Lena’s family have been cooking on a camping stove
Power is being restored to the last homes hit by a five-day blackout in Germany’s snow-covered capital, Berlin.
The outage was caused by a suspected arson attack and came as temperatures dipped below freezing.
It is reportedly the longest blackout in the capital’s post-war history. A far-left militant group has admitted being behind.
This weeks’ images of residents – young and old – living through a prolonged blackout in the country’s capital has reignited a debate about Germany’s vulnerability to sabotage attacks, whether by domestic or foreign actors.
Reinhold has been sleeping in a woolly hat to keep warm at night
Schools, hospitals and care homes are among the tens of thousands of properties which were affected in south-west Berlin.
In Berlin’s Steglitz-Zehlendorf district, on Mexikoplatz, a police van drove around announcing the imminent return of power over a tannoy.
Residents regularly approached a group of emergency service workers for the latest information.
Lena said her family had felt “lost” – relying on a battery-powered radio for updates.
They have been cooking on a camping stove at home while trying to make sure their water pipes don’t freeze.
Reinhold, 79, was still without power on Wednesday morning and going to his daughter’s house to get warm.
“But I always came back to sleep here even in the cold weather with a bobble hat on and sweater and a woollen blanket.”
The retired architect said that he was used to hardship having been born in post-war Germany.
“I was born in 1947. When my mother and I came from the hospital… it was -20C in our shack.”
“My parents took turns every hour to see whether my hands were tucked in under the cover so my fingers wouldn’t freeze off.”
Restoring electricity is happening on a “step-by-step basis,” said fire service spokesman Adrian Wentzel.
Resources have been pulled in from across Germany, he told me, with an estimated 100,000 people affected.
Hospitals have had to rely on emergency generators while some schools have had to close.
It was early on Saturday when several cables on a bridge were spotted burning near the Lichterfelde gas-fired power plant.
Subsequently, the far-left Vulkangruppe or Volcano Group appeared to claim responsibility, saying its target was the fossil energy industry.
“We apologise to the less wealthy people in the southwest of Berlin,” a lengthy statement read.
“With the many owners of villas in these districts, our sympathy is limited,” they added, likely referring to the fact that Steglitz-Zehlendorf is one of Berlin’s wealthiest neighbourhoods.
However, a different statement was later published online on the Indymedia site – purportedly from Vulkangruppe’s founders.
“We expressly distance ourselves from all actions of recent years,” it said.
AFP via Getty Images
Traffic lights were cut off, too
Another recent high-profile incident saw activists admit being behind a suspected arson attack that halted production at the huge Tesla factory, just outside Berlin, in 2024.
The exact structure and workings of Vulkangruppe is not known.
But German authorities describe them as left-wing extremists and say attacks have happened at irregular intervals since 2011 in Berlin and the surrounding state of Brandenburg.
Domestic intelligence state that the group’s aim is to disrupt “the day-to-day functions in order to harm the hated capitalist system”.
Federal prosecutors are investigating the latest incident as a terrorism offence, with possible charges including “membership in a terrorist organisation, sabotage, arson and disruption of public services”.
This week’s outage was larger and lasted longer than a similar incident in September.
Plans for a federal law to protect critical infrastructure have been in the works for years but were only presented to parliament in November.
The “Kritis” bill sets out plans to identify key critical infrastructure transport as well as introduce minimum protection standards.
A Texas teachers union sued the state’s education department on Tuesday, accusing it of an improper “wave of retaliation” against public school employees over their social media comments following the assassination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk.
The lawsuit says the free speech rights of teachers and other school staff were violated by the Texas Education Agency and its commissioner, Mike Morath, because they directed local school districts to document what the education agency described as “vile content” posted online after Kirk was fatally shot in September.
Despite calls for civility, some people who criticized Kirk after his assassination faced a backlash from Republicans who saw them as dishonoring him, leading to firings by universities, sports teams and media companies. Florida’s education commissioner also promised to investigate teachers over objectionable comments.
The lawsuit says the Texas agency has received more than 350 complaints about individual educators, and the agency said Tuesday that 95 investigations remain open.
Zeph Capo, president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers, alleged that the state clearly demonstrated it is trying to police speech that offends Morath because it hasn’t given similar directives after mass shootings or other violence, such as the killing of actor-director Rob Reiner.
“It was in fact a witch hunt,” Capo said during a news conference in Austin.
The education agency said it could not comment “on outstanding legal matters.”
The lawsuit cites the cases of four unnamed teachers — one in the Houston area and three in the San Antonio area — who were investigated over social media posts critical of Kirk or of the reaction to his death. According to the lawsuit, the Houston-area teacher was fired, while the three San Antonio-area teachers remain under investigation.
Texas AFT, which represents about 66,000 teachers and other school employees, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Austin. The four teachers were anonymous because of concerns about their safety, Capo said.
The lawsuit comes less than month after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, both conservative Republicans, announced a partnership with Turning Point USA, the right-wing group Kirk founded, to create chapters on every high school campus in the state.
The Associated Press sent emails seeking comment from the governor’s office and Turning Point USA, which are not named as defendants in the suit.
Morath told school superintendents in a Sept. 12 letter that social media posts could violate Texas educators’ code of ethics and promised that “each instance will be thoroughly investigated.”
The lawsuit argues that Morath’s letter represents a state policy that is too broad and too vague to be enforced fairly and without squelching protected speech.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that agencies can limit public employees’ speech if it deals with their official duties or if it could disrupt the workplace, but Randi Weingarten, the union’s national president, said neither is an issue in the Texas lawsuit.
“We’re talking about schoolteachers when they were not in classrooms — in private, on their own social media, commenting on a matter that everyone in the country and the world saw,” she said during the news conference.
The lawsuit said none of their posts celebrated or promoted violence, which Morath said wouldn’t be protected speech.
Kirk was an unabashed Christian conservative who often made provocative statements about politics, gender and race. He founded Turning Point USA in 2012 and built it into one of the country’s largest political organizations, shaping a generation of young people by taking his conservative message onto college campuses. He was shot during such an appearance at a university in Utah.
MBW Views is a series of op-eds from eminent music industry people… with something to say. The following MBW op/ed comes from Deviate Digital founder Sammy Andrews.
I’ve been posting a lot of genuinely impressive AI cover versions this past year on socials, much to the dismay of many. It seems a large part of the industry still insists AI music is a gimmick, an uncontrollable threat, or something to dismiss until it has calmed down. It hasn’t and it won’t.
Fans are consuming and making this material in serious volumes, and the people losing out are the ones pretending the shift isn’t happening or failing to build the structures needed to protect human artistry and monetise the behaviour.
AI-generated and AI-modified tracks now exist at industrial scale. Deezeringests around 50,000 AI-made tracks a day, roughly a third of all new uploads. Most are quarantined and excluded, but that’s a technical filter, not an audience signal.
Research shows most people cannot reliably distinguish AI-generated tracks from human ones. And Deezer is small compared with the largest DSPs. If it’s seeing 50,000 AI uploads daily, services many times its size are handling far more. This isn’t gradual adoption. It’s a mass arrival.
The signs have been obvious for a while. In 2024, an AI act reached close to a million monthly listeners on Spotify before anyone realised it wasn’t a human artist. More recently, BBC Introducing presenters praised AI-generated songs believing they were new acts.
If trained professionals can’t reliably detect AI, everyday listeners won’t either. The behaviour is stable and repeatable. Millions search for and share AI covers and remixes daily. That consistency is the basis of every revenue line the industry has ever built. What’s missing is licensed infrastructure.
China (specifically Tencent) made some fairly early and bold moves in terms of embracing AI capabilities widely, but Western markets are moving slower. At time of writing two major labels have now settled with a leading AI generator, shifting the conversation from litigation to licensing and opening the door to a commercial AI environment in 2026 (and I half suspect with some equity thrown in).
Progress is happening, just painfully slowly. Meanwhile, fan behaviour keeps accelerating.
The biggest short-term commercial opportunity is AI cover versions and remixes. They exist everywhere: TikTok, YouTube, Reddit, Meta, Discord, X, private tools and emerging generative platforms. Fans aren’t waiting for permission. Quality varies for sure, but the behaviour is entrenched. This is a clear revenue line.
The basic rules for covers are simple: If you don’t use the original master, you’re making a cover; license the composition, and 100 per cent of the publishing revenue flows to the songwriters and publishers; AI-rendered performances that create a genuine re-record without using the original master fall under this category; treat them exactly as conventional covers.
The complication is the huge volume of AI ‘covers’ that borrow from the original recording: stems, trained vocal models based on the master, or recognisable sonic elements.
At that point it’s no longer a cover. It belongs in the same world as remixes and sampling, where permission from the master owner and performers is required and splits reflect reliance on the original.
If a transformation uses a master in any meaningful way, the original rights holders and performers should receive the majority of the master revenue. That’s not a new idea; it’s the logic that already governs remixes, interpolations and samples but seems completely missing from any AI doom conversation you’re likely to be having.
Some argue this can’t scale, but it already does. Remixing and sampling have operated with negotiated approvals and splits for decades. The friction comes from AI covers that imitate originals closely enough to appear ‘new’, while sidestepping permission and compensation. That’s why a consent layer for master-adjacent uses is essential.
When a transformation is trained on or derived from an original master, it should require approval and deliver most of the master income to the original performers and rights-holders.
A notice-and-takedown mechanism is a necessary backstop. If a track demonstrably uses or derives from a master without consent – including models trained on that master – and the artist objects, DSPs should be able to immediately block, demonetise or reroute revenue until cleared.
This isn’t about limiting fan creativity. It’s about ensuring creators, performers and rights-holders are paid. Let lawful covers flow with full publishing revenue. Require consent and majority master shares when original elements are used. Remove or escrow the rest until licensed.
None of this ignores the depth of feeling among creators. Some artists simply dislike others reinterpreting their work. Prince famously hated covers, yet Nothing Compares 2 U became one of his most successful compositions because a cover carried the song.
Artistic taste and commercial frameworks aren’t mutually exclusive; this can be navigated and we can and should honour artists’ concerns.
“Pretending AI covers will disappear only pushes the behaviour into grey zones where fraud thrives.”
A clear conceptual split will save endless circular arguments. AI works from large language or music models that generate ‘in the style of’ should be treated like conventional covers for composition licensing, with strong guardrails against misleading attribution and abusive voice likeness.
Mash-ups, remixes and other transformations derived from identifiable masters should continue to require permission and attract majority master shares.
Once AI covers are licensed properly at scale, the economic upside is immediate. Publishers and songwriters win first because every AI cover depends on the composition and many of these covers will also drive streams of the originals (evident in a million Reddit threads and Discord server chats already). One hit could spawn hundreds of licensed versions, all paying the original writers.
Labels and artists benefit when they license stems, masters or voice models into controlled environments. Catalogue value rises as classic recordings are re-rendered for contemporary tastes. DSPs and AI generating platforms benefit because legal transformations can become premium features that attract younger listeners and deepen engagement.
A major DSP or AI platform will almost certainly launch a legal transformation layer soon. Udio is touting it in its plans and Spotify’s AI DJ already mediates between listeners and catalogue – all of the recent licensing settlements point directly towards permission-based AI music environments.
Combine these elements and you get personal, on-demand, licensed reinterpretations of any song, with automated payments to songwriters, publishers, labels and performers.
There will be losers if this is mishandled: mass unlabelled and unregulated slop to wade through, artists cloned without consent, session players displaced, composers undercut, and smaller acts drowned in synthetic upload volume unless separated and supported properly.
Pretending AI covers will disappear only pushes the behaviour into grey zones where fraud thrives. The practical choice is to recognise what audiences are doing, license it where lawful, label and categorise it appropriately, require consent where needed, and ensure money flows to the people whose work is being used.
Right now, most of this earns nothing. The demand exists. The tools exist. The audience has already moved. What’s missing is clarity, consent and compensation. It’s the industry applying what it already knows. It’s time we stopped circling the issue and started collecting the money.
Violence, designation of ‘closed military zones’ and evacuations of civilians follow collapse of talks aimed at ending standoff over absorption of semiautonomous Kurdish forces by state institutions.
The Syrian army has declared Aleppo’s Kurdish areas “closed military zones” and ordered civilians to leave as clashes with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) extended into a second day.
The Syrian Army Operations Command told Al Jazeera that all SDF military positions in Aleppo neighbourhoods are legitimate targets as sporadic fighting between the government forces and Kurdish-led SDF continued on Wednesday after violence flared the previous day.
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The clashes, which killed nine people on Tuesday, according to officials, are the fiercest fighting since the two sides failed to implement a March deal to merge the United States-backed semiautonomous Kurdish administration and military force with Syria’s new government.
The Syrian army announced that two neighbourhoods in Aleppo would become “closed military zones” from 3pm (12:00 GMT). In the meantime, it said, it would operate “humanitarian corridors” to allow civilians to leave.
All “military sites of the SDF organisation within the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighbourhoods of Aleppo are a legitimate military target for the Syrian Arab Army, following the organisation’s major escalation towards the neighbourhoods of Aleppo city and its perpetration of numerous massacres against civilians,” the Army Operations Authority said in a statement.
The SDF noted a large deployment of Syrian army vehicles near the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah neighborhoods, labelling it a “dangerous indicator that warns of escalation and the possibility of a major war”.
The army, meanwhile, said it “urges our civilian population in the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighbourhoods of Aleppo to immediately stay away from the SDF positions”.
The state news agency SANA reported that the Syrian Civil Defence Forces and Syrian Arab Red Crescent are providing aid to people evacuating.
The Civil Defence said it had evacuated 850 civilians from Aleppo by about midday, citing deteriorating humanitarian conditions and shelling by the SDF.
A Syrian security source reported to Al Jazeera that prisoners have escaped from al-Shafiq prison, which is run by the SDF, to safe areas in Aleppo. He did not specify the number of prisoners that absconded.
Sectarian tensions
Both sides have blamed the other for sparking the violence, which broke out after talks this week between government officials and the main SDF commander stalled with “no tangible results” achieved, according to state media.
The incorporation of the SDF, which controls large chunks of Syria’s north and northeast, into state institutions has remained a subject of consternation since President Ahmed al-Sharaa took office a year ago.
The deal reached in March, in which the SDF agreed “all civil and military institutions in northeastern Syria” would be merged into “the Syrian state, including border crossings, the airport, and oil and gas fields”, has yet to be carried out.
Al-Sharaa’s efforts to amalgamate power and quell sectarian tensions among the numerous groups across Syria after the fall of longtime leader Bashar al-Assad have not been helped by Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has carried out persistent raids and bombardments in a bid to demilitarise southern Syrian regions bordering Israel.
Over the past year, Israel has launched more than 600 air, drone and artillery attacks across Syria, averaging nearly two a day, according to a tally by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.
Marie Forestier, a nonresident senior fellow for the Atlantic Council’s Syria Project, told Al Jazeera that the distance between Syrian, Israeli and US goals is “very difficult”, especially given that “Israel is doing everything to destabilise Syria.”
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Families of the victims of a fire at a Swiss bar on New Year’s Eve have expressed shock after officials admitted the venue had not undergone safety checks for five years.
Romain Jordan, who represents some of the families, said the “staggering number of breaches and shortcomings in the inspections raises the question of whether the municipality should be investigated with even greater urgency”.
Other lawyers also urged officials to take responsibility for the disaster at Le Constellation bar in Crans-Montana in which 40 people died and 116 were injured.
Prosecutors believe the fire started when champagne bottles with sparklers attached set light to sound-insulating foam on the ceiling.
French couple Jacques and Jessica Moretti are suspected of manslaughter by negligence, bodily harm by negligence and arson by negligence.
In their first statement since the fire, they said they were “devastated” and pledged “full co-operation” with the investigation.
Venues like Le Constellation should have been checked annually, but the mayor of Crans-Montana, Nicolas Feraud, said on Tuesday he could not explain why it hadn’t been checked in so long.
“We regret that – we owe it to the families and we will accept the responsibility,” he said.
He added that sparklers would be banned in local venues.
Reuters
Ricardo Minghetti, whose funeral was held on Wednesday, was one of eight victims under the age of 16
Most of the victims of the fire were young – eight under the age of 16.
Many of the injured have severe burns and are being treated in Switzerland and other European countries.
The funerals of some of those who died have been taking place.
Watch: Ski bar not checked for five years and sparklers now banned, mayor says
Under Switzerland’s political system, power is distributed among three levels of the confederation, 26 cantons and then about 2,131 municipalities.
While safety regulations are set by cantons, they need to be implemented by local authorities.
Derek Chisora appears to be waiting for the perfect match-up to mark his 50th professional fight in the sport. That may have just come along.
The British heavyweight veteran convinced fans to invest in him once again by putting together three wins in his last three outings. The unanimous decision victories came against Gerald Washington, Joe Joyce and Otto Wallin, each more impressive than the last for the 42-year-old.
Though many don’t believe he will retire after his 50th fight, the next ring walk will be an emotional one whatever no matter what happens after. For an occasion like that, Chisora wants the perfect dance partner, and Fabio Wardley — world title belt and all — makes perfect sense.
At least the champion thinks as much, with Wardley telling Sky Sports he would be all in.
“I think massively [it would be an attractive fight for British boxing fans]. For me as well, with my fights, I look at them from the perspective not just as a boxer but also as a fan. I look at them like: if I was sitting on the sofa and that popped up, would it interest me?
“I think you’d be hard-pressed to find somebody in boxing that’s going to see my name, Chisora and a fight, who thinks our styles aren’t going to go well together or create an entertaining fight.”
“It would be a nice way to send him packing [into retirement] for his 50th fight. Credit to him for all he’s done in the sport, and for all the years I’ve watched him he’s been entertaining and a pleasure.
“It would almost be like I’m doing a service. Give him his 50th, throw in a world title, send him packing with a big show and a big fight, but it’s only going to end one way.”
Many heavyweight fights are expected to be announced in the coming weeks and months, both Wardley and Chisora included. Whether or not fans see their names on a poster together remains to be decided.
What was announced as a 2050 pipe dream by Kawasaki, the company’s hydrogen-powered, four-hooved, all-terrain robot horse vehicle Corleo, is actually going into production and is now expected to be commercially available decades earlier – with the first model to debut in just four years.
Corleo goes where two wheels most definitely won’t
Kawasaki
We first wrote about this mountain-climbing monster in April last year, when it was merely a concept with some bad CGI video. But it seems Kawasaki is now getting serious about its futuristic mechanical quadruped, setting up a dedicated operation – known as the Safe Adventure Business Development Team – and aiming to have the robo-horse up and galloping for visitor use at Expo 2030 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Following that, the plan is to have the mobility vehicles on sale for consumers by 2035.
While it’s not quite the same, Kawasaki Heavy Industries has also announced that you’ll be able to experience what it’s like to ride Corleo – albeit virtually – with a simulator due to be released next year.
“Kawasaki will also develop a riding simulator that enables riding experience of the four-legged mobility vehicle,” the company announced. “This riding simulator targets completion by 2027, with plans to deploy the entire system – including motion data, 3D models, and motion data obtained during CORLEO development – to the gaming and e-sports industries.”
But back to the real Corleo. The company is focused on its use as a vehicle that can conquer mountainous terrain safely, blending motorcycle technology and robotics to offer stability and maneuverability. While its rear legs operate independently and are built for shock absorption, the vehicle will be guided by the rider’s shifting body weight – a little like horseback riding but without the reins. It’s also reported to be equipped with advanced AI to master mixed and challenging terrain, including rocky slopes and water crossings.
Kawasaki’s original renders of Corleo
Kawasaki
As previously reported, Corleo is expected to be powered by a 150cc hydrogen engine that generates electricity to propel the legs and is fueled by rear-mounted hydrogen canisters for low emissions and silent operation. The robo-horse will also house a GPS navigation screen to guide riders by mapping paths, while keeping the rider’s center of gravity stable (no pun intended).
While it’s still a way off, the deadline is more optimistic than 2050, which was the original ETA when it debuted at Japan’s World Expo 2025 in Osaka. At this point we have no idea how many will be made, nor how much it’ll cost, but the latest developments take this from novelty to “one-to-watch.”
BBC
AFP via Getty Images
