“Gigantic” waves swamped parts of a key US military facility in the middle of the Pacific Ocean last weekend, causing damage that will take months to repair, according to a US Army report.

A video posted on X showed the terrifying surge of water rushing into a dining facility on Roi-Namur island, the second-largest island of Kwajalein Atoll, which hosts a US military ballistic missile defense test site in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

The rushing water broke down doors and windows and pushed furniture around the facility as it reached near ceiling height in the video.

“Get out of here,” one person could be heard yelling just before the power cuts out and darkness envelops the facility at around 9 p.m. Saturday.

In a video posted on Facebook, Col. Drew Morgan, commander of US Army Garrison-Kwajalein Atoll (USAG-KT), said there were only minor injuries from the “unpredicted, gigantic waves” that washed over the north point of the tiny island.

But the US Army report said damage to the island’s infrastructure was extensive.

“Multiple areas on the island are under water,” according to the Army statement, which was posted and accompanied by an aerial photo taken on January 21 that shows extensive flooding on Roi-Namur.

The runway on the island, home to 120 personnel, needed to be cleared so recovery operations could begin, according to the statement from USAG-KT.

The island’s housing, automotive complex, theater and chapel were damaged, it said.

“Operation Roi Recovery could take months to complete,” the Army said.

The report did not mention any damage to military infrastructure.

The weather service says rogue waves are unpredictable, are at least twice the size of surrounding waves and can come from directions other than the prevailing wind and wave patterns.

Shackelford said the effects of rogue waves are exacerbated by rising sea levels brought on by climate change.

“The impacts of these waves are also more strongly felt across low-lying islands, which includes the Marshall Islands,” he said.

The US Geological Survey says the maximum elevation of Roi-Namur is less than 4 meters (13 feet).

The island is tiny, with a total area of a total area of about 2.5 square kilometers (about 1 square mile), it says.

It’s also remote, about 3,900 kilometers (2,100 miles) southwest of Hawaii and just 9 degrees latitude north of the equator.

That makes it an excellent location for missile testing and detection, according to the US Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command, which operates the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on Kwajalein.

“Radar, optical and telemetry sensors on the atoll support missile testing, missile launches, space reconnaissance and surveillance operations, and science experiments for the Department of Defense and multiple other government agencies,” the Army says in a profile of the test site.

It is also a key site for monitoring foreign space and missile activity, the profile says.

“With first visibility of most launches out of Euro-Asia, RTS provides critical orbital information on new foreign launches in support of the U.S. Strategic Command.”

About 1,300 Americans live and work on Kwajalein Atoll in total, according to the Army.

A Thai political leader who led his party to a stunning electoral victory on a campaign that threatened to shake up the country’s powerful conservative establishment has escaped being disqualified from politics but his — and his party’s — political future remains in question.

Thailand’s Constitutional Court on Wednesday dismissed a case against Pita Limjaroenrat, 43, that alleged he violated election rules by running for office while holding shares in a media company – the long-defunct broadcaster iTV.

Thai law bans members of parliament from owning or holding shares in media companies.

Eight of the nine-member panel of judges ruled in favor of Pita, saying that since iTV had not operated since 2007 — before he applied for the party-list candidacy — he had not violated the constitution.

The ruling is one of two highly-anticipated verdicts against Pita and the progressive Move Forward Party that could ultimately see Thailand’s most successful party at the last election dissolved, and bans and criminal charges levied at its leaders.

Following Wednesday’s verdict, Pita told reporters outside court that he will continue to work for the people and that he would like to get back to his duties in parliament “as soon as possible.”

“Whenever I’m allowed in, I’ll be there,” he said.

Supporters who had gathered outside the court began chanting “PM Pita,” referring to his bid to become prime minister, and said justice had been done. Some held placards reading, “We will always support the party” while others mocked the Election Commission that brought the case to court.

Supravee Sansuk, 63, from Bangkok said the outcome has restored her faith in the Thai justice system.

Lee Saetung, 69, said he traveled three hours from his hometown of Rayong to attend the verdict.

“I am growing older, I need the country to move forward and we need young people to cultivate the future of my grandchildren. So when the verdict was released, I was very much relieved to see a future ahead for my descendants,” he said.

Besides being defunct for nearly two decades, iTV did not have a media license nor a frequency band to broadcast, and had no income, Pita said in a Facebook post last year.

Pita said he inherited shares owned by his late father but they held “no economic value” and the company was delisted from the Thai Stock Exchange in 2014. The shares were later transferred, he said.

The former prime ministerial hopeful was suspended from his duties as a lawmaker and member of Thailand’s parliament in July while the case was being investigated.

His Move Forward party gained a huge following among young Thais during the 2023 general election for its reformist platform, which included deep structural reforms to how Thailand is run, including to the military and radical plans to amend the country’s strict lese majeste laws despite the taboo surrounding any discussion of the royal family in Thailand.

Move Forward won the most seats and the largest share of the popular vote in the May election.

The result was a decisive victory for progressive parties and delivered a crushing blow to the conservative, military-backed establishment that has ruled on and off for decades, often by turfing out popularly elected governments in coups.

The party was prevented from forming a government, however, as it failed to win support from a big enough majority of parliamentarians over its royal reform agenda and Pita resigned as leader of the party, which is now in opposition.

Move Forward and its former leader Pita remain popular, especially among younger Thais who have hit the streets in huge numbers in recent years calling for political and royal reform.

A January opinion poll by the National Institute of Development Administration showed Pita as being Thailand’s most popular politician for 39% of respondents, with Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin at 22%, Reuters reported.

But its fate hangs in the balance until the Constitutional Court delivers another ruling on January 31 over whether Pita and the party sought to overthrow the monarchy through his election campaign to amend the kingdom’s notoriously strict lese majeste law.

Previous cases

Thailand’s turbulent political history has previously seen parties that have pushed for change run afoul of the powerful conservative establishment – a nexus of the military, monarchy and influential elites.

Lawmakers have faced bans, parties have been dissolved, and governments have been overthrown. Thailand has witnessed a dozen successful coups since 1932, including two in the past 17 years.

And the purportedly independent election commission, anti-corruption commission and the Constitutional Court are all dominated by members in favor of the establishment.

In 2008, the Constitutional Court ruled that then-prime minister Samak Sundaravej violated the constitution by taking part in a cooking show on TV while in office for which he received a nominal fee, and was ordered to resign.

Three parties linked to billionaire political scion Thaksin Shinawatra – the populist former prime minister who was ousted in a coup in 2006 – have been disbanded in the last decade.

And most recently, Move Forward’s predecessor, the Future Forward Party, won the third most seats in the 2019 election. Shortly afterward, several of the party’s leaders were banned from politics and the party was later dissolved after a court ruled it had violated electoral finance rules.

The decision to dissolve the popular party ignited youth-led protests that swept across Thailand in 2020, politicizing a whole new generation of activists and political leaders – some of whom contested last year’s election with the Move Forward Party.

Nowara Diab was trying to drown out the sounds of airstrikes by listening to music, but it was not enough to shake the unsettled feeling in her gut.

Then her phone rang. It was a friend, who said they had heard that Maimana Jarada – Diab’s best friend – and her family had been killed by Israeli bombardment.

Her stomach was in knots as she felt herself panicking. Diab called Jarada’s number repeatedly but when there was no answer, it dawned on her that it was true – Jarada had been killed.

The 20-year-old says she broke down in tears as she felt the walls close in around her. The pain was even more intense for Diab because she had learned only 10 days earlier that another friend, Abraham Saidam, had also been killed by Israeli airstrikes.

“Living without them is the worst thing I’ve ever felt,” Diab said. “My heart aches every single day thinking that they’re not here and they’re not going to be here for me anymore, it pains me.”

She recalls how she froze in disbelief and started crying when she received the text message about Saidam.

“My mother looked at me to ask me what was wrong. I just covered my mouth with my hands and I was silent, everything was a blur and I was in complete shock.”

As Israel’s war approaches its fourth month, sustained bombardment by Israeli forces in Gaza has had a devastating impact on civilians there. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the “utterly unacceptable” killing of civilians, renewing calls for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” to relieve the suffering of Palestinians in the strip, after the death toll surpassed 25,000, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

Throughout Israel’s war, launched in response to the October 7 Hamas attacks, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has repeatedly said that it only targets Hamas fighters, not civilians.

The enclave is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with about 2.2 million inhabitants.

Conditions in Gaza are a ‘living hell’

At the outset of the war, Diab watched as bombs fell near her home in Gaza City. She and her family knew they had to leave for their own safety.

“That night was dreadful, it was so scary, I was sure I was going to die,” she said.

After fleeing multiple times, Diab and her family are now staying in Rafah, southern Gaza, and are among the nearly 1.9 million people displaced across the territory, according to data from the United Nations’ Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

The Israeli bombardment and the ensuing humanitarian crisis have made the situation in the enclave unbearable, with the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, saying conditions for children are a “living hell.” The UN agency has described Gaza as the most dangerous place in the world to be a child and said the ongoing violence is exposing young people to devastating emotional trauma and psychological harm.

Walking through the streets, Diab said, she looks at the faces of fellow residents of Gaza and sees nothing but sadness and pain.

She says losing her best friends and being forced to leave behind the life she’s known has impacted her own mental health.

“I’m unable to feel anything, I don’t feel happy or sad or anything,” she said. “I don’t know why but all of this has consumed my energy, I cry every now and then but not the way I used to cry before, it’s very brief.”

‘A sneak peek into hell’

Before the war, Diab was in her final year of college studying English and French literature at Al Azhar University. Like most young people, she enjoyed spending time with her friends and eating tasty food in the city.

Sometimes, when Diab closes her eyes, she can still remember the faint smell of her family home in northern Gaza, destroyed by bombing since October 7. “Even the flaws hold memories,” she said. “If my little sister drew something on the walls, it made my mother mad but it still holds a memory.”

Diab says she longs for the kind of problems she had before the war, like missing the bus for college or being bored in lectures. “I’m not able to do this anymore because my college was bombed, my house was bombed and I lost my best friend,” she said.

Diab describes her situation as worse than a nightmare because she’s unable to wake up from it.

“I laugh at myself when I say ‘my life’ now, because this is not my life, this is far away from my life,” she continued. “This is a sneak peek into hell.”

There’s rarely a moment when Jarada and Saidam leave Diab’s mind, she says, and she thinks of them whenever she looks through photos on her phone or sees other people with their friends.

“I just need her (Jarada) more than ever right now, but I know that she is in a better place,” Diab said.

“And I know that Abraham is happy now, I just know it, but I miss them.”

Best friends

Jarada painted a sunflower for Diab’s birthday last year. Diab says she accepted it unaware that this would be her friend’s last gift to her before she died at age 20.

When Diab and her family fled Gaza City, she had to leave the painting behind.

At college, Diab’s interest in the arts drew her to participate in a theater group, where she became good friends with Saidam after initially thinking he was quiet.

“He even looked like an introvert, but then we found out he’s an extrovert and was so funny and so exceptional,” she said.

Diab recalls how they both participated in a play based on Homer’s “Odyssey.” Saidam played King Odysseus and would make everybody laugh, she said.

The day Diab learned of her 27-year-old friend’s death, she cried a lot, but resolved to be strong because there was nothing more she could do, she said.

‘Woefully inadequate’ aid

In Rafah, all Diab tries to do is to survive another day, she said, searching for essential items like cooking gas and water, both in very short supply.

“Can you imagine if you live your life without water? The most basic thing, just to drink, just to keep living,” said Diab. “Now everyone is being killed and if you’re not going to die from (airstrikes) we’re going to die from being hungry or thirsty.”

But despite everything that is happening, she says she will never forget the generosity and kindness of neighbors where they’ve sought refuge in Rafah and Khan Younis.

A neighbor in Rafah would give them plates of food and let Diab’s family shower at her home. “To see someone giving so much like this under these circumstances is surprising and she’s so nice,” Diab said.

“(Another family) came over and offered water to shower and to charge our phones and within an hour, our phones came back fully charged,” she said – no small thing in Gaza, where fuel shortages mean electricity is hard to access.

Although aid has entered the enclave, it has done so under challenging conditions and the UN has repeatedly warned that the volume getting in remains “woefully inadequate.”

Diab says extreme thirst has driven her family to drink water suitable only for laundry or showering.

Families across Gaza are having to consume unclean water because of Israel’s siege, adding to the risk of ill health. Earlier this month, UNICEF warned that the intensifying conflict has threatened the lives of over 1.1 million children, putting them in a deadly cycle of violence, malnutrition and disease.

With airstrikes pummeling southern Gaza, Diab fears for her safety in Rafah, saying there’s not an inch in the enclave which is truly safe, despite Israel’s declaration of a safe zone and regular announcements of times when they will stop bombing so people can move safely.

And although she wishes the war to be over, she lacks hope for the future.

“We’re going to see Gaza City wiped out, we’re gonna see it with our own eyes, which will be heartbreaking,” she said of any future return to her home.

“Imagine going back, after all of this is over and there’s going to be nothing to go back to, not a college, not a house, nothing. So even when this is over, there is more agony and pain waiting for us.”

A Russian military plane carrying 74 people has crashed in the Belgorod border region, Russian media reports cited officials as saying.

There are conflicting reports about what the IL-76 aircraft was carrying. Russian news agencies citing the Defense Ministry said 65 Ukrainian servicemen were on board and being flown to Belgorod ahead of a prisoner swap. Belgorod’s governor claimed all passengers on board have been killed.

Six crew members and three “accompanying personnel” were also on board the IL-76 cargo plane, Russian officials said. Russian Parliament’s defense committee, Andrey Kartapolov, said there was a second military plane, also an IL-76, carrying an additional 80 prisoners of war, which was diverted.

Kartapolov also said the “Ukrainian leadership was well aware of the impending exchange and was informed of how the prisoners would be delivered. But the IL-76 plane was shot down by three missiles, either with anti-aircraft missile systems or Patriot, or with German-made IRIS.”

Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the cause of the crash was being investigated. “A transport airplane crashed in the Korochansky district. It went down in a field near a settlement. All those on board died,” Gladkov said. “Now the crash site is cordoned off. All operational services are on site, investigative measures are being carried out,” he added.

The plane crashed 5 to 6 kilometers (about 3 to 3.7 miles) from the village of Yablonovo in the Korocha district of Belgorod region, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

“No damage was done to the village, as it [the plane] crashed in a field outside of the village,” a local cleric, Rev. Georgy, rector of the Dimitri Solunsky church in Yablonovo, told TASS.

The Kremlin declined to comment on the reported crash. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, “This is quite new information, we will now deal with it. I can’t say anything yet.”

The Ilyushin Il-76 is a Soviet-era military transport aircraft with a payload of more than 50 tons, according to Europe’s air safety body, Eurocontrol. It has been in service since 1975.

The border city of Belgorod was the site of one of the deadliest Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil late last year. At least 24 people, including three children, were killed and 108 others wounded in the attacks, which sparked retaliatory Russian strikes on the Kharkiv region of Ukraine.

The plane crash comes as Russia’s war in Ukraine is set to enter its third year, with little battlefield progress made by either side in recent months. Western intelligence assessments warn that battlefield movement could further stagnate this year.

Kyiv and Moscow have exchanged prisoners of war throughout the conflict. The largest swap came earlier in January, when the two sides each exchanged over 200 prisoners.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

A United Nations envoy said he was “alarmed,” “distressed” and “seriously concerned” by the treatment of climate activists in the United Kingdom, in a damning report published Tuesday that criticized “increasingly severe crackdowns” on peaceful protesters in the country.

Michel Forst, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders, who visited the UK earlier this month to meet with politicians, NGOs, activists and lawyers, said he had received “extremely worrying” information about peaceful protesters facing prosecution under “regressive” new laws, experiencing “harsh” bail conditions while awaiting trial, and being handed jail sentences.

British authorities have stepped up their response to climate and environmental protestors in recent years, especially when protests become disruptive, including blocking roads and slow walking tactics.

Last year, the the country introduced new legislation — the Public Order Act 2023 — giving police more power to stop protests. In December, the legislation was used to sentence a climate protester to a six-month prison term for taking part in a slow march on a public road as part of the activist group Just Stop Oil. The protester is now appealing the sentence.

“It had been almost unheard of since the 1930s for members of the public to be imprisoned for peaceful protest in the UK,” Forst wrote.

A spokesperson for the UK Home Office, the government department that tackles policing and other elements of national security, said that “while decisions on custodial sentences are a matter for the independent judiciary, the Public Order Act brings in new criminal offences and proper penalties for selfish, guerrilla protest tactics.”

Forst said he was “alarmed” to learn that some judges were banning defendants from explaining the motivation behind their protest, including mentioning climate change. “It is very difficult to understand what could justify denying the jury the opportunity to hear the reason for the defendant’s action,” he wrote.

The report referred to “highly concerning” information about “harsh” bail conditions for peaceful protesters awaiting trial — a period that could span up to two years — including wearing electronic ankle tags and curfews. “I seriously question the necessity and proportionality of such conditions for persons engaging in peaceful protest,” Forst wrote.

He also said he was “distressed” to see how environmental defenders are “derided” by the media and political figures in the UK. It puts them at risk of “threats, abuse and even physical attacks,” he said.

This “toxic discourse” can also be used by the government as justification for “adopting increasingly severe and draconian measures against environmental defenders,” he said.

“In the course of my visit, I witnessed firsthand that this is precisely what is taking place in the UK right now,” he said, adding this had a “significant chilling effect” on civil society and fundamental rights to peaceful protest.

Climate protesters are increasingly undertaking high-profile and disruptive actions. But the fact they cause disruption does not mean they are not peaceful, Forst said.

In January last year, one of the best known climate groups in the UK, Extinction Rebellion, announced it was pausing mass public disruption campaigns to focus on building more support.

But other organizations have scaled up their protests. Last year, Just Stop Oil, for example, disrupted several major sporting events in England, including Wimbledon, the Ashes cricket test series and the World Snooker Championship, as well as a performance of the musical “Les Misérables.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

Twenty-four Israeli soldiers were killed during fighting in Gaza on Monday, the military said, in the deadliest day for its troops inside the battered enclave since the war with Hamas began.

Most of the soldiers – 21 – were killed in an attack in central Gaza “when a terrorist squad surprised our fighters and launched missiles and rockets,” said Daniel Hagari, spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

That attack, which Hagari said happened several hundred meters from the eastern border, was the deadliest single incident for the IDF in Gaza since the ground invasion began on October 27. A further three Israeli soldiers – an IDF captain and two majors – were killed in a separate incident the same day, in southern Gaza.

The attack in central Gaza took place as the IDF soldiers were laying explosives to demolish “terror infrastructure and buildings,” according to Hagari.

A rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) hit one of the buildings and set off an explosion that led to its collapse.

“Most of our fighters died because of the collapse of that building,” Hagari said.

Another RPG hit a nearby IDF tank, killing the tank commander and another Israeli soldier, Hagari added.

On Monday, the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza said the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 7 has risen to 25,295, with at least 63,000 injuries recorded.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing increasing political pressure on multiple fronts, said the deaths of the soldiers represented “one of the most difficult days since the outbreak of the war.”

“I mourn for our fallen heroic soldiers. I hug the families in their time of need and we all pray for the peace of our wounded,” Netanyahu said, adding that the IDF had launched an investigation into the incident.

The Israeli military’s large-scale bombing campaign in Gaza has been ongoing since the October 7 murder and kidnapping rampage by Hamas gunmen that saw some 1,200 people killed in Israel and more than 250 taken hostage. One hundred and thirty two hostages remain in Gaza. Of those, 104 are believed to still be alive.

The incidents in Gaza on Monday bring the number of Israeli soldiers killed since operations there began to 219.

The previous deadliest day for IDF soldiers in Gaza since the start of the conflict was October 31, when 16 Israeli troops died. That day also included the previous deadliest incident, which saw 11 troops killed in an armored personnel carrier.

Khan Younis surrounded

In recent weeks, the Israeli military’s main focus has been in southern Gaza, with intense fighting around the city of Khan Younis.

The IDF said Tuesday that the city is now surrounded, while the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry says nearly 200 people have been killed in the past day.

In a statement Tuesday, the IDF said “dozens of terrorists” had been killed in the past 24 hours by IDF ground troops in coordination with the Israeli air force.

“Over the past day, IDF troops carried out an extensive operation during which they encircled Khan Younis and deepened the operation in the area. The area is a significant stronghold of Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade,” the IDF said.

Hagari said Israeli soldiers continue to fight in Khan Younis, adding, “It’s a very complicated area – very crowded, with a lot of people living there.” One hundred Hamas fighters have been killed in the Khan Younis area within the last day, Hagari claimed.

Medical facilities in the city have been battered amid an Israeli assault in the area Monday, Palestinian health officials said, as the number of people killed in Israel’s siege on Gaza continues to rise.

On Monday, the Hamas-controlled health ministry said Nasser Hospital is receiving more patients with serious injuries than it can accommodate and intensive care units have reached capacity.

This month, Israeli officials said its military will shift toward a new, less intense phase of operations in Gaza, but a humanitarian crisis in the enclave continues to deepen.

Netanyahu is facing mounting pressure both on the state of the conflict at present and on what Gaza will look like once the fighting ends.

The Israeli prime minister is being pushed by the international community – including the US, Israel’s most important ally – to allow the creation of a viable Palestinian state. Domestically, he is being pressured to guarantee Israel’s security, most notably from far-right members of his coalition.

He has also faced growing criticism inside Israel for so far failing to secure the release of all the hostages taken by Hamas during their October 7 attack.

Tim Lister, Lauren Izso and Lauren Kent contributed to this report.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the date of the previous deadliest day of the war for Israeli soldiers. It was on October 31, 2023.

The Turkish parliament voted Tuesday to approve Sweden’s NATO membership bid, bringing the Nordic country one step closer to joining the military alliance after months of delays.

Of the 346 members of parliament who voted, 287 were in favor of Sweden’s accession and 55 voted to reject it. Four others abstained from voting.

The vote was the second step of Turkey’s ratification process after the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Commission approved the bid last month. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan can now sign the protocol into law.

The outcome on Tuesday cleared a significant hurdle for the Nordic country’s accession into the military alliance, with Hungary now set to be the only member state that has not yet ratified Sweden’s accession.

However, on Tuesday, Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orban said he had invited his Swedish counterpart Ulf Kristersson to visit Hungary to negotiate the terms of Sweden’s accession.

Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership in May 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier that year. Finland joined NATO in April 2023, doubling the alliance’s border with Russia, but Sweden has faced numerous delays in its path to accession.

Erdogan initially objected to Sweden’s membership bid, accusing Swedish officials of being too lenient on militant groups, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Since applying, Sweden has tightened its anti-terror legislation and agreed to work more closely with Turkey on security concerns.

Erdogan’s approval of Sweden’s accession bid also rides on a commitment by the United States, with the Turkish president signaling that he won’t sign the protocol into law unless the US approves the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey.

US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Ben Cardin said on Tuesday that Congress, however, is waiting to see the accession documents completed before moving forward on the matter.

Following Tuesday’s Turkish parliamentary vote, Swedish Prime Minister Kristersson said Sweden was “one step closer to becoming a full member of NATO.”

The US Ambassador to Turkey Jeffry Flake reiterated the sentiment in a post on X, saying “Sweden’s accession to NATO is a critical step in strengthening the alliance” and that he “greatly appreciate the Turkish’s parliament’s decision to approve Sweden’s entry into NATO.”

The German government welcomed the outcome of the Turkish parliamentary vote. The federal government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said in a statement that Finland’s accession last April and Sweden’s “forthcoming accession” were a “direct reaction to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Police in Gauteng have arrested a suspect in connection with the fire that tore through a five-story building in central Johannesburg last year and killed 77 people, South African public broadcaster SABC reported Tuesday.

Gauteng police spokesperson Dimakatso Nevhuhlwi said the suspect was arrested after he confessed before the Commission of Inquiry into the building fire, and that the 29-year-old man will appear in court soon on charges of arson, 76 counts of murder and 120 counts of attempted murder, according to SABC.

The exact cause of the fire is “yet to be determined,” it added.

At least 12 children were among those killed in the blaze last year. More than 50 people were injured.

The fire affected some of the country’s most vulnerable people while also highlighting a long-standing problem regarding abandoned buildings in South Africa.

The blaze took place in what is known locally as a “hijacked building” – a property abandoned by landlords and taken over by gangs or other groups and leased out mostly to migrants and South Africans lacking the means to afford other forms of housing.

While South Africa has seen fires devastate informal settlements before, the Johannesburg fire is widely seen as the worst in recent memory.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

BFMTV reported that the boy had been left to live alone in the family’s apartment in the town of Nersac in the Charente region for two years, from 2020 to 2022, and appeared to survive on cake, canned goods, and stolen tomatoes.

According to BFMTV, the child’s mother lived with her partner in another apartment five kilometers (3.1 miles) away and would only visit the child from “time to time.”

The Mayor of Nersac, Barbara Couturier, as reported by BFMTV, said the child often did not have hot water or heating. Nevertheless, he continued attending school during this time and was a good student, Couturier also stated.

Couturier said she alerted the local and national police about the situation after the mother asked social services to help buy food.

“I met his mom on May 2022. She came to tell us that she had financial problems, and we gave her four vouchers for food, but she took some processed food products instead so that got me suspicious. Some residents told me that there was a child living alone, so I connected the two things and I called the local police and the national police,” Couturier explained.

Couturier stated that the child had been under the care of social services since September 19, 2022.

This is a developing story.

Straddling the frontlines, the small town of Avdiivka has become the epicenter of the war in Ukraine. Still in Ukrainian hands – just – it’s enclosed on three sides by Russian troops and cannons.

Pounded by the Russians, the town itself is unrecognizable.

Concrete carcasses mark what were once the town’s tallest buildings, seemingly floating amid small hills of rubble. The cross atop the town’s church, bent double by an explosion, points accusatorially at the Russian lines.

Amid the ruins, Russian and Ukrainian troops clash, preyed upon by drones and the occasional tank. Casualties are heavy on both sides but especially among the Russian attackers, who have thrown wave after human wave against the entrenched defenders.

“Nobody evacuates them, nobody takes them away,” he said. “It feels like people don’t have a specific task, they just go and die.”

“Teren,” the commander of a Ukrainian drone reconnaissance unit in the town, said that even “if we can kill 40 to 70 servicemen with drones in a day, the next day they renew their forces and continue to attack.”

In 18 months of fighting around the town, he said, his pilots from the 110th Mechanized Brigade have killed at least 1,500 Russians. Still, they keep coming.

Ukrainian casualties are a closely guarded secret, but the battle has turned into an attritional slog, matching seemingly chaotic Russian attacks against the limited, but determined, resources and manpower of the Ukrainians.

In a surprise trip to Avdiivka in late December, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the battle for the town as an “onslaught,” adding that the battle could in many ways “determine the overall course of the war.”

Ukraine’s leaders appear conscious of the criticisms around the defense – but subsequent fall – of Bakhmut in 2023, acknowledging the obvious tensions between holding on to locations without huge strategic significance and protecting the lives of soldiers.

“Every piece of our land is precious to us,” army chief Valery Zaluzhny said, but in Avdiivka, “there is no need to do anything remotely reminiscent of a show.”

Arms for the fight

But those lives depend on weapons and arms.

Rushing to set up their Soviet-era rocket launcher – bolted on to the back of an American pick-up – one of the men flicked the switch to launch a salvo.

Clicks – and curses – followed. Frozen solid, the rockets wouldn’t fire.

Reliant on the kit they have, not the Western hardware they crave, they know that each lost chance to fire back at Russians may cost Ukrainian lives.

A few days later, a supply truck chewed through the mud of a field around the nearby town of Marinka, bringing much-needed shells to a gun position.

But the cannon – a US-supplied M777 howitzer – is silent for much of the day, rationed to around 20 shells a day, 30 on a “good day” the gunners said. Last summer, supporting Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive, the gun crew would fire at least twice as many foreign rounds, many American-made, at the Russians, they said. 

A delivery later in the day brought four shells but nothing that would do the Russians much harm: they were only smoke shells.

“They use old Soviet systems,” Korsar said, “but Soviet systems can still kill.”

However, US support to Ukraine – including much-needed shells – no longer seems assured. Future aid packages are still mired in Capitol Hill squabbling, and the specter of a possible Ukraine-aid-averse Trump presidency on the horizon adds further uncertainty.

US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby put it plainly this month: “The assistance that we provided has now ground to a halt. The attacks that the Russians are conducting are only increasing.”

But when they can put their Western weapons to use, the Ukrainians have much more to celebrate in Avdiivka.

The tip of the spear during last year’s ill-fated Ukrainian counteroffensive, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle – gifted to Ukraine by the US and designed to support infantry – is reinforcing its reputation blunting waves of Russian attacks.

“The vehicle is a tough one,” he said. “It’s not afraid of anything.”

But the US-made Bradleys are in limited supply along the front.

Some 200 Bradleys were promised by the US and dozens have been damaged and destroyed in battle. Some of these will likely have been repaired and sent back to the frontlines.

Ukrainian crews, although admirers of the Bradley’s power, have also criticized its ability to weather the harsh Ukrainian winter and the state of some of the older vehicles shipped by the US.

Ukraine’s lack of firepower compared to its adversary is a common theme on the front line. “Teren” the commander of a nearby drone reconnaissance unit, said outright that Ukraine doesn’t have enough arms and equipment to win against Russia.

The Ukrainians are forced to be better pilots and more inventive with their limited resources, he said.

“At the beginning of the war, their advantage in drones was 10 times greater than ours,” he said. “At the moment, I think we are a worthy opponent in the drone format. We cover the sky around the clock.”

The powerful cameras on one drone caught two Russian soldiers desperately take aim at a weaving suicide drone, the smoke from their rifles and cigarettes billowing into the cold air. The Ukrainian drone dives into the narrow dugout behind them and explodes.

An overflowing cup

Still, the Russian assaults continue, meaning holding Avdiivka is now a matter of numbers, said “Bess,” the special forces sniper.

“If there is a liter bottle, there’s no way you can fit a liter and a half in it,” he said.

To balance Russia’s superior numbers, Ukraine’s leadership – under pressure from the country’s top generals – is weighing a possible half a million extra troops to bolster the military’s ranks.

Life in Ukrainian cities away from the front appears relatively untouched by the fighting, at least on the surface. Although recruitment posters and military checkpoints dot highways and men in uniform are a regular sight, there’s little overt sign of wartime restrictions or changes to daily life. Supermarkets are full and cafes brim with customers.

But conscription is a touchy subject.

The Ukrainian president does have the power to enforce further mobilization – currently limited to those aged over 27 – but has chosen to seek parliamentary approval for it. The bill is slowly – and not without difficulty – making its way through lawmakers’ scrutiny.

Zelensky has also questioned how to pay for the mobilization, with six taxpayers required to pay for the salary of each soldier in uniform, he said.

His reticence is a sign of the political sensitivities around public opinion in Ukraine, even as the country’s enemies make no secret of their violent ambitions for Kyiv.

“The existence of Ukraine is deadly for Ukrainians,” Russia’s former President Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council and one of the most hawkish Russian politicians, posted on Telegram on January 17.

“Why? The existence of an independent state on the historical Russian territories will now be a constant pretext for the resumption of combat actions,” he continued.

The soldiers, tired though rarely disgruntled, acknowledged that reinforcements would provide a welcome increase in their rotations off the front line.

For now, though, that remains a distant hope, as in Avdiivka the fight rages on.

“I don’t know what will happen next,” he said. “But Avdiivka is holding on. We are on our land. We have nothing to lose.”