population - a sensitive subject for Tehran.

Iran denies any role in Thursday's strikes and has suggested the attack may have been an Israeli false‑flag operation.

Azerbaijan, a small but strategically important Caspian country bordering Russia, Iran, Armenia and Georgia, is now being pulled closer to the heart of a much bigger confrontation.

Nakhchivan is an isolated Azerbaijani territory bordering Iran, Turkey and Armenia, making it particularly exposed during times of conflict.

The drones triggered Aliyev's strongest public attack on Tehran since he took office.

He said the Iranian forces behind the strike were "ugly, cowardly and disgusting" - an unusually blunt personal insult for a head of state.

But his anger went beyond words, saying that "independent Azerbaijan is a place of hope for Azerbaijanis living in Iran".

Baku has long avoided this line because of how sensitive it is for Tehran.

Iran is home to an estimated 20-25 million ethnic Azeris, who make up its largest minority group and are concentrated in the north-west along the Azerbaijan border.

The Islamic Republic has consistently regarded their identity and political affiliations as issues of utmost sensitivity. Tehran views any notion of Azerbaijani identity extending beyond its borders as a potential challenge to internal unity.

Aliyev has rarely spoken about Iranian Azeris in such explicitly aspirational terms and doing so now appears to be a calculated move.

Iran is under intense pressure not just from the war but from internal unrest and political uncertainty and Aliyev's message comes across as a warning to Tehran: any attempt to pressure Azerbaijan militarily or diplomatically could result in a response from Baku, including one that affects Iran's internal stability.

Iranian Azerbaijanis have long complained that they are denied basic cultural rights, including education in their own language.

Several Azerbaijani activists, journalists and language campaigners are currently imprisoned in Iran, facing charges ranging from "propaganda against the regime" to "conspiracy against national security".

They are also a politically significant community. This week the exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, has been urging Iranian Azerbaijanis, among other ethnic minorities, to rise up against the regime.

Iran's current president, Masoud Pezeshkian, is himself an ethnic Azerbaijani and the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - who was killed in the opening salvo of US-Israeli strikes on Saturday - was also claimed to have Azerbaijani roots.

Some of Iran's shahs across the centuries were ethnic Azerbaijanis as well.

One of its most influential rulers, Shah Ismail Khatai, even used Azerbaijani as the first language of his palace in the 16th Century - a reminder of how deeply Azerbaijani culture once shaped the Iranian state.

But none of these facts have helped Azerbaijanis in Iran to have lessons taught in their own language.

Despite their shared Shia identity, Iran and Azerbaijan have grown apart politically, and tensions worsened after Azerbaijan's military victories in the 2020 and 2023 Karabakh wars, which were helped by Turkish and Israeli-made weapons.

Iran views Baku's close defence partnership with Israel as a serious threat.

Iranian officials and media have repeatedly accused Azerbaijan of helping Israeli intelligence operate along Iran's northern frontier - claims Azerbaijan denies.

Azerbaijan's ties with Israel extend beyond security. Israel relies heavily on Azerbaijani oil, and the two countries maintain close political and intelligence co-operation.

For Tehran, this collaboration is at the centre of its suspicion.

Azerbaijan, for its part, has long resented Iran's political and military support for neighbouring Armenia, seeing it as direct interference in a conflict central to its own security.

That history of mistrust is an important backdrop to Thursday's escalation, shaping how Baku interprets every move coming from Tehran.

Iran opposes the establishment of a land connection between Azerbaijan and its Nakhchivan exclave. Tehran has consistently objected to Armenia potentially allowing Azerbaijan a land corridor to the territory.

Azerbaijan is a major energy supplier, and its crude oil reaches global markets through a 1,768km (1,100-mile) pipeline that goes via Baku on the Caspian Sea through Georgia to Turkey's Mediterranean coast.

That pipeline carries more than a million barrels of oil a day and provides Europe with a vital supply route that bypasses both Russian and Iranian territory.

It also supplies Israel with a significant proportion of its oil.

As a result, the pipeline is viewed as a significant potential target for Iran, and any threat of disruption could raise security fears and jolt energy markets.

Both Iran and Azerbaijan deny seeking escalation.

Aliyev insists Azerbaijan "will not participate" in military operations against Iran, and Tehran continues to reject responsibility for the drone attack.

But Aliyev's decision to talk openly of Azerbaijan being a "place of hope" for Iranian Azeris introduces a new and potentially unpredictable element.

Aliyev has pointed out to Tehran that he was the sole foreign leader to visit any Iranian embassy to express condolences following the killing of Khamenei, and that he personally responded to a request to help evacuate Iranian embassy staff from Lebanon.

Now, he says, Iran has repaid those gestures with drone strikes on Azerbaijani territory, something he views as a deep betrayal.

Britney Spears has been arrested in California, US court documents show.

The singer was arrested by the California Highway Patrol at around 21:30 PT (05:30 GMT) on Wednesday.

She was released in the early hours of Thursday morning and is scheduled to appear in Ventura County Superior Court on 4 May.

The court documents do not confirm the reason for the singer's arrest.

The pop star appeared to have deleted her Instagram account on Thursday as news of her arrest broke.

Spears is one of the most successful pop stars in music history, with hits such as Toxic, Everytime, Gimme More, Womanizer, Stronger and Baby One More Time.

The singer said in January 2024 that she would "never return to the music industry". Her last song was a duet released with Elton John in 2022.

However, in a since deleted social media post from earlier this year, Spears indicated that, although she would not perform in the US again, she was hoping to play live in the UK and Australia in the near future.

For 13 years until 2021, Spears was in a conservatorship – a legal guardianship that saw her finances and personal life controlled by her father.

The singer published her memoir in 2023 titled The Woman in Me, which saw her reflect on her career and detail her struggles living under the conservatorship.

Her ex-husband Kevin Federline released his own memoir, You Thought You Knew, at the end of 2025.

Sooner or later, advisers in President Donald Trump's orbit all come to learn the same unwritten rule: no one can outshine the boss.

Kristi Noem, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, became the latest reminder of that on Thursday when Trump announced he was removing her from her post as the face of the administration's crackdown on immigration.

Noem will be replaced by Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin at the end of the month, Trump said in a post on Truth Social. He said Noem would move to a new job as special envoy for a new US security initiative in the Western Hemisphere called The Shield of the Americas.

"I thank Kristi for her service at "Homeland",' Trump said.

It ends Noem's controversial tenure at the top of the department, which is tasked with carrying out the president's sweeping immigration agenda.

Noem was one of the administration's brightest stars when she stepped into the role last year after Trump returned to the White House. She immediately gained attention for joining immigration raids, often appearing in a bulletproof vest alongside field agents carrying out enforcement actions.

She was a vocal advocate of Trump's deportation drive, and touted policies that effectively closed the US-Mexico border. She also took the message abroad, in one instance visiting a maximum-security prison in El Salvador that took in some migrants deported from the US.

But Noem's unconventional approach courted controversy from the start.

Homeland Security secretaries do not typically partake in field operations. Noem's decision to appear on the frontlines of Trump's immigration crackdown was viewed by critics as an effort to burnish her image as the tough-talking immigration enforcer-in-chief.

She sparked a backlash by wearing a $50,000 watch during her visit to CECOT, the notorious prison in El Salvador. Noem also appeared on horseback in a DHS advertising campaign calling for undocumented immigrants to leave the US.

This led some of Noem's critics on the left to brand her "ICE Barbie". Democrats in Congress also blasted Noem for spending $220 million in federal funding on an advertising blitz starring herself, and nearly $200 million on two luxury jets for her official travel.

Noem defended the ad campaign in a Capitol Hill hearing earlier this week and said Trump was aware of the spending.

But Trump publicly contradicted Noem on Thursday before announcing her firing, telling Reuters he was not aware of the expensive campaign. "I never knew anything about it," he said.

The president had an acrimonious call with Corey Lewandowski, a senior adviser to Noem, on Tuesday after her testimony to Congress, the BBC's US news partner CBS reported. Lewandowski is also now leaving the department.

Trump is reported to have called Republicans in Congress asking if he should fire Noem, a sign he was moving towards shaking up his immigration team this week. It is perhaps telling that some immediately backed his decision on Tuesday.

South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, for example, said "it was time for a change".

"A change in leadership at the Department of Homeland Security was long overdue," Representative Dan Newhouse said.

But Trump's frustration with Noem had been clear for months if not longer. The administration faced a major backlash for its immigration crackdown in Minneapolis in January, after federal agents shot dead two US citizens.

Trump sent White House border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis to lead the response, which resulted in a decision to scale back the operation. Homan's appointment was widely viewed as a rebuke to Noem, who might normally have been given the assignment.

Noem was also criticised for comments she made after the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, particularly her claim, made without evidence, that Pretti had "committed an act of domestic terrorism" before he was shot.

The deployment of Homan to take charge in Minnesota was a clear indication that Trump was sidelining Noem after giving her the freedom to act as the administration's immigration enforcement star.

The administration response to the killings of Good and Pretti in Minneapolis was a rare instance of Trump moderating his message on immigration - and a sign the White House was aware the hardline approach spearheaded by Noem was growing unpopular with the public.

Polls have indicated that a majority of Americans approve of some aspects of Trump's immigration agenda, but do not support the more aggressive tactics used by immigration agents in the field. That presents an issue for Republicans heading into an election year, and Noem's removal suggests Trump saw a need to make a change.

It is also the first major shakeup of Trump's second-term cabinet.

In his first term, Trump replaced his national security adviser, White House chief of staff and other top officials in his first year in office, oftentimes by announcing the firing in a Tweet. The turmoil in his team frequently overshadowed Trump's policies.

By contrast, Trump has kept his cabinet largely intact in his second term, avoiding the drama that engulfed his first stint in the White House. Whether Noem's departure means others will follow remains to be seen.

It is also an open question whether the shakeup will lead to a new direction in policy at the Deeartment of Homeland Security.

Mullin is a conservative Trump ally, and like Noem has long been a hardline immigration voice on the right. After Pretti's shooting Mullin said federal law enforcement officials were "patriots" facing death threats for doing their job.

"Obstructing federal law enforcement is a felony. Most Americans follow ICE instructions without thinking twice," Mullin said in a social media post.

More recently, he has criticised Democrats over a partial government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. The agency has been caught in a funding battle over proposed reforms to immigration enforcement.

In a scene reminiscent of Trump's first term, Noem was delivering a speech in the moments when Trump posted his social media message announcing her firing. She soon published a social media post of her own, thanking Trump for her new role.

Noem may be the first high-profile casualty of Trump's second term. But she may not be the last, as her demotion shows the president remains willing and able to read the political winds and cut his losses early.

Finland plans to lift its long-standing ban on having nuclear weapons on its territory, in a move the government says would align the country more closely with Nato's deterrence policy.

Defence minister Antti Häkkänen Finland and Europe's security environment had "fundamentally and significantly changed" since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022.

The Nordic nation abandoned decades of military neutrality to join Nato in 2023 over mounting concerns about the threat posed by Russia.

Under Finland's 1987 Nuclear Energy Act, the import, manufacture, possession and detonation of nuclear explosives is prohibited on Finnish soil - even during wartime.

The government proposal would change that, making it possible to "bring a nuclear weapon into Finland, or to transport, deliver or possess one in Finland, if it is connected to the military defence of Finland", Häkkänen said.

"The amendment is necessary to enable Finland's military defense as part of the alliance and to take full advantage of Nato's deterrence and collective defence," he told a news conference on Thursday.

Nato's founding principle of collective defence - that an attack on one member nation would be treated as an attack on all - underpins the alliance's nuclear deterrence stategy.

As it contains several nuclear powers, this means a direct attack on a member brings with it the risk of a nuclear attack. US nuclear weapons are stationed in several European nations, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation.

The Finnish government's proposal requires changes to both the country's Nuclear Energy Act and the criminal code.

Its governing right-wing coalition, which holds a majority in parliament, said the proposal had been circulated for consultation until 2 April before it is formally laid out.

Finland shares a 1,340km (832-mile) border with Russia - the longest of any EU or Nato member state - and its leaders have repeatedly warned that the country's security environment had deteriorated since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The Nordic nation became the 31st member of Nato in April 2023, widely seen as a strategic setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had long criticised the military alliance's eastward expansion. Its neighbour Sweden joined Nato in 2024.

Since then, Nato has increased its military presence in the Arctic and Baltic Sea, as well as along the newly expanded eastern flank.

The proposal comes as European countries step up defence co-operation in response to the war in Ukraine and broader global instability.

Several Nato states suffered air traffic disruption after drones were sighted over airports and airbases last year, which some European officials attributed to "hybrid warfare" on the part of Russia.

Moscow denied involvement, but the incidents prompted renewed discussions about collective defence.

On Monday, France and Germany announced plans to deepen co-operation with European partners on nuclear deterrence.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said last week that the country's doctrine of not stationing foreign troops or nuclear weapons on its territory "would not apply" if Sweden found itself "in a completely different situation".

Savannah Guthrie, a host of NBC's Today programme, has visited the network's office in New York as she makes plans to return to the airwaves while the search for her missing mother continues.

Guthrie's 84 year-old mother Nancy has been missing from her home in Arizona since 1 February, when authorities believe she was abducted. Few clues have emerged in the more than five weeks since.

Guthrie, meanwhile, has remained off air, although she has posted emotional pleas on social media for her mother's return.

Her co-host Jenna Bush Hager told viewers that Guthrie had visited and "she said that she has the intention to return to the show", but "I don't know when she's actually returning".

"Even though it feels like the hardest thing to do, it's also her home and where she feels so loved," said Bush Hager. "And she is beyond loved here."

No date has been set for Guthrie's return.Guthrie last appeared on the show on 30 January, two days before her mum's disappearance.

Guthrie also withdrew from NBC's Olympics Games coverage as the search for her mother intensified.

Last week the family offered a $1m (£750,000) reward for Nancy Guthrie's return.

The Pima County Sheriff's Office has said they believe her mother was "taken from the home against her will, possibly in the middle of the night and that includes possible kidnapping or abduction".

Investigators have released images of the prime suspect - a man captured on Nancy Guthrie's Nest doorbell camera.

Purported ransom notes demanding about $6m in cryptocurrency have been sent to media outlets, including one whose deadline expired on 9 February.

Detectives have received close to 40,000 tips from the public.

DNA evidence was recovered from a glove - similar to one worn by the suspect recorded on doorbell camera footage - that was found not far from her home, but it yielded no matches in a FBI database, authorities said.

The Ecuadorean military says it has seized a 35m-long (115ft) "narco submarine" hidden in a nature reserve near the country's border with Colombia.

The semi-submersible had been carrying 6,000 gallons (22,700 litres) of fuel and was ready to embark on "a long drug-smuggling voyage", Ecuador's ministry of defence said in a statement.

The discovery came shortly after Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa announced a "new phase" in his government's war on drug cartels.

Sandwiched between Colombia and Peru - the world's largest producers of cocaine - Ecuador has become a key country through which illicit drugs transit from South America to the US, Europe and as far as Australia.

Troops found the submarine in a mangrove swamp in the Cayapas–Mataje nature reserve.

They also found a camp nearby, which they said was being used by criminals as a logistics hub to prepare vessels for smuggling drugs.

As well as the 35m-long sub, the security forces also seized six speedboats, seven outboard motors and dozens of barrels of fuel.

The troops came under fire during the operation from "armed individuals", the defence ministry said.

There was no mention of any arrests being made or of any drugs seized in its statement.

Noboa has been working closely with the Trump administration to curb the flow of drugs from his country into the US.

Earlier this week, he discussed security co-operation with the commander of US Southern Command, Gen Francis Donovan, in the Ecuadorean capital, Quito.

But there was no immediate mention of the participation of US forces in the operation that seized the narco-sub in the swamp.

The US has, however, carried out dozens of strikes on boats suspected of carrying drugs in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean since it started "Operation Southern Spear" in September.

More than 150 people have been killed in those strikes.

US Congressman Tony Gonzales has admitted to having an extra-marital affair with an aide, having previously denied that the relationship happened.

The Texas Republican, who is married with six children, said the relationship with married staff member Regina Santos-Aviles, who died by suicide last year, was a "mistake" and a "lapse in judgement".

"I take full responsibility for my actions," Gonzales, 45, told a podcast.

His admission came hours after a House of Representatives panel launched an ethics investigation into the relationship, and ahead of a primary run-off election. Gonzales had previously dismissed the allegations as "blackmail" and a "coordinated" attack to unseat him.

The primary race to decide whether Gonzales can remain as the congressional district's Republican candidate is headed to a May run-off after neither Gonzales nor rival Brandon Herrera crossed the 50% vote threshold earlier this week.

Whoever becomes the party's nominee will stand in November's midterm election. The district, which runs along the US-Mexico border, is heavily Republican.

Gonzales was endorsed by US President Donald Trump before the affair allegations surfaced.

The lawmaker is now facing growing calls for his resignation, including from fellow Republicans. Among them are South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace, who has accused him of "predatory behaviour".

Santos-Aviles died in September 2025, after setting herself on fire near her home in Uvalde, Texas. The medical examiner ruled her death a suicide, according to the BBC's US partner CBS News.

In an interview released on Wednesday, Gonzales told conservative podcaster Joe Pags that Santos-Aviles' death had nothing to do with the affair, saying she was "thriving" at work.

"I had absolutely nothing to do with her tragic passing," he said. "And in fact, I was shocked just as much as everyone else."

The House Ethics Committee announced on Wednesday it was launching an investigation into whether Gonzales "engaged in sexual misconduct" towards one of his employees.

The panel will also examine whether he discriminated unfairly by "dispensing special favours or privileges".

In Wednesday's podcast interview, Gonzales said he did not reward Santos-Aviles more than other constituency staff.

A pay rise that she received was part of a "staff-wide pay increase", he said.

Gonzales said "there's a whole lot more to the story", without offering details. The BBC has contacted his office for comment.

"When you make mistakes like this, you know, it's never easy," Gonzales told the podcaster Pags. "It humbles you."

"I've asked God to forgive me, which he has," he added.

According to CBS, in explicit text messages from May 2024, Gonzales asked Santos-Aviles to send him a "sexy pic".

The aide, who was his regional district director in Uvalde, reportedly told him twice that he had gone "too far".

The following month, Santos-Aviles's husband, Adrian Aviles, appeared to send a text from her phone to Gonzales and other aides that said he had discovered "she's been having an affair on me with your boss Tony Gonzales for some time now".

In a recent interview with CBS, a lawyer for Aviles said that Santos-Aviles' mental health sharply declined following the end of her alleged relationship with the congressman.

"The deterioration of her mental state was exacerbated by the conduct Tony engaged in - the workplace harassment after the discovery of the affair," said the lawyer, Bobby Barrera.

The BBC has also asked Gonzales's office for comment on Barrera's remarks.

If you are suffering distress or despair and need support, you could speak to a health professional, or an organisation that offers support. Details of help available in many countries can be found at Befrienders Worldwide: www.befrienders.org. In the UK, a list of organisations that can help is available at bbc.co.uk/actionline. Readers in the US and Canada can call the 988 suicide helpline or visit its website.

The Israeli military has ordered hundreds of thousands of people to leave Beirut's southern suburbs, a stronghold of Hezbollah, as it steps up strikes targeting the Iran-backed armed group across Lebanon.

"Save your lives, evacuate your homes immediately," the military's Arabic spokesperson wrote on X, apparently signalling plans for intense bombardment.

Huge traffic jams formed on main roads heading north and south as panicked residents complied with the unprecedented blanket order covering the area.

On Wednesday, the military told all residents of a huge swathe of southern Lebanon near the Israeli border to leave ahead of a much-anticipated ground incursion.

Mohammed al-Khaouzam was among those stuck in traffic trying to flee Beirut's southern suburbs on Thursday afternoon.

"We're coming from Bir Hassan. They [the Israeli military] issued a warning so that's why we're leaving," he told the BBC.

Khaouzam, who is originally from Syria, is heading north with his wife and children. He described Lebanon as his "second country".

"May God help everyone. May God help all of the Lebanese," he said out of his car window.

A woman driving north said her children were in Beirut and had called her telling her about the warning to leave the suburbs of Chiyah, Burj al-Barajneh, Haret Hreik and Hadath.

She said she was going to stay with them, hoping it would be safe.

"Is there any place to go? What should I do?" she asked.

Lebanese authorities have said at least 102 people have been killed in Israeli strikes over the past four days. There have been no reports of fatalities by Israeli authorities.

Israeli aircraft have carried out waves of strikes targeting Hezbollah in Beirut's southern suburbs, southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley since Monday, when the group launched rockets and drones over the border in retaliation for the assassination of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

It pulled Lebanon into the war between Israel, the US and Iran, only 15 months after a ceasefire deal ended more than a year of full-on fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that devastated the country.

On Wednesday, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem vowed the Shia militia and political party would confront Israel "to the point of the utmost sacrifice, to the furthest limits", adding: "We will not surrender."

It came a day after the Israeli military's chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, said it was "determined to eliminate the threat Hezbollah poses and will not stop until the terror organisation is disarmed".

The Israeli military said on Thursday that it had carried out strikes overnight on several Hezbollah command centres in Beirut, which it alleged were intended to be used to plan and carry out attacks on Israeli troops and civilians.

The Lebanese health ministry said at least three people were killed in Israeli air strikes on vehicles on the main road to the city's airport.

A residential building on the outskirts of Beirut was struck late on Wednesday, but locals said they believed no-one had been there at the time.

Speaking to the BBC on Thursday morning, several people said they had left the building at the beginning of the week and were staying elsewhere because of safety concerns, noting that the area had been targeted in the past. They said they did not know, or would not comment on, what the target may have been.

"We moved away on Monday because of fears that something would happen. Today, we were supposed to come for a shower and to pick up our stuff and we found this," one woman said, as she and her husband looked at the wreckage.

"Thank god it was just our things and not us."

The Israeli military has not commented on the strike.

The military did, however, say that it had killed "several Hezbollah terrorists" who were operating in southern Lebanon overnight.

Lebanon's state-run National News Agency later reported that the mukhtar, or mayor, of the southern town of Kfour and his wife in an air strike on their home.

It said a Hamas official, Wasim Attallah al-Ali, and his wife were also killed in the Baddawi Palestinian refugee camp near the northern city of Tripoli.

The Israeli military said it targeted Ali because he was a commander of Hamas's military wing and was responsible for training its fighters in Lebanon.

The BBC also visited the southern city of Sidon, where apartment building was destroyed in an Israeli strike.

The Israeli military issued an evacuation order in advance, describing the building as "Hezbollah military infrastructure".

People living nearby said they believed everyone left the area following the warning and that no-one was killed.

"There was nothing here. Only people," cafe owner Ahmed called down from the balcony of an apartment next to the destroyed building.

"Show the Israelis there's nothing. Show them we're civilians," a woman said as she walked past.

A man sitting nearby said: "There are displaced people who came so maybe that's why?"

France's President Emmanuel Macron has called for an end to the hostilities, describing this as a "moment of great danger" for Lebanon.

"Everything must be done to prevent this country, so close to France, from once again being drawn into war. The Lebanese have a right to peace and security - like everyone in the Middle East," he said in a statement shared on X.

Macron added that he had spoken today with Lebanon's "highest authorities in order to establish a plan to bring an end to the military operations currently being carried out by Hezbollah and Israel on either side of the border".

"Hezbollah must immediately cease its fire toward Israel. Israel must refrain from any ground intervention or large-scale operation on Lebanese territory," he said.

The president also said that France would immediately dispatch humanitarian aid for the tens of thousands of civilians who have been displaced.

Iran's military posture in a widening conflict with Israel and the US suggests it is not fighting for victory in any conventional sense. It is fighting for survival, and survival on its own terms.

The Islamic Republic's leaders and commanders have been preparing for this moment for years.

They understood that their regional ambitions could eventually trigger a direct confrontation with Israel or the US, and that a war with one would almost certainly draw in the other. That pattern was evident in the 12-day war last summer, when Israel struck first and the US joined days later.

In the current round of fighting, they launched strikes on Iran simultaneously.

Given the technological superiority, intelligence capabilities and advanced military hardware of the US and Israel, it would be naive to think Iranian strategists were planning for a straightforward battlefield victory.

Instead, Iran appears to have built a strategy around deterrence and endurance. It has invested heavily in layered ballistic missile capabilities, long-range drones and a network of allied armed groups across the region over the past decade.

It understands its own limitations: US mainland territory is out of reach but American bases across the region - specifically in neighbouring Arab countries - are not. Israel also lies well within range of Iranian missiles and drones, and recent exchanges have demonstrated that its air defence systems can be penetrated. Each projectile that goes through those systems carries not just military but psychological weight.

Iran's calculus rests partly on the economics of war. Interceptors used by Israel and the US are much more expensive than many of the one-way drones and missiles deployed by Iran. Prolonged conflict forces the US and Israel to use up high-value assets to intercept comparatively low-cost threats.

Energy is another lever in the war economy.

The Strait of Hormuz remains one of the world's most critical chokepoints for oil and gas shipments. Iran does not need to close the narrow Gulf waterway entirely - even credible threats and limited disruptions have already pushed prices up and, if continued, may increase international pressure for de-escalation.

In this sense, escalation becomes a tool not necessarily to defeat Iran's opponents militarily but instead to raise the cost of continuing the war.

This brings us to attacks on neighbouring countries.

Missile and drone strikes on states such as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Iraq appear designed to signal that hosting US forces carries risks.

Tehran may hope these governments will press Washington to limit or halt operations - but this is a dangerous gamble. To expand attacks further risks hardening their hostility and pushing these states more firmly into the US-Israel camp.

The long-term consequences could outlast the war itself, reshaping regional alignments in ways that leave Iran more isolated.

If survival is the primary objective, then widening the circle of enemies is a high-stakes move. Yet from Tehran's perspective, restraint may appear equally risky if it signals weakness.

Reports that local commanders may be selecting targets or launching missiles with relative autonomy raises further questions.

If accurate, this would not necessarily indicate the collapse of command structures. Iran's military doctrine, particularly within the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), has long incorporated decentralised elements to ensure continuity under heavy attack.

Communication networks are vulnerable to interception and jamming. Senior commanders have been targeted. Air superiority by the US and Israel limits central oversight. Under such conditions, pre-authorised target lists and delegated launch authority could be deliberate safeguards against decapitation.

This structure may explain how Iranian forces have continued operating after the killing of senior IRGC figures and even after the killing of Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader and commander-in-chief, in the opening US-Israeli strikes on Saturday.

But decentralisation carries risks. Local commanders acting with incomplete information may strike unintended targets, including neighbouring states that had sought neutrality.

The absence of a unified operational picture increases the probability of miscalculation. If this continues for long, it could also result in the loss of command and control.

Ultimately, Iran's approach appears to rest on a belief that it can absorb punishment longer than its adversaries are willing to sustain pain and costs.

If this is the case, then it is a form of calculated escalation: endure, retaliate, avoid total collapse and wait for political fractures to emerge on the other side.

Yet endurance has limits. Missile stockpiles are limited and production lines are constantly under attack. Mobile launchers are targeted on the move and replacing them takes time.

The same logic applies to Iran's opponents.

Israel has not been able to rely completely on its air defence systems. Each breach amplifies public anxiety. The US must weigh regional escalation, energy market volatility and the financial burden of sustained operations.

Both sides seem to assume that time favours them. Both cannot be right.

In this war, the Islamic Republic does not need triumph. It needs to remain standing.

Whether that objective is achievable, and without permanently alienating its neighbours, remains the unanswered question.

A sense of normality is slowly returning to Israel, even as large-scale Israeli-American attacks on Iran show no sign of abating, and as Israel expands its offensive in Lebanon against the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah.

Six days on, as the intensity of the Iranian retaliation has diminished, measures that banned gatherings and closed shops and offices are being relaxed here. Air raid alerts still sound, sending people across the country to shelters.

Chaya Dekel, who is in her 70s, said she had lost count of many wars she had seen. She was tired, she said, but defended the war as Iran "didn't want peace".

"We're living here, with hope that there will be an end," she said. "Everybody is Israel hopes we'll live in peace with our people and our neighbours."

Support for the war is strong in this country. A poll released by the Israel Democracy Institute on Wednesday suggested that 93% of the Jewish public were in favour of it, compared with 26% among Israeli Arabs.

"This is actually a consensus," Prof Tamar Hermann, a senior research fellow who helped carry out the survey, said. "Even during the last campaign against Iran, we didn't have such high numbers."

One of the reasons behind that, she said, was the fact that the damage in Israel from Iran's retaliatory strikes had been "very, very limited".

This is due to Israel's sophisticated air defences - a multi-layered system of protection that, according to officials, has intercepted between 80% to 90% of the projectiles fired at the country in this war. So far, the attacks have killed 10 people across Israel.

Another factor, Prof Hermann said, was that public trust in the military and the intelligence services has recovered after the security failures that led to the attacks on 7 October 2023 led by Hamas - one of the militant groups in the region that Iran has supported to form a so-called "ring of fire" around Israel.

But, crucially, there is also unity over the Iranian issue which, for decades, has been framed by many as an "existential threat". That includes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

From his 1995 book Fighting Terrorism to his famous speech at the United Nations General Assembly in 2012, when he displayed the illustration of a bomb to explain how close, in his view, Iran was to obtaining a nuclear weapon, Netanyahu has repeatedly told the world that Iran must be stopped.

Last June, Netanyahu, who is Israel's longest-serving prime minister and the leader of the most right-wing government in the country's history, ordered an attack on Iran that significantly damaged its nuclear and military capabilities.

The US eventually joined the conflict, which became known as the 12-Day War.

The campaign was celebrated as a success in Israel, helping boost domestic support for the army.

Earlier this year, Iran's security forces brutally repressed anti-government protests, killing thousands of people.

The demonstrations exposed huge public discontent amid mounting questions about the legitimacy of rule by the clerics and an economy in deep crisis.

With the leadership under pressure, Iran's defences downgraded and its proxies weakened, Israel and the US saw an opportunity to attack Iran that was not to be missed.

President Donald Trump deployed what he described as an "armada" to the Middle East - marking the largest US military build-up in the region since the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

But neither him nor Netanyahu has clearly laid out what imminent threat Iran presented which required the use of military force or what their objectives were of this latest war, which Iran says is illegal and unjustified.

Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, have publicly said they hope it could lead to regime change in Iran.

For now, this is an unlikely scenario, even after the killing of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in an air strike on his compound in Tehran on the first day of the war.

Khamenei had repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel, as well as urging crowds chanting "Death to America" every week.

The war, Netanyahu said earlier this week, will "usher in an era of peace that we haven't even dreamed of".

He also laughed at the suggestion that he had dragged the US into this conflict, describing it as "ridiculous".

In the US, where public support for Israel has declined sharply in the wake of the war against Hamas in Gaza, just one in every four Americans support the strikes on Iran, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

The perception that this is a conflict to defend Israel's interests could damage Israel's image in the US even further.

In Israel, however, there has been very little criticism of Netanyahu's decision to go to war, even from his opponents.

And according to the Israel Democracy Institute poll, among Jews, 57% believe that the bombing should not stop until the current Iranian rulers are overthrown.

"[Israelis] see that the people of Iran share this goal...so they believe this is the opportunity [to do it] with the Israelis and Americans from the air, and the people of Iran on the ground," said Prof Meir Javedanfar, an Israeli-Iranian analyst and professor at Reichman University in Herzliya.

"I don't think they realise how difficult that is."

At the same time, many in Israel are tired.

"It's been five years of constant upheaval. It was the judicial reform [plans by the government to limit the powers of the Constitutional court which led to huge protests], then 7 October, then Iran a year ago. Now we have this, and we've had Lebanon in the middle," Tom Dan said after leaving a bomb shelter.

"Obviously, a lot of other people are living tougher lives...but there's this feeling that this is a good cause. This [Iranian] regime was hell bent on destroying Israel."

But have Israelis become too happy to embrace militarism?

"I certainly would say that, on the radical right, people are much more eager to deal with the regional problems by force," Prof Hermann said.

"They see it as something that separates Israeli Jews from diasporic Jews. For example, we're strong. We're capable of defending ourselves.

"And all this mumbo-jumbo of diplomatic negotiations is something that won't save us once there is someone in Tehran that is interested in destroying us."

Rut Spigler, a 19-year-old student on a gap year, was helping clean up the site that was hit by an Iranian missile in Tel Aviv the morning after the attack.

"The times the Israeli people most came together were the wars with Iran because that's a goal that we believe in," she said.

"Maybe this one will be the last war and we'll have some peace and quiet."

There is a small minority, though, who question the reasons for starting a new war.

Ron, who did not want to give his full name, owns a coffee shop in central Tel Aviv.

"I feel sadness, fear and frustration, and it's a bad time for Israel. Israel should not attack Iran - it not the police of the world," he said. "[There's] no right under international law...you don't have the right to attack a nation far away from here."

In a small flat in a social housing complex near Caracas, Adriana Briceño holds up what looks like a piece of rubbish, but hidden on the old chocolate bar wrapper is a message.

The words scrawled on it were written by her son and are addressed to Ángel Godoy, the boy's father and Briceño's husband, while Ángel Godoy was a prisoner in Venezuela's notorious El Helicoide jail.

"Daddy, take this to sweeten things a little," reads the blue ink. "We love you."

Originally built in the 1950s as a luxury shopping centre, El Helicoide was never completed and was later taken over by Venezuela's feared intelligence services.

It became a symbol of government repression.

A United Nations investigation documented it was where people who had been arbitrarily arrested or forcibly disappeared were taken and, in some cases, tortured.

Recently released detainees like Godoy have described brutal conditions in interviews with the BBC.

He is one of the hundreds of political prisoners arrested under President Nicolás Maduro and held in Venezuela's vast detention system, sometimes for years.

More than 600 people have been released since Maduro was seized by US forces in a military operation at the start of January, but according to prisoners' rights group Foro Penal, hundreds more are still behind bars.

Godoy is one of two inmates who has described to the BBC the punishment cells, enforced isolation and threats to family members that they faced before they were released.

"They handcuffed me, beat me, insulted me, and put a balaclava on me as they put me inside a patrol car," says rights activist Javier Tarazona, as he describes the moment he was arrested in July 2021.

He knew he was on the radar of Venezuela's state security agencies, but he still found it difficult to process what was going on.

"The first few hours were terrible," Tarazona says, recalling the beginning of an ordeal that would last more than four and a half years.

After his arrest, he was taken to a tiny punishment cell, where all new prisoners were sent. It was infested with rats and cockroaches, and smelt "nauseating".

Tarazona, the head of human rights NGO Fundaredes, came to the attention of the authorities because he had called for a formal investigation to be launched into alleged links between high-ranking Venezuelan government officials and guerrilla groups in neighbouring Colombia.

He was arrested alongside his brother, José. The pair were held together with another activist in a tiny cell.

The room was so small, they had to take turns if they wanted to lie down, and placed a piece of cardboard over a sewer hole as a makeshift mattress.

Prisoners' rights group Foro Penal says these small punishment cells, known as "little tigers", are a common feature of the Venezuelan prison system.

"We spent 46 days there," Tarazona says. "Then they decided to move us to another space off the same hallway, which was a little bigger, but just as disgusting - just as depressing."

They could not see daylight and had no way to work out if it was day or night. The guards used to give them meals at irregular hours to mess with their sense of time, he adds.

For Godoy, the biggest strain was not the conditions he was kept in but being separated from his loved ones - "the torture of not knowing where your family members are, how they are, because they cut you off - they isolate you from the world".

​​The political activist says he was detained without warning outside of his home by a large group of security officials.

He was then held without any contact with his family for 96 days. "I have to assume the aim is to break you," he says of that period.

After more than three months had passed, he says one of the prison staff told him that the authorities were considering allowing his wife, Adriana, to phone him, but only if she agreed to tone down her presence on social media and in the press.

Adriana Briceño says that following her husband's arrest she was fired from her job at the state-run telecoms company without being given a reason, even though she had worked there for 21 years.

She said that being alone at home with her son made her feel so vulnerable, she decided to move. "I was terrified that people might show up and break into my home."

For the first few weeks after her husband's arrest, she did not even know where he was being held.

It took 25 days for officials to finally confirm that he was inside El Helicoide, and only then was she allowed to take him clothes, medicine and bed sheets.

It took even longer - 96 days - for her to be granted regular visits.

Tarazona says his family also came under pressure from the authorities.

"In the middle of an interrogation, an official said: 'Do you know this woman?'"

The official was holding a photo of Tarazona's 70-year-old mother, whom authorities had arrested.

Tarazona says the man then issued a threat: "Give me the video I'm asking for, or your mother will go to jail."

The prison authorities wanted Javier to agree to be recorded accusing other activists of committing crimes.

"I always refused," he says. "I always refused because I knew my mother would overcome that ordeal." Hours later, she was released.

Another issue weighed on Tarazona's mind, though. He felt responsible for his brother ending up in jail alongside him.

His brother was not part of the NGO Tarzona had been running. He had just been driving him on the day of the arrest.

"I felt a great deal of guilt," Tarazona explains. "My brother kept telling me that because of my fight, he was paying for something that wasn't his responsibility. And that was a burden."

Both Tarazona and Godoy deny committing any of the crimes they were accused of and say they never received proper legal representation after they were detained.

Tarazona says he was denied the right to hire his own lawyer and was only allowed to see a court-appointed one seven months after he was imprisoned, even though he was facing charges of treason, terrorism, and incitement to hatred.

During his 1,675 days in detention, he says he saw a lawyer fewer than five times.

Godoy was charged with terrorism, hate crimes, and incitement to armed action, but says he never saw the case file against him and never knew who his defence lawyer was, despite being held for over a year.

BBC Mundo contacted Venezuela's attorney general, the ministry of information, and the ministry of defence for comment on the allegations made by former prisoners, but had not received a response by the time of publication.

Tarazona says he has not allowed the experience to make him angry. During his imprisonment, the guards discovered a book and some letters he had been writing.

As punishment he was placed in an isolation cell.

"I found light in that ordeal and from that pain," he explains. "I found an opportunity to reflect and work on forgiveness.

"I left convinced that Venezuelans need to move towards reconciliation, to come together again, because this situation we are living through is a tragedy, a trans-generational trauma."

Back at her family home, Adriana Briceño holds up an old T-shirt with a few sentences scrappily scrawled on it in pen.

The messages on chocolate bars were how the family would send notes to Godoy in prison, and this was how he would reply – by writing on dirty laundry taken out of the jail.

"Adriana, you are the most beautiful woman in the world," it reads. There is also message to his son: "Go and excel in your classes, okay?"

"Ways of sending messages like this emerged in El Helicoide," Godoy says. "They served as a bridge between many prisoners and their families."

Though he had been allowed visits from his wife following the agreement they made with authorities, these secret, personal messages still meant a lot to them.

Venezuela's interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, told the country's parliament in January that El Helicoide would be turned into a social, sports and cultural centre for police families and communities in the surrounding area.

While the release of prisoners from the jail has been welcomed, some rights groups have described this move as an attempt to whitewash the facility's past.

Like Tarazona, Godoy hopes the country can move forward peacefully.

"After all that abuse, after all that cruelty, after all that evil, it seems unbelievable that I'm asking people, [that] I'm asking my fellow political prisoners, too, to get that out of here, out of our hearts," he says. "Every trace of hatred, of resentment, of bitterness, of discontent."

"Let the country's interests come first, regardless of political party or ambition. Let us move forward without hatred, resentment, or bitterness to build that wonderful Venezuela."

Produced and edited by Peter Ball

On Sunday 1 February, a yellow, blue and white Sudan Airways jet landed on the runway at Khartoum International Airport. As 160 passengers stepped off the aircraft, they cheered, hugged each other and took selfies. This was only the second commercial flight to arrive in the city since 2023 - a significant milestone given the continued threat of drone attacks in a country riven by civil war.

Weeks earlier, Sudan's prime minister had declared 2026 would be "the year of peace". Kamil Idris spoke in January as the military-led government announced its ministries would return to the country's shattered capital.

Almost a year ago I saw Khartoum for myself - driving carefully around unexploded munitions on the tarmac, touring the wrecked passenger halls in the airport's terminal, just days after Sudan's army recaptured it from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The city had been the epicentre of a civil war that erupted in April nearly three years ago, leaving its centre a burnt-out shell and exiling the government to the safer haven of Port Sudan on the Red Sea.

The devastation was stunning: government ministries, banks and towering office blocks stood blackened and burned.

I toured the shattered presidential palace, even now still too damaged to be used, and the British embassy, its pockmarked, bullet-proof glass bearing testimony to intense fire fights, its rooms looted.

It felt then like a seismic moment in a war that has inflicted epic destruction, death, famine and human rights violations on civilians, plunging Sudan into what the UN has called "an abyss of unfathomable proportions".

On a later trip, I went to a tent camp in army-controlled territory to speak with people who'd managed to escape the fall of el-Fasher in October and heard stories of mass killings and sexual violence.

The takeover of the city in the western Darfur region was a major victory for the RSF. But the evidence of atrocities carried out by its fighters was such that it triggered an international outcry.

For a moment then, too, it had seemed that world powers might finally intervene to stop the endless suffering.

Yet despite the condemnations and expressions of horror, nothing changed and fighting continues to rage away from the capital - with the rest of the world's attention focused elsewhere on air strikes across the Middle East.

As the start of Sudan's dreadful conflict approaches its third anniversary, the flight may have offered a glimpse of normality - but the fundamentals underpinning the fighting remain untouched. So if international outrage has not been enough to overcome them, what could actually compel both sides to end the civil war?

Sudan has been at war in some form or another most of the time since its independence from British colonial rule in 1956 – 58 out of the past 70 years.

But the previous conflicts were fought on the periphery, away from Khartoum. This one has torn through the country's core, displacing unprecedented numbers of people, hardening divisions and threatening to split the nation.

It started as a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF, a paramilitary force appointed by and loyal to the country's long-time former military ruler Omar al-Bashir, who was deposed in 2019 following widespread public protests.

Bashir had empowered Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as Hemedti, to run the RSF as a praetorian guard to protect him against possible challenges from within the army.

Following Bashir's departure, tensions between Hemedti and the army chief Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan erupted into wider violence.

At first "there was a consensus that this is not a Sudanese war but a war within the security state", says the Sudanese political analyst Kholood Khair, founder of the Confluence Advisory think tank.

But then both sides broadened their coalitions and grafted their narratives onto grievances as old as the foundation of the state.

These are rooted in an embedded culture of cronyism and kleptocracy that sees Sudan's military controlling vast amounts of the country's economy. Hemedti, a camel trader turned successful businessman, accrued much wealth from his position as head of a powerful paramilitary force.

But as someone from the western Darfur region, he positioned himself as the champion of the disgruntled and of deprived areas beyond the capital.

He now frames the conflict in existential terms, declaring the RSF a revolutionary force aiming to dismantle the "1956 state" - shorthand for the military-dominated state apparatus - and to start again with its own self-declared rival government headquartered in Darfur.

The Sudanese Armed Forces also define the war as an existential struggle, a rebellion by a "terrorist militia".

"There is strong resistance within the army to legitimise the RSF in any way, including by accepting its control of territory through a ceasefire agreement," says Ahmed Soliman, a senior Horn of Africa researcher at the UK's Chatham House think tank.

Both sides have weaponised long-standing ethnic divides between the nomadic Arabs in the south and west – who form the core of RSF support – and the Nile Valley Arabs from cities and farms, who rule the country.

A regional history of ethnic violence in Darfur has also been reignited, with RSF Arab militias massacring non-Arab populations in atrocities that UN experts say show "hallmarks" of genocide.

On top of this, the war is being fuelled by foreign powers who have a direct stake in the outcome or see the conflict as a way to expand their influence.

There is widely documented evidence that the United Arab Emirates supplies weapons to the RSF – something Abu Dhabi officially denies.

Sudan's military has deployed Turkish and Iranian drones, and it has received political and other backing from Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Many think the best diplomatic hope is talks by the so-called Quad nations - the United States, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt. This is a mechanism "to mediate between regional actors more so than it is the warring parties", says Chatham House's Soliman. But there are enormous obstacles to reaching an agreement.

The RSF has verbally accepted a Quad roadmap for peace beginning with a humanitarian truce, but neither side has formally responded and fighting has accelerated rather than abated.

Burhan, the army chief, says he cannot agree to the plan unless the RSF accepts conditions that amount to surrender. The army also opposes the involvement in the talks of the UAE, which it accuses of backing the RSF.

Furthermore, the roadmap explicitly rejects any Islamist influence in Sudan's future. Analysts such as Soliman see Abu Dhabi's hand here, as the Emiratis have made their antipathy to an Islamist-controlled government clear - a sentiment shared by many anti-war Sudanese civilians.

It's widely believed that's one of the reasons the UAE is motivated to back the RSF.

Islamist militias are an important part of the army war effort. And the Islamist establishment, although weakened by the 2019 revolution, still has influence.

That makes it difficult for Burhan to accept these terms.

US envoy Massad Boulos says he has a revised plan and is "cautiously optimistic" of getting agreement soon on a humanitarian truce.

But for a ceasefire to hold it would have to be accompanied by an agreement that regional backers stop arming the parties - and that will not be easy to achieve.

"Obviously, trying to produce a ceasefire when everyone's pouring weapons into the country doesn't work," says Alan Boswell, Horn of Africa analyst for the International Crisis Group.

Official ambiguity over the role of the UAE makes it a difficult part of the equation to solve.

Numerous investigative reports citing flight data and satellite images have documented the Emiratis' involvement in transferring weapons and mercenaries to RSF-controlled territory, with evidence the UN has called credible.

But Abu Dhabi forcefully denies this – and has told the BBC it "categorically rejects allegations that it has provided, financed, transported or facilitated any weapons, ammunition, drones, vehicles, guided munitions or other military equipment to the RSF, whether directly or indirectly".

The UAE has called for a full arms embargo across Sudan, something army supporters reject because they argue it creates parity between a militia and a national government, says Boswell.

"Those are the sort of bogs this ends up getting stuck in," he says.

Abu Dhabi's role came under increasing scrutiny after the RSF capture of el-Fasher following an 18-month siege, during which its forces recorded their own mass killings of unarmed people amid widespread accounts of sexual violence and detentions.

Just days after the city fell, I joined a call with seasoned humanitarian activists who were seething with anger and clear about which steps should be taken.

"The UAE cares immensely about how it curates its global reputation," says Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International. "The strongest point of leverage that Washington or anyone has is to puncture that public image. And so the US should be calling that out."

Secretary of State Marco Rubio came close to doing so.

"We know who the parties are that are involved (in weapons supply)," he said in November. "That's why they're part of the Quad along with other countries involved. Pressure is being applied to the relevant parties."

But Rubio did not name the party, and analysts agree the Trump administration is unlikely to do so, let alone apply pressure by targeting the UAE's assets, as suggested by advocacy groups.

"It's quite a difficult circle to square for them," says Khair, the Sudanese political analyst. "The US has to figure out how to allay the concerns of, as well as appease, its foreign friends who are actively involved in this war, in particular Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. And it hasn't yet figured out how to do that."

Soliman says that the US government has been "hedging its bets because it doesn't really want to choose between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which would damage wider relationships" with the countries involved.

The search for a solution is made harder by tussles involving nearby powers – with some analysts comparing Sudan's war to a modern-day scramble for Africa.

And the landscape has become even more tricky in recent months, as other members of the Quad become more actively involved in the war.

Egypt has begun bombing RSF supply convoys and other targets with a powerful model of Turkish combat drone from a remote airstrip near its south-western border with Sudan, according to investigations carried out by the New York Times and the Reuters News agency – something on which Cairo has not commented.

The escalation came after fighting moved closer to Egypt's border.

It may also have been influenced by more muscular support for the army from Saudi Arabia, as Riyadh seeks to push back on Emirati influence in the region.

Tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been building and in December relations between the two Gulf powers ruptured over the conflict in Yemen - with potential consequences for any chance of a solution in Sudan.

To achieve peace, talks would have to deal with the root causes of the conflict - particularly the fact that both sides have reasons why it might suit them for the war to continue.

If a ceasefire could be agreed, in the short term it could provide some respite to the civilians trapped in the world's worst humanitarian crisis – including 25 million people facing acute food shortages and 12 million people displaced.

But many fear it wouldn't lead to lasting peace.

"I don't really see a humanitarian truce working," says Boswell.

"It's become so existential that neither party would agree to stop their operations unless it was part of a broader deal that sorted out the most important questions of what comes next, because neither side would trust the other to actually stop."

And although this is a national struggle between two powerhouses of Sudan's security state, it is being driven at the local level by marginalised ethnic groups – allied to the RSF – who see it as their chance to get better access to resources and better representation, or just to get their slice of the war economy.

At the same time, the Islamist establishment has seen opportunity in the war.

"They don't want it to end before they've positioned themselves for a comeback," says Kholood Khair.

There is also the question of accountability. The army and the paramilitaries, along with their allied militias, all stand accused of war crimes, ethnically targeted atrocities and the mass killings of civilians - raising the prospect of post-war prosecutions for military leaders.

So political negotiations would most likely need to include a formula for armed actors to retain some of their gains and soften some of the consequences of laying down their weapons. But even this might not be enough.

Civilian rule – the stated goal of the Quad roadmap – would also mean a loss of income for the security forces, Khair adds.

"A permanent end to the conflict would require demilitarising Sudan and a new constitution that enshrines rights and access to resources," she says, but these "are precisely the things that the security complex in Sudan does not want".

Effective and dedicated mediation would also be required. But while the Trump administration has made serious efforts, its staying power and attention span are in question.

"The US isn't going to be involved in a peace process for the long haul," says Soliman. "And nobody else is presenting a coherent follow-up mechanism."

In September 2024 I asked a senior Sudanese defence official how long he thought the war would last – ominously, he compared the conflict to America's 20-year battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

He needn't have looked that far afield. History shows all of Sudan's wars have been long - one of them lasted more than 20 years.

But another protracted conflict could bring with it new dangers – including the potential for the country to split, or fragment.

"We're only in year three of this war," says Khair. "If it continues for another 10, 15, 20 years, as history tells us is likely, then we could see the balkanisation of Sudan."

That is a worrying scenario for the entire region.

Already the conflict has drawn in Sudan's neighbours - all seven of them are hosting Sudanese refugees. There's evidence some are serving as conduits for RSF weapons and other supplies, as well as warning signs that the violence could cross borders and aggravate internal tensions.

Perhaps the dangers of a destructive stalemate might eventually lead the powerful backers of Sudan's warring parties to rethink their strategies, says Soliman.

"A fragmented, insecure and highly unstable Sudan is not beneficial to them," he says. "That's the one grain I hope will push the regional actors to come together at some point to make some concessions and chart a way forward. I don't envisage anything else being feasible."

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US President Donald Trump claims his country has a "virtually unlimited supply" of key weapons. Iran's Defence Ministry says it has "the capacity to resist the enemy" for longer than the US had planned.

Weapons stocks and supplies alone will not decide the outcome of this conflict – Ukraine has long been outnumbered and outgunned by Russia – but it's certainly a significant factor.

The tempo of operations has been high from the the start. Both sides will already be using up weapons faster than they can be produced.

The Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) estimates that the US and Israel have already carried out more than 2,000 strikes, each involving multiple munitions.

The INSS says Iran has already launched 571 missiles and 1,391 drones. Many will have been intercepted. For both sides, this level of combat will become harder to sustain the longer the war drags on.

Western officials say they have already seen a decrease in the number of missiles Iran is firing – down from hundreds in the first day of the war to dozens now.

Before the war, it was estimated that Iran had a stockpile of more than 2,000 short-range ballistic missiles. No military publishes precise numbers on how many weapons they have at their disposal, as such figures remain classified to keep adversaries in the dark.

America's top commander, Gen Dan Caine, said on Wednesday that Iran's ballistic missile launches were down 86% from the first day of the fighting on Saturday. US Central Command (Centcom) says there's been a 23% decrease in just the last 24 hours.

Iran was believed to have mass-produced tens of thousands of its Shahed one-way attack drones before the war. It's exported the technology to Russia – which has been using their version of the Shahed to devastating effect in Ukraine. Even the US has copied the design.

But Caine said Iran's drone launches had dropped by 73% since the first day of the conflict. Iran appears to be struggling to maintain a high tempo of operations.

It is still possible this dramatic decline may be an attempt to preserve stockpiles – but maintaining production will only become harder.

US and Israeli jets now have air supremacy over Iran. Most of Iran's air defences have been destroyed. It no longer has a credible air force. Centcom says the next phase of the war is focused on hunting down Iran's missile and drone launchers, its weapons stockpiles, and destroying the factories that produce them.

It may now be easier for the US and Israel to degrade Iran's ability to fight. But it'll be difficult to destroy all its weapons stockpiles.

Iran is a country three times the size of France. Weapons can still be hidden from the sky.

Recent history also shows the limitations of wars fought from the air. Israel's military has still not destroyed Hamas in Gaza after more three years of intensive bombing. Houthi rebels in Yemen survived a year-long US bombing campaign – as did some of their weapons.

The US remains the world's most powerful military. Its conventional stockpiles will be deeper than any other country.

But the US military still largely relies on expensive precision-guided weapons that are produced in limited quantities. Trump is reported to have called a meeting with defence contractors later this week to press them to speed up production. It's an indication that even America's resources might be stretched.

Some of the pressure may have eased now that the US has relative freedom to carry out strikes at close range.

Caine said the US had already moved from using "stand-off weapons" – more costly and sophisticated long-range weapons such as Tomahawk cruise missiles. The US Air Force is now using less expensive "stand-in" weapons – like JDAM bombs – with which can be dropped above a target.

Mark Cancian, a former US Marine colonel with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), says that, after the initial attack from a distance, the US "can now use less expensive missiles and bombs".

He says the US could keep that level of fighting going on "almost indefinitely". The longer the war lasts, the list of targets also gets smaller – meaning a gradual slowing down in the tempo of operations.

Mark Cancian says the US has tens of thousands of JDAM bombs – but expensive air defence systems are in shorter supply. In the initial stages of the conflict, those have been essential to defeating the threat from Iranian retaliatory attacks.

Patriot missiles have been in high demand – not just from the US but also its Arab allies and Ukraine. Each interceptor missile costs more than $4m (£3m) and the US is believed to currently produce around 700 a year. If Iran is still able to launch ballistic missiles, it will eat into these limited stockpiles.

CSIS expert Cancian estimates that the US may have stockpiles of around 1,600 Patriot missiles – which in recent days will have been depleted. While he says the US can keep the air-to-ground war going for a "long time", the air defence war is "more iffy".

"If President Trump is willing to draw down on the number of Patriots, then I think we can outlast the Iranians – but it will come at a cost of risk in a potential Pacific conflict."

The fact that Trump is set to meet US defence firms later this week is a sign that there is some concern about weapons stocks. But the US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth insists "Iran can't outlast us". On this, he's probably right.

Twenty-two-year-old Abeba Amdu has seen some of the best years of her life consumed by war - and she has no wish to see another conflict in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region, which some fear could be about to break out.

She went to the front lines in 2020 as a Tigrayan soldier to fight in the civil war against the federal army and remains deeply traumatised by her ordeal more than three years after the end of the brutal conflict.

"I lost everything," she tells BBC Tigrinya.

Before the war, Abeba had been a rising football star. Playing since the age of seven, she eventually became a striker for the 70 Enderta female football team at 17.

She saw herself as a feminist, taking on traditional attitudes about women's participation in sport. The teenager was also an outstanding student, studying IT in Tigray's main city of Mekelle, and had a clear vision for her future.

Then the world she knew halted abruptly. First there was the coronavirus pandemic, leading to the suspension of her studies. Then war broke out.

"I was not a believer in war, because I knew what my parents went through," she says.

Abeba was referring to the fact that her mother and father bore the scars of the long and brutal war that finally ended in 1991 with the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) overthrowing Ethiopia's then ruler Mengistu Haile Mariam.

The TPLF went on to dominate the federal government until 2018, when current Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office following huge demonstrations against its repressive rule.

The TPLF then retreated to its stronghold of Tigray, and had a massive fall-out with Abiy over the future direction of the country.

Conflict between the two sides then broke out in 2020, with neighbouring Eritrea entering the war on the side of the federal army.

It ended two years later following a peace deal brokered by the African Union (AU). Its envoy, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, put the number of people who died in the conflict at around 600,000.

For Abeba, the call to arms was not just a choice: it was an inheritance of duty.

Growing up in a household steeped in the lore of the TPLF, she was raised on stories of her father's sacrifices from 50 years ago fighting the Mengistu regime. Patriotism and commitment were the very fabric of her upbringing.

But her decision to join the TPLF's armed wing, the Tigray Defence Forces (TDF), was also a desperate response to the fear of being raped as she became aware of women who were sexually abused by the "enemy".

"The perpetrators did not come for one person; I would have had the same fate as the victims. It was the whole situation that forced me to fight."

The thrill of sport gave way to the reality of war. There was constant hunger and a lack of basic necessities, including sanitary pads.

However, the end of the war did not bring the peace Abeba had expected. Returning to her family and her career proved to be its own kind of battlefield.

"Both my body and my mind are traumatised."

She finds herself struggling with isolation - feeling misunderstood by those who had not shared her experience.

"It's now that I understand my father's character - the character of a fighter has a sense of anger. I realise now that it was because he never healed."

Abeba describes a cycle of grief and friction - arguing with loved ones, quitting jobs, and crying in solitude.

The focus required for professional football had evaporated. Though she attempted to return to training, the weight of the "wasted years" made it impossible to reclaim her former edge.

To channel her pain into something productive, Abeba worked briefly as a journalist and also launched "Wegahta," a women's project aimed at mentoring 30 teenage footballers.

She hoped to foster the next generation of players, but financial constraints eventually stalled the initiative.

Ultimately, Abeba views these efforts as a search for a sanctuary rather than a simple career move: "I'm doing all this to find a hiding place."

Abeba's greatest fear is that war could break out again.

In late January brief clashes were reported between federal troops and Tigrayan fighters, who are demanding the return of areas seized by the neighbouring Amhara region during the conflict.

Drone strikes hit Tigray and flights to regional cities were suspended for nearly a week.

The federal government has also accused Eritrea of meddling in the region but this time backing Tigrayan forces. Eritrea denies the allegation.

For its part, the TPLF accuses the federal government of deploying troops near Tigray's borders in preparation for fresh fighting, while Abiy accuses the group of siphoning state funds to sustain its forces.

"Right now, I see fear everywhere - the fear of another conflict," Abeba says.

"I don't believe war is necessary. We have seen that in the end, it is negotiation - not combat - that provides the solution."

Selam Hailu, a 30-year-old lawyer and mother of two, is also a veteran of the war front and echoes these sentiments.

She joined the fight in September 2021 when, she notes, she was already a mother, her eldest child just five years old.

Her reason was deeply personal. Her parents, retired government employees who had already joined the war, returned exhausted and in a bad condition.

Seeing their plight and hearing their accounts of "sexual violence and mass killings", Selam says she felt compelled to act, and along with her younger sister, she went to join the Tigrayan forces.

Like other women, they first received short but intensive military training.

Selam found life in the mountains of Tigray challenging: "For me it was difficult to urinate in the wild."

The hardship was compounded by sexism.

"No-one understands when we are menstruating and our behaviour changes," Selam explains.

The most insidious battle, however, was the military leadership.

"The problems within the army were that they did not believe that a woman was talented, capable," she says.

She noticed that a teenage female fighter who was "not afraid of a bullet, was afraid of an officer's word or punishment", and many of them remained silent when coerced into relationships.

As she was older and a lawyer, she spoke out against such "unprincipled relationships" - and was punished by being detained for a night.

Selam also worries that war could break out again: "Young people are fleeing the city by any means, legal or illegal. We can see the terror written on everyone's faces.

"People are hoarding whatever they can, convinced that their savings are all that stands between them and total ruin.

"No-one needs peace more than we do - we simply cannot afford another sacrifice."

For 30-year-old Rahwa Gebremedhin, a lecturer at Mekelle University, the war felt like an intrusion on her hopes rather than a meaningful political cause.

Her professional life had just started, and she had the aspirations of her generation, to have a house, a car, and children.

However, she joined Tigrayan forces because of the atrocities committed by "enemy forces".

"I was shocked by the killings. I was angry because women were sexually assaulted, everything was being destroyed."

As an academic, her military knowledge came from war films.

"It was difficult, mastering the landscape, arming, training," she says.

The emotional and psychological toll of the war was immense, and the transition back to civilian life has proved challenging.

"You can see all the symptoms of PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] from me. Every woman was traumatised.

"I got back to my lecturing job, but it's not the same. I don't feel anything.

"I'm just trying to survive."

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

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The eruption of the Iran conflict has brought with it consequences that extend far beyond the Middle East.

The region plays a key role in global energy supplies and shipping routes, prompting concerns that everything from heating bills to supermarket shopping baskets could become more expensive.

Here are five ways the conflict might affect your day-to-day life.

The crisis has caused an immediate rise in fuel prices, as production and transport of oil and gas across the region has slowed or stopped entirely in many cases, but it is unclear how this may play out over the coming weeks and months.

As of Monday in the UK, petrol cost an average of 132.14p per litre at the pump while diesel cost an average of 142.15p per litre, weekly official figures show.

The RAC, which tracks daily prices, said between Saturday and Thursday average prices rose by 3p per litre for petrol, and 5p per litre for diesel.

In the US on Tuesday, average petrol prices were up approximately 23 cents (17p) per gallon compared to the previous week and up approximately 41 cents per gallon of diesel over the same period.

These early increases are well below those seen in 2022 after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In the week before the invasion, unleaded petrol cost an average of 147.77p per litre in the UK. Less than fourth months later, in early July, it had jumped by more than 43p per litre.

In the US, prices for petrol and diesel peaked at over $5 a gallon in June 2022.

UK gas prices have almost doubled since Saturday.

The benchmark UK gas price rose above 165p a therm on Tuesday, which it last traded at a year after the start of the Ukraine war. It closed at 138p a therm, still over a fifth higher than Monday's price, before falling to 127p on Wednesday.

There have been concerns the current crisis could have a similar impact to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but so far the UK gas price is significantly below the peak of more than 600p a therm experienced in 2022.

That unprecedented rise prompted the UK government to step in with an energy bills support scheme — giving millions of households £400 off their energy bills for the winter of 2022-23.

UK consumers are protected from any immediate change in global gas prices by the energy price cap, which is in place at its current level until July.

But if gas prices stay high, this could translate to a higher price cap for the summer.

Traffic through the crucial Strait of Hormuz has almost completely stopped after Iran's threatened to "set fire" to ships, with about 200 tankers effectively stranded.

Meanwhile, insurance premiums, particularly on vessels considered American, British, or Israeli, have risen significantly because of the perceived higher risk of attack.

Data from the London Stock Exchange Group shows the cost of hiring a supertanker to move oil from the Middle East to China reached an all-time high on Monday of more than $400,000 (£298,300) per day, almost double the cost last week.

Sanne Manders, president of logistics technology platform Flexport, says rising fuel costs means carriers are likely to start raising rates globally, not just in the Middle East, as transport becomes more expensive.

The vast majority of the world's traded goods are transported by sea. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), shipping costs are an "important driver of inflation".

But while rises can affect prices of imports at the dock within a few months, the impact on prices at the cash register "builds up more gradually, hitting its peak after 12 months", it said in analysis from 2022.

The IMF said this week it was "too early" to assess the economic impact of the Iran conflict on the region and globally, as this will depend on its extent and duration.

Fertilisers are a crucial part of food production. They are relied upon by farmers to give crops the nutrients they need to grow enough food, and the Middle East is a major producer of key fertiliser ingredients.

The Strait of Hormuz waterway is a key route for fertiliser and for natural gas which is used to produce fertilisers. The halting of traffic there has prompted fears of shortages and increased prices.

In addition, QatarEnergy, one of the world's biggest exporters of gas and a producer of urea for use in fertiliser, has stopped production following "military attacks" on its facilities.

The US futures price of urea was $567 a tonne on Wednesday, up 21% in a week, according to Bloomberg.

Experts say it is too early to tell if the rise in fertiliser prices will translate to higher prices on supermarket shelves and that any change wouldn't be instant.

Inflation, the rate that prices rise, has been falling in the UK and globally in recent months.

In February, UK inflation fell to 3% and the Bank of England (BoE) said before the current conflict it believed inflation could reach its 2% target by as soon as April.

In the US, inflation eased to 2.4% in January, slightly above the Federal Reserve's 2% target, while the Eurozone was expected to see a rise from 1.7% in January to 1.9% in February, after sustained falls.

There are concerns the war could reverse the overall downward trend, meaning prices would rise at a faster rate for consumers.

If that happens, central banks across the world may be less likely to cut interest rates in the months ahead, as they try to curb rising prices.

Analysts are now speculating there may be fewer cuts than expected this year in the UK, and some are predicting a rise.

This would mean more expensive mortgage rates for people on deals that "track" the BoE's rate and for those fixing new deals. On the other hand, banks could pass on any increased rates to savers who would get higher returns on their money.

China is not feeling the shock of war in the Middle East - yet.

But it is feeling the ripples.

In the short-term, it has enough oil supplies for several months, after which it could turn to neighbour Russia for help.

But China will be calculating what this could mean long-term - not just for its investments in the Middle East, but also for its ambitions.

This week, thousands of Communist Party delegates are meeting in Beijing to discuss a roadmap for the world's second-largest economy as it continues to battle low consumption, a prolonged property crisis and huge local debt.

For the first time since 1991, the Chinese government has lowered its expectations of economic growth, despite the rapid development in high-tech and renewables industries.

China may have hoped to export its way out of economic trouble. But it has spent a year fighting a trade war with the United States, and now faces the prospect of upheaval in the Middle East, which supplies both its major shipping routes and a lot of its energy needs.

The longer the war drags on, the more it could hurt, especially if traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked.

"A prolonged period of turmoil and insecurity in the Middle East will disrupt other regions of importance for China," says Philip Shetler-Jones from the Royal United Services Institute.

"African economies, for instance, have been the beneficiary of substantial and steady flows of Gulf capital. If the investment tide goes out, this risks wider instability that undermines the sustainability of China's broader and longer-term interests."

That is, given China's global footprint, its investments and markets beyond the Middle East are also vulnerable to a protracted war. And like so many other countries, China too is wary of this fresh bout of unpredictability.

"I think China is thinking the same as everyone else," says Professor Kerry Brown, from Kings College London. "What is the game plan? Surely the Americans didn't go into this with no game plan."

But then, he adds: "Probably, along with everyone else, they would also be thinking, oh God, they really have gone into this with no plan at all. Right, we don't want to get dragged into this like we don't want to get dragged into anything else, but we also need to do something."

Iran was always designated as an "ally" of China by many in the West.

They have certainly been very friendly. The last foreign trip taken by Tehran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was to Beijing in 1989. He had his photograph taken by the Great Wall.

The partnership between them deepened when Xi Jinping visited Tehran in 2016 and the two countries eventually signed a 25-year strategic partnership in 2021.

China promised to invest $400bn (£300bn) in Iran over 25 years and, in exchange, Iran would keep the oil flowing.

However, analysts believe only a fraction of that money has reached the Iranians. But the oil kept flowing.

China imported 1.38 million barrels of crude per day from Iran in 2025, according to the Center on Global Energy Policy - around 12% of China's total crude oil imports. Many of these barrels are alleged to have been relabelled as Malaysian to disguise their origin.

The research centre at Columbia University released a report claiming there are more than 46 million barrels of Iranian oil in floating storage in Asia, and even more in bonded storage, which is yet to be cleared by customs, in the Chinese ports of Dalian and Zhoushan, where the National Iranian Oil Company leases tanks.

There have also been allegations of arms sales between the two countries. China has denied selling Tehran anti-ship cruise missiles, but US intelligence has accused Beijing of supporting Iran's ballistic missile programme by training engineers and supplying components.

Rights groups have alleged that Iran's brutal crackdowns against protesters and critics of the regime has been fuelled by Chinese facial recognition and surveillance tech, shared by Beijing.

It may sound like the two were firm friends.

All of this even prompted tabloid headlines lumping China and Iran together as an "axis of upheaval" alongside North Korea and Russia. All four do want to challenge the US-led world order, but in truth their relationship was transactional.

"There's no real ideological or cultural reason why China would get on with Iran," Prof Brown says.

"China's almost 'divide and rule' strategy was sometimes well-served by Iran being a constant irritant to the US. So I think there are largely negative reasons for China wanting a relationship with Iran, rather than positive reasons.

"That's a really fragile basis for a relationship, and it worked - up to a point. But it wasn't a very deep relationship."

China does not view its "alliances" in the same way the West does. It does not sign mutual defence treaties and will not come rushing to its ally's aid.

Instead, Beijing is keen to stay out of any conflict.

But that does not mean China isn't deeply troubled by what is happening in the Middle East.

Beijing issued a predictable and muted condemnation and called for a ceasefire.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said it was "unacceptable for the US and Israel to launch attacks against Iran... still less to blatantly assassinate a leader of a sovereign country and instigate regime change".

The truth is Washington's actions in Venezuela in January, and now in Iran, have highlighted the limits of those countries' partnerships with China.

On both occasions, Beijing has been left on the sidelines as an observer, incapable of helping those within its orbit.

China is trying to position itself as a "responsible counter-balance" to the US, says Philip Shetler-Jones from the Royal United Services Institute, but "in terms of military balance, the US is demonstrating what being a superpower really means, which is the ability to force outcomes in theatres across the globe".

Beijing, he argues, is not "a superpower on the same level" despite its economic might. "It is not equipped to protect its friends against this kind of action, even if it wanted to."

To counter these concerns, Xi will continue positioning himself as a stable and predictable global leader, in contrast to Donald Trump.

"China's argument will be that Donald Trump has once again demonstrated beyond any doubt the extent of western hypocrisy and western talk of the liberal international order," says Professor Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China institute.

Disruptions to energy supply and air travel as a result of this conflict will "have far greater ramifications economically in the Global South than in the West", he adds.

"Some countries are going to have food shortage in a few months... and those are Global South countries. We're also already seeing the rupturing of the Western alliance, with the UK, Spain, being singled out for attack."

Beijing may also see a chance to help mediate talks along with other countries. Foreign Minister Wang Yi has already spoken to his counterparts in Oman and France, and China has announced it will send a special envoy to the Middle East.

Still, China is treading carefully because one of the biggest calculations for them is the mercurial US president, who is due to arrive for a much-awaited meeting later this month.

None of China's criticisms of US and Israeli strikes on Iran have targeted Trump directly, which may make a handshake a little easier.

Some have speculated if the visit can still go ahead. But there are signs it is still on. Officials from both sides are due to meet to discuss the trip, Reuters reports.

China may see this as a chance to "look for cues", says Shetler-Jones, on how Trump may respond to other flashpoints like Taiwan, the self-governed island it claims.

"To the extent this war proves unpopular, it might contribute to a growing trend of 'restraint' in US foreign and security policy that – if put into effect by a future administration – give China a freer hand to pursue its interests in its own region and the wider world."

This crisis presents some in China with an opportunity to paint Washington as warmongers, which the People's Liberation Army has done across social media.

But having such "an unpredictable and a dysfunctional actor" may be a source of unease for Beijing, Prof Brown says.

"I don't think China wants a world that's dominated by the US, but they don't really want a world where the US is such an unstable actor."

Finland plans to lift its long-standing ban on having nuclear weapons on its territory, in a move the government says would align the country more closely with Nato's deterrence policy.

Defence minister Antti Häkkänen Finland and Europe's security environment had "fundamentally and significantly changed" since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022.

The Nordic nation abandoned decades of military neutrality to join Nato in 2023 over mounting concerns about the threat posed by Russia.

Under Finland's 1987 Nuclear Energy Act, the import, manufacture, possession and detonation of nuclear explosives is prohibited on Finnish soil - even during wartime.

The government proposal would change that, making it possible to "bring a nuclear weapon into Finland, or to transport, deliver or possess one in Finland, if it is connected to the military defence of Finland", Häkkänen said.

"The amendment is necessary to enable Finland's military defense as part of the alliance and to take full advantage of Nato's deterrence and collective defence," he told a news conference on Thursday.

Nato's founding principle of collective defence - that an attack on one member nation would be treated as an attack on all - underpins the alliance's nuclear deterrence stategy.

As it contains several nuclear powers, this means a direct attack on a member brings with it the risk of a nuclear attack. US nuclear weapons are stationed in several European nations, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation.

The Finnish government's proposal requires changes to both the country's Nuclear Energy Act and the criminal code.

Its governing right-wing coalition, which holds a majority in parliament, said the proposal had been circulated for consultation until 2 April before it is formally laid out.

Finland shares a 1,340km (832-mile) border with Russia - the longest of any EU or Nato member state - and its leaders have repeatedly warned that the country's security environment had deteriorated since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The Nordic nation became the 31st member of Nato in April 2023, widely seen as a strategic setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had long criticised the military alliance's eastward expansion. Its neighbour Sweden joined Nato in 2024.

Since then, Nato has increased its military presence in the Arctic and Baltic Sea, as well as along the newly expanded eastern flank.

The proposal comes as European countries step up defence co-operation in response to the war in Ukraine and broader global instability.

Several Nato states suffered air traffic disruption after drones were sighted over airports and airbases last year, which some European officials attributed to "hybrid warfare" on the part of Russia.

Moscow denied involvement, but the incidents prompted renewed discussions about collective defence.

On Monday, France and Germany announced plans to deepen co-operation with European partners on nuclear deterrence.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said last week that the country's doctrine of not stationing foreign troops or nuclear weapons on its territory "would not apply" if Sweden found itself "in a completely different situation".

The UK government has chartered a repatriation flight out of Oman to help British nationals who want to leave the Middle East, as attacks continue to take place across the region.

The flight is currently scheduled to leave Muscat Internation Airport on 4 March at 23:00 local time (19:00 GMT), and will prioritise the most vulnerable people first.

British nationals and their spouse or partner, and their children under the age of 18 will all be eligible, as lo

The Foreign Office said that it will contact British nationals to secure them a seat on the flight, and urged people not to make their way to the airport unless they have been officially called.

It said it would "continue to work with airlines to find more routes for people to return home".

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Sooner or later, advisers in President Donald Trump's orbit all come to learn the same unwritten rule: no one can outshine the boss.

Kristi Noem, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, became the latest reminder of that on Thursday when Trump announced he was removing her from her post as the face of the administration's crackdown on immigration.

Noem will be replaced by Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin at the end of the month, Trump said in a post on Truth Social. He said Noem would move to a new job as special envoy for a new US security initiative in the Western Hemisphere called The Shield of the Americas.

"I thank Kristi for her service at "Homeland",' Trump said.

It ends Noem's controversial tenure at the top of the department, which is tasked with carrying out the president's sweeping immigration agenda.

Noem was one of the administration's brightest stars when she stepped into the role last year after Trump returned to the White House. She immediately gained attention for joining immigration raids, often appearing in a bulletproof vest alongside field agents carrying out enforcement actions.

She was a vocal advocate of Trump's deportation drive, and touted policies that effectively closed the US-Mexico border. She also took the message abroad, in one instance visiting a maximum-security prison in El Salvador that took in some migrants deported from the US.

But Noem's unconventional approach courted controversy from the start.

Homeland Security secretaries do not typically partake in field operations. Noem's decision to appear on the frontlines of Trump's immigration crackdown was viewed by critics as an effort to burnish her image as the tough-talking immigration enforcer-in-chief.

She sparked a backlash by wearing a $50,000 watch during her visit to CECOT, the notorious prison in El Salvador. Noem also appeared on horseback in a DHS advertising campaign calling for undocumented immigrants to leave the US.

This led some of Noem's critics on the left to brand her "ICE Barbie". Democrats in Congress also blasted Noem for spending $220 million in federal funding on an advertising blitz starring herself, and nearly $200 million on two luxury jets for her official travel.

Noem defended the ad campaign in a Capitol Hill hearing earlier this week and said Trump was aware of the spending.

But Trump publicly contradicted Noem on Thursday before announcing her firing, telling Reuters he was not aware of the expensive campaign. "I never knew anything about it," he said.

The president had an acrimonious call with Corey Lewandowski, a senior adviser to Noem, on Tuesday after her testimony to Congress, the BBC's US news partner CBS reported. Lewandowski is also now leaving the department.

Trump is reported to have called Republicans in Congress asking if he should fire Noem, a sign he was moving towards shaking up his immigration team this week. It is perhaps telling that some immediately backed his decision on Tuesday.

South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, for example, said "it was time for a change".

"A change in leadership at the Department of Homeland Security was long overdue," Representative Dan Newhouse said.

But Trump's frustration with Noem had been clear for months if not longer. The administration faced a major backlash for its immigration crackdown in Minneapolis in January, after federal agents shot dead two US citizens.

Trump sent White House border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis to lead the response, which resulted in a decision to scale back the operation. Homan's appointment was widely viewed as a rebuke to Noem, who might normally have been given the assignment.

Noem was also criticised for comments she made after the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, particularly her claim, made without evidence, that Pretti had "committed an act of domestic terrorism" before he was shot.

The deployment of Homan to take charge in Minnesota was a clear indication that Trump was sidelining Noem after giving her the freedom to act as the administration's immigration enforcement star.

The administration response to the killings of Good and Pretti in Minneapolis was a rare instance of Trump moderating his message on immigration - and a sign the White House was aware the hardline approach spearheaded by Noem was growing unpopular with the public.

Polls have indicated that a majority of Americans approve of some aspects of Trump's immigration agenda, but do not support the more aggressive tactics used by immigration agents in the field. That presents an issue for Republicans heading into an election year, and Noem's removal suggests Trump saw a need to make a change.

It is also the first major shakeup of Trump's second-term cabinet.

In his first term, Trump replaced his national security adviser, White House chief of staff and other top officials in his first year in office, oftentimes by announcing the firing in a Tweet. The turmoil in his team frequently overshadowed Trump's policies.

By contrast, Trump has kept his cabinet largely intact in his second term, avoiding the drama that engulfed his first stint in the White House. Whether Noem's departure means others will follow remains to be seen.

It is also an open question whether the shakeup will lead to a new direction in policy at the Deeartment of Homeland Security.

Mullin is a conservative Trump ally, and like Noem has long been a hardline immigration voice on the right. After Pretti's shooting Mullin said federal law enforcement officials were "patriots" facing death threats for doing their job.

"Obstructing federal law enforcement is a felony. Most Americans follow ICE instructions without thinking twice," Mullin said in a social media post.

More recently, he has criticised Democrats over a partial government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. The agency has been caught in a funding battle over proposed reforms to immigration enforcement.

In a scene reminiscent of Trump's first term, Noem was delivering a speech in the moments when Trump posted his social media message announcing her firing. She soon published a social media post of her own, thanking Trump for her new role.

Noem may be the first high-profile casualty of Trump's second term. But she may not be the last, as her demotion shows the president remains willing and able to read the political winds and cut his losses early.

It happens in offices around the world everyday: a workmate accusing another - rightly or wrongly - of not pulling their weight.

But it's not often broadcast live on air to millions of listeners tuning into one of Australia's longest-running breakfast radio programmes.

That's what happened about a fortnight ago on the Kyle and Jackie O Show, when shock jock Kyle Sandilands launched into a seven-minute tirade against his co-host Jackie "O" Henderson.

The very public spat has brought an end to the pair's 27-year history on the airwaves, rocking the Australian media industry.

The high-rating show has been canned, egos have been bruised and fans left in tears while a legion of detractors rejoice that a prime-time show sold on the promise of crude and crass content has finally ended.

"The era of the shock jocks is over," says Jennie Hill, founder of an activist group that targets controversial media personalities - including Sandilands - by asking companies to stop advertising on their programmes.

"Kyle was the last one from a bygone era. There are a few others who are questionable but there are none who are anywhere near as offensive as him."

The beginning of the end started in a fairly mundane way.

"Your fixation on this has made you almost unworkable," Sandilands remarked almost two weeks ago on 20 February.

He was accusing Henderson of being "off with the fairies" as she looked up the astrology birth chart for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who had hours earlier been arrested in the UK on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

Sandilands, 54, claimed her recent interest in horoscopes and star signs had led to a noticeable shift in her work.

"You're not doing the rest of the job and everyone in this building has mentioned it to me," he declared, dismissing Henderson's request for examples of his allegations.

She defended herself, saying his claims were "mean and nasty" and a "total attack".

"I would never do something like that to you on air like that," she said through tears, adding that if he was unhappy with her performance, "get someone else".

The 51-year-old took a leave of absence and Sandilands told listeners his on-air partner would be back on the airwaves soon.

But, for a show that dabbled in a grey area of broadcasting standards - it attracted many warnings but few punishments over its vulgar and sexually explicit content - its end was black and white.

"Ms Jacqueline Henderson has given notice that she 'cannot continue to work with Mr Kyle Sandilands'," an investor announcement from ARN Media - the owner of KIIS FM - declared on Tuesday.

As a result, they tore up her 10-year A$100m (US$70m; £52m) contract - signed in 2024 - and confirmed she was to be offered a possible new show.

Sandilands was hit with a claim of "serious misconduct" over his on-air rant and given 14 days to "remedy this breach" of his contract or risk his own $100m deal being cancelled.

Both hosts were contacted for comment, but did not reply.

Many in the industry were blindsided by the announcement, as some observers had branded the public tiff a stunt to boost poor ratings in Melbourne, where an attempt to expand their Sydney show had failed.

A key part of the pair's combined A$200m deal included an ambitious plan to bring their show to other Australian capital cities, with an assumption that one show replicated to other markets would mean fewer people on the payroll.

But when advertiser revenue began to fall and their much-touted entry into the lucrative Melbourne market did not deliver, the pair's pricey deal came at the expense of other staff at the network, with dozens of experienced people let go to balance the books, according to local media.

"The story is a significant one in Australia as both enjoy tremendous visibility and as they've been working together for so long," says Peter Roberts, who lectures in media and communications at the University of New South Wales.

Their partnership was successful because they had distinctive roles to play.

"Kyle was instrumental in the shocking, while Jackie was more the voice of conscience and moderation."

That mix appealed to their main audience, Roberts said, made up of listeners aged between 20 and 45 years, although the show also attracted a strong following among under-18s, with an overall even split between men and women.

But their failed attempt to capture the Melbourne market shows how their style "doesn't transcend to other parts of the country".

"The breakfast slot is wildly competitive, and listeners are loyal to local players in the market, so it's no great surprise that they didn't pull in the audience share in Melbourne, as they had in Sydney."

Over the years, the show has attracted much controversy. In 2009, the show was investigated after a 14-year-old girl was asked about her sexual history while strapped to a lie detector, forcing her to admit she had been raped when she was 12.

Another time the pair told a Cambodian-Australian woman they would bring her niece to Australia but send the niece back if she did not correctly choose the door she was standing behind. The woman chose the wrong door, broke down in tears and begged for her niece to be allowed to stay, which the show agreed to.

Online reaction to the end of the Kyle and Jackie O show has see-sawed from fans in shock that their much-loved morning dose of crude jokes - often at the expense of women and minority groups - has ended, while others welcomed the news.

Among those smiling is Hill, who about ten years ago founded activist group MFW -members of which refer to themselves as "the witches" after the term former opposition leader Peter Dutton used for a female journalist in a text message sent by mistake.

About two years ago, the group launched a campaign called VileKyle - mirroring an earlier campaign focused on veteran broadcaster Alan Jones - where a team of about 30 volunteers would listen to every show.

"They'd write down the advertisers and the demeaning quotes with timestamps," Hill said, in a bid to stamp out "violent misogyny" in the media.

Every week, that information would be shared with the group's estimated 200,000 members, who would take it upon themselves to email companies asking them to pull their advertising from the show.

Some examples included Sandilands using homophobic and racial language, women being described on the show as "it" or "that" as sex with them was discussed, and discussion of an idea for a segment on the show in which a woman would be penetrated from behind by two different men before being asked if it was her partner or dad.

Hill maintains that healthy conversations about sex and sexuality are a good thing but "repeated putdowns" of certain groups is not.

Since the campaign, Hill says about 2,000 companies have pulled their ads from the show, listing major Australian brands such as Qantas, national telecoms company Telstra and supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths as examples. Global brands who have also pulled advertising include Cathay Pacific and AirAsia.

It's uncertain when Sandilands or Henderson will be back on the airwaves, but Hill says her message to the former is crystal clear.

"You need to either reform yourself and understand what you do, or you need to just leave the media alone, one or the other."

Elsewhere, loyal Sydney fans took to social media to share their reaction to the news.

"Noooo, I'm a fan...haven't they been through worse than this? So sad," posted one.

Another said she had been listening to their show since she was 13 and would miss hearing their voices in the morning: "Have I agreed with everything Kyle or Jackie has said or done over the years? No. Some of it I really didn't like. But it's still disappointing that it's come to an end for the duo".

US President Donald Trump has announced Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin will be the new Homeland Security secretary, replacing the agency's embattled head Kristi Noem.

The first-term senator, a former mixed martial arts fighter, has been a supporter of Trump and his policies since coming to Washington.

Mullin, known for his fiery personality, will be the second Homeland Security chief in Trump's second administration. The Senate would need to confirm Mullin to the post.

The senator has been complimentary of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) efforts to detain undocumented immigrants - a fixture of the Trump administration's policy and a focus for Noem before she was ousted.

Mullin is among the Republicans who have been critical of the ongoing partial US government shutdown, which has allowed funding to lapse from the DHS.

"What is actually happening right now with the Democrat Party by this political theatre, by shutting down DHS for something that you even admitted yourself can't be done," Mullin told CNN last month. "They're not stopping [Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)] from doing their job."

Should he be confirmed, Mullin will head an agency that has faced increased criticism in recent months, particularly in the wake of two US citizens being killed by federal immigration officials in Minnesota.

He has previously supported Homeland Security policy and the administration's immigration crackdown.

"Obstructing federal law enforcement is a felony. Most Americans follow ICE instructions without thinking twice," Mullin posted on social media following the death of Alex Pretti, who was shot dead by immigration agents in Minneapolis.

"These patriots are doing a difficult job under an 8,000% rise in death threats," he added.

Mullin was sworn in as a US senator in 2023.

Over the past two decades, Mullin, father to six children, worked alongside his wife to grow his family plumbing business, according to his website.