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Wales fans are starting to feel more upbeat as kick-off approaches for their World Cup game against England. Wales must beat England and hope Iran-USA is a draw to go to the next round. If the other game is not a draw, Wales need to beat England by four or more. Earlier they began gathering on the front in Doha and at a fan party at a hotel. Rhodri Charles, from Cardiff, thought Wales were down and out after the first two games. Image caption, Ed Buckley, pictured with daughter Charlotte, has waited all his life to see Wales at a World Cup "The closer we get to kick-off, I start wondering if we can actually pull it off," the 47-year-old said. His wife Anwen, 45, added: "We have to keep believing." Julie...

Nato has pledged to give more weapons to Ukraine and help fix critical energy infrastructure badly damaged by massive Russian missile and drone strikes. At a summit in Bucharest, the secretary general of the military alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, accused Moscow of "trying to use winter as a weapon of war". The Russian strikes have left millions of Ukrainians without electricity and running water in freezing temperatures. Ukraine has for months been asking Nato for more advanced air defence systems. Under the Geneva conventions, attacks on civilians, or the infrastructure vital to their survival, could be interpreted as a war crime. Earlier this week, Ukraine's prosecutor-general told the BBC that the Russian attacks amounted to gen...

Amid harsh barbs and heated geopolitics, the last World Cup match-up between Iran and the United States began with an unlikely gesture - bouquets of white flowers. The flowers, Iran's coach later said, were meant as a symbol of peace ahead of the 1998 showdown in France. Two decades later, political tensions were again high ahead of the Iran-US game in Qatar. The latest meeting, however, went without any friendly gestures. The previous match, held in Lyon, came 20 years after diplomatic relations between the two nations were severed as a result of the storming of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979 and subsequent 444 day hostage crisis. Just one month before kick-off, the US State Department labelled Iran the world's "most active" sta...

Tuesday, 17 January 2023 is the day analysts predict Elon Musk will become the number-one influencer on Twitter. With 120 million followers, his account, @ElonMusk, is already the second most followed, after @BarackObama, the former US president's, which has 130 million. And following a meteoric rise in the month since he bought Twitter, Mr Musk's will inevitably overtake, statisticians at Social Blade say. This will be an unprecedented moment. The social-media industry has never before seen a platform with a chief executive who is also its biggest personality. So if Mr Musk is to become both Twitter's chief executive and its "chief influencer", what are the implications - for the billionaire and for the website? BBC...

They lost 3-0 to England at the Ahmad bin Ali Stadium, in Al Rayyan, Qatar. To get through to the next round Wales had to beat England and hope Iran-USA drew. If the other game was anything but a draw, Wales had to win by at least four goals. It was the first time Wales had qualified for a World Cup since 1958. In Qatar Chris Madelin, 37, from Bridgend, said: "I'm proud to be here but not very proud of how we performed. Anyone watching that would struggle to know how we qualified." Image caption, Chris Madelin, pictured with wife Philippa, was not proud of Wales' performance His English-born wife Philippa shared his pain. The 38-year-old said: "I'm married to a Welshman, it was really sad, I found it hard to watch." ...

European bison were released into woodland near Canterbury in July as part of a rewilding project to help restore the area to its natural state. The Hollywood star shared an image of the bison to his 55.6 million Instagram followers. It was the first bison to be born in the UK wild in thousands of years. The actor - who describes himself as an environmentalist - frequently uses his social media platform to comment on issues related to climate change. In the post, DiCaprio describes the animals as "ecosystem engineers" as, through their natural behaviour, "create light and space for other wildlife to thrive." Bison clear undergrowth, allowing other plants and insects to move in. They also de-bark conifers, allowing native ...