It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, April 25, 2022
Belarus: Biggest attack on a trade union in Europe this century
April 19 was marked a black day in the history of the independent trade union movement in Belarus. The State Security Service (KGB) arrested more than a dozen trade union activists, including almost all the Union leaders. Among them were President of Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BKDP) Alexandr Yarashuk, vice-president Siarhei Antusevich, and the head of the Free Belarusian Trade Union Mikalaj Sharakh. One of them, the head of Free Trade Union of Metal Workers (SPM) Aliaksandr Bukhvostau, had a heart problem and was taken to the hospital. For decades the independent trade union movement in Belarus has taken a strong stand against the dictatorial regime of Alexander Lukashenko. Despite a severe political crackdown, the BKDP has openly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and demanded the withdrawal of the Russian troops from the territory of Belarus. Global unions, the ILO, Amnesty International, and others have already condemned the arrests and called for a stop of repression against Belarusian Trade Unions. We demand the immediate release of all the activists and stop the prosecution of independent trade unions in Belarus.
Please join us in sending your message of protest to the Belarusian government demanding the immediate release of the jailed union leaders:
Sri Lankan students mob PM’s home over economic crisis AFP Published April 25, 2022
University students protest outside the residence of Sri Lanka's prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa during a demonstration over the country's crippling economic crisis in Colombo. — AFP
COLOMBO: Thousands of Sri Lankan university students mobbed Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s home on Sunday demanding his resignation over the island nation’s worsening economic crisis.
Months of lengthy blackouts, record inflation and acute food and fuel shortages have sparked increasing public discontent in Sri Lanka, which is dealing with its worst economic downturn since independence in 1948.
Sunday’s protest saw student leaders scale the fence of Rajapaksa’s compound in Colombo after police erected barricades on various roads around the capital to stop them from linking up with demonstrators elsewhere.
“You can block the road, but can’t stop our struggle until the entire government goes home,” one unidentified student leader said while standing on top of the walls.
Facing off against rows of police holding riot shields, protesters tried to pull down the barricades preventing them from entering the residence.
Some carried signs that said “Go Home Gota” — the nickname for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who is Mahinda’s younger brother — while others wore the Guy Fawkes mask that have become synonymous with anti-establishment movements.
Police said Mahinda Rajapaksa, the head of Sri Lanka’s ruling clan, was not on the premises at the time and the crowd left peacefully.
For more than two weeks, thousands of protesters have been camped daily outside the seafront office of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, demanding for him and his brother to step down. Nationwide demonstrations have seen crowds attempt to storm the homes and offices of government figures.
This week a man was shot dead when police fired on a road blockade in the central town of Rambukkana — the first fatality since protests last month.
Sri Lanka’s economic collapse began to be felt after the coronavirus pandemic torpedoed vital revenue from tourism and remittances.
The country is unable to finance essential imports, which has left rice, milk powder, sugar, wheat flour, and pharmaceuticals in short supply, while runaway inflation has worsened hardships.
The writer is a poet. His latest publication is a collection of satire essays titled Rindana.
WE love to berate the West, not that it discourages us from doing so. However, we must think hard to come up with an answer to the mother of all questions: can economics be separated from culture? Let us unbundle this.
In Pakistan we love nothing more than hating the Yanks, right? A sure-shot recipe for winning elections. How about the dollar, the lure of immigration, technology, scholarships at top-notch universities though? We are not loath to make use of these, but... . Herein lies the complexity. The ‘but’ is always followed by a rider that has something to do with ‘our culture’ and its perceived superiority over theirs. In other words, we want our culture but also the industrialised world’s economy.
The above argument refuses to die down because we will not acknowledge the connection that economy has with culture, including the ‘superior’ one we are willing to temporarily abandon in favour of the ‘inferior’. The ‘suspension’ too only lasts till we set foot in the land of opportunity. Soon after arrival, we want to impose our culture while savouring their economy whose fruits include social security, healthcare, free basic education, unemployment benefits, student loans, home finance, etc. But, they have learnt all of it from us, goes the argument. Our faith ensured all the above, even when the Europeans lived like barbarians.
Fine. But if we had not forsaken all of it, why would we need to uproot ourselves and bear the humiliation of living in ‘their’ culture, eking out a better living pumping petrol and flipping burgers than the white-collar jobs in the superior culture steeped in spirituality? Ask a question like ‘doesn’t this make their culture better than ours?’, and the answer usually is, ‘but, all of that is because their economy is better than ours’. So, we are confused, if not outright hypocrites.
We see the importance of the economy but insist that it exists in some bubble outside culture and the society that practises it. Additionally, ‘their’ economy is built upon repression, and the blood of millions of innocent human beings lubricates its wheels. Lest anybody forget, remember what was done to the Native Americans? How about the slave trade from Africa? Do not even get us started on Vietnam, Chile and the ‘regime change’ frenzy whose most current episode ran in Islamabad. Spot on, no?
Why do we bear the humiliation of living in ‘their’ culture?
It is hard to absolve it of most of these wrongs. The Western economy, particularly that of its leading superpower the US, is built upon hundreds of years of repression and brutality both at home and abroad. How about the pyramids of skulls erected by Timur, though? We have no qualms naming our boys after him or his ancestor Changez. What about the Armenian genocide? Who wants to even know about it, leave alone lay a claim to it? So, if that was perpetrated by the Turks and they are not ‘us’ then how is Timur ours? Was he not of Turkic origin? How are the Arab conquests ours because they are our co-religionists, hence making them ‘Muslim conquests’, but the Armenian genocide cannot be laid at our door because a different people unleashed it? Were they not our co-religionists as well?
No. The purpose of this piece is not to hold the West’s brief, least of all that of the Americans’. Let us for argument’s sake conclude that they are all bad and will eventually get their comeuppance. The question is, why are we bent upon making our lives a living hell by refusing to see the link between culture and economy?
It was not too long ago that seemingly every Afghan, man, woman and child was trying to scale the parapets of Kabul airport, to escape the next citadel of superior culture even if it meant hanging by the wheels of a plane leaving for the lowest sections of hell in the West. They did that knowing that their daughters would not be allowed to attend school.
What were we up to then? We went door-to-door across the world holding a brief for the Afghan Taliban. We beseeched the world to go easy on them, otherwise wave upon wave of refugees would head towards Pakistan. True. However, we forget to add that it is so because we refuse to acknowledge Afghanistan as a sovereign country that is not our backyard for strategic depth.
The culture of shutting out half the population of the country from education is guaranteed to ruin the economy. Before anybody gets smug about how we in Pakistan are nothing like the regime across the Durand Line, do not forget that the thorns sowed in Afghanistan were exported from our nurseries of ‘haughty culture’. While Imran Khan has been derided as ‘Taliban Khan’, the new dispensation has amongst its ranks their biggest sympathisers. The hate culture is looking at the economies of scale.
'No change in army's approach despite huge protests in support of Pakistan's ousted premier'
Retired military officers believe Imran Khan's 'collision' approach will backfire
Aamir Latif |23.04.2022
KARACHI, Pakistan
Former Pakistani army officers do not foresee any change in the military's current approach towards the country's future "political and constitutional course" despite huge crowds spilling out in support of former Prime Minister Imran Khan following his ouster.
Khan, whose Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) came into power after the 2018 general elections, was ousted through a successful no-trust motion by the opposition alliance earlier this month.
He is the first Pakistani leader ousted through a no-confidence motion in the country's 75-year political history.
Crying foul, the ousted premier heaped the blame for his exit on an "American conspiracy", a claim rejected by the country's powerful army, although it acknowledged there was an "interference" in Islamabad's internal affairs.
Khan's Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry, nonetheless, acknowledged a creeping bitterness in otherwise congenial relations between the ex-prime minister and the army.
"The PTI would have been in power had our relations with the establishment were good," Chaudhry said in an interview with Express News, a local broadcaster, earlier this week.
Confirming that ties with the establishment – a term to designate the army – had been fragile for the past several months, he said his party made "a lot of efforts" to end the rift. Army and politics
"The army will maintain its approach. There will be no change in its policy because of several crucial factors," Talat Masood, a retired three-star general, opined.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Masood, who served in the military from 1952 to 1990, and took part in two wars against arch-rival India, contended that the former premier's ongoing policy could "only diminish his chances of coming back to power."
A nod from the army, which has ruled this South Asian nuclear country for half of its 75-year history, is considered crucial for any political party to jump to power.
"The first and foremost factor (behind no change in the military's policy) is that the state cannot afford Khan's narrative, which is highly detrimental in terms of economy, foreign policy, and internal and external security," Masood said.
He was referring to Islamabad's longtime dependence on the US and the European Union in terms of military hardware, trade, and financial aid, particularly from international monetary agencies, which are heavily influenced by Washington.
"It is high time for Khan to review his current approach, which is not at all in the country's interest. He will definitely continue to enjoy (his) cult following, but it will not benefit the nation as a whole," he went on to argue.
The cricketer-turned-politician enjoys massive support among the youths, and nearly 9 million overseas Pakistanis, who took to the streets across the country to protest his ouster.
"Khan must exploit this potential in his favor positively rather than choosing a collision course," he maintained.
Endorsing Masood's views, Mahmood Shah, a retired brigadier, observed that political gatherings or crowds, no matter how big they are, will not change the army's policy.
"Khan has a big following. But it's not that big, which can dictate the state. He can come back to the power through elections, and not by forcing the state," Shah, who served in the military from 1970 to 2002, told Anadolu Agency.
"He will soon realize that he is pursuing a wrong approach." 'Pacification' campaign
Army Chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa has held a string of meetings with serving and retired military officers in recent days, which according to analysts, is part of a "pacification" and "realization of factual position" campaign in the face of criticism the army is facing for its alleged role in the change of regime in the country.
"The ongoing campaign, especially on social media, which aims to target the army has affected the ranks and files of the military. And this is quite understandable because the army men don't live in isolation. They have families, friends, and acquaintances with different political backgrounds," said retired army Brig. Said Nazir.
Khan's ouster, he said, did not sit well not only with his supporters, but many retired military officers, who took to the streets or the social media to express their peeve, which was "unprecedented."
"That's why the army chief is meeting with serving and retired officers to clarify the military's position on the recent political developments," Nazir, who served in the army from 1973 to 2008, told Anadolu Agency.
Without realizing the long-term effects, he argued, Khan chose a collision course for "short-term political benefits", which has backfired.
"It is not good for an already economically weak and politically polarized country. We cannot afford this (approach) when it comes to national security and foreign policy," he went on to say.
"It will not benefit him (Khan) either. I don't think the army will bid for him to be the country's leader, at least in near future," he contended.
AFTER three massive rallies in Peshawar, Karachi and Lahore, Imran Khan has proven that he still commands significant respect. The sudden revival of his political fortunes was quite unexpected, and it goes to show how shrewdly he has played the political hand he was dealt.
The reaffirmation of his supporters’ faith in him should give him enough confidence to proceed headlong into his campaign for early elections. As a leader, he ought to take this opportunity to turn a fresh page and rewrite his political destiny based on lessons learnt from his first stint in power. It is unfortunate that he, instead, continues to amplify a toxic narrative that risks turning the people of Pakistan against the state, its institutions and even themselves.
From between the lines of an angry speech, which has varied little from city to city, Mr Khan has demanded from the powers that be that they give him an early election. It is the only way, he says, to set right the wrong that he believes was done to him.
The call for a march on Islamabad, to be announced at a date of his choosing, is leverage for enforcing that demand. It remains to be seen how seriously and enthusiastically it is taken up by his supporters, if indeed matters come to that. However, it does have the potential to throw another spanner in the works for the new coalition government, which suddenly finds itself with everything to lose after walking itself into a political quagmire littered with economic landmines.
Still, Mr Khan must realise that the best-laid plans often go awry.
Dharnas and jalsas alone may not be enough to sway the umpire’s finger, as they once did in 2014. His graph may be rising today, but political fortunes are fickle and subject to the vagaries of time. It would be prudent, therefore, that he finds a new tune to pipe for the people following him.
There has always been something distinctly Orwellian about Mr Khan’s vision for a ‘Naya Pakistan’, but the heady mix of religion and hyper-nationalism he has introduced in recent speeches takes it to another level. Granted that most among our political lot simply cannot resist appealing to our basest instincts when attempting to turn our loyalties against each other, but turning political differences with rival parties into grounds for hate and revulsion of the other is not only unnecessary; it is deplorable.
Mr Khan often describes Mohammad Ali Jinnah as his “only leader”, forgetting that it was statecraft and diplomacy that made Mr Jinnah ‘Quaid-i-Azam’. If Mr Khan wishes to emulate the Quaid, he needs something substantially more wholesome than a narrative that paints anyone who has ever disagreed with him as a traitor. He ought to rise above the politics of hate and adopt a narrative of inclusion and reconciliation instead.
Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2022
VANCOUVER ISLAND
‘It just breaks your heart’: Island animal rescues are overwhelmed by people surrendering their COVID-19 pets
Posted: Apr. 23, 2022 CHEK
A desperate situation continues to develop at Vancouver Island animal rescues, as unwanted COVID-19 pets return in waves.
At Duncan’s Humanity for Horses Rescue, founder Rebecca Sanesh said she’s received seven pleas from people wanting to surrender in just the last month alone and is worried that people are becoming desperate.
“It just breaks your heart to think of what’s happening,” said Sanesh.
According to the Victoria Humane Society, it’s the worse rate of surrender they have ever seen.
“It seems like non-stop. The amount of surrenders we’re getting now is way higher than we’ve ever seen, I would say owner-surrenders alone are 10 times what we used to see, we get calls every single day and everything’s urgent,” said Victoria Humane Society’s executive director, Penny Stone.
At Parksville’s Flying Fur Small Animal Rescue, it’s overwhelming their already small resources, as people surrender to travel, go back to work, or blame a lack of time now, to care for their four-legged friends.
“It’s just at an enormous level we’re not used to seeing. We’re sometimes getting up to 20 animals a day and our vet costs are just through the roof,” said Flying Fur Small Animal Rescue’s Leah Moore.
It’s a trend first seen last fall, when the so-called COVID-19 pets people were adopting for many thousands of dollars during the pandemic suddenly began being surrendered. Yet now rescues say the volume pouring in is becoming unmanageable.
“Absolute helplessness because you don’t want to say no but you have to,” said Sanesh.
Sanesh said in addition to all of the surrenders, the cost of feeding the rescue’s horses and donkeys has gone up 80 per cent in the last year alone.
“There’s another rescue that’s feeding straw because they can’t afford the price of hay and then if they can’t find hay they can’t pay for it,” said Sanesh.
So Saturday, Lisa Petrovic who adopted her horse — named Danny — from the rescue volunteered to help.
“Today I brought a load of hay. I plan on bringing another load of hay to the rescue from a donator,” said Petrovic.
Noida: The pandemic has been cruel for pets. First came rumors of the animals being carriers of the virus. Then the catastrophic second wave hit, leaving many pets without their families. Over the two years, dozens of pets have been rescued from homes or abandoned at shelters.
The return to normalcy that 2022 has kindled hopes of, with Covid showing signs of becoming endemic, hasn’t, however, reversed the trend of pets becoming homeless, say animal welfare NGOs working in Delhi-NCR.
In 2020, the Animal Shelter and Hospital in Sector 94, the only largescale one running in Noida, took in 40 pet dogs from March onwards. The next year saw 90 such cases and three dozen dogs have already been let go by their keepers in the first three months of 2022.
“It is devastating for us to see pet dogs initially brought up by a family get abandoned. Of all the breeds, we find pit bulls abandoned the most,” says Anuradha Dogra, a volunteer at the shelter that is being run by Dhyan Foundation.
Dogra cited examples. Bella, nearly 3 years old, is a pit bull found this January. She had a dead puppy attached to her belly when she was rescued.
The shelter suspects Bella’s keepers did not want to get her medical treatment after she gave birth. “The pit bull, treated and recovered, is now waiting for her forever home,” she said.
It’s not just Covid distress, say activists, that’s led to pets turning homeless. People rushed to adopt pets for company because they felt lonely confined to their homes during lockdowns, only to realize later they were not prepared for it. As a result, labradors, huskies, great danes, beagles, pit bulls and other breeds have been found loitering on streets and taken to shelters by animal lovers.
“We got a St Bernard in the first week of March. He died within a week… heartbreak or heat, we can’t tell,” says Dogra, referring to the breeds that aren’t meant to live in the harsh summers of India.
Kaveri Rana Bhardwaj, who runs the Sophie Memorial Animal Relief Trust in Greater Noida, says her shelter had taken in three abandoned dogs in the recent weeks. “In my rescue home, I end up taking 4-5 dogs every month. Cases of deserting pets have not decreased and we can’t even blame a Covid outbreak right now. Some of the families do it because they are shifting cities and don’t want the hassle of taking their dog with them. Others who adopted dogs during the pandemic now say the pets are aggressive or too energetic for them to handle,” she says.
Recently, Bhardwaj says, she rescued a one-year-old American bully that a family didn’t want because he apparently bit the children. “I’ve had him for three weeks and have not seen any sign of aggression in him,” she says.
Many people who adopted pets did not realize the animals need a lifetime of care and affection. For those who did, job losses and deaths in the family because of Covid may have forced their hand. “Employment and pandemic losses over the last two years may have dissociated many from keeping pets,” says Dogra.
Pets also aren’t all the same. Some breeds of dogs need more exercise, and others may need special grooming in this hot and humid weather. “People need to do some research before keeping pets. For instance, with pit bulls, they are not supposed to be raised in small houses or apartments. These are high-energy dogs who thrive in cooler climates. In a warmer place with little space for them, they can become aggressive because they are uncomfortable all the time,” Bhardwaj says.
Vikas Gautam, who runs a dog shelter home in Sector 163, agreed. “Covid has badly impacted on individual’s income. This is one of the major reasons why more pet dogs are getting abandoned after Covid struck.”
Delhi-based NGO Friendicoes says it has been seeing a similar trend. “Sometimes, this has happened because a family member died and extended relatives can’t take care of the dog. Other times, family members have to go back to office (after working from home for two years) and no longer have the time for a pet,” says Shreya Agnihotri, a volunteer at the NGO.
For those abandoned, rehabilitation is not easy. Veterinary doctors say that even if pet dogs recover from the physical and mental trauma of being left to fend for themselves on the streets, they don’t find people willing to take them. “People prefer to take puppies home,” says Dogra.
“They go into depression. They can stop eating, become aggressive or less active. An abandoned dog needs a lot of care and love. If they don’t, most of the time, they end up losing their lives,” says Dr Pankaj Chaudhary, a veterinarian practicing in Greater Noida West.
Deserted In Pandemic: Why The Worst Isn’t Over For Pets
Apr 24, 2022
Animals Planet
The pandemic has been cruel for pets.
First came rumours of the animals being carriers of the virus.
Then the catastrophic second wave hit, leaving many pets without their families.
Over the two years, dozens of pets have been rescued from homes or abandoned at shelters.
The return to normalcy that 2022 has kindled hopes of, with Covid showing signs of becoming endemic, hasn’t, however, reversed the trend of pets becoming homeless, say animal welfare NGOs working in Delhi-NCR.
In 2020, the Animal Shelter and Hospital in Sector 94, the only largescale one running in Noida, took in 40 pet dogs from March onwards.
The next year saw 90 such cases and three dozen dogs have already been let go by their keepers in the first three months of 2022.
To stay up to date with latest top stories, make sure to subscribe to this YouTube channel by clicking the button above this video!
“It is devastating for us to see pet dogs initially brought up by a family get abandoned.
Highly contagious marine epidemic rips through Caribbean’s coral reefs
Scientists collect coral samples at the Yellow Bank reef near the Bahamas’ Exumas Islands. SCTLD has now been confirmed in 22 countries and territories across the Caribbean and can spread at the rate of a mile a month.
Photograph: Chicago Tribune/TNS/Getty Frustration among scientists as many islands, hard hit by Covid and hurricanes, struggle to fight stony coral tissue loss disease
Krista Sherman understands ocean conservation work takes a good deal of patience. But the Bahamian-born marine scientist had never encountered a foe like stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD), and after efforts to monitor and treat the highly contagious outbreak in the Bahamas’ corals stalled, her patience was running thin.
“The disease is spreading really quickly. In some areas where we’ve been able to assess the rate of spread, we’re looking at a mile a month,” says Sherman, a researcher with the Bahamas-based Perry Institute for Marine Science.
“There’s a shift taking place at some sites, from healthy, vibrant reefs to what looks like a coral graveyard. And it’s really devastating to see; it’s just heartbreaking.”
A researcher cuts a Pseudodiploria strigosa, or brain coral, with a chisel to remove a portion being killed by SCTLD in the US Virgin Islands.
Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters
First discovered in Florida in 2014, the disease, which scientists believe is carried by ocean currents and commercial ships, has now been confirmed in 22 countries and territories across the Caribbean, according to data compiled by the Atlantic and Gulf Rapid Reef Assessment (AGRRA), a conservation organisation that has been tracking the outbreak.
SCTLD afflicts more than 20 coral species – including some of the largest and most important reef-building corals, which can take centuries to grow – eating away at their soft tissue until nothing but a skeleton remains. Infected colonies can be wiped out in months. Algae moves in, leaving large swaths of a once-colourful reef covered in dull grey-green or red-brown fuzz.
Scientists have yet to pinpoint the pathogen that causes the disease. So far, the only effective treatment involves applying antibiotic paste on to individual corals, a labour-intensive and expensive method. Once SCTLD infects a colony, any delay in response means more dead coral. Yet those involved in treatment efforts across the Caribbean say obstacles to their work are common – from pandemic lockdowns to lack of funding and government bureaucracy.
In the Bahamas, where SCTLD was first confirmed in December 2019, efforts to slow the spread were held up while researchers waited for the government to issue the permit required for them to study and treat the illness.
Composite showing the advance of SCTLD in a single coral colony of the Meandrina meandrites species off Puerto Rico. From left: healthy, diseased and dead coral. Photograph: Catalina Morales
Local conservationists grew so frustrated that they began sounding the alarm publicly. The pressure seemed to work. On 18 March, the Bahamas’ Department of Environmental Planning and Protection permitted work to go ahead until June, when researchers will have to re-apply.
Across the Caribbean, “pretty much everybody is lagging behind because of how quickly this disease progresses”, says Miguel Figuerola Hernández, a coral reef specialist with the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER). “You really need to have an emergency fund just waiting for these kinds of disasters.”
SCTLD was also confirmed in Puerto Rico in December 2019, and in the two years since then, efforts to treat the disease have not matched the scale of the problem, largely because of funding constraints. There are now outbreaks of the disease all around the main island as well as on reefs near the smaller islands of Vieques and Culebra.
Despite the threat to the island’s environment and economy, it was not until August 2021 that the governor of Puerto Rico, Pedro Pierluisi, declared an ecological state of emergency over the coral disease, allocating $1m (£750,000) in emergency funding to the DNER to tackle the crisis. The agency submitted a strategic response plan in December, which was approved in March. I hate the idea [of using antibiotics]. But you know what I hate more? Watching everything dieSimon Walsh, dive-shop owner in Dominica
The funding would allow the DNER to to conduct crucial research and to support 11 small groups of volunteers with the resources they needed, Figuerola Hernández says, including a long-term study of corals’ response to the antibiotic treatment. So far, Figuerola Hernández and his colleagues have seen up to 70% effectiveness.
“We will lose a lot,” she says. “This is a very aggressive condition.
“The reefs will not be the same. But we will save what we can and hope they can come back from that.”
Scale is a big challenge across the region. Puerto Rico alone has nearly 5,000 sq km (2,000 sq miles) of coral reefs. Treatment involves identifying priority sites with the greatest abundance of large, old corals, then treating thousands of individuals. The quantity of amoxicillin antibiotic ointment necessary to treat 30 to 90 corals costs nearly $1,000.
In some cases, government action may also be delayed because officials resist publicly acknowledging the disease for fear that it will affect tourism, says Judith Lang, a marine biologist who heads AGRRA.
Antibiotic paste is applied to corals at risk from SCTLD at the University of the Virgin Islands in St Thomas.
Photograph: L Jackson/Reuters
“They’re already suffering the consequences of the Covid pandemic, and the thought of tourists staying away because of this is really scary,” she says.
Travel and tourism contribute more than 15% of the Caribbean’s GDP and nearly 14% of its jobs. For some, Covid shutdowns came on the heels of extreme weather events.
“First it was [Hurricane] Maria, then Covid, and now this,” says Simon Walsh, a dive-shop owner in Dominica who has been spearheading SCTLD treatment efforts there.
In March, Resilient Dominica (REZDM), a local programme created in response to Hurricane Maria, agreed to provide $90,000 to pay three marine park wardens to monitor and treat SCTLD for a year.
This was welcome news, says Walsh. Until now, he has been working with other volunteers to treat the coral, financed by revenue from the island’s Soufriere-Scott’s Head marine reserve, private donations and their own money. Walsh does the work despite not being a fan of antibiotics in the water. “I hate the idea,” he says. “But you know what I hate more? Watching everything die.”
Some countries, such as the Dominican Republic, prohibit antibiotics in the open ocean due to concerns about long-term effects such as antibiotic resistance, and some scientists share this apprehension.
Because SCTLD is so aggressive, he believes treating infected coral may not be the best use of resources, especially as researchers still do not know the exact cause. “We should concentrate our resources and energy after the disease goes through the reefs and then work with the survivors, because those survivors are resistant colonies,” he says.
Back in the Bahamas, researchers and volunteers have begun treating coral, starting in the waters around New Providence island. The Perry Institute and its partners also aim to establish a coral “gene bank” to preserve Bahamian corals in the Atlantis resort aquarium. Though smaller in scale, it will be similar to coral rescue efforts in Florida, where scientists have collected vulnerable corals and sent them to aquariums around the country in the hope of one day repopulating Florida’s reefs.
“There are so many people tackling these issues, so that gives me hope,” Sherman says. “I don’t know exactly what coral reefs will look like in the future, but their continued existence really depends on us.”
An international research team uses a global sampling of seawater to reveal which tropical reef fish occur where. To identify species and families, they successfully used the residual DNA shed by the animals present in the water. But not all fish can be traced in this way.
Tropical coral reefs are colorful, beautiful—and rich in species. The diversity among fish is particularly high: researchers estimate that coral reefs are home to as many as 8,000 species of fish worldwide.
However, global warming and human activities are causing coral reefs to disappear at an alarming rate, and how many species of reef fish there are and where they are distributed has not yet been accurately quantified.
One reason is that many fish species lead very secretive lives, are very similar to each other or live partly in the open sea and are therefore difficult to detect. To record the presence of fish in an area, biodiversity research has mostly depended on visual observations by divers (or catching fish).
Now, a new method is making its way into ecology that circumvents such difficulties: environmental DNA (eDNA). The idea of this new approach is that organisms leave their genetic material or parts of it in the environment.
With this approach, the researchers have only to take water samples at one location, isolate the DNA (fragments) contained therein and sequence them, i.e. determine the order of DNA building blocks. Then they can compare the sequences with reference DNA sequences that come from reliably identified specimens—and can determine whether a species occurs at the location in question.
This is the method used by an international team led by researchers from the University of Montpellier (France) and ETH Zurich to study the occurrence of reef fish.
In 2017 and 2019, the researchers collected 226 water samples at 26 sites in 5 tropical marine regions. They isolated and analyzed the DNA, which they then assigned to the corresponding species or families.
One-sixth greater diversity detected
Using eDNA, the researchers found a 16 percent higher diversity of reef fishes than through conventional survey methods such as visual observations during dives. "Thanks to the eDNA method, we can detect many fish species and families much faster than with observations alone," says Loïc Pellissier, Professor of Ecosystems and Landscape Evolution at ETH Zurich. He is one of the two lead authors of a study that has just been published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. The DNA analyses were completed after only two years, but the visual observations that informed the study came from countless observers and cover 13 years of observation activity.
With the new approach, the researchers discovered more species swimming in the open water (pelagic), reef-bound species, and species that inhabit the numerous caves and crevices in reefs (cryptobenthic). Divers see or identify such fish with less frequency.
Many of the recorded pelagic species prefer the open sea or greater depths. Some belong to families that avoid divers or do not live permanently in coral reefs, such as mackerel and tuna in the family Scombridae as well as sharks from the family Carcharhinidae (requiem sharks, e.g. the blacktip reef shark).
The discovery of these species is important because they are actively involved in the function of a coral reef through their pelagic larval stages or their nocturnal migrations to the reef. The role these fishes play in the ecosystem is thus often underestimated.
Visual observations are (still) necessary
However, not all species can be recorded equally easily using eDNA, such as wrasses (Labridae) or blennies (Blenniidae). Reference databases cover these species-rich families only partially, Pellissier says. Because of these gaps, a considerable part of the eDNA found in the water samples has not yet been assigned.
To further develop the approach, the researchers are hard at work sequencing the DNA of more fish species and feeding the data into the reference databases. Nevertheless, dives will still be needed to record some species that are poorly detected with eDNA, but also to gather supplementary information such as fish sizes or biomass, which cannot (yet) be recovered from eDNA.
Extraordinary diversity in the Coral Triangle
The researchers also confirmed earlier findings that the composition of species varies widely among marine bioregions. Fish diversity is exceptionally high in the "Coral Triangle" between Borneo, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines—up to five times higher than in the Caribbean, for example. Herbivores (including coral-eating species) are particularly abundant there.
According to Pellissier, this has to do with the fact that throughout Earth's history, the Coral Triangle was (and still is) very tectonically active, producing a wide range of habitats. The surface temperature of this marine area was also more stable during the ice ages, which is why an especially high diversity was able to unfold.
The Caribbean, on the other hand, was more subject to the regime of the ice ages, and its coral reefs and fish stocks shrank during the cold periods. In addition, the Isthmus of Panama was formed more than 2.7 million years ago, which, among other things, changed the ocean currents in the Caribbean. Both events led to higher extinctions.Delicate balance of coral reef processes creates management challenges
More information:Laetitia Mathon et al, Cross-ocean patterns and processes in fish biodiversity on coral reefs through the lens of eDNA metabarcoding,Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences(2022).DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2022.0162
Experts suggest Neanderthals are our closest extinct relative. In many ways, we’re alike: We are both hunter gatherers who have mastered the use of stone tools and weapons. But experts also agree that we have our differences.
Those differences are seen in a split from a common ancestor more than half a million years ago. Still, the species that connects us has long eluded scientists.
Experts thought Homo heidelbergensis was the missing link — an early human species known to be the first to build shelters — but newer research has called this theory into question.
The age of H. heidelbergensis fossils revealed that some of the specimens were too young to be the common ancestor, says Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at the London Natural History Museum. Rather, H. heidelbergensis was more likely a contemporary of modern humans and Neanderthals, not an ancestral link, says Stringer.
"Frankly, we no longer know where the ancestry of the Neanderthal lies," he says.
Laser Dating Technology
Experts think that a common ancestor goes back to around 600,000 years ago, far older than Kabwe 1, for example, a H. heidelbergensis skull found in Zambia in 1921.
In the study published last year, Stringer and his team used laser dating to uncover that the skull, which was formerly thought to be much older, was only around 300,000 years old. This was when both modern humans and Neanderthals already existed.
Laser dating technology helped experts to uncover who our common ancestor was not. But it will take similar, more advanced technology, to finally pinpoint the link.
We must look back even further into the fossil record to unlock the mystery and we’re not there yet, says Stringer. "When we have a better fossil record from around 500,000 to 800,000 years ago, we’ll be in a better position to know for sure."
The Human and Neanderthal Split
To find this common ancestor, experts must uncover when the split occurred. The earliest known examples of Neanderthal fossils date back to around 430,000 years ago. The oldest Homo sapiens fossils date back to 300,000 years ago, but Stringer says that older modern human remains are still to be found.
The warm climate in Africa, where the earliest H. sapiens lived, has impacted the preservation of DNA more than Neanderthal remains found further north in Europe and Asia, he says.
Researchers use DNA evidence when they can, but when it’s not available, they rely on anatomy to note the differences between Neanderthals and H. sapiens.
Humans have a high and rounded brain case, with a small brow, a chin on the lower jaw and a slimmer bone structure, says Stringer. Neanderthals, by comparison, have a longer, lower skull, with a larger nose, brow and no chin.
"Humans have a clearly distinct skeletal shape from Neanderthals," says Stringer. "These differences suggest that there was a separate evolution for hundreds of thousands of years."
On the other hand, older modern human remains have a bigger brow, bulkier teeth and more robust skeletons. And the closer in age the remains are to the mystery ancestor, the difference in features is less pronounced.
After the two species evolved from a common ancestor, they became unmistakably separate in both appearance and DNA. But at the same time, before Neanderthals went extinct 40,000 years ago, they did many of the same things as humans. They hunted the same large game, had burial rituals, used similar tools and even interbred.
"We can’t know whether it was coerced or not, but we do know they interbred," says Erella Hovers, a professor of prehistoric archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
No matter whether it was through love or war, says Hovers, we still hold the remnants of Neanderthals in our genes today. Depending on what part of the world you call home, you likely have around two percent Neanderthal DNA.
Nature Timespiral: The Evolution of Earth from the Big Bang
Since the dawn of humanity, we have looked questioningly to the heavens with great interest and awe. We’ve called on the stars to guide us, and have made some of humanity’s most interesting discoveries based on those observations. This also led us to question our existence and how we came to be in this moment in time.
That journey began some 14 billion years ago, when the Big Bang led to the universe emerging from a hot, dense sea of matter and energy. As the cosmos expanded and cooled, they spawned galaxies, stars, planets, and eventually, life.
In the above visualization, Pablo Carlos Buddassi illustrates this journey of epic proportions in the intricately designed Nature Timespiral, depicting the various eras that the Earth has gone through since the inception of the universe itself.
Evolutionary Timeline of the World
Not much is known about what came before the Big Bang, but we do know that it launched a sequence of events that gave rise to the universal laws of physics and the chemical elements that make up matter. How the Earth came about, and life subsequently followed, is a wondrous story of time and change.
Let’s look at what transpired after the Big Bang to trace our journey through the cosmos.
The Big Bang and Hadean Eon
The Big Bang formed the entire universe that we know, including the elements, forces, stars, and planets. Hydrogen and massive dissipation of heat dominated the initial stages of the universe.
During a time span known as the Hadean eon, our Solar System formed within a large cloud of gas and dust. The Sun’s gravitational pull brought together spatial particles to create the Earth and other planets, but they would take a long time to reach their modern forms.
Sometime during the first 800 million years of its history, the surface of the Earth changed from liquid to solid.
Archean Eon (4 – 2.5 billion years ago)
After its initial formation, the surface of the Earth was extremely hot. This subsequent eon saw the planet cool down massively, giving rise to oceans and continents, and the first recorded history of rocks.
It was early in the Archean eon that life first appeared on Earth. Our oldest discovered fossils date to roughly 3.5 billion years ago and consist of tiny, preserved microorganisms.
Paleoproterozoic Era (2.5 – 1.6 billion years ago)
The first era of the Proterozoic Eon, the Paleoproterozoic, was the longest in Earth’s geological history. Tectonic plates arose and landmasses shifted across the globe—it was the beginning of the formation of the Earth we know today.
Cyanobacteria, the first organisms using photosynthesis, also appeared during this period. Their photosynthetic activity brought about a rapid upsurge in atmospheric oxygen, resulting in the Great Oxidation Event. This killed off many primordial anaerobic bacterial groups but paved the way for multicellular life to grow and flourish.
Mesoproterozoic Era (1.6 – 1 billion years ago)
The Mesoproterozoic occurred during what is known as the “boring billion” stage of Earth’s history. That is due to a lack of widespread geochemical activity and the relative stability of the ocean carbon reservoirs.
But this era did see the break-up of the supercontinents and the formation of new continents. This period also saw the first noted case of sexual reproduction among organisms and the probable appearance of multicellular organisms and green plants.
Neoproterozoic Era (1 billion – 542.0 million years ago)
The Neoproterozoic was arguably the most profound in Earth’s history. It stands at the intersection of the two great tracts of evolutionary time: on the one side, some three billion years of predominantly microbial life, and on the other the inception of a modern biosphere with its extraordinarily diverse large multicellular organisms.
At the same time, Earth also experienced severe glaciations known as the Cryogenian Period and its first ice age, also known as Snowball Earth.
The era saw the formation of the ozone layer and the earliest evidence of multicellular life, including the emergence of the first hard-shelled animals, such as trilobites and archaeocyathids.
Paleozoic Era (541 million – 252 million years ago)
The Paleozoic is best known for ushering in an explosion of life on Earth, with two of the most critical events in the history of animal life. At its beginning, multicellular animals underwent a dramatic Cambrian explosion in aquatic diversity, and almost all living animals appeared within a few millions of years.
At the other end of the Paleozoic, the largest mass extinction in history resulted in 96% of marine life and 70% of terrestrial life dying out. Halfway between these events, animals, fungi, and plants colonized the land, and the insects took to the air.
Mesozoic Era (252 million – 66 million years ago)
The Mesozoic was the Age of Reptiles. Dinosaurs, crocodiles, and pterosaurs ruled the land and air. This era can be subdivided into three periods of time:
Triassic (252 to 201.3 million years ago)
Jurassic (201.3 to 145 million years ago)
Cretaceous (145 to 66 million years ago)
The rise of the dinosaurs began at the end of the Triassic Period. A fossil of one of the earliest-known dinosaurs, a two-legged omnivore roughly three feet long-named Eoraptor, is dated all the way back to this time.
Scientists believe the Eoraptor (and a few other early dinosaurs still being discovered today) evolved into the many species of well-known dinosaurs that would dominate the planet during the Jurassic period. They would continue to flourish well into the Cretaceous period, when it is widely accepted that the Chicxulub impactor, the plummeting asteroid that crashed into Earth off the coast of Mexico, brought the reign of the dinosaurs to an abrupt and calamitous end.
Cenozoic Era (66 million – Present Day)
After the end of the Age of Dinosaurs, this era saw massive adaptations by natural flora and fauna to survive. The plants and animals that formed during this era look most like those on Earth today.
The earliest forms of modern mammals, amphibians, birds, and reptiles can be traced back to the Cenozoic. Human history is entirely contained within this period, as apes developed through evolutionary pressure and gave rise to the present-day human being or Homo sapiens.
Compared to the evolutionary timeline of the world, human history has risen quite rapidly and dramatically. Going from our first stone tools and the Age of the Kings to concrete jungles with modern technology may seem like a long journey, but compared to everything that came before it, is but a brief blink of an eye
