Fires, floods, hurricanes, and locusts: 2020 was an epic year for disasters

A record number of billion-dollar disasters struck the US in 2020 amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

By Umair Irfan Dec 30, 2020

The skies over Mallacoota, Australia, turned red as smoke from bushfires spread across the country on January 4. Justin McManus/The Age/Fairfax Media/Getty Images


The Covid-19 pandemic was unfortunately not the only natural disaster of 2020. There were so many that it’s easy to forget everything that happened this year. Here is a brief sampling of 2020’s weather-related events:

The year began with a series of bushfires in Australia that forced thousands to flee, and killed at least 29 people and more than a billion animals. The fires that sent smoke around the world had ignited amid weeks of record-breaking heat and drought.

Swarms of locusts descended on East Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, threatening food supplies for millions of people in the spring. The swarms were triggered in part by torrential rainfall in East Africa.

This summer, California experienced its worst fire season on record in terms of area burned, as well as its largest single wildfire on record. Colorado also had its largest wildfire in history, and blazes in Washington and Oregon created an unprecedented disaster.

A record number of wildfires this summer swept through the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetlands, spanning Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay. Many of these blazes were illegally ignited to clear land for agriculture, and spread because of hot and dry conditions in an area that’s usually wet.

A powerful storm known as a derecho swept through South Dakota, Nebraska, Illinois, and Iowa in October and became the most costly thunderstorm in US history, causing an estimated $7.5 billion in damages.

Storms like Typhoon Vamco brought deadly flooding in Vietnam. 

Huy Thanh/AFP/Getty Images

Typhoon Goni became the largest tropical storm to ever make landfall when it struck the Philippines in October, whipping the country with winds reaching 195 miles per hour.
More than 100 people died in Vietnam in October amid the worst flooding in decades, triggered by tropical storms and typhoons.

The Atlantic Ocean experienced its most active hurricane season on record, with 30 named storms as the season closed in November. The hurricanes wrought destruction across the Caribbean and Central America, while forcing thousands to evacuate in the United States. More than 400 people were killed by Atlantic tropical storms this season.

In the waning days of 2020, Tropical Storm Chalane struck the coast of Mozambique, bringing heavy rains and 75 mph winds to a region that is still recovering from the devastating strike by Cyclone Idai last year.

These disasters were deadly and destructive, and several of them nudged records even higher. But while their origins are in nature, humanity’s actions are what made these events truly devastating. From continuing to build in high-risk areas, to failing to evacuate people at risk, to changing the climate, disasters often end up with a far higher toll than they would otherwise. As populations increase in vulnerable areas and with climate change pushing weather toward greater extremes, the risks are poised to grow.

2020 was the year of the compound disaster

Covid-19 was lurking in the background of most natural disasters this year. Since the pandemic began, efforts to contain it complicated everything from locust control pesticide spraying to organizing camps for wildland firefighters.


And people fleeing disasters faced extra challenges as they tried to maintain social distance in shelters that tend to force people into close proximity.

“The threat of Covid-19 transmission means we need to be additionally vigilant in protecting both our emergency response teams and the people they are helping,” said Oxfam Philippines’ Country Director Lot Felizco, in a statement about Typhoon Goni in November. “The loss of critical facilities, vulnerabilities from lack of adequate food and shelter, poor conditions in evacuation centers, and ongoing displacement means we have to ensure response actions do not increase Covid-19 risks on top of other disease outbreaks.”

At the same time, disasters made it harder to contain the spread of the coronavirus, which has already killed more than 1.8 million people around the world. The pandemic also devastated the global economy, and many local disaster responders saw budget cuts and layoffs just as their communities needed support the most.

Shelters like this one in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, have had to take Covid-19 precautions while also aiding survivors of storms like Hurricane Genevieve, which struck the Pacific coast of Mexico in August. Alfredo Martinez/Getty Images

“Yes, it’s a health crisis,” said Aaron Clark-Ginsberg, a social scientist who studies disasters at the RAND Corporation. “It’s also an economic crisis, and it’s a social crisis.”

Disasters in 2020 also compounded when extreme weather struck repeatedly. Louisiana, for instance, saw a record five major storms make landfall this year, including Hurricane Laura, the strongest storm to strike the region in 150 years.

Meanwhile, back-to-back wildfires across the western United States not only destroyed homes and businesses, but cast smoke over huge swaths of the country, turning skies orange and making breathing the air as bad as smoking a pack of cigarettes in a day. That dirty air in turn worsened risks for Covid-19, a disease that afflicts the airways. “Exposure to air pollutants in wildfire smoke can irritate the lungs, cause inflammation, alter immune function, and increase susceptibility to respiratory infections, likely including COVID-19,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The events this year showed that disasters aren’t singular events, but overlapping and intersecting phenomena. In the future, disaster planners will have to better account for how many things can go wrong at once, and that areas may not have time to fully recover from one catastrophe before the next one strikes.

Disasters in 2020 were expensive, and that’s partly our fault

Around the world, more than 40 disasters led to at least a billion dollars in damages each. The United States in particular set a record for the number of billion-dollar disasters this year, with at least 18 such events. These include not just hurricanes and wildfires, but droughts and heat waves. Hurricane Laura was one of the costliest events of the year for the US, with upward of $12 billion in damages.

The number of billion-dollar disasters in the US set a new record in 2020. NOAA

The dollar amounts, however, don’t tell the whole story. Poorer people are often more seriously harmed by storms, floods, and fires. But because their property is valued lower, the price tag can understate the scope of the destruction. Damage to facilities like offices and factories also often show up as more costly than damage to people’s homes. So the places with the costliest disasters aren’t necessarily the places that are suffering the most.

At the same time, the economic harms of disasters are mounting in part because more people and property are in harm’s way. For example, about 40 percent of the world’s population lives within 100 kilometers of a coastline. About 40 percent of the US population lives in a coastal county. The number of people in these areas is growing, bringing with them more homes, offices, and industries. That means that when storm surges and hurricanes arrive, they’ll extract a higher toll.

Similarly, people in the western United States are continuing to build in fire-prone regions. That not only raises the destructiveness of wildfires when they burn, but it also increases the likelihood of igniting those fires in the first place, since the vast majority of wildfires are ignited by human activity. One study found that 645,000 homes in California will be in “very high” wildfire severity zones by 2050, based on current trends.

All the while, people are changing the climate. Emission of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels is amplifying the raw ingredients of many of these disasters — air temperature, ocean temperature, and rainfall — and pushing them to be more destructive. Climate change doesn’t “cause” disasters, but it makes it likelier for them to reach greater extremes.

Scientists in recent years have gained a better understanding of how to attribute extreme events to climate change caused by humans. For example, a study from the World Weather Attribution research consortium investigating Australia’s bushfires found that climate change increased the likelihood of the conditions that fueled the blazes by at least 30 percent.


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Why we’re more confident than ever that climate change is driving disasters

Climate change is also shaping how these disasters unfold. One climate change signal that’s been emerging in recent hurricanes is rapid intensification, which NOAA defines as a gain of 35 mph or more in wind speed over 24 hours. That was visible this year in Hurricane Laura, which surged from Category 2 to Category 4 strength over several hours.

Between 1982 and 2009, the number of Atlantic tropical storms that have rapidly intensified increased significantly, in part due to human-caused climate change, according to a 2019 study in the journal Nature Communications. Climate models also show that rapid intensification will increase as average temperatures rise.

It’s clear, then, that the impacts of disasters stem from forces of nature as well as humanity’s decisions. However, because people are driving many of the factors that make extreme weather so devastating, people can also take steps to reduce these impacts. That can take the form of relocating away from high-risk areas, building seawalls and protective infrastructure, and investing more in disaster management so communities can recover faster. And over the long term, reducing greenhouse gas emissions will help avert the most extreme disaster scenarios.

But the impacts of the disasters this year will linger for a long time as people look to rebuild their lives and cope with the trauma. “Disasters change people, they change communities, and they change societies,” said Clark-Ginsberg. That means the shadow of 2020 will likely stretch well into 2021 — and beyond.

Israeli soldier shoots and paralyzes Palestinian man in dispute over power generator

By Abeer Salman, CNN 

An Israeli soldier shot a Palestinian man, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down, after an altercation over a portable electric generator, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

© Mussa Qawasma/Reuters Members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) arrive at the site where a Palestinian house was demolished near Hebron in the West Bank on November 25, 2020.

Video of the incident, which occurred on Friday near Hebron in the south of the West Bank, appears to show Haroun Abu Aram, 24, along with three other men, attempting to hold on to the generator while Israeli soldiers seek to take it away.

The tussle continues until, off-camera, a single gunshot is heard, followed by screaming, before the camera moves to reveal Abu Aram lying motionless on the ground.

The video has been widely circulated by Israeli human rights organizations and in Israeli and Palestinian media.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said soldiers were involved in a routine operation "to confiscate and evacuate an illegal building in the village of At-Tuwani." Israeli forces regularly evacuate and demolish Palestinian homes in the Palestinian Territories that are built without a permit from Israeli authorities.

The statement said the army was aware of reports a Palestinian had been injured by live fire during the operation and was carrying out an investigation.

The army statement also said the operation had been carried out in the face of rock-throwing by about 150 Palestinians, though this cannot be seen in the two-and-half-minute video of the incident circulating on social media.

Mohammed Ribe, the head of the local village committee, told CNN that Abu Aram's own family house had been demolished a month ago and that he had been trying to protect his neighbors' property when the IDF moved to empty their house during Friday's operation.

"Haroun was trying to help his neighbors to get their generator back when he was shot in the back of his neck," Ribe said.

A statement from the hospital in Hebron where Abu Aram is being treated said he had been shot in the neck, damaging his nerves and spine and leaving him paralyzed in all four limbs.

The hospital added that breathing was only possible with a ventilator.

"This barbaric aggression is part of the ongoing Israeli occupation targeting of people ... with the aim of increasing the pressure and restrictions on them to forcibly expel them, and empty the area of them, in order to seize it in its entirety in favor of [Israeli] settlements," the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement following Friday's shooting.

According to Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, Abu Aram's own home in the same village was demolished by Israeli authorities on November 25.

Video B'Tselem says is from that operation, circulated by the rights group, shows bulldozers pushing over a series of simple concrete and metal buildings, as well as pulling up a pipeline used to supply water to local communities, according to the rights group.

Palestinians say these home demolitions are part of an attempt to drive them off the land.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israel demolished 664 Palestinian buildings in Area C of the West Bank during 2020 and displaced 572 people.

Israel says the buildings are erected illegally, but Palestinians, the UN and rights groups say it is almost impossible for Palestinians to gain planning permission from Israeli authorities to build in Area C, which is under full Israeli control.

 

Israeli Soldiers Killed 48 Palestinians, Including Two Women And Eight Children, In 2020

 JAN 2, 2021

Israeli soldiers killed 48 Palestinians, including two women and eight children, during the ongoing and escalating violations against the Palestinian people, in the year 2020, the Martyrs’ Families Coalition has reported.

Mohammad Sbeihat, the secretary of the coalition, has reported that, despite the difficult conditions in 2020, mainly due to the coronavirus pandemic, Israeli soldiers have escalated their attacks and violations against the Palestinian people, their homes and lands, and their holy sites.

Sbeihat stated that the soldiers have killed 48 Palestinians, all of them civilians and not members of any armed resistance group, and added that besides the eight children and the two women, the soldiers also killed one Palestinian with special needs.

The report revealed the main following facts:

1. 48 Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli occupation soldiers.

A: Two of them were women.

B: 46 are from several parts of the West Bank.
C: 12 from several parts of the Gaza Strip.

D: Eight children were killed, the youngest Ali Ayman Abu Alia, 13, and was killed on December 4th in the al-Mughayyir village, near Ramallah.

E: The oldest Palestinians is Sa’adi Mahmoud al-Gharabily, 75, from Gaza city, who died in Israeli prisons on July 8th due to medical neglect, after spending 26 years behind bars.

2. The number of slain Palestinians who are married is 14; 13 men and one woman.
3. The Average age of the slain Palestinians in 28.
4. The number of Palestinians who were killed by missiles or shells is 3.
5. The number of Palestinians who died in Israeli prisons in 2020 is 6.
6. Two Palestinians were killed during Israeli bombardment in Syria.
7. One Palestinian, Eyad al-Hallaq, from Jerusalem, was a person with special needs.

Israel is still holding the remains of thirteen Palestinians who were killed in 2020, which brings the number of corpses Israel has been holding over the last five years to 73, in addition to 254 who have been buried in the “Numbers Graveyards” since the year 1968.

South African game reserves forced to cull animals as Covid halts tourism

The visitors driven across the 10,000 or more hectares of the Nambiti game reserve in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province see what they think is an unchanged, and unchanging natural landscape.

Njabulo Hodla, the assistant manager of the reserve, sees something else: thickening undergrowth that someone must cut back, tracks which need clearing, fences to repair and animals that will have to be culled eventually, each another victim of Covid. “It’s tough, really tough. I’ve never seen a season like it,” said the 31-year-old, who has worked at Nambiti since 2008

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© Photograph: TravelMuse/Alamy 

Three kudu in Nambiti game reserve in KwaZulu-Natal where visitor numbers have slumped.

Across the continent Covid has hit South Africa the hardest with more than a million confirmed cases and 29,000 deaths according to official figures. As elsewhere in Africa, the pandemic has wreaked massive economic damage, with thousands of businesses failing and tens of millions unable to earn a living. The economy shed 2.2m jobs in the second quarter of 2020.

The huge tourist industry – which employs around one in every 20 workers and provides just under 3% of GDP – has been devastated.

Once the December holiday season meant tens of thousands of foreign visitors spending hundreds, even thousands, of dollars every day. Now, with the rate of new infections in the country soaring as authorities struggle to check a second wave, no one expects the tourists to come back soon.

South Africa’s 500 or so private game reserves are often in more remote and impoverished parts of the country. They spend considerable amounts each month to feed and care for the animals. Many have been forced to close permanently, lay off staff and sell, or even shoot, animals. Other have survived – just.

“Reserves like ours went from quite a nice income supporting 300 jobs and a massive conservation project to literally nothing. We fell off a wall,” said Clarke Smith, chairman of Nambiti. “We are still feeling the pain … and the impact on the region is very marked.”

Nambiti is a community-owned project, unlike many, so a substantial proportion of profits and an annual lease are paid to local villages. This year, these revenues are much reduced and, with many employees of the reserve still on reduced hours or at home, the coming months will be very difficult.

“Instead of an end-of-year bonus, people are taking home only half a salary, or nothing,” said Hodla, who grew up in one of the nearby villages. “The communities round here are just on the line. The reserve plays a major role. Everyone knows someone who works here.”

Many fear that if the crisis continues for many more months, hundreds of thousands of hectares across South Africa that have been converted to more lucrative game reserves in recent decades will revert to cattle or cereal farming – with a massive loss of habitat for endangered animals and other species.

But if the business of wildlife conservation has been hit badly, so too has that of safeguarding other parts of the country’s heritage.

Like many parts of rural South Africa, the north of KwaZulu province suffered from acute unemployment, massive health problems including TB and HIV, and deep poverty even before the pandemic. Industries have been gutted in recent decades, with many mines and factories closing.

In some places, such losses have been partially compensated by what has been a booming trade in battlefield tourism. Tens of thousands of British visitors have come to walk the sites where British troops fought Zulus in the bloody war of 1879 that consolidated the imperial hold on southern Africa.

The battlefields of Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift are the main attraction for British tourists usually old enough to be fans of the 1964 film Zulu that dramatised the story of the catastrophic British defeat and last-ditch stand at the sites.

This winter – or summer in the southern hemisphere – both battlefields are “empty”, the memorials, graves and museums deserted.

“There is no work. We are just sitting there. The situation is so bad. There is a drought and no crops in our fields, and a sack of mealie [maize flour] costs twice as much as it did back in the spring,” said Dalton Ngobese, a local guide, who has not worked since March.

With the tourists gone, so too are the hawkers who sold ethnic craft, snacks and water. A portion of the entrance fee to the battlefield site goes to schools, so this source of revenue too has dried up.

The accommodation lodges were shut for much of the summer, and have only recently reopened, welcoming far fewer guests. The lodges provide jobs and also fund support programmes for local students, charitable foundations, orphanages and other projects.

“If we are suffering, the entire community takes a knock,” said Shane Evans, manager of the Isandlwana Lodge, which hosted groups touring the battlefield.

In the village of Isandlwana, there is resignation. With so few jobs locally, men have traditionally travelled to Johannesburg, six hours’ drive north, to work in mines or, more recently, hotels. But both industries are suffering too and most of Isandlwana’s residents who had jobs have lost them.

Government aid has been patchy, and a huge burden for a country still battling the legacies of the racist, repressive apartheid regime. The ruling African National Congress, in power since 1994, is accused of incompetence and corruption, but also has to deal with a flagging economy, tens of millions of people in poverty and massive debts. A job support programme has been guaranteed until the end of the year, but money is slow to come through.

One consequence in the villages around Isandlwana is that crime is rising, with cattle theft and burglary getting worse, said Ngobese. A recent drought has meant local communities around the battlefields have been unable to plant the crops that traditionally supplement incomes and diet.

Nellie Buthelezi’s husband was among those laid off by the local government in swingeing job cuts earlier this year, while the lodge where she works has been shut since March. The 41-year-old mother of four has lived in Isandlwana all her life and cannot remember times ever being as bad.

“Food is expensive, and it goes so fast. We’ve got no money for rent,” she told the Observer. “We just hope to God for a better new year.”

Famous animal activist Jane Goodall is urging Edmonton City Council to “free Lucy the lonely elephant” and let her retire “in a more humane setting

© Provided by ET Canada EPA/FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA

Goodall is best known for her 60-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees.

She posted a video message Tuesday, asking that Lucy be transferred from the Edmonton Valley Zoo to a sanctuary in Tennessee.

“Lucy is a very lonely elephant,” Goodall says in the video. “Of course there are people who care about and love and care for Lucy but that can’t make up for the lack of elephant companionship.”

READ MORE: Animal rights group ranks Edmonton zoo fourth-worst for elephants

Goodall says elephants are highly intelligent and extremely social and Lucy is the only elephant at the zoo. The activist says elephants develop friendships that last throughout their lives, they recognize each other, are sentient and share similar emotions to humans: joy, sorrow, grief and pain.

“Each day she spends at the zoo is another day of sadness, and especially during your long, cold, dark winter,” Goodall says.

“There’s a wonderful and accredited sanctuary in Tennessee that’s offered to take her in. I know there are concerns as to whether Lucy is healthy enough to be moved but other older elephants have been successfully transported over long distances.

“I beg of you to invite an independent veterinarian with an appropriate knowledge of elephants to examine Lucy and determine how best she can be prepared for and supported for her journey.”

Lucy, a 45-year-old Asian elephant, has lived at Edmonton’s zoo since 1977. The zoo has long maintained that moving her to a sanctuary would worsen her condition or kill her.

READ MORE: Latest examination recommends Lucy stay at Edmonton Valley Zoo

In 2016, Lucy’s condition was reviewed by an independent veterinarian. At the time the vet said Lucy was suffering from dental and respiratory issues even then, but if the zoo chose to move her she was “highly likely” to “potentially” die en route to a sanctuary.

The latest examination, performed in November 2019 by the University of Calgary School of Veterinary Medicine, showed that Lucy has several respiratory and molar issues.

According to Lindsey Galloway, executive director of the Edmonton Valley Zoo, moving the elderly elephant would be “unethical.” Instead, the zoo plans to make changes to her enclosure and routine to make her as comfortable as possible.

The zoo reportedly plans on reaching out to outside experts who specialize in working with geriatric elephants to learn more about what could be done for Lucy.

READ MORE: Bob Barker takes Free Lucy campaign to elephant’s Edmonton zoo

Animal rights activists have been calling for Lucy to be moved for a number of years, citing things like the elephant’s cramped space, Edmonton’s cold weather and the fact that Lucy is alone as reasons to relocate her.

The November 2019 examination found results continue to show that Lucy the elephant should not be moved to a sanctuary.

READ MORE: City of Edmonton defending Lucy’s care after ‘dishonourable mention’ on Worst Zoos for Elephants list

However, in her video, Goodall stresses Lucy should be in a place “where she can enjoy the companionship of other elephants.”

“It seems to me that after the four decades Lucy has ‘worked’ for your city, she has earned her retirement in a more humane setting.”

READ MORE: New ‘Jane Goodall Act’ seeks to ban ivory imports, hunting trophies

The Jane Goodall Act was recently introduced in the Senate of Canada. Sen. Murray Sinclair said he has teamed up with primatologist Goodall to propose a law to protect captive animals and ban imports of elephant ivory and hunting trophies into Canada.

Sinclair says the bill would ban new captivity of great apes and elephants unless it’s licensed and for their best interests, including for conservation and non-harmful scientific research. That would allow courts to issue orders to move them to new care or to improve their living conditions.

Bill S-218 had its first reading on Nov. 17.

“This is exactly the sort of inappropriate conditions the Jane Goodall Act would prohibit, and why it is so necessary,” Sinclair said. “A key element of the act, the ‘Noah Clause,’ authorizes the federal cabinet to extend legal protections to additional captive, non-domesticated species through regulation.”

Goodall encourages supporters of the Jane Goodall Act to send a letter to members of Parliament and the Senate.

Canada’s top CEOs will earn the average yearly income by noon TODAY

A new report says Canada's top CEOs have already earned as much as the average Canadian worker by 11:14 a.m. on Jan. 4.

© THE CANADIAN PRESS IMAGES/Lars Hagberg

 FILE: A Bay Street sign sits in downtown Toronto, Ontario on May 29, 2012. 

By the time most Canadians settle back into their work-from-home offices on the first working day of the year, Canada's top CEOs would have already made the average worker's salary -- $53,482 -- according to new research from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

The report said that the average top-paid CEO would have made that average income by 11:17 a.m.ET Monday, about an hour later than the previous year. It also found that in 2019, the average top Canadian CEO made 202 times more than the average worker in the same year, which was down from a record 227 times the previous year.

Read more: Top CEOs have already made average Canadian’s salary in 2020: report

"There's a real golden cushion for a lot of these CEOs, who have seen years of outrageous pay, this will cushion them and their wealth in a sense, but for many of them they will actually see an increase in their pay because their stock has done fairly well during the pandemic," said David Macdonald, the report's author and senior economist for the CCPA.

According to Macdonald, most CEO pay is not in salary, but is handed out to them in bonuses and that because of this, it wouldn't be possible yet to calculate how much they made in the most recent year. About 82 per cent of this year's average top CEO income of $10.8 million is made up of bonuses, he added.

While the research found the wage gap had narrowed slightly compared to the previous year, McDonald said that changes to executive pay structure would certainly have to be made, especially given the financial hardships caused by the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Video: Canadian CEO’s taking pay cuts during COVID-19 crisis

Over a third of the top 100 CEOs of 2019 were found to have ran companies that applied for and received payroll support in 2020 through the federal government’s Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS), while about half of that 100 was expected to either retain their compensation or see a raise during the pandemic due to the stock market boom.

"I still don't think there's any way we can avoid it, it's not built into the rules as it is in other countries like the Netherlands or Spain where you can't pay out shareholders and executive bonuses at the same time as you're receiving their version of the wage subsidy," Macdonald said.




Read more: Canada’s top CEOs will make $50K before noon on Jan. 2: report

"But we can put those rules into place, we haven't so far, so I think it's basically guaranteed we're going to see massive executive bonuses going at the same time as the federal government paying the wages of the companies."

Macdonald's research also found that there was roughly 15 per cent people working less among those who were making $17 an hour or less, while the workers with the "highest wages" fully recovered by July.

Video: Pay equity gap still ‘significant’: Canada’s Women’s Foundation

According to a 2020 report from the Fraser Institute, CEO pay has increased in recent years due to an increasing demand in skills and competition in the industry.

"The best business leaders in the world, just like top professional athletes and entertainers, are in limited supply while also being in high demand globally, so the compensation they receive reflects that," wrote Vincent Geloso, the report's author, in a press release.

Read more: Gender gap shows a ‘double-pane’ glass ceiling for salary for female CEOs

According to Geloso's report, the gap between CEO and worker pay in Canada is "overestimated" due to many other comparisons factoring in CEO bonuses. Geloso also argued that the high pay was justified due to the high amount of executive turnover, citing a Globe and Mail survey that found only 15 of the top 100 CEOs remained in the list between 2007 and 2017.

Macdonald, on the other hand, argues that given the economic turmoil of the pandemic, several tweaks have to be made to Canadian tax and wage policy -- starting with the federal government restricting the CEWS only to companies that are not paying out executive bonuses, as well as excluding it from companies that substantially increase executive salaries.

Video: New report says women CEOs are paid less than men

"The argument so far is that the federal government is that companies are using the wage subsidy to pay employees, which they are, but the issue is that we can't be having companies reward the executives while we're paying the payroll, and that's exactly what's going to happen unless that stipulation is made," he said.

Aside from that, Macdonald recommended eliminating executive tax benefits, introducing new marginal tax rates on extreme incomes and increasing the tax rate on those who made more during the pandemic to close the gap.

"One of the places they should be looking at for revenue is to people who have done particularly well from the pandemic, it has not been bad for everyone -- a lot of these CEOs would come out of this much better off as a result of the pandemic, and those are the types of people who should be asked to pay a little bit more. They made substantially more, so they should chip in a little bit more."

Did Columbus find early Caribs in 15th century Caribbean? Jury is still out

Two studies, published 11 months apart, yield conflicting results.

JENNIFER OUELLETTE - 12/29/2020

Enlarge / Earlier this year, researchers analyzed the skulls of early Caribbean inhabitants, using 3D facial "landmarks" as a genetic proxy for determining how closely people groups were related to one another. A follow-up study this month added ancient DNA analysis into the mix, with conflicting results.
Ann Ross/North Carolina State University

There's rarely time to write about every cool science-y story that comes our way. So this year, we're once again running a special Twelve Days of Christmas series of posts, highlighting one science story that fell through the cracks in 2020, each day from December 25 through January 5. Today: how facial characteristic analysis and DNA analysis, combined with archaeological work, are helping shed light on the history of the Caribbean's original islanders.

In his accounts of encounters with the inhabitants of the Caribbean Islands in the 15th century, Christopher Columbus made several allusions to Carib raids upon peaceful Arawak villages, including sensational claims of the invaders eating the men and taking the women as wives. "I saw some who had marks of wounds on their bodies and I made signs to them asking what they were," Columbus wrote in one account from his first voyage, upon arriving on the Bahamian island of Guanahani. "They showed me how people from other islands nearby came there and tried to take them, and how they defended themselves; and I believed and believe that they come Tierra Firme to take them captive."

Most archaeologists have long dismissed these accounts as myths, but new scientific tools are helping shed light on the truth of the Caribbean's original islanders. And the conflicting results of two separate studies, published 11 months apart, are raising fresh questions. The results of an analysis of facial characteristics from ancient human skulls from the region seemed to indicate Columbus' account was accurate, according to a January paper published in Scientific Reports. But a follow-up paper published last week in Nature yields a different picture with its combination of genetic analysis with decades of archaeological research.

Archaeologist William Keegan, curator of Caribbean archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, and a coauthor on both studies, has been studying this region for more than 40 years. Per Keegan, it's a vast archipelago extending nearly 3,000 miles from the mouth of Orinoco River in northern South America to Florida and the Yucatan, and it includes three major island groupings in the Caribbean Sea: the Lesser Antilles, the Greater Antilles, and the Bahamas

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Enlarge / Cannibalism in Brazil depicted by Theodor de Bly, 1596.
Public domain

According to Keegan, the working hypothesis among archaeologists has long been that the Caribs only arrived in the region shortly before Europeans, and even then were found only in the Windward Islands at the Lesser Antilles, based on decorations found on ancient pottery. It was assumed Caribs had never made it farther north than Guadalupe. He himself ascribed to that view until the facial characteristic analysis showed evidence of a distinct third migratory group—evidence that Carib marauders did indeed invade Jamaica, Hispaniola, and the Bahamas.

Keegan ruefully admitted at the time that he set out to prove Columbus was wrong, but the January findings seemed to prove the famed explorer right. Then came the results of the DNA study, which showed only two distinct migratory groups, once again muddying the waters.

"We have several different notions of what Carib might be," Keegan told Ars. "We have cultural evidence, we have Columbus' reports, we have the accounts of French missionaries in the 1700s. Trying to sort through what all these different Caribs are, or whether they're even just one single cultural group, is what we were hoping that the DNA would help sort out. But as often happens in science, our questions are more subtle than our data."Advertisement

“Facial profiling”

Keegan's co-author Anne Ross had published a study a few years ago on facial characteristics from different populations around and in the Caribbean region, and found that people who lived in Cuba had distinctly different features than those who lived in Hispaniola. "An enduring question has been whether the Lucayans, who settled the Bahamas, came from Cuba or from Hispaniola," said Keegan.

The question endures in part because it can be challenging to collect sufficient samples of ancient skulls. "Once bones are in the ground, or underwater, for a long period of time, the facial bones are the most fragile and tend to break apart and collapse," said Keegan. "So it's difficult to get a complete enough face to do these kinds of measurements. And we're not out there actively looking for human burials so it's sort of catch as catch can."

Fortunately, the National Museum of The Bahamas has a substantial collection of human skeletons, a vital resource for archaeologists like Keegan. The latest skulls came from a 2016 rescue excavation after a Lucayan burial site was disturbed by Hurricane Joaquin and began washing out the side of a sand dune. Despite his profession, "Personally, I don't think we should be keeping human remains in repositories," said Keegan. "It's kind of a sensitive matter. It does affect our ability to do research. But I think humans deserve to have a certain degree of respect no matter when they died. So my goal is eventually to have all the human remains in the collection reburied in an appropriate location."
Enlarge / A map showing proposed three migration routes for the peopling of the Caribbean.
A.H. Ross et al/Scientific Reports

The intentional modification of facial structure was common practice at the time: namely, the flattening of the forehead, which changes the shape of the back part of the skull. "The parietal bones over your ears become more bulbous and the back of the skull—the occipital—becomes flat," said Keegan. "And then, of course, the forehead slopes backwards."

But that type of modification doesn't affect the characteristics Keegan and Ross examined in their study. "Biological anthropologists have known for years that your facial appearance is affected by your genes," he said. They have developed a set of specific measurement points to create facial reconstructions of how various peoples from that era looked, and it's been demonstrated that there are regional differences between a person from Cuba, a person from Hispaniola/The Bahamas, and a person from Puerto Rico—what Keegan jokingly calls "facial profiling."

After finally being able to study enough skulls, they discovered three separate clusters instead of the expected two: a Cuba cluster, a Puerto Rico/Venezuela/Colombia cluster, and a Hispaniola/Jamaica/Bahamas cluster. That prompted Keegan et al. to reexamine a pottery style known as Meillacoid, found only in Hispaniola, Jamaica, and the Bahamas, which anthropologists had previously thought were a separate migration.

"We found that the pottery style was much more consistent with the way those people called Caribs made pottery than the way people called Arawaks made pottery," said Keegan. "Those two lines of evidence led us to conclude that [Caribs] actually were in Hispaniola, Jamaica, and the Bahamas when Columbus arrived."

As for the reports of cannibalism in Columbus' accounts, hard evidence as to whether this was truly a regular practice is still lacking. "The Caribs in the Lesser Antilles told Europeans that they kill and eat their enemies, but this could be hyperbole," said Keegan. "We don't have any skeletal evidence. We're not finding human bones that are cooked or butchered—at least we haven't yet."Advertisement

DNA finds three’s a crowd

To follow up on those findings, Keegan teamed up with David Reich of Harvard Medical School to see if there was sufficient genetic evidence to support the conclusions from the facial profiling. The DNA study published last week analyzed the genomes of the remains from 263 individuals—the largest such study to date for ancient DNA in the Americas. They collected genetic material from a small, dense part of the bone that protects the inner ear.

The results: Reich's team found evidence of two major migratory waves in the Caribbean, with two distinct groups—but not a distinct third group, as Keegan had hoped. Rather, the skulls examined in the facial profiling study were part of a subgroup within the main Caribbean group. Keegan thinks this might be the result of the so-called "bottleneck effect," or "founder effect," whereby only a small part of a given population moves into a new area, and thus do not carry the full range of the genetic diversity of the parent population with them.

"It's possible that a smaller group from the larger Caribbean group moved into the Bahamas and therefore they're slightly distinct from the major Caribbean genetic population," he said. That's substantiated by archaeological finds in the region, such as gold objects from Colombia, or jadeite from Guatemala. "We find objects from all over moving throughout the Caribbean," said Keegan. "It's a very connected world." It's also borne out by a study of male X chromosomes, showing 19 pairs of genetic "cousins" living on different islands, according to Keegan.

Coauthor Harald Ringbauer, a postdoc in Reich's Harvard Lab, also developed a new technique to estimate past population sizes, based on shared segments, which could prove useful to future ancient DNA studies. The authors estimate that just between 10,000 and 50,000 people inhabited the largest two islands—Hispaniola and Puerto Rico—rather than the million or so inhabitants Columbus reported in his journals.
Enlarge / Some archaeologists pointed to dramatic shifts in Caribbean pottery styles as evidence of new migrations. But genetics show all of the styles were created by one group of people over time. These effigy vessels belong to the Saladoid pottery type, ornate and difficult to shape.
Corinne Hofman and Menno Hoogland

Meanwhile, Keegan's research continues. "We did not find genetic evidence for a separate migration," he said. "But then the question becomes, what do these differences in facial morphology mean? The Ceramic Age had essentially one signature that included everyone from Western Venezuela to Hispaniola. So we could not rule out the movement of people from Western Venezuela (our 'Caribs'). Also, there were no samples from Jamaica and only two from Haiti, so there is not sufficient genetic evidence to reject the separate migration hypothesis."

So what comes next? There's more facial profiling to be done, and Keegan and his geneticist collaborators will be expanding their analysis to include ancient DNA samples from Jamaica, Haiti, the Lesser Antilles, and more of coastal Venezuela, to see if that changes the findings. The team is also wrapping a study involving mitochondrial DNA, and preliminary results indicate at least three different mitochondrial lineages moving into the Bahamas, even though from a genome perspective it's all one population.

One other intriguing finding from the DNA analysis concerned the evolution of Caribbean pottery styles over 2,000 years, as the Archaic Age gave way to the Ceramic Age in the region. There are five distinct marked shifts in style noted by archaeologists: red pottery decorated with white painted designs, for example; pots with tiny dots or incisions; or more ornate styles of pottery with sculpted animal faces. Some archaeologists have viewed this as evidence for fresh migrations to the Caribbean, but the DNA analysis suggests that all the styles in fact were developed by descendants of the same people who arrived in the Caribbean some 2,500 years ago.

"It confirms what we expect, but as a social scientist, it just goes to show that genetics can't give us a complete picture of the people who carry those genes," said Keegan. "Genes may be discrete units that we can measure, but genomes are created by cultures."

DOI: Scientific Reports, 2020. 10.1038/s41598-019-56929-3 (About DOIs).

DOI: Nature, 2020. 10.1038/s41586-020-03053-2 (About DOIs).

Study: Folklore structure reveals how conspiracy theories emerge, fall apart

Rumors swirling around 2016 Wikileaks dump was glue that held "Pizzagate" together.

JENNIFER OUELLETTE - 1/3/2021, 5:21 PM

Enlarge / Researchers produced a graphic representation of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory narrative, with layers for major subplots of each story, and lines connecting the key people, places and institutions within and among those layers.


There's rarely time to write about every cool science-y story that comes our way. So this year, we're once again running a special Twelve Days of Christmas series of posts, highlighting one science story that fell through the cracks in 2020, each day from December 25 through January 5. Today: the structure of folklore can help explain how unrelated facts and false information connect into a compelling narrative framework, that can then go viral as a conspiracy theory.

Mark Twain is often credited with the saying, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” Twain never actually said it; it appears to be a mutated version of something essayist Jonathan Swift once wrote—a misattribution that aptly illustrates the point. The same is true of a good conspiracy theory, comprised of unrelated facts and false information that somehow get connected into a loose narrative framework, which then spreads rapidly as perceived "truth." According to a June paper published in PLOS ONE, the structure of folklore can yield insights into precisely how these connections get made, and hence into the origins of conspiracy theories.

"We tell stories all the time, and we use them to explain and to signal our various cultural ideologies, norms, beliefs, and values," co-author Timothy Tangherlini, a self-described computational folklorist at the University of California, Berkeley, told Ars. "We're trying to get people either to acknowledge them or align with them." In the case of conspiracy theories, those stories can have serious real-world consequences. "Stories have been impactful throughout human history," he said. "People take real world action on these. A lot of genocide can be traced back to certain stories and 'rumors,' as well as conspiracy theories."


FURTHER READINGThe COVID-19 misinformation crisis is just beginning, but there is hope

Tangherlini and his co-authors at the University of California, Los Angeles, combined their knowledge of folklore with machine learning to analyze some 18,000 posts from Reddit and Voat discussion boards between April 2016 and February 2018, pertaining to the thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory dubbed "Pizzagate." They then used that data to produce a graphic representation of the emerging narratives, with multiple layers representing the various subplots. Relationships between key people ("actants"), places, things, organizations, and other elements were indicated by connecting lines within and among those layers.

Granted, there's a lot of noise in social media forums, with plenty of irrelevant pieces. But the AI enabled Tangherlini et al. to tease out the hidden narratives that fed into the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, and determine the difference between the storytelling elements of a debunked conspiracy, and a fact-based real-world conspiracy.
Enlarge / The exterior of Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, DC, which was at the center of the "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory—a thoroughly debunked hoax.
Matt McClain/Washington Post/Getty Images

They found that conspiracy theories tend to form around certain narrative threads that connect various characters, places, and things, across discrete domains of interaction that are otherwise not aligned. It's a fragile construct: cut one of those crucial threads, and the story loses cohesiveness, and hence its viral power. This is not true of a factual conspiracy, which typically can hold up even if certain elements of the story are removed.Advertisement


Pizzagate, for example, emerged during the 2016 presidential election, after the March spear-phishing hack of the personal emails of then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta. Wikileaks published the emails in November 2016, and false rumors (or "creative interpretations," if one is feeling charitable) began swirling that the Podesta emails contained coded messages about an alleged human trafficking and child sex ring. (Meanwhile, mainstream liberals were obsessing over Podesta's apparently controversial recipe for risotto.)

The rumors soon blossomed into a full-scale conspiracy theory connecting high-ranking Democratic party officials and several US restaurants, most notably the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, DC. The hoax spread like wildfire on 4chan, 8chan, Reddit subgroups (/r/TheDonald and /r/pizzagate), Twitter, and various alt-right and conservative media outlets, including InfoWars. (InfoWars host Alex Jones would eventually apologize to Comet Ping Pong's owner, James Alefantis, in February 2017 for spreading the conspiracy theory, under threat of a libel lawsuit.)

Alefantis and several staff matters received multiple death threats from true believers as the conspiracy hoax spread far and wide. The mania culminated on December 4, 2016, when 28-year-old Edgar Maddison Welch of North Carolina came to DC and fired three shots from an AR-15-stye rifle into the pizzeria—convinced he would be a hero for rescuing the alleged child sex slaves being held in the restaurant's non-existent basement. Mercifully, no one was injured and Welch surrendered to police. He was found guilty of assault and firearm charges and sentenced to 4-1/2 years in prison, apologizing during sentencing for his "foolish and reckless" behavior.

Per Tangherlini et al.'s analysis, the Pizzagate conspiracy centered on Hillary Clinton, clearly a major player in Democratic politics in 2016—that would be one domain of interaction. As a mom, she might belong to a casual dining/going out for pizza domain, which (in the minds of conspiracy theorists) links her to Alefantis and Comet Ping Pong. John Podesta and his brother Tony belong to yet another domain (the Podesta family), and also like pizza, which would link them to Alefantis and the casual dining domain. And of course, Podesta's affiliation with Clinton puts him in the Democratic politics domain.

"You've got these three domains that wouldn't really interact, but they have alignments between them and those became important" in the minds of conspiracy theorists, Tangherlini said. This then mushrooms into coded messages in Podesta's emails, child sex trafficking, and so forth, fueled by the Wikileaks component. The narrative frameworks around conspiracy theories typically build up and stabilize fairly quickly, compared to factual conspiracies, which often take years to emerge, according to Tangherlini. Pizzagate stabilized within one month of the Wikileaks dump and remained relatively consistent for the next three years.
Enlarge / The New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge, connecting Fort Lee, NJ, and New York City. It was central to "Bridgegate"—a bona fide factual conspiracy.
Andrew Burton/Getty Images

The good news is that as quickly and easily as a conspiracy theory forms, it can also fall apart, separating back into discrete non-interacting domains. In the case of Pizzagate, remove the Wikileaks element, and the other connections simply don't hold up. "It's a classic network thing," said Tangherlini. "Which nodes and edges do I have to delete to get it to fall apart? In this conspiracy, the Wikileaks email dump and how theorists creatively interpret the content of what was in the emails are the only glue holding the conspiracy together."Advertisement


That said, it's also fairly easy for a conspiracy theory to gain a second life with new interconnected circles. "It's not like you need a lot of actants and relationships to put them back together," Tangherlini said. Last June, Pizzagate found renewed popularity with young people on TikTok, where the hashtag garnered nearly 80 million views.

Tangherlini et al. tested all of this against a factual conspiracy: the 2013 Fort Lee lane closure scandal—aka "Bridgegate"—that helped tank former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's presidential aspirations. On September 9, there were unannounced closures during the morning rush hour of two of three toll lanes set aside for local traffic in Fort Lee, New Jersey. (The other lanes at that toll plaza feed onto the upper level of the George Washington Bridge, which connects Fort Lee to New York City.) The resulting gridlock caused major delays in school transportation and the ability of police, paramedics, and firefighters to respond to emergency calls. The issue wasn't resolved until Friday, September 13, after Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye directly intervened.

Initially, PA Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni (a Christie appointee) told staffers it was part of a traffic flow study, and that giving advance notice would have adversely impacted the findings. But eventually hundreds of emails and internal documents came to light suggesting that the closures were orchestrated by Christie loyalists—Baroni; PA director of interstate capital projects David Wildstein (a former Christie high school chum); and Christie's deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly—apparently as political retaliation against Fort Lee's mayor, Democrat Mark Sokolich, after Sokolich declined to endorse Christie in the 2013 New Jersey gubernatorial election.

Wildstein, Baroni, and Kelly were all found guilty of felony conspiracy in November 2016. Christie himself denied any involvement in the closures and pronounced himself "embarrassed and humiliated" by his staff's behavior in a January 2014 press conference. An official misconduct case was filed against Christie, but prosecutors ultimately dropped the complaint, because they didn't believe Christie's guilt could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Kelly''s and Baroni's convictions were later overturned by the US Supreme Court. (Wildstein entered into a plea agreement in exchange for testifying against Kelly and Baroni, and got probation.)

"Bridgegate fascinated me because, well, why would you do that?" Tangherlini said. "The stakes are so low and the impact is potentially so high. People were stuck in traffic for days." So is that factual conspiracy the same thing as a conspiracy theory from a narrative structure perspective? The answer is no. The team couldn't find any set of nodes of edges in the network—no key story element—they could delete that would make the network fall apart.

Tangherlini attributes this to the fact that even though all the major figures in Bridgegate had multiple points of connection, they all belonged to the same domain of interaction: New Jersey politics. "We're not aligning disparate domains," he said. "The narrative framework is robust to deletion. That might actually be one of the telltales between an actual conspiracy and a conspiracy theory."

DOI: PLOS ONE, 2020. 10.1371/journal.pone.0233879 (About DOIs).



JENNIFER OUELLETTE is a senio.r writer at Ars Technica with a particular focus on where science meets culture, covering everything from physics and related interdisciplinary topics to her favorite films and TV series. Jennifer lives in Los Angeles

The story behind 'Oloture', Nigeria's Netflix sex-trafficking drama

Issued on: 04/01/2021 -

Journalist Tobore Ovuorie went undercover to infiltrate a sex-trafficking ring 

PIUS UTOMI EKPEI AFP

Lagos (AFP)

Clad soberly in a chequered knee-length dress, Tobore Ovuorie hardly seems as if she once walked the streets of Lagos in a revealing outfit and high heels.

A freelance reporter with a burning desire to uncover the truth about a sordid backstreet trade, Ovuorie dressed as streetwalker to infiltrate a prostitution ring.

She took on the dangerous mission after a friend left for Europe, became a sex worker and died, leaving Ovuorie shocked and beset with questions.


Today, Ovuorie's remarkable story has been turned into a hit Netflix film, "Oloture," which has shone a bright light on one of Nigeria's darkest trades.

"I needed to do justice, to know the truth. I wanted to know the process, the back story about these ladies," the 39-year-old reporter told AFP.

By dressing up, she sought to gain the prostitutes' trust -- the first step to introducing her to a "madam", a pimp.

After eight months working undercover in 2013, Tobore Ovuorie emerged with a terrifying account about the victims of sex trafficking.

Some were sent to Europe, where they were coerced into becoming sex workers. Others were forced to participate in orgies organised by local politicians. Some became victims of organ trafficking for ritual crimes.

She published her story in 2014 in the Nigerian newspaper Premium Times and Dutch investigative magazine, Zam Chronicles, inspiring a production company in Nigeria to adapt it for the screen.

Released in October on Netflix, the story has been widely watched and applauded in its home country, Africa's most populous market.

"Sometimes investigative journalists in search of the story become the story," director Kenneth Gyang told AFP.

But in this case, the reporter was also "the torch that led us into the lives" of victims, he said.

- Disillusion -

Sex trafficking is rife in Nigeria, in particular in southern Benin City, a recruiting ground for criminal gangs who smuggle women to Europe.

How many are trafficked is unknown but in Italy, authorities say that between 10,000 and 30,000 Nigerians are prostitutes.

Several thousand others are stuck in Libya or other African countries, often exploited by criminals who make them believe they will one day reach Europe.

In the film, a journalist named Oloture, playing the part of Ovuorie during her investigation, heads to neighbouring Benin with a dozen other girls.

From there, their "madam" promises they will depart to Europe in exchange for money (up to $85,000, 70,000 euros) that they will have to repay once they arrive in Italy.

Very quickly, the journey turns sour.

Instead of heading to the border, their minibus stops in a gloomy training camp on the outskirts of Lagos.

There, the girls are roughed up and divided into two groups: "street" prostitutes and "special" prostitutes reserved for wealthier clients.

On screen, the most gripping character is Linda, a young uneducated woman from a poor rural background, who becomes friends with Oloture.

Linda "represents many of those young ladies and how they get in disillusion" said Ovuorie, who came across such a character during her investigation.

For the director, it is exciting that the film is a success in Nigeria.

"We have to see how to make this film available in remote places for young vulnerable women who might be susceptible to be trafficked to Europe," said Gyang.

- Emotional toll -

On social media, the movie -- and its ending -- have triggered passionate debate.

"For most of these ladies there is never any light at the end of the tunnel," said Gyang, "so why would you try to make a film that would end on a happy note?"

Ovuorie said that what she saw and experienced during her investigation still haunts her -- she is trying to find the women she was meant to go to Europe with, and tell their stories.

Her work has inflicted a heavy emotional cost, she said.

"I'm a shadow of myself, I try to smile, to look bright, but most of the time it's been just me fighting to hold onto life".

Poachers' paradise: Gulf hunts fuel Pakistan falcon trafficking

Issued on: 04/01/2021 -

Demand for hunting falcons, largely from the Gulf, has fueled

 a lucrative trade in poaching in Pakistan 

Asif HASSAN AFP

Karachi (AFP)

Since learning to capture birds as a teen, Muhammad Rafiq has amassed a small fortune in Pakistan trapping and trafficking falcons -- including some endangered species -- for wealthy Gulf Arabs.

A single falcon can fetch up to tens of thousands of dollars on the black market, which allowed Rafiq to renovate his family home.

"Every season, dealers come from Karachi and leave their contacts with us, and we call them back if we catch something," said the 32-year-old, from a nearby coastal village.


He recently trapped a peregrine falcon on a one-week hunting mission.

"I desperately needed money," he told AFP. "And God has listened to me."

For years, Pakistan has stood at the nexus of the falcon trade, both as a source of the birds of prey, and then as a destination to hunt with them.

Falcon poaching is officially banned, but demand for the birds is rising, according to the World Wildlife Fund in Pakistan.

It estimates that up to 700 falcons were illegally smuggled out of the country last year alone, often by organised criminal networks.

Their destination is normally Gulf countries, where falconry is a treasured tradition.

Owners treat the birds "like their own children", said Margit Muller, the director of Abu Dhabi's falcon hospital, which treats 11,000 falcons annually, a number that has more than doubled in the past 10 years.

One conservationist told AFP an Arab falconer usually owns around five to six hundred birds, most of which will be captured in the wild in Pakistan or Mongolia.

Wild birds are prized over those bred in captivity because they are believed to be better hunters, though there is no evidence to support those claims.

- 'Pimps for the Gulf' -

Every winter, lavish hunting parties from the Gulf flock to Pakistan's sprawling deserts, where they are given permits to use their falcons to hunt houbara bustards, a migratory bird wrongly prized as an aphrodisiac and classified as vulnerable by conservationists.

These excursions have cast a spotlight on the deep ties between Pakistan and its allies in the Gulf.

For decades, the Gulf states have propped up Islamabad's ramshackle finances with generous loans, with one of the expectations being that they can continue to use Pakistan as a hunting playground.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and two other royals were granted permission to catch bustards by Prime Minister Imran Khan's government in December last year, a soft diplomacy tactic that Khan had openly disagreed with when he was in the opposition.

The government also presents falcons as gifts to world leaders.

"Our officials are working like pimps for the Arabs," a government official requesting anonymity told AFP.

A brief ban on the bustard hunts was overturned in 2016 by the Supreme Court, but conservationists are now pushing for the export of falcons to be regulated in an ongoing case at the Islamabad High Court.

- Demand rising -

Every year, falcons escape the harsh Siberian winter and fly thousands of miles to warmer regions, including southern Pakistan.

During the migratory season, wildlife traffickers descend on villages along the Arabian Sea coastline, offering fishermen cash to briefly abandon their boats and try their hand at poaching.

"We pay them in advance, send food to their families and if they catch a bird that is precious, we happily give them motorbikes," said one trafficker who spoke to AFP on the condition of anonymity.

A range of tactics can be employed -- sticky liquids, net traps or, most commonly, using smaller birds as bait.

Poachers especially target the peregrine falcon, whose populations remain stable -- but also the saker, which is endangered.

Bob Dalton, a veteran falcon conservationist, helped oversee the rehabilitation of dozens of falcons seized by Pakistani authorities in October, with officials estimating the cache to be worth well over $1 million.

"The illegal trade is growing, there is more money being spent, more pursuit from the Gulf," he told AFP.

"With the exception of one or two species, most falcon populations are in decline or on the point of being unstable."

- Regulating the market -

With ongoing efforts to curtail rampant poaching failing, some officials in Pakistan have suggested regulating the falcon trapping market, inspired by a scheme involving another rare native species, the markhor -- an elusive mountain goat with striking twisted horns found in Pakistan's mountainous north.

Every year, foreigners shell out tens of thousands of dollars for a handful of trophy hunting permits, providing a financial incentive for communities to prevent poaching.

With hunting parties set to descend on Pakistan again over the next few months, Kamran Khan Yousafzai, the president of Pakistan's Falconry Association, said the country desperately needs to implement a sustainable wildlife programme.

"Arab falconers can't resist coming to Pakistan. They have been coming to these hunting grounds for generations, and unless they face any real problems, they are not going to search for new destinations."