of 10—year—old sara sharif murdered by herfather and stepmother. south korea's president vows to �*fight to the end', defending his short—lived imposition of martial law last week. more than 1,500 firefighters are battling the california wildfire spreading through the coastal town of malibu. hello. the new islamist authorities in syria say they'll close the notorious prisons run by the ousted president, bashar al—assad, and dissolve his security forces. they also so they're working with international organisations to secure possible chemical weapons sites, a move which has been welcomed by the united states. earlier rebel fighters broke into the tomb of the former president, hafez al—assad, bashar�*s father —

in the family's hometown in northwestern syria. images showed a coffin and parts of the mausoleum on fire. large crowds formed in a suburb of the capital damascus, for what they believed would be a public execution of one of the former president's henchmen. people across syria are following what has been happening in the city. our correspondent, hugo bachega is in aleppo with the latest. a lot of people are paying attention to what has happened here in aleppo because this was the first major city captured by the rebels in that astonishing offensive earlier this month. i came to aleppo for the first time when i was a student 16 years ago. i remember there were posters and billboards with the face of bashar al—assad in public squares, on the streets and government buildings. here in central aleppo those posters have been either destroyed or removed so people really want to forget the memories they have of five

decades of the assad regime in this country. yesterday the streets were busy, the main square here in central aleppo was bustling with people, people coming to us to talk about how happy they were, they felt they were free for the first time in their lives, that they were very hopeful for the future. again, as you are saying, there has been a focus of the new administration on trying to dismantle the security network that had been in place under the assad regime. there were billboards here in aleppo telling people that freeing the detainees is a mission. so this is a message that will resonate with people not only here in aleppo but across the country. this is a network that was known for detaining people, torturing people injails, killing detainees. a lot of people welcoming these decisions that have been announced so far but again,

questions remain, concerns remain about what exactly is going to happen next to this country. european countries are calling on israel to withdraw its troops from the buffer zone on its border with syria. it comes after israel's prime minister ordered his army to "seize" the syrian—controlled zone in the golan heights. for more on this, i've been speaking to dr robert geist pinfold — a lecturer in international peace and security at durham university. it is something quite extraordinary and i guess unexpected in israel. basically throwing its weight into the conflict in syria. so israel abrogated unilaterally the agreement between itself and syria, claiming that the regime with whom it made that agreement, the assad regime, no longer exists, and therefore that agreement is dead and buried. and the result of that was that israel then moved to take more territory within the golan heights. remember that the golan heights itself, the israeli side, is also occupied territory.

it was taken from syria in the six—day war of 1967, though israel later annexed the territory. it's now expanded further. it's taken around 250km2 of territory, which is specifically a demilitarised zone. the idea was that this would be a buffer between israeli troops and syrian troops on both sides of the golan. israel argues those syrian troops aren't there any more. so israel needs to unilaterally take actions to prevent threats and to secure itself, which is why we're seeing that territorial control on the golan and that expansion of its occupation there, but also that unprecedented number of israeli air strikes throughout syria to try and neutralise the remnants of the assad regime's weaponry and infrastructure. and we're hearing over 480 strikes in around three days. now, you compare that to the last year, where there was around 200 israeli strikes throughout syria. so this is a significant escalation by israel. they clearly think this

is a security threat, and they clearly think that they need to act now to prevent this from becoming an even more serious issue in the future. and why is the golan heights still such a contested area and who lives there? well, on the israeli side of the golan heights, you have around 50,000 people living there. that number is split evenly between jewish israelis who have moved there after 1967, whom the international community and international law would consider settlers, though they would, of course, dispute this. and 25,000 syrians who stayed put after israel occupied the territory. now, what complicates things a little bit, um, in terms of understanding the situation, is that those syrians are druze. now, the druze are a religious group. they're an offshoot of shia islam. and israel has, shall we say, complicated relations with the druze. there are many druze living

in israel, and unlike other palestinian citizens of israel, the druze are overrepresented in israel's army, police and indeed politics. so they're very much integrated into israeli society. the syrian druze are different, the ones in the golan, because they still consider themselves syrian. but at the same time, israelis across the political spectrum don't fear them in the same way they might fear palestinians or see palestinians as a security threat. so those druze in the golan have had to walk a very, very fine tightrope for a long time between basically accepting basically accepting the reality that they're the reality that they're under israeli control. under israeli control. and that's not going and that's not going to end anytime soon, to end anytime soon, but also professing loyalty to but also professing loyalty to syria and to the assad regime. syria and to the assad regime. and i think that tightrope and i think that tightrope is now going to be is now going to be stretched even further stretched even further with the collapse of that with the collapse of that government in syria. government in syria. the number was 538. a new report has revealed a new report has revealed that a85 children died that a85 children died or were seriously injured or were seriously injured by suspected abuse or neglect by suspected abuse or neglect in england in the year in england in the year to the end of march. to the end of march.

in the previous 12 months, in the previous 12 months, the number was 538. the findings by the child safeguarding practice review panel have been released a day after authorities were accused of failing to prevent the murder of ten—year old sara sharif at her family home in surrey. yesterday, herfather, urfan, and stepmother, beinash batool, were found guilty of her murder. helena wilkinson has this report and a warning that you may find some of the details in her report upsetting. singing.

your daughter has died? i killed my daughter. it was that call which led police to the family home, where, upstairs, in a bunk bed, covered in a blanket, they found sara's body. her father had left this note. her father had left this note. it said, "it's me, it said, "it's me, urfan sharif, who killed my urfan sharif, who killed my daughter by beating." daughter by beating." after a month on the run after a month on the run in pakistan, sara's father, in pakistan, sara's father, stepmother and her uncle, stepmother and her uncle, faisal malik, returned faisal malik, returned to the uk and were arrested. to the uk and were arrested. they all gave no—comment they all gave no—comment interviews to police. interviews to police. who did that to sara? who did that to sara? no comment. no comment. do you love sara? do you love sara? no comment. no comment. did you care about her at all? did you care about her at all? no comment. no comment. a postmortem examination a postmortem examination revealed that sara had revealed that sara had around 100 injuries, around 100 injuries, including broken bones, bruising, burns and bite marks. including broken bones, bruising, burns and bite marks.

during searches, police found this cricket bat with sara's blood on it, and this white metal pole, which sara's father hit her with as she lay dying. during the trial, urfan sharif dramatically changed his evidence in the witness box. he ended up admitting to beating his daughter repeatedly and with force over a number of weeks. the murder of a child is absolutely shocking, but the horrific nature of the abuse sara suffered during her short life has made this case particularly disturbing. today, justice for sara has been served. sara's mother, 0lga sharif, paid tribute to her daughter, saying that sara's smile could brighten up the darkest room. helena wilkinson, bbc news. (pres)in the last few moments sir keir starmer has been speaking on the case.

this is just the this isjust the most this is just the most awful case. it's very hard to see and to read about for many people who will be viewing this. just shocking. so that's where i start on this. 0bviously shocking. so that's where i start on this. obviously there will be questions that need to be answered in relation to this case. i don't think that we should allow

to do more to prevent illegal immigration. the deal has been years in the making. romania and bulgaria joined the european union in 2007 and have been trying to enter schengen for more than 10 years. their full entry to the zone would leave ireland and cyprus as the only eu countries outside it. there are currently 29 countries in the schengen area, which allows 400 million people to move freely between them. our correspondent, nick thorpe, is on the border between hungary and romania for us. behind me, this is normally very busy. people wait for hours, especially in the summer months. but even today, in december, there's been a long people waiting. sometimes the trucks sounding their horns in impatience. that doesn't seem to make any impact, of course. so it's a huge physical... people will save hours of their

lives waiting at these borders, but also psychologically, for romania and bulgaria, it means they finally feel they're full members of the eu. they've finally been welcomed into the club, even though theyjoined in 2007. and what did they have to do to unblock the vetoes? yeah. this was this has been a long negotiation. and they felt often that austria and the netherlands in particular were being unfair. the argument from austria was that last year 70,000 people entered austria illegally, having crossed countries like bulgaria, romania and hungary on the way. what's happened this year is that those numbers are down to only 4000 from the same period. so basically romania and bulgaria have been saying, look, on the one hand, they've strengthened the border between bulgaria and turkey. they've also been carrying out more raids inside the countries trying to intercept gangs smuggling people across these borders.

and they say they've been pretty successful. so they've been working very hard in coordination with eu bodies with different... with frontex, different eu police forces to try and crack down on illegal migration. and clearly they feel now that they've managed to convince the austrians that veto is gone and now the vote has gone through. and of course, this comes this week as we're seeing another huge change in the middle east region. turkey, obviously a key route for people who have come into europe in the past. um, what is the sense of predictions that we're getting in terms of movements of people now that bulgaria and romania will be fully part of the schengen area? well, before these dramatic events in syria, i think the turkish government had been putting increasing pressure on syrians to go back to syria even before these political changes. and at that time, syrians who felt they couldn't go home, it was unsafe to go

to syria, might then have been trying to reach europe. and so we were expecting here, in the balkans and eastern europe, an increase of people. but hopefully people will now be able to return to syria and that new wave of illegal migration won't happen. around the world and across the uk. this is bbc news.

thanks for staying with us. a couple of breaking lines we are getting from the reuters news agency reporting the fact that victor 0rban of hungary who has been supportive of moscow had proposed a christmas pow was between russia and ukraine according to his chief of staff

which has been rejected by ukraine. they are also reporting that russia fully supports russia's peace initiative and the pow swap proposal, 0rban saying that we assume consultations on peace will continue. that's what writers are saying. this ukrainian ceasefire proposed to putin by the hungarian prime minister, victor 0rban who of course has a relationship with moscow, but of course we are hearing that ukraine has refused all of his proposals. interesting timing because we had a couple of days ago from polish leadership saying that maybe there could be talks on some sort of proposal for ukraine, but that proposal suggested by hungary, clearly not going anywhere for the moment.

the president of south korea has been defending his imposition of martial law last week. the move has resulted in impeachment proceedings being raised against him — but in a tv address, yoon suk yeol says he will continue to fight them. translation: we must prevent the forces and criminal groups i that have led to the paralysis of government administration, and disorder of the national constitution from taking over the state administration and threatening the future of the republic of korea no matter what. i will fight to the end. we heard from people in seoul, who gave their reaction to the president's address. translation: ithought it was utter nonsense. . the president has already taken actions against democracy, and while the public strongly opposes this nationwide, he ignores this, blames the opposition party and even involves other people. i think this is unacceptable and it's close to a dictatorship that demolishes the foundations of our democracy.

translation: | think - the president did a good job with his speech today, and the impeachment just shouldn't happen. i heard martial law troops left the national assembly after only two hours, so the martial law declaration was merely an expression of the authority of the president. the democratic party, which is currently holding the country back, is the real issue. for more on the reaction to president yoon�*s speech i spoke yuna ku who's with bbc korean. reaction of the public, and both the ruling party and the opposition party have been quite fierce, as the president basically repeated what he said, um, when hejust declared the martial law in, uh, last week. so the president made a... it was a surprising televised speech. and what basically he said was criticising the main opposition

party and explaining what proclamation declare martial law rather than a sincere apology. and has this speech exacerbated, has it widened the divisions within the party? yes. after the president's speech, it's likely to deepen the divide within the ruling people's power party because after the president's speech, the ruling party leader called yun�*s statement as confession of insurrection during a party meeting, which, uh, which angered many yun loyalists who participated, who was participating in the meeting. and they were, some of them were shouting and calling han to step down from the podium. so still, han urged party members to vote in favour of yun�*s

impeachment bill on saturday. just tell us about that bill and that has submitted a second impeachment motion.— and that has submitted a second impeachment motion. today, they tabled a second _ impeachment motion. today, they tabled a second impeachment - tabled a second impeachment motion this afternoon which is planned to be voted on on saturday. the opposition party has earlier failed to pass the impeachment appeal as most of the ruling party members did not participate in the rolling process apart from three ruling member voters. process apart from three ruling membervoters. forthis process apart from three ruling member voters. for this vote to proceed, they need at least eight people from the ruling party. so ultimately, the first attempt to pass the impeachment appealfailed. however, now, as the public have been criticising the ruling party for not participating in the

voting process, there have been several ruling party members who openly said that this time they will be participating in they will be participating in the voting process, and some of them even said they will vote in favour of the deal. the islamic state group says it's behind a sucide it's behind a suicide bombing which killed aghanistan�*s refugee minister. khalil haqqani was killed as he left his office in kabul on wednesday. he's the most senior member of the taliban government to die in an attack since the group took power three years ago. i spoke to the bbc�*s yama bariz about why this attack happened. isk i sk has been trying to target taliban leaders right from the beginning. even before the taliban got to power, there were clashes between them. they had been areas in the eastern part of the afghanistan that had been an taken from the taliban and they managed to take them back from them even

in the north of the country. it was the taliban that managed to drive them out of those areas of the north. it has been a kind of power struggle between taliban ban and the isp from the beginning. and now taliban in power are saying that they are not the right people or the right muslims, as they have got their own interpretation. so it has been going on, and this was truly one of the major blows that there is managed to, to to give to the taliban. because khalil haqqani was a prominent figure among haqqanis, and he was one of the high ranking officials of taliban, a cabinet minister, and he was the person that he had been highly active in the war against nato and american. american government had declared him a terrorist. and also they had 5 million

reward on his head. so and the funeral�*s taking place today? as we are speaking, funeral is taking place. major taliban figures are all there. cabinet ministers are all there, prominent figures are all there. and as we spoke to our sources in in the eastern afghanistan, paktia province, which is the heartland of haqqanis, the funeral is taking place there and quite a strict security is in place. more than 1,500 firefighters are continuing to battle a wildfire in california which has spread rapidly through the wealthy coastal town of malibu. residents have been told to leave and schools have been closed. 0ur correspondent emma vardy sent this update from los angeles. the fire has continued to grow, fuelled by the winds that are blowing. and there are now around 1500 firefighters working very hard to try to tackle it. now, a large evacuation order remains in place for thousands

of residents in malibu, and in this very wealthy area there are some celebrities who have had to leave their homes. among them the actor dick van dyke and the singer cher are both confirmed to have left their properties for safety. and the fire too has affected finals week and exams for a number of students at malibu's pepperdine university. some students there had a pretty terrifying experience watching the flames get very close to their windows as they were sheltering on campus. now, it's not yet clear what started this fire. it has started to move away, though, from the site of the university, but it is still threatening a number of other homes and properties. there is this pretty dangerous combination of very dry vegetation up on the mountings after months without rain, and the seasonal winds that are blowing that create this sort of combination of conditions at this time of year. but the hope is, forecasters say, that the winds are set to decrease and with a bit

of a change in the weather that may now help the emergency services in trying to contain this glaze. let me leave you with some images from syria. this is the live images we are getting from damascus. people are out and celebrations continuing in the main square as well. news that the new islamist authorities there are going to close the notary as prisons run by the ousted president bashar al—assad. they will dissolve his security forces. we know that anti —— we know that anthony is there in the region and headed to georgian. —— jordan. hello again. it has been a cold start to the day today. especially so where we've had the clearer skies. temperatures in parts of scotland have fallen well below freezing. but elsewhere they have been

above freezing, and that's because of the amount of cloud that we currently have. it will be a cloudy day generally for most, and also a cold one, the exception being across parts of north—east scotland where we'll see the lion's share of any sunshine. high pressure is in charge of our weather. it's drifting a little bit further east and that will allow the progress of this weather front to come into the north—west a bit later. so the cloud thick enough to produce some light rain or drizzle, especially through parts of eastern england and also the midlands. we could see some brighter breaks develop in the west through the day but as i mentioned, the lion's share of the sunshine will be in north—east scotland. cloud building out towards the north—west, heralding the arrival of the weather front, and these white circles represent the strength of the sustained wind, so really we're looking at light breezes. temperatures today, 1 in glasgow, to 10 in norwich, but not as cold in the north—west because we've got more cloud coming in compared to recent days. now through this evening and overnight, a weatherfront approaches, there will be showers ahead of the rain coming in.

a lot of cloud, still thick enough for some patchy light rain or drizzle. and a few brighter breaks. so where we've got the clearer skies, this is where we are looking at temperatures falling away to about —2 in aberdeen, 6 in london, 5 in stornoway. as we go through friday, this weather front does make good inroads to the north—west. the high pressure pushes a bit further away. hardly an isobar on the chart so again we are looking at light breezes. a lot of cloud on friday, still thick enough here and there for the odd spot of drizzle, but there will be some breaks in the cloud. however, you can see the advancement of that weather front coming in, bringing rain across northern and north—western scotland, eventually to north—western parts of northern ireland. as a result, stornoway seeing 8 degrees, as is lerwick. 6 in newcastle, 9 in plymouth. 0vernight friday into saturday, the weather front sinks south as a weak feature taking its cloud and patchy light rain with it. behind it there will be a lot of dry weather a fair bit of sunshine, just the odd shower

which could be wintry on the tops of the mountains in the highlands, and these are our temperatures — 4 in glasgow to a high of 8 in london.

record high — wall street celebrates as the nasdaq closes above 20,000 for the first time continuing a months long rally.

the $400 billion man — elon musk makes history as his net worth soars. and a pm pick. the clock is ticking in france as pressure mounts on emmanuel macron to choose a new prime minister. welcome to business today. i'm ben thompson. we begin in new york where the champagne was popping on wall street as the world's biggest tech index — the nasdaq — broke new ground on wednesday. shares in big tech companies continue to rally with the latest inflation report the reason for the latest spike. let's look at the numbers — the nasdaq closed above 20,000 for the very first time — up 1.8% on the day. it's now up about one—third in 2024. the s&p 500 added 0.8% and is up more than 27% so far this year. the dowjones bucked the trend, dipping slightly — dragged by health insurers as us lawmakers introduced a bill seen as crimping their profits.