Richard Irvine-Brown
BBC Verify journalist

Uganda has begun restoring internet connections following long-time leader Yoweri Museveni’s victory in last week’s presidential election.

Internet connectivity in the country was reduced to around 20% during election day last Tuesday in a move officials said would combat misinformation and incitement to violence.

Internet monitoring organisation NetBlocks said there was a reduction to minimal capacity on election day and restoration five days later - which also happened during the 2021 poll.

In the image on the left, we can see how internet activity in Uganda has picked up up after the election using the map function on image-sharing app SnapChat.

It shows that by Sunday 18 January activity has returned to the capital Kampala and to a lesser extent the country’s other cities.

Clicking on these would show posts from Tuesday, then nothing, a few on Saturday, and many on Sunday.

The image on the right shows a similar SnapChat map for the Middle East on 18 January, with almost zero activity across Iran. The dark red circle to the east of Iran represents internet activity in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

Isik Mater, research director at NetBlocks, said the Ugandan shutdown showed the government has “pre-planned the workflow in a way that others haven’t”.

"The obvious victim is transparency around the election process," Mater added.

Barbara Metzler
BBC Verify senior data scientist

We have been looking at satellite images from Mozambique showing the scale of flooding after heavy rainfall hit the Gaza region in recent days.

To analyse the impact on the region in Mozambique’s south, we used Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery to map the flooding.

SAR images pick up water very well because it has a very different radar signal compared with land. It is also a useful tool when there is heavy cloud cover, as radar can penetrate them to collect data when the weather blocks other satellite images.

Our analysis found one area particularly badly impacted, with more than 750 square kilometres (290 square miles) of flooding, comparable to the size of New York City or around half that of London.

The algorithm we applied to analyse the images separates flooded zones from both dry areas and places that usually hold water, like lakes or rivers.

The dark blue areas in the map below represent where flooding was detected on 16 January:

Shruti Menon
BBC Verify senior journalist

I’ve been investigating dramatic images circulating online that claim to show a deadly fire breaking out at the Gul Plaza shopping mall in Karachi, southern Pakistan.

The blaze, which started on Saturday night, took firefighters more than 24 hours to bring under control. At least 21 people have been killed, according to officials.

Genuine pictures of the fire's aftermath show extensive damage to a large part of the multi-storey building.

But some of the images circulating online do not appear to be authentic - so I checked them using multiple AI-detection tools including Google’s Synth ID. It suggested there were credible signs of synthetic generation in the images.

These include inconsistencies in the building structure across images, repeated or blurred figures in the crowds, unrealistic flames, and smoke that does not match known footage from the scene.

Kayleen Devlin and Benedict Garman
BBC Verify

Image source, X

Video filmed by a passenger inside one of the trains involved in yesterday’s crash in southern Spain shows a member of staff instructing passengers to remain inside the carriage, urging them to stay together and look out for one another.

The footage was uploaded to social media on Sunday evening by passenger Adri Vélez, who wrote on X that people in the carriage were safe, but they were unsure about the condition of others. Vélez added that there was smoke inside the train and that passengers could be heard calling for a doctor.

At least 39 people were killed after the Madrid-bound train de-railed and crashed into an oncoming one, although Spain’s transport minister has cautioned this number is “not yet final”. Emergency services have said 122 people were treated for injuries and 48, including five children, are still in hospital.

In the video, the staff member tells passengers to stay seated, while those who are standing are asked to move towards the front carriages, where there are empty seats.

“It’s safer to stay inside the train for now because we don’t know the condition of the track,” he says.

In a later post on X, Vélez wrote: “At the time, I was recording and posting without really being aware of much. Now, having had time to reflect, I want to thank the staff at @iryo_eu, who were incredibly professional despite everything.”

Lucy Gilder
BBC Verify journalist

Image source, Reuters

President Donald Trump has repeatedly framed arguments about annexing Greenland from Denmark as being a “national security” matter for the US and Nato.

Earlier this month, senior Trump advisor Stephen Miller told CNN that “to secure the Arctic region, to protect and defend Nato and Nato interests, obviously, Greenland should be part of the United States”.

However, the US already plays a military role in Greenland and has maintained a presence there since World War Two.

Currently the US operates one military base in Greenland, the Pituffik Space Base, whose responsibilities include missile defence and satellite communication.

William Freer, a national security specialist at the Council on Geostrategy, told BBC Verify that the US is allowed “extensive military powers” in Greenland under several treaties and agreements with Denmark.

One of these is the 1951 Defense of Greenland Agreement, external, which is still in force. It states that “without prejudice to the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark”, the US government is entitled to “fit the area for military use”, including installing facilities and stationing personnel in certain parts of Greenland.

“During the Cold War, this treaty allowed for over 50 US military installations and almost 10,000 personnel to be positioned on the island”, says Freer.

“Under existing agreements, the US could expand its presence once more.”

Freer argues that a reason for the US taking over the island would be “the economic potential of Greenland’s mineral wealth”.

Tamara Kovacevic
BBC Verify senior journalist

Image source, EPA

In a letter to Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store - confirmed by the BBC’s US partner CBS News - President Trump reportedly wrote, external: “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace”.

Store has responded by saying that the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by an independent committee and not by the country of Norway.

Trump’s questionable claim about stopping eight wars is one we have looked at in detail before.

The White House has previously listed them as conflicts between Israel and Hamas, Israel and Iran, Pakistan and India, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Thailand and Cambodia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Serbia and Kosovo.

A number of these “wars” had lasted just days, although were the result of long-standing tensions - and in some cases – for example Egypt and Ethiopia - there was no fighting to end.

There has also been fighting between Rwanda and the DRC, despite the two sides signing a peace agreement.

You can read our full analysis here.

Kumar Malhotra, Shayan Sardarizadeh and Ghoncheh Habibiazad
BBC Verify and BBC Persian

Image source, X

We’ve been checking videos of anti-government protests in Iran which have been shared online in the last few days.

The country is in the second week of a government-imposed internet shutdown with minimal connectivity.

But some material is coming out, including a video from the capital Tehran, filmed at a roundabout where large numbers of protesters had gathered. In the footage, shots can be heard followed by panic and screams in the crowd.

We matched the location to satellite imagery and checked this was not footage from previous waves of protests.

While we can confirm the video has not be shared before this weekend, it’s not possible to be certain when it was filmed because the internet blackout has prevented Iranians from sharing videos in the immediate aftermath of an incident.

There’s also video from the southern city of Dezful, said to be from 8 January, showing men dressed in black and security vehicles. At least twenty shots are heard, although it is not clear who is firing or what the target is.

Another video we verified shows a group of men on motorbikes on the streets of Isfahan in central Iran, at least one of whom seems to be holding a weapon. The post said this was also from 8 January, which we have been able to confirm was the earliest date it had been shared.

We’ve also verified several videos showing a mosque on fire in the northern city of Rasht, as well clips of two bank buildings and a courthouse which have been damaged.

Rob Corp
BBC Verify Live editor

Good morning - we have a raft of stories being looked at today by our specialists in fact-checking, video verification and data journalism.

Some Iranians were briefly able to access the internet late on Friday for the first time since a country-wide blackout began almost 10 days ago in response to a wave of deadly anti-government demonstrations.

Over the weekend our team verified videos which emerged during that brief window showing clashes between protesters and security forces in different cities. We’ll bring you more on those shortly.

BBC Verify is examining US President Donald Trump’s threat to levy tariffs on countries including the UK that oppose his plan to take control of Greenland. We’ll look at the likely impact on the UK economy of Trump’s latest move.

Our team is also verifying videos being shared online by people involved in Sunday’s train crash in southern Spain that has killed at least 39 people.