This is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Alex Ritson, and in the early hours of Saturday the 14th of December, these are our main

stories. More secrets of the Assad regime have been emerging, as Syrians across the country

continue to celebrate the end of half a century of authoritarian rule. Francois Beiru has

admitted he has a mountainous task ahead as he becomes the fourth Prime Minister to take

office in France this year. The management consulting firm McKinsey has agreed a settlement of

hundreds of millions of dollars with the US authorities over its role in the opioid crisis.

Also in this podcast.

These are large drones that are the size of bicycles, small cars.

When you get close to those drones, they notice those drones kind of turn off their lights and evade police helicopters.

The mystery of the huge drones spotted in parts of the U.S., but dismissed by the White House.

We begin in Syria, where secrets of the Assad regime have been emerging since its overthrow last weekend.

For more than half a century, the

linchpin of the regime's stranglehold in the country was the general intelligence directorate,

better known throughout the Arab world as the Mukabarat, the secret police. It's impossible

to overstate its grip on Syrian society. It spied on the Syrian people and others,

got Syrians to spy on each other and imprisoned, tortured and often killed anyone who fell

foul of the authorities. BBC Arabic's Farras Kalani visited the secretive heart of the Assad

state's security apparatus. He told me what he found. It's the most important institution of the Assad state's security apparatus. He told me what he found. It's the most important

institution of the Assad regime, both father and the son. And the headquarters I visited is the

most important one in Damascus to intervene in anything, whether it's internal or overseas.

I mean, just a few days ago, what you've done would be impossible, but you have

...