Israel’s military restarted fighting against Hamas in Gaza after a week-long truce to allow hostages to be released broke down on Friday.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had “resumed combat operations” and accused Hamas of violating the truce first by firing rockets toward Israeli territory.

Smoke could be seen billowing across parts of the densely populated enclave as the IDF declared it was once again “out to destroy” Hamas.

The resumption of fighting marks the end of a brittle truce between the warring parties that allowed for the release of 110 Israeli women and children, as well as foreign nationals, who had been taken hostage by Hamas during its October 7 attack, and for the release of about 240 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Hamas “didn’t respect its obligation to release today all the abducted women and launched rockets towards the citizens of Israel.”

His office said 137 people are still being held hostage in Gaza, including 117 men and 20 women. Two of the abductees are under the age of 18 and 10 are aged 75 and over, it said.

Netanyahu said his government remained committed to achieving its war aims, which he said were releasing the hostages, eliminating Hamas and ensuring that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to Israelis.

The Hamas-controlled Government Media Office in Gaza blamed the international community – and the United States in particular – for the resumption of fighting, saying they bear “responsibility for the crimes of the ‘Israeli’ occupation and the continuation of the brutal war against civilians, children and women in the Gaza Strip.”

At least 32 people were killed in Gaza and dozens injured after Israeli strikes began again on Friday, according to a spokesperson for the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza.

With the resumption of fighting could come an expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza, which have until now focused predominantly in the north. The IDF dropped leaflets in the southern city of Khan Younis on Friday, calling it a “fighting zone” and telling residents to “evacuate immediately.”

Israel repeatedly told residents of northern Gaza to move south of Wadi Gaza – the wetlands that roughly split the territory – for their safety. Khan Younis is located south of that line.

Before the truce began last week, Israel defense minister Yoav Gallant had warned Israel will aim to “dismantle Hamas wherever it is,” which “will include both the north and the south” of Gaza.

If the truce is unable to be revived, the resumption in fighting will reignite a festering conflict that has wrought devastation to Gaza and triggered a humanitarian catastrophe that was described by the UN Secretary-General as “a crisis of humanity.”

Hours before the latest fighting erupted, the United States pressured Israel to shield Palestinian civilians in one of the most significant diplomatic moves yet in the more than 50-day conflict.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid out American requirements in private talks in Jerusalem with Netanyahu and his war cabinet. But he also made the Biden administration approach clear in unmistakable language in public.

“I underscored the imperative of the United States that the massive loss of civilian life and displacement of the scale that we saw in northern Gaza not be repeated in the south,” Blinken said in a televised press conference in Tel Aviv.

End of brief respite

Israel had repeatedly stated it would resume its military assault in Gaza if Hamas could not produce 10 hostages for each extra day of pause.  As the 7 a.m. local time deadline (midnight ET) passed, the hostilities resumed almost immediately.

Both Israel and Hamas had indicated earlier they were prepared for fighting to resume. “We should be prepared for a quick transition into full scale fighting at any point, today, tomorrow, at any moment. As soon as we maximize the move to return hostages we will resume fierce fighting across the whole Gaza Strip,” Gallant said Thursday.

Hamas’ armed wing on Thursday also told their forces to “remain on high combat readiness” in the final hours of the truce, the Al-Qassam Brigades said on Telegram.

The hard-negotiated truce, which came into effect on November 24, marked the first major diplomatic breakthrough in the latest conflict which began when Hamas gunmen stormed into Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seizing more than 200 hostages, in the deadliest such attack faced by the country since its founding in 1948.

Since October 7, more than 14,800 people, including 6,000 children, have been killed in Gaza after Israel launched attacks from the air and the ground, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the West Bank, using data from Hamas-run health authorities in the Strip.

The brief pause in hostilities allowed for more than 2,700 trucks carrying thousands of tons of desperately needed aid to cross from Egypt into Gaza since October 21, according to an Egyptian official. But even that was completely inadequate to meet the needs of the more than two million people in Gaza, many of whom are displaced, aid agencies said.

Renewed fighting threatens once again to shut off that one supply line into Gaza – where residents were already struggling to find shelter, food and clean water while under constant bombardment from Israeli airstrikes.

There had been hopes that the truce, originally slated to last just four days, could be extended into an eighth. But negotiators had warned that extending the truce would be mired in logistical and strategic challenges.

Hamas claimed on Thursday it was having trouble locating 10 women and children hostages – a condition that Israel insisted must be met – to extend the truce.

According to a source briefed on the talks, negotiations are still ongoing with Qatari and Egyptian mediators despite the resumption of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.

“Hamas wants to set new terms for the men and the Israeli soldiers,” said Danny Danon, adding that “we are close to the end” of the current phase of the deal.

“They want a different equation. Now we have one Israeli hostage for three Palestinian prisoners, and they want to try and change that ratio. As long as they can provide hostages, we are willing to talk,” he said.

In the seven-day pause in fighting, 86 Israelis and another 24 foreign nationals were released. Another Israeli dual citizen was also freed outside of the agreed-upon deal.

As of Thursday, 240 Palestinians had been freed from Israeli prisons – mainly women and minors. Under the terms of the truce deal, Israel has to free three Palestinians for every Israeli hostage released.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

A fire that ripped through a train as it travelled along a strategic rail tunnel in eastern Russia was the work of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), a Ukrainian defense source has claimed.

The explosion occurred on the Baikal-Amur railway, in the Bessolov Severomuyskiy tunnel in Buryatia, in the eastern Siberia region of Russia bordering Mongolia, according to the source.

“The explosion is yet another successful special operation by the SBU,” the source said. The SBU has not officially commented on the incident.

Russia has not immediately called this an attack or blamed Ukraine for what it has so far characterized as a “a cargo train fire.”

Ukraine has for months been striking targets inside Russia, as it slowly tries to wear down domestic support for Moscow’s war.

The Russian Railway reported a fire incident on a train along that route and said they are working on “eliminating the consequences of a cargo train fire in the Severomuyskiy tunnel,” in a statement posted to Telegram.

The Ukrainian source characterized the route as “the only major railroad connection between Russia and China.”

A prosecutor is in the area to coordinate the actions of law enforcement and supervisory authorities, according to a statement from the East Siberian Transport Prosecutor’s Office. “According to preliminary information, a wagon in a freight train caught fire at night on November 29, 2023 at the Itykit – Okusikan crossing of the East Siberian Railway while traveling through the Severomuisky tunnel.

Recovery and fire trains were involved to eliminate the consequences of the fire. There were no casualties,” the prosecutors office said. Russian authorities “will take response measures based on the results of the inspection, in case there are grounds to do so,” the statement said.

Train traffic has been rerouted, according to the Russian Railway. “Train traffic has not been interrupted along the route, it was organized on a detour route with a slight increase in travel time.”

The rail provider said it was working to determine the extent of the damage.

Russia’s Supreme Court has declared what it called the “international LGBTQ movement” an extremist organization and banned all activities associated with it in the country.

The landmark ruling on Thursday is set to further erode the rights of Russia’s LGBTQ community, who have faced an intensifying crackdown in recent years, as President Vladimir Putin seeks to shore up his image as defender of traditional moral values against the liberal West.

Russia’s highest court found in favour of a motion filed by the Ministry of Justice which claimed the LGBTQ community risked “inciting social and religious discord”, in violation of Russia’s Law on Countering Extremism, according to a statement from the UN condemning the decision.

While there is no legally recognized LGBTQ community in Russia under the country’s discriminatory anti-gay law, Thursday’s ruling states: “The claims are to be satisfied: to recognize the international LGBT movement as an extremist organization and to prohibit its activities in Russia,” according to state news agency RIA Novosti.

The four-hour hearing was held behind closed doors with only the Justice Ministry present for the proceedings and materials classified. RIA Novosti reports the decision is effective immediately.

Two weeks ago, the Justice Ministry said on its official website it had initiated legal proceedings to designate the ‘international LGBT social movement’ as an extremist organization and seek its prohibition in Russia.

The ministry did not elaborate on what it meant by the “movement.”

In the statement Thursday, the UN said it “deplores” the ruling and warned that it could leave “members, employees and people engaging with such organisations” at risk of criminal charges and imprisonment.

Under Russian legislation, an organisation designated as extremist faces immediate dissolution, and its leaders face charges of up to 10 years in prison, according to the UN Human Rights Chief.

“This decision exposes human rights defenders and anyone standing up for the human rights of LGBT people to being labelled as ’extremist’ – a term that has serious social and criminal ramifications in Russia,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said.

Homosexuality was decriminalized in Russia in 1993, but homophobia and discrimination is still rife.

In recent years, the Kremlin has introduced or expanded on a raft of anti-LGBTQ laws, a conservative shift that has intensified following the invasion of Ukraine. Presidential elections are due next year, with Putin widely expected to extend his rule.

In July this year, Russia passed a law banning doctors from conducting gender reassignment surgeries, except in cases related to treating congenital physiological anomalies, in children.

In December 2022, Putin signed into law a bill that expanded a ban on so-called LGBTQ “propaganda” in Russia, making it illegal for anyone to promote same-sex relationships or suggest that non-heterosexual orientations are “normal.”

The package of amendments signed by Putin included heavier penalties for anyone promoting “non-traditional sexual relations and/or preferences,” as well as gender transition.

The new law was an extension of legislation introduced in 2013, which banned the dissemination of LGBTQ-related information to minors.

Scientists have created tiny living robots from human cells that can move around in a lab dish and may one day be able to help heal wounds or damaged tissue, according to a new study.

A team at Tufts University and Harvard University’s Wyss Institute have dubbed these creations anthrobots. The research builds on earlier work from some of the same scientists, who made the first living robots, or xenobots, from stem cells sourced from embryos of the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis).

“Some people thought that the features of the xenobots relied a lot on the fact that they are embryonic and amphibian,” said study author Michael Levin, Vannevar Bush professor of biology at Tufts’ School of Arts & Sciences.

“I don’t think this has anything to do with being an embryo. This has nothing to do with being a frog. I think this is a much more general property of living things,” he said.

“We don’t realize all the competencies that our own body cells have.”

While alive, the anthrobots were not full-fledged organisms because they didn’t have a full life cycle, Levin said. 

“It reminds us that these harsh binary categories that we’ve operated with: Is that a robot, is that an animal, is that a machine? These kinds of things don’t serve us very well. We need to get beyond that.”

The research was published Thursday in the journal Advanced Science.

How did they make them?

The scientists used adult human cells from the trachea, or windpipe, from anonymous donors of different ages and sexes. Researchers zeroed in on this type of cell because they’re relatively easy to access due to work on Covid-19 and lung disease and, more importantly, because of a feature the scientists believed would make the cells capable of motion, said study coauthor Gizem Gumuskaya, a doctoral student at Tufts.

The tracheal cells are covered with hairlike projections called cilia that wave back and forth. They usually help the tracheal cells push out tiny particles that find their way into air passages of the lungs. Earlier studies had also shown that the cells can form organoids — clumps of cells widely used for research.

Gumuskaya experimented with the chemical composition of the tracheal cells’ growth conditions and found a way to encourage the cilia to face outward on the organoids. Once she had found the right matrix, the organoids became mobile after a few days, with the cilia acting a bit like oars.

“Nothing happened on day one, day two, day four or five, but as biology usually does, around day seven, there was a rapid transition,” she said. “It was like a blossoming flower. By day seven, the cilia had flipped and were on the outside.

“In our method, each anthrobot grows from a single cell.”

It’s this self-assembly that makes them unique. Biological robots have been made by other scientists, but they were constructed by hand by making a mold and seeding cells to live on top of it, Levin said.

Different shapes and sizes

The anthrobots the team created weren’t identical.

Some were spherical and fully covered in cilia, while others were shaped more like a football and covered irregularly with cilia. They also moved in different ways — some in straight lines, some in tight circles, while others sat around and wiggled, according to a news release on the study. They survived up to 60 days in laboratory conditions.

The experiments outlined in this latest study are at an early stage, but the goal is to find out whether the anthrobots could have medical applications, Levin and Gumuskaya said. To see whether such applications might be possible, researchers examined whether the anthrobots were able to move over human neurons grown in a lab dish that had been “scratched” to mimic damage.

They were surprised to see the anthrobots encouraged growth to the damaged region of the neurons, although the researchers don’t yet understand the healing mechanism, the study noted.

Falk Tauber, a group leader at the Freiburg Center for Interactive Materials and Bioinspired Technologies at the University of Freiburg in Germany, said that the study provided a baseline for future efforts to use the bio-bots for different functions and make them in different forms.

Tauber, who was not involved in the research, said the anthrobots exhibited “surprising behavior,” in particular when they moved across — and ultimately closed —scratches in the human neurons.

He said the ability to create these structures from a patient’s own cells suggested diverse applications both in the lab and perhaps ultimately within humans.  

Levin said he didn’t think the anthrobots posed any ethical or safety concerns. They are not made from human embryos, research that is tightly restricted, or genetically modified in any way, he said.

“They have a very circumscribed environment that they live in, so there’s no possibility that they somehow get out or live outside the lab. They can’t live outside that very specific environment,” he said. “They have a natural life span so after a few weeks, they just seamlessly biodegrade.” 

Astronomers are questioning the theories of planet formation after discovering an exoplanet that technically shouldn’t exist.

The planet, about the mass of Neptune and more than 13 times as massive as Earth, was detected orbiting an ultracool M-dwarf star called LHS 3154 — which is nine times less massive than our sun. An M-dwarf star is the smallest and coolest type of star.

The planet — dubbed LHS 3154b — closely whips around the star, completing one orbit every 3.7 Earth days, making it the most massive known planet in a close orbit around one of the coldest, low-mass stars in the universe, according to a new study published Thursday in the journal Science. It upends how scientists understand the formation of planetary systems.

“This discovery really drives home the point of just how little we know about the universe,” said study coauthor Suvrath Mahadevan, Verne M. Willaman professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State, in a statement. “We wouldn’t expect a planet this heavy around such a low-mass star to exist.”

Stars form from large clouds of gas and dust, and the leftover material creates a disk around the star where planets are later born. The amount of material present within the disks around stars determines how massive the planets that form around them can be. And the disk material is largely dependent on the mass of the star.

For example, small M dwarf stars are the most common throughout the Milky Way galaxy, and they typically have small, rocky planets orbiting them, rather than gas giant planets.

“The planet-forming disk around the low-mass star LHS 3154 is not expected to have enough solid mass to make this planet,” Mahadevan said. “But it’s out there, so now we need to reexamine our understanding of how planets and stars form.”

The habitable zone

The planet orbits a star about 51 light-years away from the sun and was discovered using the Habitable Zone Planet Finder, or HPF, installed on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at the McDonald Observatory in Texas.

A team of scientists led by Mahadevan built the HPF, which was designed to detect planets orbiting within the habitable zone of small, cool stars. The habitable zone is just the right distance from a star where a planet is warm enough to support liquid water on its surface and potentially support life.

The lower surface temperature of small stars means that planets can orbit them much more closely and still maintain fragile elements such as water on their surfaces. And as planets closely orbit their stars, the gravitational tug between both bodies creates a noticeable wobble that the HPF can detect in infrared light.

“Think about it like the star is a campfire. The more the fire cools down, the closer you’ll need to get to that fire to stay warm,” Mahadevan said. “The same is true for planets. If the star is colder, then a planet will need to be closer to that star if it is going to be warm enough to contain liquid water. If a planet has a close enough orbit to its ultracool star, we can detect it by seeing a very subtle change in the color of the star’s spectra or light as it is tugged on by an orbiting planet.”

A planetary puzzle

Based on modeling and analysis, the research team believes the planet has a heavy core that would require more solid material to have been in the planet-forming disk than was likely present around the star, according to study coauthor Megan Delamer, an astronomy graduate student at Penn State.

The researchers estimate that the amount of dust in the disk would need to be at least 10 times greater than what is typically found in disks around low-mass stars.

“Our current theories of planet formation have trouble accounting for what we’re seeing,” Delamer said in a statement. “Based on current survey work with the HPF and other instruments, an object like the one we discovered is likely extremely rare, so detecting it has been really exciting.”

A few massive planets have been found orbiting low-mass stars, such as the planet GJ 3512 b discovered in 2019, but their orbital periods are much longer, and the planets don’t orbit their stars as closely.

“What we have discovered provides an extreme test case for all existing planet formation theories,” Mahadevan said. “This is exactly what we built HPF to do, to discover how the most common stars in our galaxy form planets — and to find those planets.”

The COP28 president-designate Sultan Al Jaber has strongly denied accusations that his team sought to use the international climate talks in Dubai to strike fossil fuel deals for the UAE’s state-owned oil and gas company.

Several of the documents detailed suggestions to offer new oil and gas projects to visiting officials, which would benefit the UAE.

“These allegations are false, not true, incorrect, and not accurate,” he said at a press conference in Dubai on Wednesday, when asked for comment by a reporter. “And it’s an attempt to undermine the work of the COP28 presidency.”

Al Jaber, his office and the UAE have come under widespread criticism, particularly from Western media and civil society groups, for appointing its top oil executive to preside over the talks, which begin Thursday and are expected to address ways to ramp down fossil fuel use, the primary driver of the climate crisis.

Al Jaber’s denial took more than three minutes, during which he expressed his frustration at the allegations and criticisms around his connections to the oil and gas industry. He also defended the success of the UAE’s rapid economic development, as well as its relationships with foreign governments and businesses.

“Let me ask you a question: Do you think the UAE, or myself, will need the COP, or the COP presidency, to go and establish business deals or commercial relationships?” Al Jaber asked.

“This country over the past 50 years has been built around its ability to build bridges and to create relationships and partnerships.”

Al Jaber emphasized that all of his meetings with officials were squarely focused on his COP28 agenda.

“Every meeting I have conducted with every government or any other stakeholder has always been centered around one thing and one thing only, and that is my COP28 agenda and how we can collectively, for the first time ever, adopt a mindset that is centered around implementation and action to keep 1.5 within reach,” he said.

The Paris Agreement stated that the world should try to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Passing that threshold, scientists say, will make it harder for life on Earth to adapt.

He added that he was often given conflicting advice on whether he should engage with oil and gas companies in his role.

“Sometimes I am told ‘you need to engage with governments and with oil and gas companies to put pressure.’ And sometimes I’m told ‘you can’t do that,’” he said. “So, we’re damned if we do, we’re damned if we don’t.”

After his denial, he thanked the reporter who asked him for comment on the allegations. “I feel much better,” he said, concluding his remarks.

Al Jaber is currently overseeing an expansion in ADNOC’s oil and gas production. The company is in the midst of hiking its capacity from 4 million barrels a day, its level in 2022, to 5 million by 2027.

Mary Cleave, the NASA astronaut who in 1989 became the first woman to fly on a space shuttle mission after the Challenger disaster, has died at the age of 76, the space agency announced on Wednesday.

NASA did not give a cause of death.

“I’m sad we’ve lost trail blazer Dr. Mary Cleave, shuttle astronaut, veteran of two spaceflights, and first woman to lead the Science Mission Directorate as associate administrator,” said NASA Associate Administrator Bob Cabana in a statement. “Mary was a force of nature with a passion for science, exploration, and caring for our home planet. She will be missed.”

Cleave — who died Monday, according to the statement — was a native of Great Neck, New York. She studied biological sciences at Colorado State University before going on to earn her master’s in microbial ecology and a doctorate in civil and environmental engineering from Utah State University.

From air to space

She told NASA’s Oral History Project in 2002 that she was enamored with flying airplanes growing up, and she earned her pilot’s license before her driver’s license. At one point, Cleave said, she had wanted to be a flight attendant, but found that at 5-foot-2, she was too short for the role under airline rules at the time.

Cleave noted that affirmative action helped pave the way for her passions, allowing her the opportunity to fly supersonic jets known as T-38s.

“For me, space flight was great, but it was gravy on top of getting to fly in great airplanes,” she told NASA.

Cleave said she had been working at a research lab and finishing her doctoral studies in Utah when she saw an ad at a local post office stating that NASA was searching for scientists to join the astronaut corps. She applied and was selected in 1980.

Getting to orbit

On her first mission, flying on NASA’s Space Shuttle Atlantis in 1985, Cleave became the 10th woman to travel into space. On the mission, she served as a flight engineer and helped operate the shuttle’s robotic arm.

“It seemed like they assigned women to fly the arm (Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (SRMS) or Canadarm) more often than guys, and the rumor on the street was because they thought women did that better,” Cleave said in her 2002 NASA interview, noting that she never confirmed the rumor.

Cleave’s second flight in 1989, STS-30, also on Atlantis, came after NASA had reverted to flying all-male crews for three missions in the wake of the Challenger explosion in 1986, which killed all seven crew members on board, including the first teacher to be selected to fly to space.

Cleave was known to downplay the “firsts” she marked as a female astronaut during her time at NASA, saying, “People tried to make a point of it, and I just let everybody know that I didn’t think that anybody should be making a special point out of this.

“It was just a normal part of the thing, and I just didn’t think it was good to make anything special out of it, because at that point we really were part of the corps,” she added, noting that she was close friends with astronaut Judith Resnick, who died on Challenger.

Women in space

Cleave emphasized that to women on the corps at that time, the focus was always on their jobs.

She was also part of a historic first when she served on NASA mission control’s CapCom — or capsule communication system — as Sally Ride became the first woman ever to travel to space on the STS-7 mission in 1983. When Cleave spoke to Ride in orbit, it became the first female-to-female space communication in the agency’s history. Neither Cleave nor Ride acknowledged the milestone during their conversation.

“I didn’t even notice it. Here’s Sally and I, we didn’t even notice it,” Cleave said, though a reporter did ask her about the event afterward.

Over the course of her two shuttle missions, Cleave spent more than 10 days in orbit.

NASA and beyond

She was assigned to another flight after STS-30. But Cleave said she began to have a change of heart as she waited to fly, spending four years on the ground between her first and second mission. During that time she became increasingly concerned about environmental issues.

Cleave said she could see the planet changing as she stared back at Earth from space. “The air looked dirtier, less trees, more roads, all those things,” she told NASA’s Oral History Project.

“I just couldn’t get that excited about what I was doing, because it wasn’t related to (the environment),” she added, referring to her job as an astronaut.

Cleave said she made the difficult decision to move on from the corps and NASA’s astronaut hub in Houston, taking a role at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland in 1991. There, she worked on a project called SeaWiFS, an ocean-monitoring sensor that measured global vegetation, according to NASA.

Cleave eventually moved to work at NASA’s headquarters in Washington, DC, in 2000, going on to become the first woman ever to hold the title of associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate — the top role overseeing the space agency’s research programs. In that role, Cleave “guided an array of research and scientific exploration programs for planet Earth, space weather, the solar system, and the universe,” according to NASA.

She retired from NASA in 2007, choosing to engage in volunteer work and encourage young women to join scientific pursuits, according to her bio on the Maryland government’s website.

Climate chaos spared no region this year. Canada burned, the US Southwest boiled, a Libyan city was swept away by floods and global heat was, as one scientist said, “gobsmackingly bananas.”

Climate records fell like dominoes, and more are predicted — it is all but certain that 2023 will be the hottest in recorded history.

And yet, even as the climate crisis inserts itself viscerally into people’s lives, experts say the year has seen alarming backsliding on climate action. Green policies have been watered down, huge new oil and gas projects have been greenlit and coal has had something of a resurgence.

A slew of new reports showed countries are wildly off track on limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Instead, the world is on course for warming of up to a catastrophic 2.9 degrees, according to the United Nations Environment Programme — and that’s even if current climate policies are met.

As countries gather in Dubai for the UN’s COP28 climate summit, there are “high expectations,” said Harjeet Singh, the head of global political strategy at nonprofit Climate Action Network International. “At the same time, we are seeing much lower commitment from countries.”

While one year alone cannot determine the success or failure of global climate action, said Kaveh Guilanpour, vice president for international strategies at the non-profit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, “the world is still not treating this as an emergency, and that’s the fundamental problem.”

Huge oil and gas projects approved

Fossil fuels had a strong year in 2023, with several major projects approved, despite a warning from the IEA two years ago that there can be no more investment into new fossil fuel projects if the world is to meet international climate goals.

“If you’re expanding fossil fuels, you are backtracking,” said Singh.

Yet in March, the Biden administration approved the massive and controversial Willow oil drilling project in Alaska. The area to be drilled holds 600 million barrels of oil, enough to release 9.2 million metric tons of planet-heating pollution, according to the administration’s figures. That’s equivalent to adding 2 million gas-powered cars to the roads.

The decision “moved us in the opposite direction of our national climate goals” Erik Grafe, an attorney for environmental law group Earthjustice, said in a statement at the time.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the UK announced plans for an expansion of oil and gas in the North Sea in July. The government pledged to grant hundreds of new drilling licenses, in a move one climate advocate described as sending “a wrecking ball through the UK’s climate commitments.”

Fossil fuel expansion by wealthy countries is set to continue long into the future. Just five developed countries — the US, UK, Canada, Australia and Norway — are responsible for 51% of oil and gas expansion planned between 2023 and 2050, according to a September report from campaign group Oil Change International.

“If this oil and gas expansion is allowed to proceed, it would lock in climate chaos and an unlivable future,” the report noted.

Weakened climate policies

An unexpected battle in Europe in early spring over a ban on the sale of new gas and diesel powered cars set the tone for a fraught year for getting new climate policy on the books

The bloc’s law had seemed like a done deal, but Germany objected at the last minute, and added a loophole that would allow the sale of combustion engine cars beyond the 2035 deadline — as long as they run on synthetic fuels.

Across Europe, there has been pushback on green plans. An attempt in Germany to introduce a law to replace fossil fuel-powered heating systems with more efficient systems that can be run on renewable energy was watered down after widespread opposition was stoked in part by the far right.

In the UK, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a dilution of climate pledges in September. The government’s own independent climate advisory body responded by saying it “made meeting future targets harder.”

While many countries insist they are still committed to net zero by 2050 — meaning they plan to remove at least as much planet-warming pollution from the atmosphere as they produce — “targets are only valuable if they are followed up with implementation,” said Joeri Rogelj, a climate professor at Imperial College London.

A coal bonanza

Global consumption of coal — the single biggest contributor to climate change — reached an all-time high in 2022, and demand is set to remain near record levels this year, according to the IEA.

In the first half of 2023, China was approving new coal projects at a rate equivalent to two large coal plants every week, according to an analysis from Global Energy Monitor. This coal “spree,” as the report called it, was partly triggered by concerns over power shortages during blistering heat waves.

China has pledged to peak emissions by 2030 and while the country has made giant strides on renewable energy, experts say its continued reliance on coal threatens its climate progress.

“China is making the path towards its energy transition and climate commitments more complicated and costly,” Flora Champenois, co-author of the report and research analyst at GEM, said in a statement.

It’s not just China. The US may have reduced its domestic coal consumption, but it has ramped up exports. In the first eight months of this year, US thermal coal exports reached their highest level since 2018, driven by demand from Asia.

And in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, some countries have turned to coal in the scramble to replace Russian oil and gas. Germany temporarily reopened coal plants and in October, the government approved bringing coal plants back online over winter to avoid shortages.

Experts say this scramble for coal — even if short term — has also strained relations between the West and the Global South.

“The first time that the developed world has a bit of a challenge, they immediately backtrack and they say ‘oh, because it’s exceptional, we’re going to reopen coal-fired power plants,’” Rogelj said.

Fossil fuel companies dialed down green plans

Big oil companies made eye-popping profits in 2022. BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and Total pulled in a record $199.3 billion that year as they benefited from soaring oil and gas prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But the windfall did not translate into huge boosts for clean energy plans. Instead, many announced expansion of fossil fuels and, for some, a dialing down of green pledges.

BP scaled back the ambition of a commitment it had made only three years ago to slash oil and gas production by 40% by 2030. In February, it announced it would instead aim for a roughly 25% reduction by the end of the decade.

Despite record profits, Shell announced in February that it would keep renewables spending steady, despite having increased it in previous years.

And at a June conference, Exxon head Darren Woods said he aimed to double the amount of oil produced from the company’s US shale projects over five years. The company also dropped a years-long project to develop fuel from algae, previously a much-touted part of its green ambitions.

The three companies maintain they are committed to the clean-energy transition.

An Exxon spokesperson said the company was “embracing” the challenge to reach net zero. “We’re doing our part by investing $17 billion in lower-emission initiatives through 2027.”

But according to a November IEA report, the oil and gas industry must rapidly scale up its ambitions. Around 50% of its total capital spending needs to go toward clean energy projects by 2030, according to the report. At the moment, they commit just 2.5%.

“The oil and gas industry is facing a moment of truth at COP28 in Dubai,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol said in a statement. “With the world suffering the impacts of a worsening climate crisis, continuing with business as usual is neither socially nor environmentally responsible.”

Glimmers of hope

It would be a mistake to suggest everything is going in the wrong direction, Guilanpour said. “You need to think about trajectories, and on those trajectories, you’re going to get bumps in the road.”

The relationship between the US and China has long been bumpy, but its cooperation on climate change has been a glimmer of hope. In mid-November, the countries pledged a major ramp-up in renewable energy, and agreed to economy-wide reduction of all greenhouse gases — not just carbon dioxide — the first time China officially stated its intent to do so.

While 2023 did see backsliding, the long-term pathway is heading in the right direction — albeit much too slowly, said Claire Fyson, co-head of the climate policy team at Climate Analytics, a climate science and policy institute.

But, she added, “we’re still in very dangerous territory.”

Light, tasty and simple to make, egg fried rice has long been a beloved dish in China and one of most recognizable icons of Chinese cuisine around the world.

But in recent years, the popular stir-fry has become a highly sensitive subject for China’s online nationalists, especially around the months of October and November.

Emotions are running so high this week that one of the country’s most famous chefs has been forced to apologize – for making a video on how to cook the dish.

“As a chef, I will never make egg fried rice again,” Wang Gang, a celebrity chef with more than 10 million online fans, pledged in a video message on Monday.

Wang’s “solemn apology” attempted to tame a frothing torrent of criticism about the video, which was posted on Chinese social media site Weibo on November 27.

Angry nationalists accused Wang of using the video to mock the death of Mao Zedong’s eldest son, Mao Anying, who was killed in an American air strike during the Korean War on November 25, 1950.

Wang’s video was solely about making egg fried rice, but for some Chinese nationalists, any mention of the dish around the anniversary of Mao Anying’s death or birthday on October 24 amounts to a deliberate act of insult and mockery.

However, by attacking mentions of egg fried rice by famous chefs and other online influencers, the nationalist users have inadvertently promoted the very rumor their government is trying to quash.

The controversial account has it that Mao Anying, an officer in the People’s Liberation Army, disobeyed orders to take shelter during the air raid. Instead, the hungry young man fired up a stove to make egg fried rice, which sent smoke into the air and gave away his position to enemy jets.

That version of events was mentioned in the memoir of Yang Di, a military officer who worked alongside the younger Mao at the commander’s headquarters. But Chinese authorities have repeatedly refuted it as rumor.

Under leader Xi Jinping, the Chinese government has cracked down on voices that criticize national heroes or question the official narrative about them. In 2018, the country passed a law to ban the slander of national “heroes and martyrs,” a crime punishable by up to three years in prison.

Last May, former investigative journalist Luo Changping was sentenced to seven months in prison for “insulting martyrs” who froze to death during a Korean War battle. He had used a pun on social media to suggest that Chinese soldiers portrayed in a blockbuster movie about the war were stupid.

On the 70th anniversary of Mao Anying’s death in 2020, the Chinese Academy of History – an official think tank launched by Xi to counter “incorrect” views of Communist Party history – called the egg fried rice story “the most vicious rumor.”

“These rumormongers have tied up Mao Anying with egg fried rice, dwarfing the heroic image of Mao Anying’s brave sacrifice to the greatest extent,” the academy said in a post on social media site Weibo. “To put it in one sentence – their hearts are evil.”

It discredited Yang’s memoir as “full of flaws and cannot withstand verification at all.” Citing other eyewitness accounts and declassified telegrams, the post concluded that Mao Anying was killed because enemy forces detected radio waves from the busy telegraphs coming in and out of the headquarters in the days leading up to the air raid.

Despite official denials, the disputed egg fried rice story has persisted. In some corners of the Chinese internet, November 25 is celebrated as the “Egg Fried Rice Festival” or “Chinese Thanksgiving” – a nod to the belief that if the younger Mao had survived the war, he might have inherited power from his father and turned China into a hereditary dictatorship like North Korea.

In 2021, a Weibo user in the southern city of Nanchang was detained by police for 10 days for commenting in a post that “the greatest achievement of the Korean War is egg fried rice.”

“Thank you egg fried rice. Without it, we would be the same as (North Korea) now,” the post said.

‘My biggest mistake’

Wang’s egg-fired rice video, posted two days after the anniversary of the younger Mao’s death, was seen as particularly egregious as it was far from his first “transgression” – at least in the eyes of Chinese nationalists.

In 2018, Wang posted a video introducing his homemade egg fried rice recipe on October 22. Two days later, on Mao Anying’s birthday, Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily shared Wang’s video. The move raised eyebrows and drew accusations that even the party’s flagship newspaper had been corrupted.

In 2020, Wang posted a video of himself making Yangzhou fried rice – a deluxe version featuring ham, shrimp, peas and carrots in addition to eggs – on October 24, which sparked a nationalist outcry. Wang responded by issuing a swift apology.

“I only found out about this situation after I posted the video today and saw everyone’s comments,” he wrote in comments underneath the video. “I’m only sharing the delicious food and have no other motives.”

After the latest backlash on Monday, Wang explained in his apology that his team had posted the video without his knowledge.

“This video has caused a lot of trouble and a very bad experience for everyone. I apologize again,” he said after taking down the cooking video. “I was busy with personal matters recently and did not participate in the release of the video. This was my biggest mistake.”

Wang, 34, who hails from a rural village in Sichuan province, said his grandfather had been a veteran of the Korean War and spent six years in North Korea.

He said he looked up to his grandfather and dreamed of becoming a soldier since childhood, but failed the physical examination to join the army at 17. “In my mind, soilders are very sacred,” he said.

But Wang’s critics are not letting it go easily.

“It might be a coincidence the first time. But can it be a coincidence every single time?” a comment said of Wang’s egg fried rice videos.

Some called for Wang to be banned on Chinese social media, while others urged authorities to punish him for insulting national “heroes and martyrs,” citing the 2018 law.

But some have also come to Wang’s defense, noting that the chef has posted egg fried rice in other months throughout the year.

“You don’t need to apologize. It is society that should apologize to you,” a Weibo user said in support of Wang.

“Why don’t we clearly stipulate a complete ban on eating and making egg fried rice in November, or simply retire egg fried rice from Chinese cruisine all togther,” another supporter quipped.

Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief for Global Times and a prominent nationlist voice, cautioned that many people are still unaware of the rumors about Mao Anying. He called for public opinion to be more tolerant of unintentional mentions of “relevant elements” around the younger Mao’s birthday and death anniversary.

“Being more tolerant of each other and not making this into a hot topic is by and large a comfort and protection to martyr Mao Anying’s heroic spirit. It will help the issue gradually quiet down and weaken the rumor’s damage,” Hu wrote.

“Otherwise, it is possible that a controversy after another will only strengthen the rumor’s impact.”

On Tuesday, Wang removed the video of his apology and closed the comment sections on his Weibo page.

The death of Henry Kissinger on Wednesday saw the loss of a diplomat Beijing has long considered a trusted friend, with China’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday hailing the former American secretary of state as “a pioneer and architect of China-US relations” for his central role in the establishment of bilateral ties.

Paying tribute to the late statesman during a regular press briefing, ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said “the Chinese people will remember Dr. Kissinger’s sincere devotion and important contributions to China-US relations.”

Chinese leader Xi Jinping had sent his condolences to President Joe Biden, Wang added.

Kissinger’s death was also mourned on Chinese social media Thursday, where his passing became the top trending topic on heavily moderated microblogging site Weibo with more than 400 million views.

“Farewell, old friend of the Chinese people,” said a top comment with thousands of likes.

“The person who started a period of history has finally become history,” another comment said.

Considered a highly influential but controversial figure in the United States and around the world, Kissinger is highly regarded in China for his role laying the groundwork for the formation of diplomatic relations between Beijing and Washington – a crucial and highly consequential step in the country’s reengagement with the world.

In July 1971, Kissinger became the first high-ranking US official to visit Communist China. His secret meeting with Chinese leaders paved the way for then President Richard Nixon’s breakthrough trip the following year.

That visit, in turn, opened the door for the normalization of ties between the world’s richest country and its most populous in 1979.

“There is no more important diplomat in the 20th century than Henry Kissinger, certainly with regard to US-China relations, he has left an indelible mark,” said Scott Kennedy, senior adviser in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank in Washington.

Long after Kissinger left office, Beijing had regarded the well-connected diplomat as a potential helping hand in navigating the increasingly hawkish views towards China in Washington. Amid fraught relations in recent years, Chinese state-controlled media has celebrated former diplomat in an apparent signal of signal their displeasure with the tougher stance taken by US administrations.

In a statement Thursday, Chinese Ambassador to the United States, Xie Feng, said he was “deeply shocked and saddened” to learn of Kissinger’s passing.

“History will remember what the centenarian had contributed to China-US relations, and he will always remain alive in the hearts of the Chinese people as a most valued old friend,” Xie said on social media X.

Chinese state media highlighted Kissinger’s friendship with China, noting that he visited the country more than 100 times over half a century. State broadcaster CCTV called him a “living fossil” who witnessed the development of US-China relations.

Many state-run outlets cited a glowing quote from Kissinger’s interview with official news agency Xinhua in 2011. “China is the country with which I have the longest and most in-depth contacts. China has become a very important part of my life. Chinese friends are of extraordinary significance to me,” the American diplomat was quoted as saying. 
 
And even amid growing tensions – as recent US administrations have grown increasingly alarmed by China’s aggressive foreign policy and authoritarianism at home –– Kissinger remained a strong advocate of positive engagement to avoid conflict.

Final visit

Kissinger last traveled to China in July, when the Biden administration was busy dispatching cabinet officials to the Chinese capital in an attempt to restore fractured communications ahead of a potential visit to the US from Xi, which took place earlier this month.

Bilateral relations had then plunged to a new low following the fallout from an alleged Chinese spy balloon and a high-level US visit to selfTaiwan last summer.

On his surprise visit to Beijing, Kissinger was granted a meeting with Xi who hailed him as an “old friend.” That made him stand out from US climate envoy John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who traveled there on separate trips that same month and only met with their counterparts.

Kissinger also met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who told him “US policies toward China require Kissinger-style diplomatic wisdom and Nixon-style political courage.”

On that trip, Kissinger was held up in Chinese state media as an example of “old friends diplomacy,” according to Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, referring to China’s practice of pointing to international figures who have contributed to positive, stable relations between their country and China.

“Chinese media very clearly tried to paint the picture that ‘this is good diplomacy,’ and Kissinger is forward-looking and has goodwill for mitigating the tensions between two countries — and other current diplomats are not like Kissinger,” said Wu, adding that Beijing was, in reality, not aiming to be a “close friend” of the US in its own diplomacy.

“Kissinger, the Flying Tigers, all are part of the story of the US-China relations ‘golden model’ or ‘good old days’ that Xi Jinping wants to promote,” Wu said, referring to American pilots who helped China fight Japan during World War II, who were recently highlighted in state media coverage ahead of Xi’s US visit.

But among some Chinese intellectuals there are “mixed feelings” about Kissinger’s legacy, with some saying he only tried to promote peace with China, and didn’t have principles when it came to China’s political realities, Wu added.

‘Creative diplomacy’

Kissinger’s covert 1971 visit to China as Nixon’s national security advisor followed more than two decades of hostility and almost no contact between the two countries.

That trip, where he met Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, and a second visit that same year, paved the way for Nixon’s own breakthrough trip the following February and the signing of the carefully worded Shanghai Communique, where both sides agreed to work toward normalizing relations.

The tectonic shift in US-China relations that was formalized some eight years later opened the door for extensive economic engagement starting from the early 1980s. It also shifted the balance of power in the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, experts say, by deepening a split between Moscow and Beijing.

But getting there was a significant challenge.

“There were a variety of voices in the United States in the 1960s quietly calling for finding a path toward normalization with China … but it took very careful, wise diplomacy to actually implement and get that process rolling,” said Kennedy at CSIS in Washington, pointing to both sides’ management of key differences.

Fifty years later, Kissinger’s brand of pragmatism and what experts describe as his efforts to put aside ideological differences for strategic purposes appears at odds with the recent trajectory of the US-China relationship. 
 
While Biden and Xi met earlier this month to ease tensions, the friendly public gestures belied the mistrust on both sides, with each seeing the other as seeking to use or co-opt the current world order in their favor.

“It’s more difficult for the US and China to find a pragmatic balance because the domestic politics in both countries … (have) shifted dramatically,” said Kennedy.

“It’s really hard to think today that we would have the US and others engage in that kind of creative diplomacy with China … and (other) countries with which we have the biggest differences,” Kennedy added. “That’s what Kissinger was able to do.”