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The mourners had gathered in the small village of Vero, a half-hour drive from Ajaccio, the capital of the picture-postcard Mediterranean island of Corsica.

In their midst was former nationalist leader Alain Orsoni, 71, who had flown in from exile in Nicaragua to bury his mother. Suddenly, with the ceremony under way, a single shot was fired from nearby scrubland, killing Orsoni instantly.

Thirty-five people have been fatally shot on this island of 350,000 people in the past three years alone, giving it one of France’s highest murder rates. Corsicans have become wearily familiar with vendettas and tit-for-tat underworld shootings, but even here, the way Orsoni was killed has stunned islanders.

Yesterday, Alain Orsoni was cremated after a funeral service in Ajaccio. There was a large police presence.

Close friend Jo Peraldi finds it hard to believe that a day of high emotion surrounding the funeral of Orsoni’s mother could have been defiled in such a way.

“A cemetery is sacred in Corsica, just like a church. Never have I witnessed seeing someone murdered while accompanying their mother to their final resting place,” he told Corsican radio.

Peraldi had seen his friend on the morning of the funeral. Like Orsoni, he had been an active figure in Corsican nationalism, spending 15 years in jail for organising bomb attacks against symbols of the French state.

Over the years, victims of Corsica’s violence have included farmers, elected officials, a lawyer, local business owners and even the president of the chamber of commerce.

But for a cousin of the victim, Christian Leca, Orsoni’s killing was “a tipping point in the horror”.

“People don’t kill in cemeteries, it’s intolerable,” he told Le Monde newspaper.

The nature of the violence has changed in recent times, says Thierry Dominici, an expert of Corsican nationalism at the University of Bordeaux who grew up on the island.

“Once armed groups gave up their violent campaign for autonomy or independence, they kept their weapons and turned to organised crime instead,” he told the BBC. “The French state was so focused on tackling the separatists that it turned a blind eye to their lucrative criminal activities.”

But he believes there is a significant difference between Corsica’s organised crime and the role of the mafia in parts of southern Italy.

“In Corsica the clans are not linked by family ties or rituals of lifelong loyalty, but by simple opportunism,” Dominici says.

Judges in Paris specialised in tackling organised crime are running the investigation into Orsoni’s shooting alongside the regional prosecutor’s office in Marseille.

“This murder increases the mafia pressure that weighs heavily on Corsican society,” says Gilles Simeoni who, as president of Corsica’s regional authority, holds the island’s highest elected position.

“Orsoni was a major contemporary figure in Corsican nationalism both out in the open and and in the shadows.”

His killing has reverberated far beyond Corsica.

The Orsoni family are a household name on the island and they have been long linked to nationalism as well as episodes of violence.

In his younger years, Alain Orsoni spent time in jail for bomb attacks aimed at putting pressure on the French state to grant the island more autonomy.

But the nationalist movement split into different groups and increasingly turned to money laundering, extortion, protection rackets, drug trafficking and violence to win lucrative state-run contracts.

Orsoni’s brother, Guy, was killed by a rival clan in 1983 and his son is in jail for drug trafficking and attempted murder.

He narrowly escaped being killed several times and fled to Central America at the height of one of the particularly violent feuds, turning his attention instead to investing in casinos.

He knew his life was in constant danger. I saw it first-hand when I spent two days with him back in 2012 for the BBC.

A big football fan, he had moved back from Central America to run one of the local football clubs AC Ajaccio. Under his presidency, AC Ajaccio were even promoted to the top flight of French football, Ligue 1.

Big signings were made during the club’s heyday, including former Mexico goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa.

When I asked Orsoni how he managed to attract star players despite having the smallest budget in Ligue 1, he cracked a smile: “Corsica is a nice place to play and I guess I am quite persuasive.”

At the time, he wore a bullet-proof vest and was driven around in an armored car with tinted windows. Rather than sit in a grand office with big windows overlooking the beautiful Bay of Ajaccio, the club president worked in a windowless, concrete bunker deep inside the building. When I suggested we go for a tour of the town, he categorically said no, it wasn’t safe.

He was renowned for his good looks and sing-song southern accent, as well as a passing resemblance to the late actor and showman Yves Montand.

But his easy going smile could suddenly turn to an eerie silence. When I asked him if his reputation as the godfather of Corsica was true, he replied: “Yes, I’m the godfather, but only to my grandchildren.”

As we talked, surrounded by tough-looking men in leather jackets, boots and jeans, I attempted to crack a joke that fell flat. After a long, uneasy pause, Orsoni broke the silence with a chuckle and his henchmen followed suit.

His eye-catching role in French football gave him a VIP pass to grounds across the country. He rubbed shoulders with mainstream dignitaries and establishment figures, including ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy, who rarely missed a home game at Paris Saint-Germain.

A local prefect once told me of his distaste at the thought that Orsoni could be profiting from his new stage to show a more respectable side.

“It’s true I have an unusual background for some one to be a football club president and I can understand that some people are shocked,” Orsoni admitted. “But I can tell you that people’s impressions can change when you meet them.”

Not long after my visit, I talked to his lawyer, Antoine Sollacaro. Weeks later he was murdered at a petrol station in Ajaccio.

In recent years, the club had fallen on hard times. Although Orsoni was still president until only a few months ago, he had moved back to Nicaragua.

Why would anyone want an exiled ex-nationalist football figure dead? The list is long, according to police, and vendettas go back a long way in Corsica.

Alain Bauer, a professor of criminology who has advised successive French governments on security issues, said his killing was inevitable and could herald further violence.

“That Alain Orsoni was killed does not surprise me, it was just a question of when not if,” Bauer told the BBC.

“But the circumstances behind it are shocking. An assassination in a graveyard in Corsica is surprising and it’s pretty certain there will be revenge killings. In the end the main victims are the Corsicans themselves.”

There are few figures more unifying in Corsica than the bishop of Ajaccio, Cardinal François Bustillo, who persuaded the late Pope Francis to visit to the island in December 2024, a few months before his death.

This week he called for an end to the bloodletting.

“We mustn’t get used to this eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth violence. We cannot allow Corsica to drift towards its demons, we have to change mentalities,” he said.

The question is whether his plea will be heard.

Iran is 10 days into one of the most extreme internet shutdowns in history, with 92 million citizens cut off from all internet services and even disruption to phone and text messaging.

The Iranian government cut off services on 8 January, apparently to stifle dissent and prevent international scrutiny of a government crack down on protesters.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the internet was cut off in response to what he described as externally directed “terrorist operations”.

The government has not said when internet services will return, but new reports suggest that, behind the scenes, the authorities may be making plans to restrict it permanently.

On 15 January, the news website IranWire reported that government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani told journalists that international web access will not be available until at least the Iranian New Year in late March.

Internet freedom observers at FilterWatch believe the government is hastily implementing new systems and rules to cut Iran off from the international internet.

“There should be no expectation of reopening international internet access, and even afterwards, users’ access to international internet will never return to its previous form,” FilterWatch said, citing unnamed government sources.

While the BBC cannot independently verify this report or the timing of its implementation, journalists who spoke to BBC Persian also said they were told that internet access would not be restored anytime soon.

Iran has maintained a tight grip over the internet for many years, with most western social media apps and platforms blocked, as well as external news websites like BBC News.

However many people have managed to access popular apps such as Instagram using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).

Internet freedom campaigners at Access Now say Iran has consistently used shutdowns as a way to mask mass violence and brutal crackdowns on protesters, as seen during the nationwide internet shutdowns during the November 2019 and September 2022 protests.

A shutdown was also imposed during the Iran-Israel conflict in June 2025.

However, the current blackout has lasted longer than any previous shutdown.

In a public statement, the charity Access Now said that full restoration of internet access is imperative.

“Restricting access to these essential services not only endanger lives but embolden authorities to conceal and evade accountability for human rights abuses,” it said.

Already there are reports that livelihoods in Iran are being badly impacted by the shutdown with e-commerce particularly affected.

As of 18 January, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) estimates that more than 3,300 confirmed protester deaths have been recorded, with more than 4,380 cases under review. It also reports that the number of arrests has reached 24,266 across 187 cities.

The real number of people killed and detained is believed to be significantly higher, but the lack of access means the figures cannot be independently verified.

Internet monitoring project, FilterWatch, says that the latest shutdown spells the start of a more extreme “digital isolation” and increased surveillance on what is said, sent and viewed online.

Amir Rashidi, director of cyber security and digital rights at the Miaan Group, which runs FilterWatch, told the BBC he believes the authorities are moving towards a tiered system in which access to the global internet would no longer be automatic but subject to approval.

Access would be granted through a registration and vetting process, he expects, adding that the technical infrastructure for such a system has been in place for years.

According to FilterWatch, the plans are not being spoken about publicly, with key decisions increasingly concentrated within security bodies rather than civilian ministries.

Protecting Iran from cyber attacks – of which there have been many high profile and disruptive cases in recent years – may be another motivation for the extreme moves.

However, analysts caution that the plans may not fully materialise or could be applied unevenly due to internal power dynamics and broader economic and technical pressures.

Amir Rashidi notes that risks to internet providers, alongside users’ ability to adapt or migrate to alternative platforms, could further complicate implementation.

If Iran goes ahead with the plans being reported on, it will be following similar systems in Russia and China.

China has led the world on internet control not just with enormous state censorship over online discussion but also with what people are able to access abroad.

The so-called Great Chinese Firewall blocks citizens from much of the global internet and all western apps like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are not reachable without VPNs – but they are also becoming harder to use.

In 2019, Russia began testing for a grand plan to create a similar system dubbed Ru-net.

But unlike China, which built state control into the internet as the web spread decades ago, Russia is having to retrofit state control into complex systems.

Russia is going a step further than China and planning to switch itself off from the world wide web with a “kill switch”, which will apparently be used at times of crisis.

The system will allow internal internet traffic and keep the country moving online but without traffic going outside or in – a digital border in effect. But it has yet to be fully tested.

If the reports are accurate, it seems that Iran is planning to a quasi combination of permanent Chinese and Russian internet control.

“In Iran there seems to be a move to isolate everyone from any electronic access, unless approved by the government,” said computer security expert Prof Alan Woodward from Surrey University in the UK, after reviewing the reports of Iran’s plans.

He believes the Iranian regime has probably moved ahead with its longer term plans, using the current blackout as a reason to make the technical switches and orders now, whilst everything is cut off.

Amir Rashidi says the question is no longer technical, but political – arguing that whether such systems are fully implemented now depends on political will.

Starlink and other internet-from-space services, known as Low Earth Orbit (LEO), have also complicated control for Iran during the protests.

LEO internet services allow users to get around all censorship and shutdowns by connecting via satellites.

The government was able to jam and interfere with some Starlink users but it has been confirmed to the BBC that other terminals remain operational after the company updated its firmware to bypass government blocking efforts.

The service, which is owned by Elon Musk, also waived subscription fees for Iranian users.

In spite of the increasing tools being used by repressive regimes, Woodward is surprisingly optimistic about the future of internet.

He cites advances in LEO and the fact that many phones can now use satellites even when the internet is down for things like SOS messages.

There are also emerging apps that use mesh networks relying on Bluetooth, which can bring connectivity where there is none.

“Its almost inevitable that internet access will be truly universal eventually but it’ll always be cat and mouse for repressive regimes”, Woodward says.

One of the world’s most popular content creators has been attracting huge crowds, mostly his young fans, as he undertakes a 20-nation tour of Africa, a continent he says is “full of surprises”.

Pre-teen boys in Rwanda and Ethiopia cried with joy and excitement as they hugged their online hero in real life – known by his gamer tag IShowSpeed or simply Speed, who now has more than 48 million YouTube subscribers. He is famous for his high-tempo, frenetic and totally unscripted broadcasts that last anything from three to 11 hours.

African Americans have also been moved to see the outpouring of love and respect shown to their countryman, who will turn 21 during his “Speed Does Africa” tour.

In Eswatini he was given the name “Logijimako” – meaning “the one who runs” – during an initiation ceremony at a royal palace for him to become a warrior who protects the king and family.

Others on social media have named him “Speedani”.

Speed, whose real name is Darren Watkins Jr, was himself momentarily overwhelmed by the reaction of people in Angola – the first country he visited – where one fan recreated on the beach a meme of Speed’s “my mom’s kinda homeless” face.

“Bro, I’m not going to lie,” he told the chat – the fans watching and commenting on his YouTube livestream.

“I love the love in Africa. The energy here is crazy.”

Over 28 days, he and his team of recording, security and logistics people plan to visit 20 countries in Africa, including Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Liberia and Ghana.

He is planning to see the sights, learn some history, explore daily life, culture and food, play sport, perform high-risk stunts, meet fans and lookalikes, meet some ministers of tourism – and generally experience whoever and whatever comes his way as he speed-walks and livestreams.

“I want to show the world what Africa really is,” Speed declared during his South Africa stop – where he went car-spinning, learned some amapiano dance moves and got scratched by a cheetah.

Some have dismissed the tour as a superficial gimmick – with the streams only benefitting himself.

In the AskAnAfrican Reddit forum, Bakyumu from Niger described the tour as a “fleeting spectacle” by someone who is ultimately an “entertainer”.

Speed started as a gamer, becoming very well-known in 2022, before moving into in-real-life and football content.

His meteoric rise has not been without controversy.

He is permanently banned from all Riot Games’ online tournaments after a sexist tirade against a female player. He apologised and acknowledged he was wrong.

He was also once banned from YouTube for a week for enabling his game character to engage in inappropriate sexual activity in full display of viewers.

Speed has built his brand and online persona on over-the-top, boisterous and sometimes aggressive reactions.

As well as barking, back flips and athletic stunts – like jumping over moving cars – his stock phrases include “What the…” and “Siuuu”, a nod to his footballing hero Cristiano Ronaldo, which he shouts out in celebration or excitement.

GenZ-ers and the younger GenAlpha-ers love his raw, uncensored content – where almost anything can and sometimes does happen live on air.

“I really enjoy the kind of energy he has and the things he does,” Zambian fan Chinyama Yonga told the BBC.

“Even the weird barks that he does,” laughs the 16-year-old, who braved a rainstorm to see Speed in action.

In Zambia, Speed plunged in the Devil’s Pool on the very edge of the Mosi-oa-Tunya, or Victoria Falls, and rapped with Zambian hip-hop pioneer Slapdee.

He also got a haircut at a barbers in a township in the capital, Lusaka – to the delight of thousands of people who flocked there as news spread on social media.

“He is just himself – and it’s so different to the usual heavily scripted and professionally edited videos,” Chinyama said.

A young relative of mine is a huge fan of Speed and was keen to tell me why the YouTuber appeals to youngsters around the world.

“He’s really funny; he’s really good at doing backflips and he’s really kind. He donates money and he goes out of his way to help people who are in trouble,” said Henry Dale, who is 11 years old, and goes to school in the UK.

I watched the almost four-hour long livestream in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, and was mostly intrigued by the sometimes chaotic encounters and activities.

Speed, dressed in shorts and his trademark number seven football shirt – this time in the yellow of Ethiopia – dashed around the city.

He went to the Merkato, the city’s main market, to haggle for a traditional “shamma” or shawl, to the Ethiopian Science Museum, where he crashed a simulator plane, to the Adwa Victory Memorial, where he walked barefoot to honour the Ethiopian warriors who defeated Italian forces in 1896.

On learning that the country uses its own Ge’ez calendar, he exclaimed: “Wait! It’s… 2018. I’m only 13? Ronaldo is still at Real Madrid?”

Speed also danced with traditional dancers, known for their energetic, fast-paced “eskista” or dancing shoulders.

That was a standout moment for 33-year-old hotel manager Yonaiel Tadiwos.

“His energy when it came to engaging with all dancers was amazing,” Yonaiel told the BBC. He also praised Speed for being “bold enough to try a large amount of raw meat” – a local delicacy with deep historical roots.

The Speed epic walkabouts have not been without mishaps, like in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.

When Miss Universe Zimbabwe came out to greet him, the beauty queen was accidentally overlooked in the chaos of the moment.

Some fans who have rushed in to hug and take selfies with Speed have been swiftly thrown to the ground by his security team.

And Speed cut short a rare solemn moment in Addis Ababa when he was visiting the tomb of the Emperor Haile Selassie – because of the internet connection lagging.

Yonaiel, one of the Ethiopian local organisers, was delighted that Speed included his country “as many creators don’t give us a chance due to misperceptions about Ethiopia”.

But Bakyumu on Reddit is more critical.

“Seeing the local crowds deify him feels tragic because it highlights a desperate need for escapism.

“This isn’t meaningful cultural exchange. It is a momentary distraction from systemic misery,” Bakyumu says, referring to things like poor housing and unemployment that millions in Africa deal with every day.

But for Yonaiel, the visit has had the impact that he had hoped for.

“People from across the world are talking about our country with only positive things to say.”

“We knew we could rewrite the narrative with even just a day of streaming.”

Can one visit by one streamer – no matter how big – change enough perceptions to really shift global narratives towards the continent of Africa?

It is a start, said Samba Yonga, the mother of Zambian teenager Chinyama.

“Speed has activated an internal compass in many young people – across the diaspora and on the continent – who have been quietly searching for belonging, pride and collective identity.”