Category World News

US President Donald Trump has threatened the BBC with a $1bn lawsuit over the editing of a 2021 speech he gave shortly before protesters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Trump’s threat on Monday evening is the latest turn in a saga which has embroiled the corporation for the past week, following the leak of a memo which criticised the BBC’s impartiality in a number of areas of its coverage.

In particular, the memo, which was written by a former BBC journalist and independent consultant to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Board, Michal Prescott, singled out the misleading editing of Trump’s speech, which was featured in a Panorama documentary aired shortly before the US election last year.

The leaked memo has prompted outrage, mostly from right-wing media organisations and politicians, and prompted the resignations of Director-General Tim Davie and news CEO Deborah Turness on Sunday.

As a public broadcaster that is funded by a mandatory licence fee for all households in possession of a television, the BBC faces intense scrutiny from all sides of the political divide, with some claiming it is too conservative in its coverage, and others saying it is too left-leaning.

The organisation has also weathered several scandals in recent years over the behaviour of some of its presenters, as well as complaints from its journalists over its coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza.

This year, it was forced to drop former professional footballer and sports commentator Gary Lineker over a pro-Palestine Instagram post that was widely seen as anti-Semitic.

Some media insiders say this is all part of a push by right-wing figures in the BBC to reassert control over the BBC’s editorial content. Speaking to Radio 4’s flagship Today news programme on Monday, David Yelland, former editor of the Sun newspaper, said Davie and Turness were the victims of a “coup”.

The Guardian newspaper cited a “BBC insider” who said that board member Robbie Gibb, who is a personal friend of Prescott, had “led the charge”.

Gibb also served as director of communications for Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May and was an editorial adviser at the right-leaning GB News, before being appointed by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson to the BBC board in 2021. Gibb also sits on the Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee (EGSC) along with BBC chair and committee head Samir Shah, Tim Davie and independent director Caroline Thomson.

The BBC, responding to queries from the Guardian, said Gibb was only one of the four board members who approved Prescott as a consultant to EGSC. Prescott, in his memo, said he had no political affiliations.

This is a timeline of events leading up to the Trump Panorama documentary scandal this week.

Some of the dates highlighted here are taken from a letter sent by chair Samir Shah to parliament on Monday, and from the memo sent by Michael Prescott to BBC board members.

October 28, 2024: BBC Panorama programme airs

An hour-long BBC Panorama documentary titled, Trump: A Second Chance? was broadcast one week before the US presidential elections.

In it, two separate parts of a speech made by Trump before the Capitol Hill riots in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, were spliced together by editors.

This editing gave the impression that Trump had actively encouraged the riots, which turned violent. The edited clip showed Trump saying, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”

However, transcripts from Trump’s speech show that he first said, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.”

Then, nearly an entire hour later, he said, “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” He was not directly referencing the march on the Capitol in the second part, and the Panorama documentary did not include a part where Trump said he wanted supporters to “peacefully” make their voices heard.

January 16, 2025: Panorama documentary discussed by EGSC

Concerns about the editing of the Trump speech were raised at a meeting of the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Board (EGSB). However, this was raised as part of general reflections on coverage of the elections, according to Samir Shah.

Prescott raised concerns, Shah said, but the committee also heard from the news department, which said it was edited to “better convey the message of the speech”. Feedback was sent to the Panorama team, but no formal action was taken, Shah said.

Prescott later wrote in his memo that EGSC consultant David Grossman also delivered a report during the meeting showing the BBC had been biased in its coverage of Trump, and appeared to favour Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris.

February 2025: BBC forced to remove Gaza documentary

In February, the UK’s media regulator, Ofcom, said a BBC documentary about Palestinian children living through Israel’s war on Gaza had broken rules on impartiality as it was narrated by the 13-year-old son of a deputy agriculture minister in the Hamas-run government.

Five days after it was broadcast, the BBC removed the documentary, Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone, from its online streaming platform.

May 12, 2025: Panorama documentary discussed again by EGSC

According to Prescott’s memo, a senior member of the news team again defended the Panorama editing, saying, “There was no attempt to mislead the audience about the content or nature of Mr Trump’s speech before the riot at the Capitol. It’s normal practice to edit speeches into short form clips.”

Prescott added that Turness also justified the editing at this meeting.

May 13, 2025: Prescott emails concerns to BBC chair Samir Shah

In his memo, Prescott said he emailed Samir Shah the following day to explain his concerns, saying, “This is a very, very dangerous precedent. I hope you agree and take some form of action to ensure this potentially huge problem is nipped in the bud.”

Prescott said he received no reply.

June 2025: Review of the EGSC’s processes begins

This was undertaken by Chris Saul, a legal consultant who has been tasked with previous reviews of the transparency of BBC processes since 2019. The specific issues he was asked to report on for this review, and the outcomes, are unclear. 

June 2025: Prescott leaves the BBC

At some point after this, Prescott sent his detailed memo to all board members along with a cover letter stating his “despair” at being ignored by senior news leaders.

The memo accused the BBC of “misleading” edits, and claimed the BBC Arabic service had shown anti-Israel bias by over-emphasising stories critical of Israel. Prescott’s memo said BBC coverage was “misrepresenting” the number of women and children killed in Gaza, and also wrongly presented coverage on starvation in the besieged enclave.

At one point, Prescott appeared to take a swipe at Al Jazeera: When a senior news member defended BBC Arabic in meetings, saying it was almost as trusted as Al Jazeera, Prescott questioned if Al Jazeera “is the gold standard” the BBC should aspire to.

The memo further criticised what he called the BBC’s “one-sided” trans rights coverage, claiming stories highlighting women’s rights organisations and others who were critical of the trans rights movement had been suppressed.

July 2025: BBC journalists complain about Gaza coverage

In July, an internal BBC investigation found that the documentary, Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone, which was removed from its website in February, had breached its editorial guidelines on accuracy.

More than 100 journalists working for the BBC wrote a letter protesting this and claimed they were being forced to “do Israel’s PR”.

“We believe the refusal to broadcast the documentary ‘Gaza: Medics Under Fire’ is just one in a long line of agenda driven decisions,” the journalists wrote. “It demonstrates, once again, that the BBC is not reporting ‘without fear or favour’ when it comes to Israel.”

October 17, 2025: Prescott’s memo is reviewed at a full board meeting

Shah said he met Prescott afterwards to discuss “next steps”.

November 3, 2025: Prescott’s memo is leaked to the Daily Telegraph

This was the first time the contents of the memo entered the public domain. The right-wing broadsheet newspaper accused the BBC of doctoring the Trump speech and reported that Prescott had revealed “systemic problems” which BBC management had failed to address.

November 4, 2025: Parliamentary committee writes to BBC chair

Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee, led by Conservative chair Caroline Dinenage, wrote to Samir Shah requesting access to Prescott’s full report, and demanding to know what actions had been taken by the BBC in response to the memo when it was first sent.

Dinenage also requested an update about the EGSC review, which began in June. “The BBC clearly has serious questions to answer regarding both its editorial standards and the way in which concerns are handled by senior management,” Dinenage wrote in the letter.

She added that members of parliament “need to be reassured that those at the very top of the BBC are treating these issues with the seriousness they deserve”.

November 4, 2025: BBC pushes back

In a statement, a BBC spokesperson said, “While we don’t comment on leaked documents, when the BBC receives feedback, it takes it seriously and considers it carefully.”

November 4, 2025: Memo discussed at heated BBC board meeting

According to reporting by the Guardian newspaper, Gibb was present at this meeting and was one of the board members who pressed CEO Turness over Prescott’s claims. Gibb had also pressed Turness on the memo in an earlier board meeting, The Guardian reported.

November 5, 2025: Prescott to give evidence to Parliament

The parliamentary website announced that Michael Prescott would give evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Wednesday, November 12 at 10am, as the UK government prepared to launch a review of the BBC generally in advance renewal of its Royal Charter, which sets the terms for its operations, and which is due in 2027. In a later update, the session was postponed to an as-yet-undisclosed date.

November 7, 2025: The White House comments

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt criticised the BBC in an interview with The Daily Telegraph following the leak. Leavitt said watching the BBC on her trips to the UK “ruins” her day and that the BBC is “100 percent fake news” and a “propaganda machine”.

November 7, 2025: Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson steps in

In a column in the right-wing Daily Mail newspaper, Johnson accused Director-General Tim Davie of failing to provide any explanations about the issue of impartiality at the BBC following the leak.

“No one has even come close to resigning,” he wrote.

Johnson accused the BBC of being a “sort of mouthpiece for Hamas”, and added that until Davie responded to the memo, “I am simply going to stop paying my licence fee and suggest you do the same.”

November 9, 2025: Davie and Turness resign

Director-General Tim Davie said “ultimate responsibility” lay with him, and that he had decided to resign after “reflecting on the very intense personal and professional demands of managing this role over many years in these febrile times”.

Chief executive of BBC News, Deborah Turness said the “buck stops with me”. She added that “while mistakes have been made, I want to be absolutely clear recent allegations that BBC News is institutionally biased are wrong”.

November 9, 2025: US President Donald Trump weighs in

Trump reacted triumphantly to the news of the resignations on his Truth Social network.

He wrote: “The TOP people in the BBC, including TIM DAVIE, the BOSS, are all quitting/FIRED, because they were caught ‘doctoring’ my very good (PERFECT!) speech of January 6th. Thank you to The Telegraph for exposing these Corrupt “Journalists.” These are very dishonest people who tried to step on the scales of a Presidential Election. On top of everything else, they are from a Foreign Country, one that many consider our Number One Ally. What a terrible thing for Democracy!”

November 10, 2025: Samir Shah denies institutional bias

The BBC chair and head of the EGSC, Shah responded to Parliament’s letter of November 4.

Shah said many of the issues Prescott raised were already under review.

He pushed back against claims by Prescott that management had not acted on the points raised regarding the Trump documentary.

Shah wrote, “There was concern expressed by members of the Committee as well as Mr Prescott of the way programme was edited. However, the EGSC also heard from BBC News that the purpose of editing the clip was to convey the message of the speech made by President Trump so that Panorama’s audience could better understand how it had been received by President Trump’s supporters and what was happening on the ground at that time.”

He said he met with Prescott after an October 17 board meeting to discuss the issues and next steps.

Shah apologised for the BBC’s “error of judgement” over the editing of Trump’s speech, but said there was no institutional bias at the BBC.

He also laid out steps being taken to review the issues Prescott had raised and to overhaul the EGSC more generally.

November 10, 2025: Trump threatens $1bn law suit

US President Donald Trump threatened a $1bn lawsuit via a letter to the BBC from his counsel, Alejandro Brito, alleging “malicious, disparaging” edits.

The letter demanded a retraction of the documentary, an apology, and payments to “appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused”.

The broadcaster has been given until Friday 22:00 GMT to respond or, Trump’s lawyer said, he will be: “left with no alternative but to enforce his legal and equitable rights, all of which are expressly reserved and are not waived, including by filing legal action for no less than $1,000,000,000 in damages. The BBC is on notice. PLEASE GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY”.

November 11, 2025: BBC bosses address staff

Islamabad, Pakistan – Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has blamed India for the “suicide attack” that struck outside the district and sessions court building in Islamabad on Tuesday afternoon.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said at least 12 people were killed and hospital authorities confirmed more than 30 wounded, including at least five in critical condition.

The blast occurred as Islamabad hosted several international conferences and while sports events were also under way nearby. The Sri Lankan cricket team, which was attacked in March 2009 by gunmen in Pakistan, was playing a one-day international match in Rawalpindi, about 10km (6 miles) from the court.

The suicide attack marked a dramatic escalation of violence at a time when the military was focused on rescuing hundreds of cadets held by fighters in a separate incident at Cadet College in South Waziristan, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, near the Afghan border.

The assault on the college in Wana, the district capital, occurred a day earlier when an explosives-laden car rammed the campus entrance. Security forces say at least 300 cadets have been rescued so far and that operations to free the remainder are ongoing.

On Tuesday, another bomb in Dera Ismail Khan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, injured at least 14 security personnel.

Sharif blamed India for both the Islamabad and Wana incidents without offering evidence. “Both attacks are the worst examples of Indian state terrorism in the region. It is time for the world to condemn such nefarious conspiracies of India,” he said.

A day earlier, a car explosion in New Delhi killed at least 13 people. India’s Home Minister Amit Shah said on X that India would “hunt down each and every culprit behind this incident”.

Here is what we know so far about the Islamabad blast.

Where did the blast happen?

The suicide bomber struck after 12:30pm (07:30 GMT) at the entrance of the District Judicial Complex on Srinagar Highway, one of Islamabad’s main arteries.

Opened three years ago, the complex handles thousands of litigants and draws large numbers of lawyers daily. The complex has several gates, with a side entrance used primarily by judges and a main gate for litigants.

Key political and civic institutions – the Parliament, Supreme Court, and offices of the president and prime minister – are about 15km (9 miles) away.

Has anyone claimed responsibility?

The Jamaa-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) armed group, claimed responsibility for the attack.

The TTP, an ideological ally of the Afghan Taliban, itself denied any role in the Islamabad attack.

Pakistan has suffered a series of attacks from the TTP in recent years that have led to the deaths of hundreds of security officials and civilians. Pakistan has repeatedly accused the Afghan Taliban of sheltering the TTP, a charge Kabul denies. The TTP are at the centre of recent tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, including a series of deadly cross-border clashes.

Pakistan’s capital, however, has largely stayed peaceful in recent years. The last major attack in Islamabad was in December 2022, when a car rammed a police post and a police officer died. The TTP had claimed responsibility for that attack.

What did witnesses see?

As Islamabad’s main district court, the judicial complex sees thousands of litigants visiting the court premises for their various cases. Thousands of lawyers also come to the complex for their daily duties.

Raja Aleem Abbasi, a member of the Islamabad Bar Council, was taking a break in the main courtyard when the blast shook the compound.

“It was a deafening blast, and complete chaos and panic set in. As we regained composure, I saw the head of the suicide bomber, which had flown from outside, rolling just in front of me, merely a few feet away,” a shaken Abbasi told Al Jazeera.

Abbasi, 60, said hundreds tried to flee, but the main entrance was blocked. “Soon, the entrance used for the judges was open for the public, allowing us to escape,” he added.

He estimated about 2,000 people were on the premises when the device detonated.

Mushahid Dawar, another lawyer, said he had left the compound on his motorcycle minutes before the blast but returned when he heard it.

“I had left for the office from the court when I heard the blast, and instinctively I turned back. However, as I saw so many bodies strewn on the road, I just could not bear the sight and decided to leave,” Dawar told Al Jazeera.

What is the wider context?

The attacks coincide with a fraught period in Pakistan-Afghanistan ties. The two neighbours were locked in a week of clashes last month before Qatar and Türkiye mediated a ceasefire in Doha on October 19.

Follow-up talks in Istanbul have, however, failed to resolve differences, and negotiations collapsed again over the weekend following the third round of talks.

Pakistan long enjoyed close ties with the Afghan Taliban and many Pakistanis welcomed the militants’ return to power in August 2021.

But relations have soured, largely over Pakistan’s accusations that Kabul has provided sanctuary to the TTP, an armed group that emerged in 2007 and has waged a sustained campaign against Islamabad.

Besides the TTP, Pakistan also accuses Afghanistan of sheltering the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and the ISIL affiliate in Khorasan Province (ISKP). The Taliban government denies responsibility for Pakistan’s internal security concerns.

Regional powers including China, Iran and Russia have urged the Taliban to act against the TTP. That message was reiterated at the Moscow Format consultations in early October, attended by Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban’s foreign minister.

Shortly after the blast, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif wrote on X that the country was “in a state of war”.

“Anyone who thinks that the Pakistan Army is fighting this war in the Afghan-Pakistan border region and the remote areas of Balochistan should take today’s suicide attack at the Islamabad district courts as a wake-up call: this is a war for all of Pakistan, in which the Pakistan Army is giving daily sacrifices and making the people feel secure,” he wrote.

Why is India being blamed?

The year 2025 has seen shifting regional alignments. Relations between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban, once close, now stand at a breaking point, despite the current year seeing several attempts to patch up the relationship.

Pakistan appointed an ambassador to Kabul and engaged in multiple diplomatic dialogues, but relations have deteriorated.

India, which long treated the Taliban as a Pakistani proxy and shunned contact, has, on the other hand, strengthened its diplomatic and strategic ties in recent years, as witnessed by a visit by Afghanistan’s foreign minister to India last year.

Islamabad has historically accused New Delhi of stoking unrest in Balochistan and has more recently alleged Indian support for the TTP, charges India rejects.

What do experts say?

Analysts warn that if tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan remain unresolved, instability is likely to spill across borders and provoke further attacks inside Pakistan’s cities.

Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud, a security analyst in Islamabad, said the TTP has the capability to strike major cities but has largely concentrated its operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

“The Pakistani Taliban believe that if they continue attacking security personnel in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, they can weaken the control of administration and that will allow them opportunity to capture parts of the province, where they can make their bases,” Mehsud told Al Jazeera.

Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer is facing mounting calls to step aside after seven Democrats broke ranks with the party to vote for a Republican-led proposal to end the government shutdown without receiving concessions.

The deal does not resolve extending healthcare subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which was one of the main demands from the Democrats.

The progressive section of the Democratic Party has blamed Schumer for the passing of the bill in the Senate on Monday, ending the longest shutdown in the country’s history.

“He’s the leader of the Senate. This deal would never have happened if he had not blessed it. Don’t take my word for it. Take the word of other senators who are saying that they kept Senator Schumer in the loop the whole time,” Democratic Representative Ro Khanna told CBS News.

The measure approved by the Senate would fund parts of the government until January 30, but excludes ACA health insurance subsidies that benefit some 24 million Americans.

The Senate Republicans, however, have agreed to hold another vote in December to decide on the healthcare subsidies. But it is not guaranteed that the healthcare subsidies will be approved.

Which Democrats voted to end the shutdown?

In the Senate, Republicans hold 53 seats and Democrats have 47, but Republicans do not have the 60 votes needed to advance bills. Eight senators who caucus with the Democrats voted to move the Republican measure forward.

Democratic senators who voted for the motion to advance the bill included Dick Durbin of Illinois; Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire; John Fetterman of Pennsylvania; Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen of Nevada; and Tim Kaine of Virginia.

Independent Senator Angus King of Maine, who caucuses with the Democrats, also voted in favour of the measure.

Why are the Democrats calling out Schumer?

Schumer, 74, did not vote in favour of the measure on Monday, but he is being accused by the party leaders of allowing the centrist Democrats to strike a deal with the Senate Republicans.

In his Senate speech on Monday, Schumer raised the issue of healthcare, saying, “The American people will not forget Donald Trump’s cruelty and heartlessness over the past six weeks,” Schumer said.

But progressive Democrats have not absolved him for failing to stop the defections.

“Leadership is about changing and adapting when there is real need, and unless we hear that, we will fail to meet the moment,” Democratic Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin said in a statement.

Representative Khanna wrote on X on Monday, “Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced.”

In another interview with an online US politics show, Khanna slammed Schumer for his stance on Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, as well as his support for the 2003 Iraq war.

“You’ve had Schumer cheerleading the Iraq War, cheerleading a blank cheque to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, betraying us on the first shutdown … and now he’s not even willing to fight!” he told the Breaking Points.

Khanna added that Schumer should be “replaced” and the only reason more Democrats are not calling for it is that it would “offend a lot of donors”.

“Are we gonna be beholden to the donors that have gotten us two terms of Donald Trump, or are we gonna listen to people?” he asked.

While Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) of New York did not explicitly call out Schumer, she wrote in an X post on Monday: “The average ACA benefit is up to $550 a person/mo. People want us to hold the line for a reason. This is not a matter of appealing to a base. It’s about people’s lives. Working people want leaders whose word means something.”

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib said that “the Democratic Party needs leaders who fight and deliver for working people. Schumer should step down.”

“After 40 days of holding firm, with public opinion and momentum on our side, establishment Democrats decided to cave to Trump,” left-wing activist Saikat Chakrabarti, who is running for Congress to represent San Francisco, said. “Schumer and the entire democratic leadership need to step down — and if they run for re-election, we need to primary them.”

The Senate vote came days after democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani won the New York mayoral election on the Democratic Party ticket. Mamdani was not endorsed by a number of Democrats, including Schumer.

But House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries defended Schumer. “Leader Schumer and Senate Democrats over the last seven weeks have waged a valiant fight on behalf of the American people,” he said on Monday.

Since the beginning of the shutdown, Democratic senators voted 14 times not to reopen the government as they demanded the extension of the ACA tax credits.

Schumer also faced the ire of party leaders when he backed a deal to avert a shutdown in March without getting concessions on healthcare subsidies.

Congresswoman AOC, a member of the progressive wing of the party, had called the vote a “tremendous mistake”. “I think there is a deep sense of outrage and betrayal,” she had told reporters.

While Democrats saw success in the recent local elections, emerging rifts now highlight a widening gap between the establishment Democrats and progressive and left-wing Democrats.

Can Schumer be removed?

Schumer can be removed from his position as the Senate minority leader in internal Democratic leadership elections, which would be held after the November 2026 Senate elections. The 45 Democratic senators and two independents who caucus with Democrats get to vote on this.

Undated video circulating on social media shows Russian troops moving through dense fog in Pokrovsk as Moscow steps up efforts to reinforce positions. Ukraine says around 300 Russian soldiers are in the town and are trying to push north to encircle the area.