The frontlines of Russia’s war in Ukraine have become infested with rats and mice, reportedly spreading disease that causes soldiers to vomit and bleed from their eyes, crippling combat capability and recreating the gruesome conditions that plagued troops in the trench warfare of World War I.

A Ukrainian servicewoman, who goes by the call-sign “Kira,” recalled how her battalion was beset last fall by a “mouse epidemic” while fighting in as the southern Zaporizhzhia region.

The infestations are due partly to the change in seasons and mice’s mating cycle, but are also a measure of how the war has become static, after Ukraine’s counteroffensive was largely rebuffed by heavily fortified Russian defenses. Amid another harsh winter, mice are foraging along the nearly 1,000-kilometer (621-mile) frontline, spreading disease and dissatisfaction as they search for food and warmth.

Kira said she tried everything to rid their bunkers of mice: sprinkling poison, spraying ammonia, even praying. Nearby shops stocked up on anti-mouse products and made a killing, she said. But, as the mice kept coming, they tried other methods.

“We had a cat named Busia, and at first she also helped and ate mice. But later there were so many of them that she refused. A cat can catch one or two mice, but if there are 70 of them, it’s unrealistic.”

Videos shared on social media by Ukrainian and Russian soldiers showed the extent of the infestations on the frontlines. Mice and rats are seen scurrying around under beds, in backpacks, power generators, coat pockets and pillowcases. One shows mice pouring forth from a Russian mortar turret like bullets from a Browning.

In another, a cat tries to swipe a mouse on an armchair, before a soldier taps the top of the seat and dozens more cascade down. The cat, hopelessly outnumbered, admits defeat and falls back.

Ukraine’s military intelligence in December reported an outbreak of “mouse fever” in many Russian units around Kupiansk in Kharkiv region, which Moscow has been trying to claim for months. The report said the disease is transmitted from mice to humans “by inhaling mouse feces dust or by ingestion of mouse feces in food.”

The result, Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence said, is that “‘mouse fever’ has significantly reduced the combat capability of the Russian soldiers.” It did not say whether Ukrainian troops had been similarly affected.

The Ukrainian authorities did not name a specific condition as striking Russian troops, but there are a range of diseases associated with living near rodents that have similar symptoms, including tularemia, leptospirosis and hantavirus.

The report was reminiscent of those from World War I, where the putrid pileup of waste and corpses allowed “trench rats” to breed rapidly. Rats are nocturnal and are often busiest while soldiers are trying to rest, causing huge stress.

Robert Graves, an English poet who fought in the trenches, recalled in his memoirs how rats “came up from the canal, fed on the plentiful corpses, and multiplied exceedingly.” When a new officer arrived, on his first night he “heard a scuffling, shone his torch on the bed, and found two rats on his blanket tussling for the possession of a severed hand.”

In World War I, the rat population swelled when the conflict stagnated. And there are fears that Russia’s war in Ukraine has done the same. The head of Ukraine’s armed forces, General Valery Zaluzhny, told The Economist late last year: “Just like in the first world war we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate.”

“The winter crops sown in the fall of 2021 were not harvested in many places in 2022 and gave generous self-seeding. The mice that bred on it survived the very warm winter and went on to harvest a new crop,” he said. The war has also dispersed natural predators, allowing mice to propagate more freely.

As well as causing anxiety and disease among soldiers, mice also ravage military and electrical equipment. When working as a signalman and living separately from other fighting troops in Zaporizhzhia, Kira said mice “managed to climb into metal boxes and chew through wires,” disrupting communications.

“The mice chewed everything: Radios, repeaters, wires. Mice got into cars and chewed on the electrical wiring, so the cars wouldn’t run, and they also chewed on tanks and wheels,” Kira said. “The losses from the mice in our dugout alone amount to one million hryvnia [$26,500].”

Zahorodniuk stressed the damage can be critical, “as lost communication may cost lives.”

As Ukraine weathers another winter, the problem will likely get worse before it gets better. “It will get colder and colder, and they will go into the trenches more and more. The situation will not change until they all go through this,” said Zahorodniuk.

In World War I, soldiers could not solve the trench rat problem. Instead, they killed rats for their sport. Trying to spike one on a bayonet became a form of entertainment. The population did not decrease until the war ended. But Zahorodniuk warned Ukraine should not let the same happen again.

“The fight against them should be organized and not rely on soldiers and volunteers who are not imagining ways to fight. This is wrong. After all, this is a matter of the combat capability of the army. We have to take care of our soldiers.”

Italy’s high court has ruled that fascist salutes are legal at rallies unless they threaten public order or risk reviving the country’s outlawed fascist party.

Several members of Italy’s opposition parties and Jewish community leaders have criticized the ruling and plan to rally against it, according to local media reports.

The ruling comes nearly two weeks after a video showed more than 150 men performing the fascist salute – sometimes called the “Roman salute” – in central Rome to commemorate the January 7, 1978 killing of two members of a far-right youth group.

The high court ruling, handed down Thursday, is not related to the recent January 7 rally, which took place in front of the former headquarters of the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI) party, where Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni began her political career. No arrests have been made in relation to the rally, which remains under investigation.

In making its ruling, the court ordered a second appeals trial for eight men convicted of performing the salute at an event in Milan in 2016 commemorating the 1975 killing of a militant belonging to the neo-fascist CasaPound movement. Their 2016 conviction was upheld on its first appeal.

A date has not yet been set for the second appeal. The new ruling will have to be applied in the lower court’s decision, which will then focus on whether there was a threat to public order or if the salute was aimed at bringing back Italy’s fascist party.

Under Italy’s three-tier system, all criminal cases go through three levels: the primo or first grade; the automatic appellate or second grade, and then the high court of Cassazione, which determines if the case must return to the appellate level or is confirmed and closed.

The moon is hundreds of thousands of miles away from Earth, but humankind has played a major role in shaping it for more than six decades.

In fact, human exploration has had such a significant impact in altering the lunar surface that some scientists argue it’s time to declare a new geological epoch called the “Lunar Anthropocene.”

Experts say the epoch began when the former Soviet Union’s uncrewed spacecraft, Luna 2, had a hard landing on the moon in September 1959, leaving behind a crater.

Since then, hundreds of missions have followed, and whether they have crash-landed or successfully touched down for a soft landing, each spacecraft has left its mark.

Rovers, science experiments, golf balls and other telltale signs of human exploration still sit on the lunar surface, and it’s only just beginning as more space agencies and countries plan trips to the moon.

The Peregrine spacecraft burned up on reentry into Earth’s atmosphere Thursday after a fuel leak prevented it from reaching the moon, but another spacecraft was on its way for a lunar rendezvous.

Lunar update

Japan’s “Moon Sniper” robotic explorer successfully landed on the lunar surface Friday but almost immediately encountered a critical issue.

After executing a precise landing, the uncrewed Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, mission, was forced to rely on limited battery power because its solar cell wasn’t generating electricity.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency team said it believes the solar power issue is a result of the spacecraft facing the wrong direction.

But all hope may not be lost for the lander and its two rovers, which are designed to study the origins of the moon. If the Moon Sniper can soak up some sunlight, the mission may continue.

A long time ago

Before going extinct about 4,000 years ago, woolly mammoths roamed across North America — and humans followed them.

Researchers have been able to trace the lengthy treks by studying mammoth tusks, which preserved information about the animals’ environments and diets like time capsules.

By using a precise new tool to study chemical traces in a tusk, a team led by scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks was able to track the movements of Élmayųujey’eh, or Elma, a female mammoth that lived 14,000 years ago.

When researchers compared Elma’s movements with maps of archaeological sites, it became clear that humans set up seasonal hunting camps in areas where mammoths gathered.

Wild kingdom

Malaysia’s tigers are disappearing at an alarming rate, and only 150 are estimated to be left within the country’s ancient rainforests. To aid conservation efforts, photographer Emmanuel Rondeau partnered with WWF-Malaysia to capture an image of the iconic but elusive big cat.

The effort was a massive undertaking that required a team of rangers, eight cameras, 300 pounds of equipment, months of patience and countless miles. In the process, an ant colony overran one camera, and an elephant destroyed another.

But Rondeau’s careful preparations paid off, and he captured a “million-dollar shot.” “This image is the last image of the Malayan tiger — or it’s the first image of the return of the Malayan tiger,” he said.

Eager to see more mesmerizing photos? Check out some of the winning images of the Close-up Photographer of the Year 2023 competition, including an oak peacock moth attracted by a wedding and ants firing acid into the air.

Dig this

About 29 million years ago in Oregon, a grasshopper dug an underground nursery in a sandy bank near a creek and laid about 50 eggs in a stunning radial pattern.

Rather than hatching, the pod of eggs fossilized and now provides a rare window into what life was like for ancient insects.

Typically, neither insects nor their delicate eggs preserve well in the fossil record. It’s even more surprising that the grasshopper nursery survived since it was found in an area where water once flowed, according to the researchers.

“There just isn’t anything else like this in the fossil record anywhere that we know of,” said Dr. Nick Famoso, a paleontology program manager and museum curator at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in Mitchell, Oregon.

Force of nature

Winter storms moving across the United States this week have brought snow and below-zero temperatures to many areas — and some in Chicago experienced “frost quakes.”

Frost quakes are loud, booming or popping sounds accompanied by small earthquake-like tremors that can occur during a sudden freezing of the ground in cold weather.

While the sounds frost quakes make are disconcerting, they aren’t dangerous and won’t knock framed photos off the walls, according to Illinois state climatologist Trent Ford.

Scientists hope to unlock more of the mysteries around frost quakes, and whether they are increasing or not, by monitoring areas where the phenomenon occurs this winter.

Explorations

You don’t want to miss these intriguing new stories:

— A laser mapping technique helped archaeologists uncover the oldest and largest network of ancient cities found in the Amazon rainforest.

— The process of bringing Retro, a cloned rhesus monkey, to life has highlighted some of the limitations of cloning, according to scientists.

— NASA and Lockheed Martin just unveiled the sleek X-59, a quiet supersonic plane that could change the future of air travel.

At least five Iranian military advisors and a number of Syrian forces were killed in an Israeli missile strike on a building in Damascus on Saturday, Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported, in another sign of building hostilities in the Middle East as Israel’s war with Hamas enters its fourth month.

The alleged strike targeted the Mazzeh neighborhood in Syria’s capital, home to several diplomatic missions including the Iranian embassy, according to Syrian authorities.

Israel “launched an air attack from the Golan Heights at 10:20 a.m. local time that targeted a residential building in the Mazzeh neighborhood,” the Syrian Ministry of Defense alleged, adding that some missiles were shot down by national defense forces.

A number of buildings and nearby vehicles around the targeted building were damaged in the blast, Syria’s state broadcaster reported, with civil defense teams still searching for victims trapped under the rubble.

One of the dead, Hojjatollah Omidvar, was described by Iran’s semi-official Student News Network as a deputy chief of the Quds Force intelligence unit in Syria – one of five branches of the Revolutionary Guards unit in charge of foreign operations.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) identified the four others killed as military advisors Ali Aghazadeh, Hossein Mohammadi, Saeed Karimi and Mohammad Amin Samadi. Their presence in Syria had been “at the official invitation of the Syrian government,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanaani, noted in a statement on social media.

Regional spillover fears

The attack in Damascus comes amid concerns that Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza is spiraling into a regional war. In northern Iraq, an Iranian missile attack last week targeted what Tehran claimed to be a spy base for Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. in Lebanon, militant group Hezbollah has engaged in near-daily confrontations with Israeli forces across the border. And from Yemen, Houthi rebels have launched a series of attacks on commercial ships and Western military vessels in the Red Sea.

Attacks by Iranian-backed groups in the Middle East won’t stop until Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza ends, Tehran’s top diplomat warned on Wednesday, echoing comments by several groups in Iran’s network of influence.

Since Israel launched its ground and air campaign in Gaza, in response to Hamas’ bloody October 7 terror attacks, nearly 25,000 people have been killed in the blockaded Palestinian enclave – the majority of them women and children – according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah.

The US, a key Israel ally, has also stepped in militarily, launching strikes in Yemen with the aim of degrading Houthi capabilities to harm the vital Red Sea shipping lane. In comments on Wednesday, State Department spokesperson Matt Miller emphasized that a larger conflagration could be avoided and highlighted a flurry of US diplomatic activity in the Middle East.

“We continue to engage in diplomatic efforts to try to make clear to everyone in the region that we don’t want to see the conflict escalated, that we don’t think it’s in any country’s interest to see the conflict escalated,” Miller said Wednesday.

But the path to de-escalation will be hard to find. Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi on Saturday vowed to “punish” Israel for the Damascus missile strike. The killing was “another stain on the record of all governments who claim to be the advocates of human rights because it violated Syria’s airspace and trampled on human and international laws,” he said, in comments reported by Iranian state media.

The group suspected of murdering a crime reporter in the Netherlands in 2021 also wanted to kidnap Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, according to a witness in the case.

Peter R. de Vries, an award-winning Dutch journalist, was gunned down on a busy street in central Amsterdam in July 2021, in a case that rocked the Netherlands. The journalist was shot shortly after leaving the RTL TV studios, where he frequently appeared on air as a criminal expert. He died in hospital nine days later.

The Amsterdam-based newspaper Het Parool was the first to report on the witness’ comments regarding the potential threat to outgoing Prime Minister Rutte.

The witness was told the information by a 28-year-old man known as “Krystian M.,” who is suspected of coordinating the fatal attack against de Vries and directing the other perpetrators, the prosecution service said.

De Vries was known for his investigative work exposing the criminal underworld. He was a household name in the Netherlands, renowned for pursuing cold cases, exposing miscarriages of justice and hosting his own televised investigative show for nearly two decades. He had regularly received death threats in connection with several cases.

The trial against nine suspects in the murder of de Vries will start on January 23, according to the prosecution service. The prosecution will present its sentencing demand on January 30 and 31.

The court is expected to deliver its verdict in June 2024. The nine suspects, of Polish and Antillean descent, are between 24 and 37 years old, the prosecution service said.

Belarus on Friday adopted a new military doctrine that – if approved – would be the first step toward deploying nuclear weapons across the country.

“The deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of the Republic of Belarus is considered an important measure of the preventive deterrence for potential adversaries from unleashing armed aggression against the Republic of Belarus,” Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin told a briefing Friday.

Belarus had been “forced” to put the measure in place, he added.

According to Khrenin, “a separate chapter was created” to describe the course of actions “in the event of armed aggression” against Belarus’ allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Union State.

The CSTO is a Russian-dominated group of six post-Soviet states, that, similar to NATO, requires members to come to each other’s aid when under attack.

Formed in 2002, the six countries are Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Belarus.

The Union State of Belarus and Russia Treaty sets up a legal basis for a wide-ranging alliance between the two countries.

Khrenin emphasized that the new doctrine demonstrates that Belarus “does not treat any nation as its enemy, regardless of the actions of the governments of these nations.”

The doctrine still requires approval from the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly, a representative body that operates in Belarus in parallel with the parliament, which will be held in April, according to Russian state media RIA Novosti.

Khrenin said the interest of his government lies in “restoring the influence of international security organizations such as the UN, OSCE and others, and their effective functioning in preventing and resolving armed conflicts.”

Belarus “is open to cooperation in the military sphere with any countries, including NATO states,” he said, “provided their aggressive rhetoric against Belarus is stopped.”

Minsk has played a key role in Russia’s war in Ukraine. Last June, Russian nuclear warheads were reportedly delivered to Belarus for “deterrence,” according to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Two months later, while stressing that his country would not get involved in the war, President Alexander Lukashenko warned that it would “immediately respond with everything we have,” including nuclear weapons if provoked – especially by neighboring NATO countries like Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

Baltic states reinforce borders

The move by Belarus came as neighboring Baltic states signed an agreement to reinforce their borders with Belarus and Russia.

In a statement Friday, the Estonian Defense Ministry said the country had signed an agreement with Latvia and Lithuania to “construct anti-mobility defensive installations” on the borders with Russia and Belarus that will “deter and, if necessary, defend against military threats” in the coming years.

The ministry called it “a carefully considered and thought-out project, the need of which stems from the current security situation.”

The concept of defensive installations includes “prevention and field security measures,” such as “a network of bunkers, support points, and distribution lines,” it said.

“Russia’s war in Ukraine has shown that in addition to equipment, ammunition, and manpower, physical defensive installations on the border are also needed to defend Estonia from the first meter,” said Hanno Pevkur, the Estonian Minister of Defense.

The countries’ defense ministers also signed “a Letter of Intent for HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, aiming to create a framework for the joint use of the weapon system in both peace and wartime,” the statement said.

During an interview with state news agency Belta in August last year, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said his country did not “bring nuclear weapons here in order to scare someone.”

“Nuclear weapons represent a strong deterring factor. But these are tactical nuclear weapons, not strategic ones. This is why we will use them immediately once aggression is launched against us,” he added.

When members of the legal team representing South Africa in its case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) arrived home this week, they were mobbed like rockstars by a crowd gathered at an airport in Johannesburg, waving South African and Palestinian flags.

Many expressed collective pride at how the case was presented. One of the activists greeting the lawyers lauded them for “having the courage to take Israel to the ICJ when no one else had that courage.”

In a case brought before the court in The Hague in December, the team argued that Israel had violated its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention in its war with Hamas in Gaza – a charge Israel has strongly denied.

Hailed as heroes in the pursuit of justice, the multi-racial team of lawyers symbolized South Africa’s “Rainbow Nation” ethos that celebrates its diversity, and has allowed the country to flex its diplomatic muscle as a moral arbiter on global issues, three decades post-apartheid.

“The significance of the fact that the country bringing the case is South Africa – an icon of the ravages of colonialism, settlement and apartheid – cannot be lost on anyone,” wrote Nesrine Malik, a Sudanese journalist and author, in The Guardian newspaper. “It symbolizes a vast racial injustice, too raw and recent to be dismissed as ancient history.”

Israel saw the racial symbolism quite differently, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accusing South Africa of “hypocrisy” that “screams to the high heavens.” Hamas had carried out “the worst crime against the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” he said in a televised speech, but “now someone comes to defend it in the name of the Holocaust.”

Israel launched its war against Hamas after the group’s brutal attack on the country left roughly 1,200 people dead and 250 taken hostage. The subsequent Israeli assault on Gaza has so far killed more than 24,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry there.

South Africa’s genocide case has put the spotlight on a deeper fault line in global geopolitics. Beyond the courtroom drama, experts say divisions over the war in Gaza symbolize a widening gap between Israel and its traditional Western allies, notably the United States and Europe, and a group of nations known as the Global South — countries located primarily in the southern hemisphere, often characterized by lower income levels and developing economies.

Reactions from the Global North to the ICJ case have been mixed. While some nations have maintained a cautious diplomatic stance, others, particularly Israel’s staunchest allies in the West, have criticized South Africa’s move.

The US has stood by Israel through the war by continuing to ship arms to it, opposing a ceasefire, and vetoing many UN Security Council resolutions that aimed to bring a halt to the fighting. The Biden administration has rubbished the claim that Israel is committing genocide as “meritless,” while the UK has refused to back South Africa.

The decision by South Africa to initiate legal proceedings against Israel at the ICJ marked a departure from the usual diplomatic channels taken in such disputes, as the angry voices against Israel’s campaign in Gaza grow louder.

As a nation whose history is rooted in overcoming apartheid, South Africa’s move carries symbolic weight that has resonated with other nations in the developing world, many of whom have faced the burden of oppression and colonialism from Western powers.

Nelson Mandela, the face of the anti-apartheid movement, was a staunch supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its leader Yasser Arafat, saying in 1990: “We align ourselves with the PLO because, akin to our struggle, they advocate for the right of self-determination.”

Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that while South Africa’s case is a continuation of its long-standing pro-Palestinian sympathies, the countries that have rallied behind it show deeper frustrations by the Global South.

Much of the non-Western world opposes the war in Gaza; China has joined the 22-member Arab League in calling for a ceasefire, while several Latin American nations have expelled Israeli diplomats in protest, and several Asian and African countries have joined Muslim and Arab nations in backing South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ. 
 
For many in the developing world, the ICJ case has become a focal point for questioning the moral authority of the West  and what is seen as the hypocrisy of the world’s most powerful nations and their unwillingness to hold Israel to account.  
  
One of the reasons for this is that Israel has long been a “Western-facing country by virtue of its history and predominant heritage,” said Lovatt.  
  
Israel sided with the West against Soviet-backed Arab regimes during the Cold War, and Western countries largely view it “as a fellow member of the liberal democratic club,” he added. “Some of this explains the continued strong Western support for Israel – which has now largely become reflexive.”

“But the strong support of Western governments is increasingly at odds with the attitudes of Western publics which continue to shift away from Israel,” Lovatt said.

Clash of civilizations?

Israel has framed the war in Gaza as a clash of civilizations where it is acting as the guardian of Western values that it says are facing an existential threat.

“This war is a war that is not only between Israel and Hamas,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog told MSNBC in December.  “It’s a war that is intended – really, truly – to save Western civilization, to save the values of Western civilization.”

So far, no Western countries have supported South Africa’s case against Israel.  
  
Among Western states, Germany has been one of the most vocal supporters of Israel’s campaign in Gaza. The German government has said it “expressly rejects” allegations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and that it plans to intervene as a third party on its behalf at the ICJ.

An opinion poll by German broadcaster ZDF this week however found that 61% of Germans do not consider Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip as justified in light of the civilian casualties.  Only 25% voiced support for Israel’s offensive.

But it is in Germany’s former colonial territory, Namibia, that it has attracted the fiercest criticism.

The Namibian President Hage Geingob in a statement on Saturday chided Berlin’s decision to reject the ICJ case, accusing it of committing “the first genocide of the 20th century in 1904-1908, in which tens of thousands of innocent Namibians died in the most inhumane and brutal conditions.” The statement added that the German government had not yet fully atoned for the killings.

Bangladesh, where up to three million people were killed during the country’s war of independence from Pakistan in the 1970s, has gone a step further to file a declaration of intervention in the ICJ case to back South Africa’s claims, according to the Dhaka Tribune.

A declaration of intervention allows a state that is not party to the proceedings to present its observations to the court.

“With Germany siding with Israel, and Bangladesh and Namibia backing South Africa at the ICJ, the geopolitical divide between the Global South and the West appears to be deepening,” Lovatt said.

Traditionally, the West has wielded significant influence in international affairs, but South Africa’s move signals a growing assertiveness among Global South nations that threatens the status quo, says Adekoya.

“One clear pattern emerging is that the old Western-dominated order is increasingly being challenged, a situation likely to only further intensify as the West loses its once unassailably dominant economic position,” Adekoya said.

At least 13 people have died in a fire at a school dormitory in central China, according to Chinese state media.

The fire broke out around 11 p.m. Friday evening local time at Yingcai School near the city of Nanyang, Henan province, Xinhua reported.

Local authorities said that in addition to the deaths, one person had been injured and was being treated in hospital.

Firefighters extinguished the blaze by 11:38 p.m., state media reported.

Local authorities are investigating the cause of the fire, the report said, adding that a “person in charge of the school” had been detained.

A student told the state-run Beijing Youth Daily that he had been woken in the middle of the night by a teacher who told him to flee as the smell of smoke filled the air.

Parents who spoke to the newspaper said students at the boarding school are allowed to go home once every 10 days, for four days. One said that students were due to have exams before their holidays begin next week.

The fire has become one of the most searched items on the Twitter-like Chinese social media site Weibo, with more than 16 million people reading about it by Saturday afternoon.

One user with more than 920,000 followers noted that the fire came just days ahead of the Chinese New Year school holidays when students traditionally head home to spend time with their families.

“The spring festival is coming soon, which is the day for family reunion. Such a tragedy will cause such great pain for these 13 families,” the user wrote.

Another user called for accountability, saying “I hope the cause of the fire can be found.”

This is a developing news story. More to come

Huge crowds of protesters are set to descend on cities in Germany this weekend, as demonstrations calling for a ban on the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) gain momentum.

Tens of thousands have already braved sub-zero temperatures this week to protest against the party, after it emerged senior AfD members discussed a plan to deport migrants en masse in revelations that have been compared to the Nazi era.

Protests of up to 30,000 people have already taken place in cities including Berlin, Leipzig, Rostock, Essen and Cologne. Demonstrators gathered outside the capital’s redbrick town hall on Wednesday holding placards reading “Nazis out” and chanting slogans against far-right AfD politician Björn Höcke.

People are enraged by reports that senior members of the AfD discussed a ”master plan” for the mass deportation of German asylum-seekers and German citizens of foreign origin during a meeting late last year.

The gathering of AfD members, neo-Nazis and other far-right extremists took place at a lakeside hotel outside the city of Potsdam on November 25.

It did not come to light until January 10, when the meeting was revealed by the investigative journalism network Correctiv, sparking a wave of protests across Germany.

In its report uncovering the private meeting, Correctiv wrote: “The events that will occur today at the hotel Landhaus Adlon will seem like a dystopian drama. Only they’re real.

“And they will show what can happen when the frontmen of right-wing extremist ideas, representatives of the AfD and wealthy sympathisers come together.”

“The meeting was meant to remain secret at all costs,” the report said.

The AfD denies that such plans are part of their policy and the AfD leadership has sought to distance itself from the gathering, calling it a “private event and not an AfD party event.”

However, the idea of a “mass deportation plan” was openly supported by one AfD representative in the state of Brandenberg.

René Springer took to his account on X to write: “We will return foreigners to their homeland. Millions of times. This is not a secret plan. It’s a promise.

“For more security. For more justice. To preserve our identity. For Germany.”

Many have pointed out that the mass deportation plan is evocative of the Nazi era from 1933 to 1945, when millions were transported against their will to concentration, forced labour and extermination camps.

“The plans to expel millions of people are reminiscent of the darkest chapter in German history,” Christian Dürr, parliamentary group leader of the neoliberal Free Democrats Party (FDP), wrote on X.

“I saw a banner yesterday which said ‘Now is the time to show what we would have done instead of our grandparents.’

“There are parallels. It’s definitely time to take a stand against the right and start opposing the anti-democratic forces.”

She added that members of the AfD had been “making concrete plans to deport millions of people from Germany. We clearly see that these plans are inhumane and an attack on our democracy and the rule of law and on many of our fellow citizens.”

He continued: “This meeting in Potsdam has shown once again how urgent it is that not only politicians speak out, but that a strong signal is sent from the middle of society to defend democracy and our state.”

Asked whether he thought the protests would encourage people to stop voting for the AfD, Abaci was hopeful. “There is a core group of AfD voters who vote for this party out of conviction, but there are of course also voters who have voted for AfD out of protest.

“But now is the time for them to wake up and realize that we are not dealing with a protest party, but with a right-wing extremist party. Our rally could help these people to finally wake up.”

Rallies in Potsdam Sunday were attended by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

Baerbock said she was there as someone who “stands for democracy and against old and new fascism,” while Scholz this week thanked the demonstrators for taking to the streets “against racism, hate speech and in favour of our liberal democracy.”

Paving a way to outlaw the AfD could prove difficult and risks backfiring. German politicians this week discussed the possibility of calling on the constitutional court to implement a ban.

The German constitution says that parties that seek to undermine the “free democratic basic order” should be deemed unconstitutional.

German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck told the magazine Stern that “the damage that a failed attempt would cause would be massive.”

“Which is why if a case is put, it would have to absolutely 100% stand up in court. It’s something you have to consider very carefully,” he adds.

Many see public displays of backlash against the AfD as crucial, as the far-right party has recently enjoyed record-high polling and is expected to make major gains in regional elections in the eastern states of Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg this year.

According to a recent survey published by opinion research institute Forsa, the AfD is currently polling above 30% in all three states – comfortably higher than its rivals.

Nadine Schmidt reported from Berlin and Sophie Tanno wrote in London.

After soaring hundreds of thousands of miles through space and battling a propellant issue that dashed its plans, the Peregrine lunar lander has likely met its fiery end.

The spacecraft was expected to conclude its truncated, 10-day journey around 4 p.m. ET Thursday as it smashed into the Earth’s thick atmosphere over a remote area of the South Pacific Ocean, due east of Australia.

Astrobotic Technology, the Pittsburgh-based company that developed the Peregrine lander under a contract with NASA, confirmed the spacecraft’s demise, saying it lost contact with the vehicle moments before the planned reentry time, which “indicates the vehicle completed its controlled re-entry over open water in the South Pacific.”

However, the company added in a social media post, “we await independent confirmation from government entities.”

Officials from NASA and Astrobotic are expected to speak publicly on the mission during a news briefing at 1 p.m. ET Friday.

The failed mission is a setback for Astrobotic and NASA, whose overall goal is to create a stable of commercially developed, relatively cheap lunar landers capable of completing robotic missions to the moon as the space agency works toward a crewed lunar landing later this decade.

Critical setbacks after launch

The Peregrine lander launched January 8 atop a Vulcan Centaur rocket, a new vehicle developed by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

The launch went off without a hitch, safely delivering the Peregrine lander into Earth’s orbit on a path toward the moon. If the spacecraft had been successful in reaching the lunar surface, it would have been the first US mission to soft-land on the moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

But hours into its solo flight, the Peregrine lander encountered critical setbacks. Astrobotic confirmed the spacecraft suffered a severe issue with its onboard propulsion systems and was leaking fuel, leaving the lander without enough gas to make a soft touchdown on the moon.

Astrobotic then shifted course. The company directed the spacecraft to operate more like a satellite, testing its onboard scientific instruments and other systems as it flew thousands of miles through the void.

Ultimately, Astrobotic determined that it would dispose of the vehicle by crashing it into Earth’s atmosphere at high speeds.

What Peregrine’s failure means

The loss of the Peregrine lander is a blow to Astrobotic and NASA.

A deal inked between the two organizations made this mission possible, with NASA handing over $108 million to aid Astrobotic with its development effort and fly five payloads. That price tag is a roughly 36% increase over the original contract value, with the deal being renegotiated amid pandemic-related supply chain issues, according to Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA’s science mission directorate.

The US space agency does not consider the Peregrine spacecraft its only option for conducting robotic research on the moon. NASA also has partnerships with three other companies developing robotic lunar landers — including Houston-based Intuitive Machines, which could launch its first mission in mid-February.

Through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, NASA designed those lunar lander contracts as “fixed price” agreements, meaning the space agency hands over one lump sum of money rather than continuing to pay a company throughout the development process as hiccups arise.

The deal is also structured so that the companies maintain complete ownership over their own vehicles, and NASA becomes just one of many customers flying cargo on the landers.

A proving ground for commercial lunar landers

A private lunar lander has never safely reached the moon’s surface — though other companies have tried. In 2019, a spacecraft built by Israel-based company SpaceIL smashed into the moon during a landing attempt. And again in 2023, Japan-based company Ispace lost control of its lander as it careened toward the moon’s surface.

SpaceIL, Ispace and Astrobotic all have roots in the same competition: the Google Lunar X Prize, which ran from 2007 to 2018 and offered a company that could reach the moon a $20 million grand prize. But X Prize concluded with no winner since none of the teams had launched by the final deadline.

Whether a commercially developed lunar lander can reach the moon’s surface remains to be seen — and perhaps an even more intriguing question is whether moon missions offer a financially sustainable business model for these companies.

Apart from money from NASA and other government space agencies, Astrobotic’s revenue for the Peregrine mission was generated by partnerships that included space burial companies that send human remains to the moon as well as packaged trinkets, plaques, a bitcoin, and other commemorative objects for customers.

“It’s certainly going to have some impact on our relationships and our ability to secure additional missions in the future,” Thornton said on January 2. “It certainly wouldn’t be the end of the business, but it would certainly be challenging.

“We’re in a high-risk space venture, and this is just the nature of space businesses.”

Astrobotic already has a contract to fly another robotic lunar lander mission for NASA later this year. Called Griffin, that lander — a larger model than Peregrine — will aim to put a rover near the moon’s south pole.