BBC coverage of the US election, which my colleague Jon Williams trailed here a couple of days ago, brought the highest traffic to BBC News Online so far this year, and set a new record for us on mobile.

On 7 November, there were 16.4m unique browsers across the website and mobile, 8.1m of which came from the UK. That makes it the highest traffic day of 2012 so far and rivals our two biggest previous days during the August riots and the March Tsunami, in 2011. During the England riots, on 9 August 2011 there were there were 18.2m unique browsers, 10.9m of which came from the UK.

The peak traffic point yesterday was 07:00-08:00 GMT, which saw higher usage than lunchtime, maybe as people checked the results as soon as they woke up. UK usage figures yesterday were 50% higher than the average for 2012, and ex-UK usage was 75% higher than average.

We spent a lot of time working out how to provide the best possible service on mobile, so it's encouraging to see that nearly 5m mobile devices visited BBC News Online yesterday, a record figure for us on mobile, accounting for about 30% of all users yesterday (on an average weekday, we'd expect mobiles to account for about 24% of users).

Steve Herrmann is editor of the BBC News website.

This week viewers to BBC World News have been watching a series of reports focusing on the Arab uprisings, two years after they first began. Correspondents have been in Damascus, Tunis, Cairo, the Syria-Lebanon border and elsewhere. Their eyewitness TV reporting is accompanied by further explanation and analysis on our website, bbc.com/news. These are expert journalists, with years of experience and knowledge, living the story on behalf of the audience. They demonstrate our commitment to reporting the world, and bringing clarity to complex events.

Until now, however, viewers in the world's biggest TV market, the US, have found it hard to access BBC reporting of this kind. The market is saturated with TV channels, but for the past couple of years we've been very focused on securing widespread carriage on the distribution systems which bring TV into most homes.

So today the BBC is delighted to announce we have agreed to a partnership with the US cable giant - Time Warner Cable - and through this and other deals, a further 10 million homes in the US will have access to BBC World News 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

This means by the end of this year we will be available in 25 million homes, including those in most of the major markets - New York, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston. There is still some way to go before we can say we have reached everyone - but 2012 has been a year of significant breakthroughs for us in the US.

The BBC is already well-known in America through its partnerships with public radio, through the success of our website BBC.com/news, and because of our nightly broadcast on public television fronted by Katty Kay. We believe our brand of high-quality, intelligent and non-partisan journalism has something to offer US audiences, and we're determined to make access to our services as simple as possible.

The timing could not be better. We're just a few weeks away from the first broadcasts of BBC World News from our brand new headquarters in central London. Three new studios, a big investment in production and journalism, and working more closely with BBC journalists working in English and 27 other languages - it's more than just a new home, it's a new start. We're delighted to share that even more widely.

Richard Porter is controller of English at BBC Global News

BBC World News will soon be available in Burma. Those are words that, even six months ago, I would not have imagined writing. But Burma, a byword for media censorship and repression, is starting to open up.

In September I visited Burma to begin the negotiations which led to this breakthrough in BBC distribution. I was struck by how rapid the media changes are for a country where state media had been long stuck in a repressive timewarp.

A World Service team visited the state broadcaster. We saw the most surreal newsroom I have ever visited. There were no journalists there. "Why not?" we asked. "We don't need them yet. The news hasn't arrived."

We learnt the news is literally delivered once a day by the state news agency. The job of the journalists was to read it out, word for word, unaltered.

But those journalists and editors are now keen to have the BBC's help in learning about open and balanced journalism. It will be a long road, given the ingrained habits of censorship and self-censorship.

But the BBC, through its pioneering media development charity BBC Media Action, is able to offer training to editors and journalists to teach them what independent journalism is. Even officials from the Ministry of Information, the former censors, asked if they could go on BBC journalism courses. Alongside the desire for training, the opening up of Burma to international broadcasters is naturally to be welcomed.

However, there is a long way to go. The massively popular BBC Burmese service, which we estimate is listened to by more than eight million people a week, is not yet allowed to broadcast within Burma. It is transmitted only on shortwave, faithfully listened to, as Aung San Suu Kyi has done for so many years. We urge the government to fully open its airwaves.

And we told the Burmese government that the BBC would continue to scrutinise the country closely. Indeed, as it becomes possible for our journalists to travel within the country, reports such as Fergal Keane's recent searing Newsnight film on human rights abuses in Rakhine state, will form a key part of the BBC's role in the country.

We will also continue to report the progress being made in the political and economic spheres.

At this early stage of opening up, it is hard to know if the hopes of media freedom will be fulfilled, but it is at least an encouraging sign that the BBC can now report from and to the country in English.

Authoritarian governments everywhere are asking themselves if they can and should hold back the free flow of news any more. And, as they ask themselves these questions, politicians, officials and journalists are looking to the BBC as the international exemplar of quality, impartial and independent journalism.

Peter Horrocks is the director of BBC Global News

Moving BBC World News, the BBC's largest television channel, from west London to New Broadcasting House in the centre of the city is a huge project that has taken years of planning.

Relaunching and rebranding every hour of its 24 hours of output to give audiences around the world a new exciting polished HD product has made that huge project even more challenging.

Hopefully on Monday at 1200 GMT, the hard work of our 100 dedicated staff will give our audiences a bolder, brighter, more engaging look for the channel they trust to give them independent, objective news and analysis from more correspondents, in more locations, than any other international broadcaster.

Meticulous planning began about three years ago - everything from the new look of our studios to bicycle parking. We tested our studio systems - literally to breaking point - then fixed them and began the dual-running piloting that has split our newsroom teams between those keeping us on air back at Television Centre and those training and developing our programmes in our new home.

We're calling our new location The World's Newsroom because it truly reflects the world we report. We now work with colleagues from 27 language services who report for us from far flung bureaus and in London, allowing us to celebrate their unique expertise - something no other broadcaster can offer.

Audiences have also told us they want to engage more with the stories we tell - to feel closer to the issues we report. We're going to help you "live the story" with us. It's our new channel ethos.

Our correspondents - expert, brave, tough, determined - live and work where they report, and we want audiences to understand their passion for the stories they cover. So expect a new style of reporting from the field. And we'll be everywhere for our relaunch with live and exclusive reports planned from Syria, China, the US and Burma to name just a few.

In the studio, trusted and familiar presenters will be sharing the day's top stories - with a sprinkling of new faces on air. We'll have a more dynamic look, with robot cameras whizzing around our studios, improved graphics and high definition screens to enhance our ability to explain and analyse. We even have some virtual reality surprises planned.

We're also developing new long-form programmes, so expect to see new hard-hitting and timely documentary series. There'll be fresh new editions of favourites such as HARDTalk with Stephen Sackur (our interrogator-in-chief), Click for the latest on tech and Health Check for medical breakthroughs.

BBC World News has come a long way since it launched as a shoestring commercial operation in a backroom at Television Centre more than 20 years ago. Our audiences have grown massively. We're required viewing from the President's White House in Washington to the President's Blue House in Seoul. And in an era when bad mortgages in the US can trigger a global economic meltdown, we know there is a huge appetite for world news delivered fast, accurately and objectively.

We hope you'll enjoy our new look. And we hope you'll join us in the world's newsroom.

Andrew Roy is head of news for BBC World News

So it's here. School Report News Day 2013 is upon us - and about 1,000 schools are due to take part, making the news that matters to them.

They will appear across BBC News - on TV, radio and online and on regional news programmes.

The project is now in its seventh year, and is bigger than ever. School reporters are in Canterbury to witness the enthronement of the new Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, and we also return to the Olympic Park in London to examine the legacy from the 2012 games. And there's more - the BBC School Report website has full details of the range of topics being covered.

It is all a far cry from when we began. A small team started School Report with the aim of giving teenagers the opportunity to make the news they thought mattered. Giving them hours of BBC airtime was nerve-wracking, but it proved to be a success.

In that first year - 2007 - we worked with 12- and 13-year-olds in 120 schools. What I most remember from that year is seeing school reporters on the Six O'Clock News and thinking that this partnership between schools and the BBC had developed into something bigger than we ever thought it could be.

Fast-forward to 2013 and we are able to reach even further, both in geographical terms and into the BBC's output. We'll be broadcasting live from Radio Foyle in Londonderry, and taking over the flagship Radio 4 programme Woman's Hour.

There will also be a dedicated School Report Live channel accessible through the Red Button. We'll be updating a live news feed on our website and our @BBCSchoolReport Twitter feed throughout the day, so please follow what our school reporters are doing and let us know what you think.

Helen Shreeve is editor of BBC News School Report.

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The Philippines has announced that it will again extend tax filing and payment deadlines, following the prolongation of restrictive measures during the coronavirus outbreak.

A proposal has been put forward for a digital services tax regime in the Philippines.

On May 13, 2020, the Indian Government announced new tax relief measures and administrative concessions.

India has enacted legislation to hike the turnover threshold for filing a country-by-country report.

The UK tax agency has extended various deadlines for responses to consultations and for other work on tax reform, in light of COVID-19.

The Russian Ministry of Finance has announced that it will seek to terminate the country's double tax agreement with Cyprus, after negotiations broke down on a revision to increase tax on cross-border dividends and interest income.

The Russian Government has disclosed that both Luxembourg and Malta have agreed to change their double tax agreement with Russia to increase withholding tax rates on cross-border dividends and interest income.

Russia and Cyprus have announced that they have resolved a dispute concerning the two countries' double tax agreement.

The Russian Government has announced the signing of a double tax Protocol with Malta, to increase the amount of tax that Russia may collect at source on cross-border payments of dividends and interest to 15 percent.

Russia's Ministry of Finance has said it is prepared to terminate the Dutch tax agreement if ongoing negotiations fail.

At its December 22 plenum, Russia's lower house of parliament approved revisions to the country's double tax agreements with Cyprus and Luxembourg.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has signed a law to terminate the country's double tax agreement with the Netherlands.

China has set out the priorities of the Belt and Road Initiative Tax Administration Cooperation Mechanism (BRITACOM) Council over the next five years, at the 36-country grouping's second forum.

The European Commission has extended the scope of its in-depth investigation into the Dutch tax treatment of Inter IKEA.

The Dutch Ministry of Finance has announced that companies will be able to more quickly carry back losses they expect to make this year against profits made in 2019.

The Dutch Government has submitted a report to parliament which includes an extensive set of proposals intended to improve and "future-proof" the country's tax system.

On May 25, 2020, the Dutch tax authority said that taxpayers receiving assessment notices for not submitting a value-added tax return on time can apply for a three-month filing extension.

The Dutch Government has submitted a bill to parliament that will restrict the amount that shareholders can borrow from their own companies without the imposition of tax.

The European Commission is taking action against the Netherlands for failing to fully implement the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive in respect of the availability of information on entities' beneficial owners.

The Dutch tax authority has issued a clarification of the repayment requirements for taxes deferred during the COVID-19 health crisis.

On September 25, 2020, the Dutch Ministry of Finance launched a consultation on plans to introduce a withholding tax on dividend payments to low-tax jurisdictions.

The Dutch Government has announced that businesses may further delay payment of certain tax dues that were frozen in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The European Commission has referred the Netherlands to the Court of Justice for its rules on the cross-border transfer of pension capital and cross-border provision of pensions.

The Netherlands and Poland have agreed to make changes to their tax treaty, to add provisions to prevent tax base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS), and amend provisions relating to the taxation of pensions income.

The Dutch Government is to establish a new supervisory body to improve oversight of the country's tax collecting agencies.

Luxembourg's Direct Tax Administration has issued guidance covering various aspects of the European Union sixth Directive on Administrative Cooperation, under which intermediaries are required to report cross-border tax planning arrangements.

Luxembourg and Belgium will extend the duration of an agreement that clarifies the tax rules for cross-border workers affected by COVID-19 restrictions.

On November 17, 2020, Luxembourg's tax authority published Circular LG – Conv. DI no. 66, outlining the changes made by the BEPS multilateral instrument (BEPS MLI) to the double tax agreement in place with Switzerland.

Hong Kong's Legislative Council has passed a bill to reduce the profits tax for certain insurance businesses.

On May 6, 2020, the German Cabinet adopted the draft Coronavirus Tax Assistance Act, which provides for a temporary reduction in value-added tax on food served in catering outlets.

On May 13, 2020, the Belgian tax authority announced that the competent authorities of Belgium and Germany have concluded an agreement which clarifies the tax situation of cross-border workers in the context of the COVID-19 health crisis.

On May 20, 2020, the German Cabinet agreed on new regulations that will set higher carbon prices from 2021 than those originally envisaged in the Government's Climate Protection Program, which was partially approved by parliament in November 2019.

A EUR130bn (USD148bn) fiscal stimulus package with numerous tax measures, intended to help revive the German economy following the COVID-19 pandemic, was approved by the Federal Cabinet on June 12, 2020.

Both houses of the German parliament have now approved the EUR130bn (USD146bn) COVID-19 economic stimulus plan, which includes numerous tax relief measures.

The newly instated German presidency of the European Union will focus on introducing internationally agreed tax rules for digital companies, according to the presidency's policy agenda.

On July 16, 2020, the German Ministry of Finance posted answers to frequently asked questions on its website with regards to the temporary value-added tax cut.

The European Commission has approved a broader support package, proposed by authorities in Germany, for German airport operators.

On September 2, 2020, the German Ministry of Finance announced that the official value-added tax manual for 2019/20 has been published online.

Germany and the Netherlands have agreed to extend the validity of an agreement clarifying the tax arrangements of frontier workers during the COVID-19 pandemic until December 31, 2020.

Germany has completed the domestic ratification procedures necessary to soon notify the OECD of its intention to bring into effect the BEPS multilateral instrument (BEPS MLI) for its covered double tax treaties.

Germany and Poland have concluded an agreement to provide relief to cross-border workers who have been affected by COVID-19 restrictions on movement.