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BBC Diego Garcia, a remote island in the Indian Ocean, is a paradise of lush vegetation and white-sand beaches, surrounded by crystal blue waters. But this is no tourist destination. It is strictly out of bounds to most civilians – the site of a highly secretive UK-US military base shrouded for decades in rumour and…

JOHANNA LEGUERRE/AFP Robert Bourgi has lifted the lid on decades of work with French and African presidents It was January 1998 and Robert Bourgi was waiting to see the Gabonese president Omar Bongo, in an antechamber at his seaside palace in Libreville. He was there to collect funds for the approaching French presidential election on…

BBC Nazdana fled from Afghanistan with her divorce documents There is a young woman sheltering under a tree between two busy roads clutching a pile of documents to her chest. These pieces of paper are more important to Bibi Nazdana than anything in the world: they are the divorce granted to her after a two-year…

BBC Smartphones have worked their way deep into our lives and have become indispensable for work and socialising. Unsurprisingly, many children want them too, but here we are much less sure of the benefits they bring. Many parents worry they are addictive and expose children to inappropriate and harmful content. A growing number think stronger…

How trip to Titanic turned from smiles to tragedy BBC The view from inside Titan at the surface of a previous Titanic dive “I saw five people smiling, looking forward to their journey.” That was Renata Rojas’ recollection of her time on a support ship with five people bound for the Titanic wreck. They were…

Hezbollah has confirmed the death of its leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, after Israel said it had killed the 64-year-old in an airstrike on Beirut. Nasrallah, the former leader of Lebanon’s militant Shia Islamist movement, was one of the best known and most influential figures in the Middle East. Prior to his death, Nasrallah had not…

BBC “They all know it is the moment of truth.” By Wednesday afternoon the Conservatives should be a lot closer to knowing who their next leader will be – and the party’s conference in Birmingham, which starts on Sunday, is a huge and very public job interview. The common view among Tories I’ve spoken to…

Getty Images She was a national treasure with multiple awards under her belt. But somewhat surprisingly, Dame Maggie Smith never loved the limelight. “I’m never shy on stage, always shy off it,” is how she once described herself to the critic Nancy Banks Smith. She never watched herself in Downton Abbey. She famously didn’t even…

BBC A nature reserve in the Philippines, which has been lauded by top climate activists and film stars, has come under a concerted disinformation attack on social media as it fights to continue its work, a BBC investigation has found. A network of nearly 100 fake Facebook accounts and pages were found to be spreading…