Loyalists turn on Sri Lanka PM as protest pressure grows

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has come under increasing pressure to fire members of his powerful family, including elder brother Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa (Photo: AFP/Ishara S Kodikara)

23 Apr 2022 02

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's beleaguered prime minister came under increased pressure to step down on Saturday (Apr 23), as a Cabinet minister and other senior party members backed street protests calling for resignations over a worsening economic crisis.

Media Minister Nalaka Godahewa announced his support for the thousands outside President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's office who are demanding he and other members of his powerful family quit power.

Sri Lanka is suffering its most painful economic downturn since independence in 1948, with months of lengthy blackouts and acute shortages of food, fuel and other essentials.

The crisis has sparked countrywide protests, with angry demonstrators camped outside Rajapaksa's office for more than three weeks.

Under pressure, the president dropped two of his brothers - Chamal and Basil - and nephew Namal from the cabinet this month, but protesters rejected the changes as cosmetic.

Godahewa, previously a staunch Rajapaksa loyalist, said the president should sack his elder brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa - the head of the family - and allow an all-party interim government to take over.

He said the government had lost its credibility after the police killing of a protester on Tuesday. Godahewa said he had offered his resignation but President Rajapaksa had not accepted it.

"We need to restore political stability to successfully meet the economic crisis," Godahewa said in a statement on his Facebook page.

"The entire cabinet, including the prime minister, should resign and [there should be] an interim cabinet that can win the confidence of all."

INCREASED SECURITY FOR FUNERAL

Police and the military stepped up security in the central town of Rambukkana on Saturday, ahead of the funeral of 42-year-old Chaminda Lakshan, who was shot dead when police broke up a protest against spiralling fuel prices.

Several senior ruling party members, including Dullas Alahapperuma, a former media minister and Cabinet spokesman, have also asked the premier to step down.

"I urge the President to appoint a smaller Cabinet with a genuine consensus representing all parties in parliament for one year maximum," Alahapperuma said on Saturday.

Food, fuel and electricity have been rationed for months and the country is facing record inflation. Hospitals are short of vital medicines and the government has appealed to citizens abroad for donations.

Finance Minister Ali Sabry, who is in Washington to negotiate a bailout from the International Monetary Fund, warned on Friday that the economic situation in the South Asian nation will likely worsen even further.

"It is going to get worse before it gets better," Sabry told reporters. "It is going to be a painful few years ahead."

Scientists find continent Balkanatolia that may explain evolution of mammals


Map showing Balkanatolia 40 million years ago and at the present day. 

Courtesy of Alexis Licht & Grégoire Métais/CNRS

Feb. 22 (UPI) -- Scientists have discovered a lost continent they call Balknatolia wedged between Europe, Africa and Asia that allowed mammals from Asia to colonize Europe earlier than once thought.

Their findings have been published in the March 2022 volume of Earth Science Reviews.

"We know that, around 34 million years ago, Western Europe was colonized by Asian species, leading to a major renewal of vertebrate fauna and extinction of its endemic mammals, a sudden event called the 'Grand Coupure,'" the French, American and Turkish researchers at CRNS who led the study said in a statement. "Surprisingly, fossils found in the Balkans point to the presence of Asian mammals in southern Europe long before the Grande Coupure, suggesting earlier colonization."

Prior to the Grand Coupure, Western Europe and Eastern Asia had separate animal life for millions of years, the statement noted. European forests had Palaeotheres, extinct animals related to present-day horses, and Asia was populated by diverse mammal families that are now found on both continents.

The team of paleontologists reviewed and reassessed earlier discoveries in light of current geological data related to the Eocene region corresponding to present-day Balkans, Europe, and Anatolia, Turkey.

Much of the region "was home to a terrestrial fauna that was homogenous, but distinct from those of Europe and Asia," the review found, the CNRS statement said. "This exotic fauna included, for example, marsupials of South American affinity and Embrithopoda (large herbivorous mammals resembling hippopotamuses) formerly found in Africa. The region must therefore have made up a single land mass, separate from neighboring continents."

The team also found "a new fossil deposit" from Asian mammals in Anatolia, "dating from 38 to 35 million years ago," the statement said. They also found jaw fragments from Brontotheres animals resembling rhinoceroses that died out at the end of the Eocene Epoch.

"All this information enabled the team to outline the history of this third Eurasian continent, wedged between Europe, Africa and Asia, which they dubbed Balkanatolia," the statement continued. "The continent, already in existence 50 million years ago and home to a unique fauna, was colonized 40 million years ago by Asian mammals as a result of geographical changes that have yet to be understood. It seems likely that a major glaciation 34 million years ago, leading to the formation of the Antarctic ice sheet and lowering sea levels, connected Balkanatolia to Western Europe, giving rise to the 'Grand Coupure.'"

Study: Humans interrupting 66-million-year-old relationship among animals


New research published on Thursday finds a link between animal size and diet dating back at least 66 million years, and which shows that herbivores -- like the pictured Sumatran Rhino -- and carnivores tend to be larger, while omnivores and invertivores are generally smaller. 

File Photo by stringer/EPA-EFE

April 21 (UPI) -- Diet and body mass are inextricably linked in vertebrates, but a 66-million-year-old relationship linked to animal evolution and survival is being interrupted by humans, according to new research.

Animals that are exclusively herbivores or carnivores are generally much larger in size than omnivores or invertivores -- animals that only eat invertebrates -- according to the study, published Thursday in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Described as a "roughly U-shaped relationship," University of Nebraska researchers found the pattern has existed for at least 66 million years.

The shape represents carnivores and herbivores on either raised end, with the smaller invertivores and omnivores in the lower middle area of the letter.

Scientists believe that the fundamental feature of past and present ecosystems is being interrupted by humans, who are systematically eliminating the largest carnivores and herbivores from the face of the Earth through extinction.

The consequences of doing so are unpredictable, researchers say.

"We're not sure what's going to happen, because this hasn't happened before," study co-author Will Gearty said in a press release.

"But because the systems have been in what seems to be a very steady state for a very long time, it's concerning what might happen when they leave that state," said Gearty, a postdoctoral researcher at Nebraska.

The plant-based diet of herbivores is relatively poor in nutrition, meaning they often grow very large for the sake of covering more ground to forage more food.

On the other hand, carnivores generally grow large enough to both keep up with and take down those herbivores, keeping their stomachs continually full.

"You can be as big as your food will allow you to be. At the same time, you're often as big as you need to be to catch and process your food. So there's an evolutionary interplay there," Gearty said.

The result of this interplay is the U-shaped distribution of both average and maximum body sizes in mammals, the researchers said.

This U curve stretches back at least 66 million years, to a time when non-avian dinosaurs had just been wiped out, and mammals had yet to diversify and dominate the planet's surface.

"To my knowledge, this is the most extensive investigation of the evolution of body size and especially diet in mammals over time," Gearty said.

Macron lost the French left, but now needs it for victory

French President Emmanuel Macron's campaign slogan is 'All of us' but many on the left call him the 'President of the rich'

 PHOTOS AFP/Ludovic MARIN

Adam PLOWRIGHT with Toni CERDA in Foix
Thu, April 21, 2022,

Despite being a former minister in a Socialist government, French President Emmanuel Macron long ago burned through the goodwill he once had among left-wing voters.

"Last time, we had serious doubts about him, but we said to ourselves that at least he came from the left -- albeit the free-market left," said Zahra Nhili, a 42-year-old business consultant.

She voted for him in the final round of the 2017 election when he faced off against far-right leader Marine Le Pen -- a battle that will be repeated this Sunday.

"We've seen him now. He's clearly from the right," Nhili said.

She was speaking at a trendy artisanal brewery in the western city of Nantes in an area home to green-minded professionals like her, as well as working-class families.

In line with the rest of the city, her district heavily backed Macron's hard-left rival Jean-Luc Melenchon in the first round of presidential elections on April 10.

But while Melenchon finished top in Nantes, a modernising city home to large numbers of students and tech start-ups, the former Trotskyist came third nationwide and was eliminated.

The second round of the election on Sunday will see the top two finishers, Macron and Le Pen, go head-to-head needing more than 50 percent of ballots to win.

Voters like Nhili and her husband Marc are being repeatedly urged to help stop Le Pen.

For decades a so-called "republican front", uniting the mainstream right and left, comes together to keep the far-right out of power.

But Nhili felt like she did her duty in 2017 by voting for Macron and she's adamant she won't do it again -- unless polls show Le Pen with a lead.

"If at the end, it looks like she could get through, we'll go and vote Macron, but my body would suffer to do it," she said. "It's catastrophic what he's done.

"The poor have got poorer and the rich richer."

Riot police fire tear gas in the French city of Nantes -- which voted for the left -- at a protest against the far right ahead of French elections Sunday 

(AFP/Sebastien SALOM-GOMIS)

- 'In their hands' -

Left-wing voters are expected to be crucial in determining the outcome of Sunday's election.

Around 7.7 million voters backed Melenchon in the first round, with another 3.5 million turning out for the Greens, the Socialists and assorted far-left candidates.

All these votes are now up for grabs -- and the old "republican front" is crumbling.

One poll this week by Ipsos-Sopra Steria suggested around a third of Melenchon voters wanted Macron to win, but around a half had yet to make their minds up.

If higher than expected numbers abstained, or backed Le Pen, it could tip a tight race that sees Le Pen trailing Macron by 46 percent to 54 percent in an average of recent polls.

"The left-wing electorate has the outcome of the second round in its hands," said Jerome Fourquet, a political scientist and head of polling at the Ifop research group.

And AFP interviews with voters around France over the last fortnight revealed their indecision and disillusionment.

They also underscored an almost universal dislike of 44-year-old Macron, who came to power on a centrist platform five years ago promising to be "neither of the right nor the left".

"Everything in me is opposed to Emmanuel Macron," said Margot Medkour, head of the left-wing Nantes in Common movement, which operates out of a bar in the city centre. "He's not a rampart against the far right.

"He's been very authoritarian in the way he's exercised power, and he's got real contempt for people," she added. "But Marine Le Pen is not an alternative. I'll go and dirty my hands and vote for him."

Melenchon himself has not urged his followers to back Macron, but has called for "not a single vote" to go to Le Pen.

Yellow vests: A man opposed to French President President Emmanuel Macron awaits him on the campaign trail in northern France (AFP/Ludovic MARIN)

- 'President of the rich' -

Medkour's complaints are typical of the deep well of ill-will on the left towards Macron, a former investment banker who rocketed to power after just two years as economy minister.

Perceptions of him crystallised during his first year as head of state when he cut housing benefits for the poor but slashed wealth taxes for high-earners, earning him the moniker "the president of the rich".

His early tendency to talk down to people -- once telling an unemployed gardener that he could "cross the road" and find him a job -- also stirred deep-lying class resentments in small-town and rural France.

"He was very patronising. I understand that people can't bring themselves to vote for him," said Chloe Dallidet, a 36-year-old Melenchon voter as she sipped a coffee in the old market place of Foix in southwest France.

The surrounding area of Ariege, a mountainous Pyrenean region with higher-than-average unemployment and poverty, also placed Melenchon top, with 26.07 percent.

"If you cross the street here, you won't find a job," 36-year-old salesman Gaetan said of the town where "Neither banker, nor fascist" had been graffitied on a wall in the cobbled centre ahead of Sunday's vote.

Though Macron has since lowered taxes for people of all incomes, and implemented one of the most generous Covid-19 social safety nets in the world to save companies and jobs, his reputation for elitism remains.

Lowering France's chronically high unemployment to a 14-year low, which the president sees as a huge stride against inequality, earns him few admirers on the left.

"I'm fed up with the economy always coming first in front of the environment," complained Antoine Marchand, a 21-year-old medical student at Nantes University.

Others were left outraged by the heavy-handed police tactics used to snuff out anti-government "Yellow Vest" protests in 2018-19, which brought together many Le Pen and Melenchon voters.

The issue of police brutality, like attitudes to racism, has become a crucial political marker in France -- with Macron widely seen as falling on the wrong side by his progressive critics.

Dominique Subra, a retired government official in Foix, said she'd been disgusted by images in 2018 of protesting school children in a commuter town west of Paris who being lined up against a wall by police and made to kneel with their hands on their heads.

"I'll leave my ballot blank, like in 2017, because I've lived through five years under an authoritarian government," she said.

- Le Pen's Muslim vote -

Young people, the green-minded, public sector and unionised workers all voted heavily for Melenchon, who has been likened to a French version of America's ageing left-winger Bernie Sanders.

Multi-ethnic, low-income areas that fringe French cities also voted heavily in favour of the outspoken 70-year-old -- none more so than the northern Parisian suburb of Villetaneuse, a Communist party bastion for a century.

Melenchon won the district, which is home to a large Muslim population, by his largest margin country-wide on April 10 with 65 percent of the vote.

"Everyone here liked Melenchon's programme," said Azdine Barkaoui, a father-of-four on the minimum wage, who agreed with taxing the rich more and Melenchon's embrace of multiculturalism.

Many people were not sure they'd turn out for Macron as they did overwhelmingly in 2017, despite Le Pen's promise to ban the Muslim headscarf in public and exclude foreigners from social security.

"We know that most of the stuff on Islam she'll never be able to implement," said Barkaoui, a practising Muslim, who said he planned to vote for her as the lesser of two evils.

"It's like a dish that everyone says tastes bad but I want to try it for myself," he said of Le Pen, who he thought had been "demonised" by the media.

Le Pen has spent more than a decade trying to distance her party from its reputation for racism and she stressed her "social" programme, which promises to lower the retirement rate to 60.

Macron meanwhile wants to raise it to 65 and to oblige people on unemployment benefits to do 15-20 hours of work or training a week.

Aime Beya, a 51-year-old on long-term sick leave, mentioned Macron's rhetoric on Islam, which some found stigmatising, and multiple mosque closures during a crackdown on radical preachers.

"Le Pen says what the others think to themselves," he told AFP. "I might give her a chance."

adp-tjc/fg

Horses give Irish prisoners hope of a stable life



The equine centre at Castlerea Prison in central Ireland is the first of its kind in Europe 

(AFP/Paul Faith)

Callum PATON
Thu, April 21, 2022,

The purpose-built stables and adjoining paddock stretch almost as far as the high grey, exterior wall of Castlerea Prison in central Ireland.

For the men held at the medium-security jail in County Roscommon, the horses provide an opportunity to learn practical skills -- and develop more compassion through their work.

The new equine centre -- named "Horses of Hope" by the inmates themselves -- is the first of its kind in Europe and was officially opened this week.

On completion of the course, the prisoners will get a nationally recognised certification in horse care -- a potentially beneficial qualification in a country renowned for its love of horses.

"It could be a life-changing opportunity here so you just have to wait and see," one prisoner, whose name was withheld by the prison authorities, told AFP.

"I am just happy that I'm getting this opportunity and I am going to be taking it with both hands," the prisoner, who is serving a stretch of several years for a violent crime, explained.

"At the end of it, if we do well in this, there could be a job opening at a stud farm or other places around the country," he said following his first three weeks on the course.

"It's relaxing. You can't just come out here and expect to go into the stable to a horse that doesn't know you and just thinking he's going to be alright with you. You have to gain their trust."

The Irish government says the scheme gives prisoners an opportunity to turn their lives around (AFP/Paul Faith)

- Skills -

The scheme has been delivered through collaboration between the Irish Prison Service and Ireland's horse racing industry.

Groups of inmates work with horses over a period of 12 weeks, learning horse care skills such as grooming, stable management and first aid.

Similar initiatives have been launched in Australia and the United States, where a real-life programme inspired the 2019 film "The Mustang".

Prisoners who learn to care for horses can go on to make valuable contributions to their communities on release and in some cases gain employment in the equine industry, according to the Irish government.

Charity founder Jonathan Irwin, who has worked in horse racing for decades, provided the impetus for the initiative after he visited a US scheme 30 years ago.

But he said it had taken 26 years before the plan started to come together. "There were a lot of brick walls," he explained.

"I started writing to every minister of justice but most of them never replied because I think they just thought I was some kind of madman."

Inmates learn horse care skills such as grooming, stable management and first aid over a 12-week period (AFP/Paul Faith)

- Excitement -

Ireland's horse racing community has raised over 100,000 euros ($108,500) for the costs of the "Horses of Hope" initiative.

Irwin hopes it will expand over the coming years, extending the stables, which currently hold 10 boxes for retired racehorses.

Already, he said, the programme of equine care was starting to have a positive effect and there was a "sense of excitement that something is being done that's completely different".

"There's a great affinity between the horse and the prisoner, and the prisoner is much more relaxed," he added.

"This has made such a difference already."

Opening the facility, justice minister Helen McEntee said it was "fitting that Ireland should be a leader in this space, particularly given our leadership ... when it comes to the equine industry".

"I have no doubt that our European colleagues will be following suit and will be replicating and imitating what has been done here.

"It is so important that there is an opportunity for rehabilitation, for people to be able to admit where mistakes were made ... and people can be given an opportunity to turn their lives around."

csp/phz/gil

Demolitions in Saudi's Jeddah turn residents into 'strangers'





A $20-billion clearance and construction project stands to displace half-a-million people in Saudi Arabia's second city (AFP/-)

Thu, April 21, 2022

The Saudi doctor still had 15 years left on the loan he used to build his family's "dream" home in Jeddah when bulldozers razed it to the ground, turning his life into "hell".

The operation was part of a $20-billion clearance and construction project that stands to displace half-a-million people in Saudi Arabia's second city –- and has spurred rare expressions of public anger in the kingdom.

Authorities pitch the development as the latest ambitious project of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, one that will replace "slums" with amenities like a stadium, an oceanarium and an opera house.

Yet in coastal Jeddah, where crushed concrete and twisted metal now line affected streets, residents bristle at official descriptions of their lost neighbourhoods as undesirable hotbeds of drugs and crime.

Instead they accuse the government of destroying vibrant, diverse working-class districts that once burnished Jeddah's reputation as the most open destination in the deeply conservative country.

"We have become strangers in our own city. We feel suffering and bitterness," said the doctor, who is now renting accommodation while still paying $400 a month on his personal loan, which is secured against the land the home was built on.

The prospects of renegotiating the loan or claiming compensation remain unclear, added the doctor, who did not want to be identified -- like the other residents in this story -- for fear of retaliation from the authorities.

Paused for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the demolitions are expected to pick up again in May. Jeddah officials did not respond to AFP's request for comment about the project.

- 'Expelled without warning' -

Often referred to as the "Gateway to Mecca", Islam's holiest city, Jeddah is a lively tourist hub of beachfront restaurants and galleries, that has in past months hosted a major film festival and a Formula One Grand Prix.

Well before Prince Mohammed embarked on a social liberalisation drive to soften his country's extremist image, the city on the Red Sea coast enjoyed a level of freedom that helped give birth to its motto: "Jeddah ghair", or "Jeddah is different".

But the demolitions risk fuelling anti-government sentiment in the 30-plus neighbourhoods that have been targeted, many of which housed a mix of Saudis and foreigners from other Arab countries and Asia.

Evicted residents had been living in the homes for up to 60 years, said ALQST for Human Rights, an NGO.

Some were driven out when their power and water was cut off, or threatened with jail for disobeying an eviction order, it added.

In the city's southern Galil neighbourhood, which saw the first demolitions last October, a resident who gave his name as Fahd said security forces had confiscated mobile phones to prevent footage from getting out.

"We were suddenly expelled from our homes overnight and without warning," he told AFP.

By early this year, though, the news was circulating widely, with the hashtag "#hadad_jeddah", or "Jeddah_demolition" in Arabic, trending on Twitter.

Ali al-Ahmed, a Saudi activist and scholar at the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington, has led online efforts to publicise details of the demolitions.

"It is not acceptable to demolish citizens' homes without their consent, and before compensating them at an appropriate price sufficient to move them to a new place," he said.

- 'Felt like doomsday' -

During a recent visit to one neighbourhood rocked by demolitions, an AFP journalist saw multiple blocks where most buildings had been levelled.

On several of those still standing, authorities had written a single word in red: "Evacuate".

A sign instructed residents to leave with their belongings, and advised them to upload documents on a government website to apply for compensation.

The Saudi government has promised to compensate families, and announced in February it would complete 5,000 replacement housing units by the end of the year.

But residents interviewed by AFP, including those evicted early on, said they had so far received nothing and that there was no clear way to assess the value of their destroyed homes.

"Months have passed and I have not received compensation for my home. I went from a homeowner to becoming a tenant struggling to pay his rent," Fahd said.

The ALQST survey also found some residents had not received clear information on how to claim compensation, or even been told it was available.

Officials defend the project, saying it will modernise the city with 17,000 new residential units, while retaining its character.

And they continue to denigrate affected areas, with Jeddah's mayor saying in one televised interview that demolitions hit places that were "a den of crime".

Such descriptions disturb men like Turki, a Saudi native of Jeddah who had been living in the house built by his grandfather, where he himself grew up and where, before the bulldozers and wrecking balls came, he had planned to raise his children.

Turki went back to see what had become of the property, and the scene reduced him to tears.

"The sound of demolition was everywhere," he said. "With rubble everywhere, it felt like doomsday."

ht-rcb/th/hc

CHANGES QUANTUM REALITY

Scientists prepare CERN collider restart in hunt for 'dark matter'

A man works in the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) Control Centre in Meyrin near Geneva, Switzerland, on Apr 13, 2022.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) tunnel is pictured at The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Saint-Genis-Pouilly, France, on Mar 2, 2017. 

(Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse)

A view through a glass of people working in the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) Control Centre in Meyrin near Geneva, Switzerland, on Apr 13, 2022. 

Head of the Operations Group in the Beam Department Rende Steerenberg gestures during an interview with Reuters in the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) Control Centre in Meyrin near Geneva, Switzerland, on Apr 13, 2022.

People work in the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) Control Centre in Meyrin near Geneva, Switzerland, on Apr 13, 2022. 

Photos: REUTERS/Pierre Albouy

21 Apr 2022

PREVESSIN, France: Scientists at Europe's physics research centre will this week fire up the 27 kilometre-long Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the machine that found the Higgs boson particle, after a shutdown for maintenance and upgrades was prolonged by COVID-19 delays.

Restarting the collider is a complex procedure, and researchers at the CERN centre have champagne on hand if all goes well, ready to join a row of bottles in the control room celebrating landmarks including the discovery of the elusive subatomic particle a decade ago.

"It's not flipping a button," Rende Steerenberg, in charge of control room operations, told Reuters. "This comes with a certain sense of tension, nervousness."

Potential pitfalls include the discovery of an obstruction; the shrinking of materials due to a nearly 300 degree temperature swing; and difficulties with thousands of magnets that help keep billions of particles in a tight beam as they circle the collider tunnel beneath the Swiss-French border.

Steerenberg said the system had to work "like an orchestra".

"In order for the beam to go around all these magnets have to play the right functions and the right things at the right time," he said.

The batch of LHC collisions observed at CERN between 2010-2013 brought proof of the existence of the long-sought Higgs boson particle which, along with its linked energy field, is thought to be vital to the formation of the universe after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.

But plenty remains to be discovered.

Physicists hope the resumption of collisions will help in their quest for so-called "dark matter" that lies beyond the visible universe. Dark matter is thought to be five times more prevalent than ordinary matter but does not absorb, reflect or emit light. Searches have so-far come up empty-handed.

"We are going to increase the number of collisions drastically and therefore the probability of new discoveries also," said Steerenberg, who added that the collider was due to operate until another shutdown from 2025-2027.

Source: Reuters/ec

Dingoes aren't just feral dogs, says study

Dingoes might look like regular mutts, but in fact they're genetically in between wolves and dogs, according to a new study published Friday in Science Advances.

© Handout Sandy the desert dingo as a mature female

The species -- revered in Aboriginal culture but the bane of modern ranchers -- has been Australia's top predator since the extinction of Tasmanian tigers last century.

However, "the evolutionary position of the dingo has been debated for a substantial period of time," co-author Bill Ballard of La Trobe University and the University of Melbourne told AFP.

Some hold that the lean, tan-colored canines, brought to the continent 5,000 to 8,500 years ago, are simply another form of domestic dog, though one which is far harder to tame or keep as a pet. Though not normally aggressive, they aren't especially interested in humans.


© Handout Knowing more about dingo evolution can also illuminate the history of the ancient people who brought them across the sea from Southeast Asia, say scientists

The new research -- a global collaboration involving 26 authors from 10 countries -- compared the genome of a desert dingo named Sandy, who was rescued in 2014 along with her siblings -- to those of five domestic dog breeds and the Greenland wolf.

They found the dingo's genome was structurally distinct from the boxer, German shepherd, basenji, Great Dane and Labrador retriever.

But she still shared more similarity with the domestic dogs than with the Greenland wolf. Among the breeds, Sandy was closer to the German shepherd than the rest.

"Sandy the desert dingo is intermediate between the wolf and the domestic dogs," concluded Ballard. To be even more sure, the team is sequencing the genome belonging to an alpine dingo, found in the Australian Alps in the country's east.

- Ancient human movements -

The finding can have several applications.

For one, the dingo genome can be used as an ancient reference book to help identify which genes are responsible for genetic disease in modern dogs, rather than trying to compare between inbred dog breeds.

Knowing more about dingo evolution can also illuminate the history of the ancient people who brought them across the sea from Southeast Asia.

"At some stage they had to cross some water with some traveling peoples," said Ballard. "Whether they're First Nation Australians or whether they're people that interacted with First Nation Australians, we don't know."

The team hopes to get a clearer sense of the timeline and start to answer other questions like whether it was a single migration or multiple, once they sequence the alpine dingo.

The study also set out to test the differences in how dingoes metabolize nutrients compared to domestic breeds, by running a controlled diet study on a number of dingos and German shepherds.

Dingoes, like wolves, have only one copy of a gene that creates pancreatic amylase, a protein that helps dogs live on starchy diets, which humans have thrived on especially in the past 10,000 years.

German shepherds have eight copies of the gene. After receiving the same water and rice-rich food for 10 days, the German shepherds' scat was found to contain three bacteria families that helped them in breaking down starch, confirming the researchers' predictions.

Like the wolf in North America, dingoes are deeply polarizing: they are romanticized by city dwellers and feature prominently in Indigenous songs and stories, but are hated by farmers for allegedly killing livestock.

According to Ballard, however, dingoes evolved to prey on small marsupials and aren't easily able to digest high-fat foods -- thus lambs are more likely being hunted by feral dogs or hybrids.

He hopes to test the prediction, and perhaps exonerate the dingo, in future behavior experiments.

ia/bgs

Twitter bans ‘misleading’ ads about climate change

The announcement came on Earth Day

By Justine Calma@justcalma

Apr 22, 2022, 

Photo by Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Twitter levied a new ban today on “misleading” advertisements “that contradict the scientific consensus on climate change.”

“We believe that climate denialism shouldn’t be monetized on Twitter, and that misrepresentative ads shouldn’t detract from important conversations about the climate crisis,” the company said in a blog post today.

“MISREPRESENTATIVE ADS SHOULDN’T DETRACT FROM IMPORTANT CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE CLIMATE CRISIS”

Its decisions about what’s legit content in regard to climate change will be guided by “authoritative sources,” it says, including the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC has published a couple of landmark reports on the crisis over the past few months that break down what needs to be done to adapt to the changes that are already unfolding as well as how to avert even more severe consequences in the future, like intensifying weather disasters and ferocious wildfire seasons.

Twitter also said that it will soon share more details about how it plans to “add reliable, authoritative context” about climate change on its platform. Those conversations have gotten much louder over the past year, according to the company. Talk about “sustainability” on the platform has grown by over 150 percent since 2021, Twitter says. Discussions on “decarbonization,” aka getting rid of greenhouse gas emissions that come from burning fossil fuels, are also up 50 percent. Other environmental conversations are heating up, too. Chatter about reducing waste grew by more than 100 percent over the same time period.

Twitter’s new announcement is also part of a broader social media saga to stop lies about climate change. Other companies have made similar commitments, with varying success.

Google made a commitment in October 2021 to stop allowing ads that feature climate denial or that monetize climate misinformation. Even so, a report published soon after the new policy went into effect found that Google was still placing ads on climate-denying content. Google told The Verge at the time that it reviewed the content and decided to take “appropriate enforcement actions.” Facebook has also come under fire for failing to label climate misinformation despite its policy on flagging such content. Another report about the platform published last November also found a sharp rise in interactions with posts from Facebook pages and groups focused on spreading climate misinformation.

Iraq Exhibits Restored Art Pillaged After 2003 Invasion

April 23, 2022 
Agence France-Presse

Restored art pieces by renowned Iraqi artists are on display at 

Iraq's Ministry of Culture in Baghdad on April 6, 2022.
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BAGHDAD —

Verdant landscapes, stylized portraits of peasant women, curved sculptures -- an exhibition in Baghdad is allowing art aficionados to rediscover the pioneers of contemporary Iraqi art.

Around 100 items are on display in the capital, returned and restored nearly two decades after they were looted.

Many of the works, including pieces by renowned artists Jawad Selim and Fayiq Hassan, disappeared in 2003 when museums and other institutions were pillaged in the chaos that followed the U.S.-led invasion to topple dictator Saddam Hussein.

Thousands of pieces were stolen, and organized criminal networks often sold them outside Iraq.

Tracked down in Switzerland, the U.S., Qatar and neighboring Jordan, sculptures and paintings dating between the 1940s and 1960s have been on display since late March at the Ministry of Culture, in a vast room that used to serve as a restaurant.

"These works are part of the history of contemporary art in Iraq," ministry official Fakher Mohamed said.

Artistic renaissance

Pictures and sculptures were in 2003 spirited away from the Saddam Arts Centre, one of Baghdad's most prestigious cultural venues at the time.

While he crushed all political dissent, Saddam cultivated the image of a patron of the arts. The invasion and years of violence that followed ended a flourishing arts scene, particularly in Baghdad.

Now, relative stability has led to a fledgling artistic renaissance, including book fairs and concerts, of which the exhibition organized by the ministry is an example.

It helps recall a golden age when Baghdad was considered one of the Arab world's cultural capitals.

Among canvases of realist, surrealist or expressionist inspiration, a picturesque scene in shimmering colors shows a boat sailing in front of several "mudhif," the traditional reed dwellings found in Iraq's southern marshes.

Other paintings, in dark colors, depict terrified residents surrounded by corpses, fleeing a burning village.

Elsewhere, a woman is shown prostrate in a scene of destruction, kneeling in front of an arm protruding from stones.

There is also a wooden sculpture of a gazelle with undulating curves, and the "maternal statue" -- a work by Jawad Selim that represents a woman with a slender neck and raised arms.

The latter, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, was rediscovered in a Baghdad district known for its antiques and second-hand goods shops. It was in the possession of a dealer unaware of its true value, according to sculptor Taha Wahib, who bought it for just $200.

'Priceless works'

Looters in some cases had taken pictures out of their frames, sometimes with cutters, to steal them more easily.

"Some pieces were damaged during the events of 2003 -- or they were stored in poor conditions for many years," Mohamed, the culture ministry official, told AFP.

But "they were restored in record time," he said.

Other works are being held back for now, with some waiting to be restored -- but they will be exhibited once more, Mohamed pledged.

He wants to open more exhibition rooms to show the entire collection of recovered items.

"Museums must be open to the public -- these works shouldn't remain imprisoned in warehouses," he said.

The 7,000 items stolen in 2003 included "priceless works,” and about 2,300 have been returned to Iraq, according to exhibition curator Lamiaa al-Jawari.

In 2004, she joined a committee of artists committed to retrieving the many stolen national treasures.

"Some have been recovered through official channels" including the Swiss embassy, she said, but individuals also helped.

Authorities coordinate with Interpol and the last restitutions took place in 2021.

The selection on display will be changed from time to time, "to show visitors all this artistic heritage," Jawari said.

Ali Al-Najar, an 82-year-old artist who has lived in Sweden the past 20 years, has been on holiday in his homeland.

He welcomed the exhibition.

"The pioneers are those who initiated Iraqi art. If we forget them, we lose our foundations" as a society, Najar said.