INDIAN IMPERIALISM  

Conflict Tourism: Kashmir Hottest New Destination For Indians

#KASHMIR IS #INDIA'S #GAZA

By Parvaiz BUKHARI
09/22/22 

Kashmir, India's hottest new travel destination, is also the site of its deadliest insurgency

Standing on a fortified Kashmir street, an Indian tourist poses triumphantly for her husband's camera, clutching the national flag in each hand and flanked by two soldiers carrying rifles.

India's hottest new travel destination is also the site of its deadliest insurgency, where regular skirmishes break out between separatist militants and Indian troops, half a million of whom are stationed in Kashmir.

A big-budget tourism campaign, inaugurated early last year, is luring Indians to Kashmir with the promise of stunning Himalayan scenery, snow-covered hill stations and the remote Hindu shrines dotting the Muslim-majority region.

More than 1.6 million Indian travellers visited the disputed territory in the first six months of this year -- a new record, according to local officials, and four times the number that visited over the same period in 2019.

Many fraternise and take selfies with soldiers, and are dismissive of the regular firefights between troops and rebels taking place out of sight from popular destinations.


"Now everything is fine in Kashmir," Dilip Bhai, a visitor from India's Gujarat state, told AFP while waiting in queue outside a restaurant guarded by paramilitary forces.

"The news of violence we hear in media is more rumour than reality," he said, adding that whatever armed clashes were happening "on the side" did not worry him.

Security forces have tightened a chokehold on Kashmir -- also claimed and partly controlled by Pakistan -- since 2019, when India's government revoked the limited autonomy constitutionally guaranteed to the region.

That year, thousands of people were taken into preventative detention to forestall expected protests against the sudden decision, while authorities severed communications links in what became the world's longest-ever internet shutdown.

Public protests have since been made virtually impossible, local journalists are regularly harassed by police and the region is shut off to foreign reporters.

But clashes still break out in the territory almost every week, with officials counting 130 suspected rebels and 19 members of the security forces killed over the first six months of the year.

The constitutional change opened up land purchases and local jobs to Indians from outside Kashmir, and for residents, this year's influx of travellers is the final insult.

"Promotion of tourism is good, but it is done with a kind of nationalist triumphalism," a leading Kashmiri trader told AFP, asking not to be named for fear of government reprisal.

"It's like war by other means," they added. "The way tourism is being promoted by the government is telling Indians: go spend time there and make Kashmir yours."

A 1989 rebellion against Indian rule in Kashmir started a long-running insurgency that killed thousands of people and sparked a panicked migration of Hindu residents from the Muslim-majority valley.

Periodic attempts to revive the tourism market faltered, with three popular uprisings between 2008 and 2016 leaving more than 300 civilians dead and scaring off potential visitors.

But after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government revoked Kashmir's limited autonomy three years ago, authorities again began promoting the region to Indians as one of the country's premier getaway destinations.

A promotional blitz followed, with festivals, travel marts, roadshows and summits featuring Indian travel operators, sponsored by the local government and 21 major cities across India.

The government announced the opening of a ski resort among 75 new "untapped destinations" for tourists, including some close to the heavily militarised de facto border that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

Authorities are also courting investors to build 20,000 hotel rooms in addition to the 50,000 already in the territory, and they eased a homestay policy to encourage residents to host visitors.

Sarmad Hafeez, the local government's tourism secretary, told AFP that the official budget to promote tourism had "quadrupled" in the past two years.

"We changed past perceptions about Kashmir," he said. "Events sent out a clear message that Kashmir is safe to travel to."

India's drive to open Kashmir's remarkable landscape to tourism comes as the rest of its established economy languishes after the change in the territory's status.

Drastic curbs on civic life and an intensified counterinsurgency campaign have stifled local business.

IBT Fast Start - Let the best of International News come to you
Sign up and stay up to date with our daily newsletter.
You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

The government has also removed tax barriers that had helped protect local production from outside competition.

"This was the last nail in the coffin of our manufacturing industry," Shahid Kamili, president of the Federation Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Kashmir (FCIK), told AFP.

Industrial production accounts for 15 percent of the local economy, according to FCIK data -- three times the most optimistic figures for the tourism sector.

But 350,000 industrial workers lost their jobs since the region's autonomy was rescinded, Kamili said.

The region's potential for growth as a travel destination remains hampered by its violent history and prevailing unhappiness with Indian rule, leaving some visitors unnerved by the heavy security presence.

"If Kashmir is a part of India," a tourist from West Bengal told AFP, "then we should ask why there are so many security forces everywhere."

Half a million Indian troops are stationed in Kashmir to 

quell a separatist insurgency in the Muslim-majority region

Despite the push for tourism, drastic curbs on civic life and and intensified counterinsurgency campaign have stifled businesses in Kashmir

Kashmir's potential for growth as a travel destination remains

 hampered by its violent history and prevailing unhappiness with Indian rule


© Copyright AFP 2022. All rights reserved.

NASA gears up to deflect asteroid, in key test of planetary defense

THIS SHOULD BE THE JOB OF THE

U$A SPACE FORCE INC.
Issam AHMED
Thu, September 22, 2022 


Bet the dinosaurs wish they'd thought of this.

NASA on Monday will attempt a feat humanity has never before accomplished: deliberately smacking a spacecraft into an asteroid to slightly deflect its orbit, in a key test of our ability to stop cosmic objects from devastating life on Earth.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spaceship launched from California last November and is fast approaching its target, which it will strike at roughly 14,000 miles per hour (23,000 kph).

To be sure, neither the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, nor the big brother it orbits, called Didymos, pose any threat as the pair loop the Sun, passing some seven million miles from Earth at nearest approach.

But the experiment is one NASA has deemed important to carry out before an actual need is discovered.

"This is an exciting time, not only for the agency, but in space history and in the history of humankind quite frankly," Lindley Johnson, a planetary defense officer for NASA told reporters in a briefing Thursday.

If all goes to plan, impact between the car-sized spacecraft, and the 530-foot (160 meters, or two Statues of Liberty) asteroid should take place at 7:14pm Eastern Time (2314 GMT), and can be followed on a NASA livestream.

By striking Dimorphos head on, NASA hopes to push it into a smaller orbit, shaving ten minutes off the time it takes to encircle Didymos, which is currently 11 hours and 55 minutes -- a change that will be detected by ground telescopes in the days that follow.

The proof-of-concept experiment will make a reality what has before only been attempted in science fiction -- notably films such as "Armageddon" and "Don't Look Up."

- Technically challenging -

As the craft propels itself through space, flying autonomously for the mission's final phase like a self-guided missile, its main camera system, called DRACO, will start to beam down the very first pictures of Dimorphos.

"It's going to start off as a little point of light and then eventually it's going to zoom and fill the whole entire field of view," said Nancy Chabot of Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), which hosts mission control in a recent briefing.

"These images will continue until they don't," added the planetary scientist.

Minutes later, a toaster-sized satellite called LICIACube, which separated from DART a couple of weeks earlier, will make a close pass of the site to capture images of the collision and the ejecta -- the pulverized rock thrown off by impact.

LICIACube's picture will be sent back in the weeks and months that follow.

Also watching the event: an array of telescopes, both on Earth and in space -- including the recently operational James Webb -- which might be able to see a brightening cloud of dust.

Finally, a full picture of what the system looks like will be revealed when a European Space Agency mission four years down the line called Hera arrives to survey Dimorphos's surface and measure its mass, which scientists can only guess at currently.

- Being prepared -

Very few of the billions of asteroids and comets in our solar system are considered potentially hazardous to our planet, and none in the next hundred or so years.

But "I guarantee to you that if you wait long enough, there will be an object," said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's chief scientist.

We know that from the geological record -- for example, the six-mile wide Chicxulub asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago, plunging the world into a long winter that led to the mass extinction of the dinosaurs along with 75 percent of species.

An asteroid the size of Dimorphos, by contrast, would only cause a regional impact, such as devastating a city, albeit with a greater force than any nuclear bomb in history.

Scientists are also hoping to glean valuable new information that can inform them about the nature of asteroids more generally.

How much momentum DART imparts on Dimorphos will depend on whether the asteroid is solid rock, or more like a "rubbish pile" of boulders bound by mutual gravity, a property that's not yet known.

We also don't know its actual shape: whether it's more like a dog bone or a donut, but NASA engineers are confident DART's SmartNav guidance system will hit its target.

If it misses, NASA will have another shot in two years' time, with the spaceship containing just enough fuel for another pass.

But if it succeeds, then it's a first step towards a world capable of defending itself from a future existential threat, said Chabot.

ia/mdl

After asteroid collision, Europe's Hera will probe 'crime scene'

A NASA mission to deliberately smash a spacecraft into an asteroid blasts off on Monday

September 23, 2022 - AFP

After NASA deliberately smashes a car-sized spacecraft into an asteroid next week, it will be up to the European Space Agency's Hera mission to investigate the "crime scene" and uncover the secrets of these potentially devastating space rocks.

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) aims to collide with the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos on Monday night, hoping to slightly alter its trajectory -- the first time such an operation has been attempted.

Astronomers around the world will watch DART's impact, and its effect will be closely followed to see if the mission passed the test.

The Hera spacecraft is planned to launch in October 2024, aiming to arrive at Dimorphos in 2026 to measure the exact impact DART had on the asteroid.

- 'A new world' -

Hera will be loaded up with cameras, spectrometers, radars and even toaster-sized nano-satellites to measure the asteroid's shape, mass, chemical composition and more.

"If an asteroid is made up of, for example, loose gravel, approaches to disrupt it may be different than if it was metal or some other kind of rock," she told the International Astronautical Congress in Paris this week.

"Asteroids are not boring space rocks -- they are super exciting because they have a great diversity" in size, shape and composition, Michel said.

"Unless you touch the surface, you cannot know the mechanical response," he said.

For example, when a Japanese probe dropped a small explosive near the surface of the Ryugu asteroid in 2019, it was expected to make a crater of two or three metres. Instead, it blasted a 50-metre hole.

"The surface behaved almost like a fluid," rather than solid rock, he added. "How weird is that?"

Binary systems like Dimorphos and Didymos represent around 15 percent of known asteroids, but have not yet been explored.

Learning about the impact of DART is not only important for planetary defence, Michel said, but also for understanding the history of our Solar System, where most cosmic bodies were formed through collisions and are now riddled with craters.

juc/dl/kjm

Water found in asteroid dust may offer clues to origins of life on Earth

Discovery offers new support for the theory that life may have been seeded from outer space

The dust was collected from the asteroid Ryugu by the Japan’s Hayabusa-2 probe.

 Photograph: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agen/Reuters

Agence France-Presse in Tokyo

Thu 22 Sep 2022

Specks of dust that a Japanese space probe retrieved from an asteroid about 186 million miles (300m kilometres) from Earth have revealed a surprising component: a drop of water.

The discovery offers new support for the theory that life on Earth may have been seeded from outer space.

The findings are in the latest research to be published from analysis of 5.4 grammes of stones and dust that the Hayabusa-2 probe gathered from the asteroid Ryugu.

“This drop of water has great meaning,” the lead scientist, Tomoki Nakamura of Tohoku University, told reporters before publication of the research in the journal Science on Friday.


Hayabusa2 comes home: remarkable space probe could open another window into how life originated

“Many researchers believe that water was brought [from outer space], but we actually discovered water in Ryugu, an asteroid near Earth, for the first time.”

Hayabusa-2 was launched in 2014 on its mission to Ryugu, and returned to Earth’s orbit two years ago to drop off a capsule containing the sample.

The precious cargo has already yielded several insights, including organic material that showed some of the building blocks of life on Earth, amino acids, may have been formed in space.

The team’s latest discovery was a drop of fluid in the Ryugu sample “which was carbonated water containing salt and organic matter”, Nakamura said.

That bolsters the theory that asteroids such as Ryugu, or its larger parent asteroid, could have “provided water, which contains salt and organic matter” in collisions with Earth, he said.

“We have discovered evidence that this may have been directly linked to, for example, the origin of the oceans or organic matter on Earth.”

Nakamura’s team, which is made up of about 150 researchers – including 30 from the US, Britain, France, Italy and China – is one of the largest teams analysing the sample from Ryugu.

The sample has been divided among different scientific teams to maximise the chance of new discoveries.

Kensei Kobayashi, an astrobiology expert and professor emeritus at Yokohama National University who is not part of the research group, hailed the discovery.

“The fact that water was discovered in the sample itself is surprising”, given its fragility and the chances of it being destroyed in outer space, he said.

“It does suggest that the asteroid contained water, in the form of fluid and not just ice, and organic matter may have been generated in that water.”

Researchers have used beams of muons to analyze the elemental composition of Asteroid Ryugu samples

Peer-Reviewed Publication

KAVLI INSTITUTE FOR THE PHYSICS AND MATHEMATICS OF THE UNIVERSE

 

IMAGE: FIGURE 1: (LEFT) A MUONIC X-RAY CREATED AFTER A MUON IS CAPTURED BY AN IRRADIATED MATERIAL, AND (RIGHT) A SAMPLE OF THE ASTEROID RYUGU. view more 

CREDIT: (LEFT IMAGE) MUON ANALYSIS TEAM, (RIGHT IMAGE) JAXA

Stone samples brought back to Earth from asteroid Ryugu have had their elemental composition analyzed using an artificially generated muon beam from the particle accelerator in J-PARC. Researchers found a number of important elements needed to sustain life, including carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, but also found the oxygen abundance relative to silicon in asteroid Ryugu was different from all m

eteorites that have been found on Earth, reports a new study in Science.

In 2014, the unmanned asteroid explorer Hayabusa 2 was launched into space by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) with a mission to bring back samples from asteroid Ryugu, a type C asteroid that researchers believed was rich in carbon. After successfully landing on Ryugu and collecting samples, Hayabusa 2 returned to Earth in December 2020 with samples intact. 

Since 2021, researchers have been running the first analyses of the samples, led by University of Tokyo Professor Shogo Tachibana. Split into several teams, researchers have been studying the samples in different ways, including stone shapes, elemental distribution, and mineral composition. 

In this study, led by Tohoku University Professor Tomoki Nakamura, Professor Tadayuki Takahashi and graduate student Shunsaku Nagasawa of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), University of Tokyo, in collaboration with the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) Institute for Materials Structure Science, Osaka University, Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), Kyoto University, International Christian University, Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), and Tohoku University, have applied elemental analysis methods using negative muons, elementary particles produced by the accelerator at J-PARC. They applied the elemental analysis method using negative muons to stones from the asteroid Ryugu, succeeding in nondestructively determining their elemental compositions.

This was important, because if asteroids in the Solar System were built at the beginning of the formation of the Solar System itself, then they would still be withholding information about the average elemental composition at that time, and therefore of the entire Solar System.

Analysis of meteorites that have fallen to Earth have been carried out in the past, but it is possible these samples have been contaminated by the Earth's atmosphere. So, until Hayabusa 2, no one knew what the chemical composition of an asteroid was for sure.

But the researchers faced a challenge. Because of the limited amount of samples and the large number of other researchers wanting to study them, they needed to find a way to run their analyses without damaging them so that the samples could be passed on to other groups.

The team had developed a new method, which involved shooting a quantum beam, or specifically a beam of negative muons, produced by one of the world's largest high-energy particle accelerators J-PARC in Ibaraki prefecture, Japan, to identify the chemical elements of sensitive samples without breaking them. 

Takahashi and Nagasawa then applied statistical analysis techniques in X-ray astronomy and particle physics experiments to analyze muon characteristic X-ray.

Muons are one of the elementary particles in the universe. Their ability to penetrate deeper into materials than X-rays makes them ideal in material analysis. When a negative muon is captured by the irradiated sample, a muonic atom is formed (figure 1). The muonic X-rays emitted from the new muonic atoms have high energy, and so can be detected with high sensitivity. This method was used to analyze the Ryugu samples.

But there was another challenge. In order to keep the samples from being contaminated by the Earth's atmosphere, the researchers needed to keep the samples out of contact with oxygen and water in the air. Therefore, they had to develop an experimental setup, casing the sample in a chamber of helium gas (figure 2). The inner walls of the chamber were lined with pure copper to minimize the background noise when analyzing the samples.

In June 2021, 0.1 grams of Ryugu asteroid were brought into J-PARC, and the researchers ran their muon X-ray analysis, which produced an energy spectrum (figure 3). In it, they found the elements needed to produce life, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, but they also found the sample had a composition similar to that of carbonaceous chondrite (CI chondrite) asteroids, which are often referred to as the standard for solid substances in the Solar System. This showed the Ryugu stones were some of the earliest stones to have formed in our Solar System. 

However, while similar in composition to CI chondrites, the Ryugu sample’s oxygen abundance relative to silicon was about 25 per cent less than that of the CI chondrite (figure 4). The researchers say this could indicate that the excess oxygen abundance relative to silicon in CI chondrites could have come from contamination after they entered Earth's atmosphere. Ryugu stones could set a new standard for matter in the Solar System.

The team’s results show the success of the muonic x-ray method, and that it can be used to analyze samples from future space missions. 

Details of this study were published in Science on September 22.

Figure 2: The custom-made experiment setup developed to avoid the samples from being contaminated by the Earth’s atmosphere. The interior is filled with helium gas, and the chamber is lined with pure copper to minimize background noise.

CREDIT

Muon analysis team

Figure 3: Muonic x-ray spectral comparison of asteroid Ryugu sample and CI chondrite Orgueil.

CREDIT

Muon analysis team

Figure 4: Comparison of the elemental composition of asteroid Ryugu sample and CI chondrite Orgueil (K. Lodders, The Astrophysical Journal, 591, 1220-1247, 2003). The oxygen x-ray shows the Ryugu sample’s oxygen abundance relative to silicon was less compared to CI chondrite.

CREDIT

Muon analysis team

Figure 5: Group photo of the researchers.

CREDIT

Muon analysis team

JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.abn8671 

ARTICLE TITLE

Formation and evolution of carbonaceous asteroid Ryugu: Direct evidence from returned samples

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

22-Sep-2022

Analysis of particles of the asteroid Ryugu delivers surprising results

Team from Goethe University Frankfurt contributes to article in Science

Peer-Reviewed Publication

GOETHE UNIVERSITY FRANKFURT

FRANKFURT. Frank Brenker and his team are world leaders in a method that makes it possible to analyse the chemical composition of material in a three-dimensional and entirely non-destructive way and without complicated sample preparation – yet with a resolution of under 100 nanometres. Resolution expresses the smallest perceptible difference between two measured values. The method’s long name is “Synchrotron Radiation induced X-Ray Fluorescence Computed Tomography”, in short SR-XRF-CT.

Japan had chosen Ryugu (English: Dragon’s Palace) as the probe’s destination because it is an asteroid which, due to its high carbon content, promised to deliver particularly extensive information about the origin of life in our solar system. The analyses conducted on 16 particles by the researchers together with the scientists in Frankfurt have now shown that Ryugu is composed of  CI-type material. These are very similar to the Sun in terms of their chemical composition. So far, CI-material has only rarely been found on Earth – material of which it was unclear how much it had been altered or contaminated when entering Earth’s atmosphere or upon impact with our planet. Furthermore, the analysis confirms the assumption that Ryugu originated from a parent asteroid which formed in the outer solar nebula.

Until now, scientists had assumed that there was hardly any transport of material within the asteroid due to the low temperatures during the formation of the CI material in the early days of the solar system and therefore scarcely any possibility for a massive accumulation of elements. By means of SR-XRF-CT, however, the researchers in Frankfurt found a fine vein of magnetite – an iron oxide mineral – and hydroxyapatite, a phosphate mineral, in one of the grains of the asteroid. Other groups of scientists established that the structure and other magnetite-hydroxyapatite regions in the Ryugu samples must have formed at a surprisingly low temperature of under 40 °C. This finding is fundamental for interpreting almost all the results that the analysis of the Ryugu samples has generated and will generate in future.

In areas of the samples containing hydroxyapatite, Frank Brenker’s team additionally detected rare earth metals – a group of chemical elements indispensable today for alloys and glassware for high-tech applications, among others. “The rare earths occur in the hydroxyapatite of the asteroid in concentrations 100 times higher than elsewhere in the solar system,” says Brenker. What’s more, he says, all the elements of the rare earth metals have accumulated in the phosphate mineral to the same degree – which is also unusual. Brenker is convinced: “This equal distribution of rare earths is a further indication that Ryugu is a very pristine asteroid that represents the beginnings of our solar system.”

It is by no means a matter of course that researchers from Goethe University Frankfurt were allowed to examine samples from the Hayabusa 2 mission: after all, Japan undertook this space mission alone and, according to information from 2010, raised €123 million for it. It therefore also wants to reap a large part of the scientific harvest. But ultimately Japan did not want to forego the expertise of the German SR-XRF-CT specialists.

The research results by the Hayabusa2 Initial Analysis of Stones Team (led by Prof. Tomoki Nakamura, Tohoku University), including this research result, were published in Science on Thursday, September 22, 14pm. JAXA press release: https://global.jaxa.jp/press/2022/09/20220923-1_e.html

---

JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.abn8671 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Formation and evolution of Cb-type asteroid Ryugu: Direct evidence from returned samples

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

22-Sep-2022

Australian rescuers race to save stranded pilot whales

Author: AFP|Update: 23.09.2022


Fewer than 10 of the pilot whales are still alive on Ocean Beach, in remote western Tasmania / © AFP

Australian rescuers battled Friday to refloat the last surviving pilot whales from a mass stranding that killed nearly 200 of the animals on a surf-battered beach in Tasmania.

Fewer than 10 of the shiny black mammals are still alive on Ocean Beach, in remote western Tasmania, state wildlife services said.

About 30 of the animals were released into the ocean on Thursday, but some had beached themselves again, said Brendon Clark, incident controller with the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service.

Under cool drizzle, marine wildlife experts began to wrap up a complex days-long rescue operation that started with a large pod of the animals, which are part of the dolphin family, stranding on the beach mid-week.

Three pilot whales had yet to be reached because of their remote location on the shore and the difficult tidal conditions, Clark told reporters at the scene.

"The priority still is the rescue and release of those remaining animals and any others that we identify that re-strand," he said.

Next, Clark said, comes the task of disposing of the carcases.

- Carcasses -

© AFP

Wildlife workers used a fork-lift truck to line up whale carcasses along the beach, their tails pointed to the frigid ocean.

One small, young calf could be seen tied up alongside the larger adult pilot whales.

A long white line was looped around the tails of dozens of the animals to allow them to be towed en masse to disposal at sea.

Weather forecasts indicated the "best opportunity" for the operation would be on Sunday, Clark said.

If left in shallow waters or on the beach, the carcases could attract sharks and can carry disease.

"We are making every effort to consolidate the carcasses at the moment into one spot and then push ahead with getting them offshore," said Kris Carlyon, operations manager with the state wildlife services.

Once in the water the carcasses can attract predators or become a collision risk, Carlyon said, but experts hoped the winds and currents would push them out to sea, and some were expected to sink.

- Distress signals -

Whale sonar navigation / © AFP

Two years ago, Macquarie Harbour was the scene of the country's largest-ever mass stranding, involving almost 500 pilot whales.

More than 300 pilot whales died during that event, despite the efforts of dozens of volunteers who toiled for days in Tasmania's freezing waters to free them.

Scientists still do not fully understand why mass strandings occur.

Some have suggested pods go off track after feeding too close to shore.

Pilot whales -- which can grow to more than six metres (20 feet) long -- are also highly sociable, so they may follow pod-mates who stray into danger.

That sometimes occurs when old, sick or injured animals swim ashore and other pod members follow, trying to respond to the trapped whale's distress signals.

Others believe gently sloping beaches like those found in Tasmania confuse the whales' sonar, making them think they are in open waters.

The latest stranding came days after a dozen young male sperm whales were reported dead in a separate mass stranding on King Island -- between Tasmania and the Australian mainland.

State officials said that incident may have been a case of "misadventure".

Strandings are also common in nearby New Zealand.

There, around 300 animals beach themselves annually, according to official figures, and it is not unusual for groups of between 20 and 50 pilot whales to run aground.

But numbers can run into the hundreds when a "super pod" is involved. In 2017, there was a mass stranding of almost 700 pilot whales.

Cubans to vote on same-sex marriage, surrogacy

Issued on: 23/09/2022 - 

People gather in Cuba's La Lisa municipality in Havana province for a meeting called to discuss the new family code in February 2022 

ADALBERTO ROQUE AFP/File


Havana (AFP) – Cubans will vote on Sunday in a referendum on whether to allow same-sex marriage and surrogate pregnancies, which experts say could turn into an opportunity to voice opposition against the government.

More than eight million Cubans aged over 16 are eligible to participate in the voluntary and secret ballot -- the first time a law will be decided by public vote.

Coming just months after the government passed a penal code slammed for rolling back freedom of expression, the family code would not only permit marriage and surrogacy (as long as no money is exchanged), but also adoption by same-sex couples and parental rights for non-biological mothers and fathers.

If the law is approved, Cuba would become only the ninth country in Latin America to allow same-sex marriage, following in the footsteps of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Chile, Uruguay and some Mexican states.

The vote comes with Cuba mired in a deep economic crisis that is fueling mass immigration away from the island, with an increasingly vocal population expressing unhappiness with the one-party state.

As a result, Sunday's referendum on the government initiative may become a protest vote.

With Havana having carried out an intense campaign in favor of the measures, a vote against the items could provide Cubans with a rare opportunity to publicly rebuke their government.#photo1

Many could vote "No" or even abstain altogether as a way "to make the government pay for the crisis," Arturo Lopez-Levy, a Cuban academic at Holy Names University in California, told AFP.

The referendum, he added, amounted to a unique "opportunity to show approval or disapproval" with the communist government.

And while "No" is unlikely to win, it is expected to garner between 25 and 30 percent of votes, which would in itself be something of a rebuke to the government.

In 2019, the new constitution was also put to a referendum and approved with 78 percent of the vote, but that was already the lowest approval rate the government had received since the 1959 communist revolution.

Clampdown

Six decades after Fidel Castro's revolution, Cuba is experiencing its worst economic crisis in 30 years, fueled by ramped-up US sanctions and a tourism collapse due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Many Cubans are struggling to access medicine, electricity, fuel and basic foodstuffs amid critical import shortages and staggering inflation.

The country erupted in historic anti-government protests in July last year by citizens clamoring for food and greater freedoms.#photo2

Hundreds were detained and jailed, but this has not stopped repeated demonstrations in recent months in a country notoriously intolerant of dissent.

In May, the parliament unanimously approved a reform to Cuba's penal code, with strict limits on social media use opponents say was designed to quash future displays of public discontent.
'A father and a mother'

The family code is meant to replace legislation from 1975 that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

The government had sought to change this in the 2019 constitution, but withdrew its proposal amid strong opposition from churches and conservative groups.

It was worked instead into the family code, which President Miguel Diaz-Canel tweeted on Wednesday represents "the hope of thousands of people marked by painful stories of exclusion and silence."

Marginalization of LGBTQ people in traditionally macho Cuban society peaked in the 1960s and '70s.

In 2010, Castro admitted the Cuban revolution had oppressed members of the community as deviants, including with forced labor camps for re-education. Some were driven into exile.

A major opponent of the family code is Cuba's powerful Catholic Church, which maintains "it is a child's right to have a father and a mother."

The government beat the drum for its initiative during weeks of countrywide public consultations it said were attended by more than half of Cuba's 11.2 million people.

Other proposals in the code include clearly defining the rights of the elderly, and stipulating that no one found guilty of abusing minors can ever adopt a child.

The code requires more than 50 percent of votes to pass, and would enter into force the day after the results are known.

Even if there is a protest vote Sunday, or the draft is rejected on principle, some believe the outcome is already sewn up anyway, and the code will pass.

"It is already decided," said Martha Beatriz Roque, a long-term dissident who is convinced the government was merely paying lip service to "respecting the rights of people."

© 2022 AFP

Fears for rights under Italy's 'Christian mother' Meloni

Issued on: 23/09/2022 -

Meloni's party uses the flame logo of the MSI, formed by supporters of Fascist dictator Mussolini 

Piero CRUCIATTI AFP

Rome (AFP) – From abortion to gay marriage, civil rights activists in Catholic-majority Italy fear a significant set-back with the expected election triumph of a far-right party dedicated to defending "traditional family values".

Giorgia Meloni, a 45-year-old who has campaigned under the slogan of "God, country and family" and against "woke ideology", is likely to become Italy's first female prime minister if her post-fascist Brothers of Italy party wins the general election on Sunday.

"Yes to natural families, no to the LGBT lobby! Yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology! Yes to the culture of life, no to the abyss of death!" a wild-eyed Meloni cried in a speech in June.

"Christian mother" Meloni has since blamed the febrile tirade, made during a rally of the Spanish far-right Vox party, on tiredness -- although she said she would "change the tone, not the content".

A series of left-leaning celebrities, including Instagram star Chiara Ferragni, have sounded the alarm over Meloni's Brothers of Italy party and its allies, Matteo Salvini's anti-immigrant League and Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing Forza Italia.

Pierpaolo Piccioli, creative director at fashion house Valentino, was on Thursday the latest to urge voters to defend rights won in the shadow of the Vatican.

"It's not enough to call for new rights. We have to fight to make sure we keep those we have", he told the Repubblica daily, adding that he wanted his children to "live in an Italy without fear".
Peppa Pig

The attack by a senior Brothers of Italy member earlier this month on co-parenting lesbian polar bears in the Peppa Pig cartoon -- a storyline he slammed as "gender indoctrination" -- prompted both ridicule and unease.

Civil partners Alessia and Eleonora, mothers to a one-year-old boy in Rome, told AFP how painful it was to not be seen as equal.

"We do the same things as all parents... (but) we aren't recognised as a family in Italy," said Alessia, who declined to give her surname.

The centre-left Democratic Party (PD) says gay marriage and same-sex adoption are priorities, with leader Enrico Letta telling Meloni recently that the most important thing for children was "to be loved".

They need "a father and a mother", retorted Meloni.

The left also wants citizenship rights for children born in Italy of migrant parents -- a hotly contested issue.

Abortion rights

Brothers of Italy has roots in a neo-fascist movement formed to carry on the legacy of dictator Benito Mussolini.

Some of the old guard remain, but Meloni is attempting to construe herself instead as a "nationalist conservative", said Mabel Berezin, an expert on fascist, nationalist and populist movements.

Fears that a Meloni-led government would ape violations of fundamental principles seen in Hungary or Poland were probably "overblown", the sociologist at Cornell University told AFP.

The risks may be subtler than that, according to Emma Bonino, who leads the +Europe party.

Abortion became the most divisive campaign issue after Meloni said she wanted to give a choice to women unsure about terminating pregnancies.

"We won't touch the abortion law. We just want (women) to know there are other options," she said.

Meloni is likely to keep her word on not criminalising abortion, said Bonino, who did time in jail in the 1970s for her fight to legalise it.

But she fears Meloni will instead "push for the law to be ignored", exacerbating an existing problem -- difficulties in getting hold of abortion pills or finding gynaecologists willing to perform terminations.

"There are entire regions where... the gynaecologists are all conscientious objectors" who can opt out of performing the operation, Bonino said -- referring in particular to the Marche region in central Italy, which is governed by Brothers of Italy.
Valuing women

Meloni's supporters see her as a symbol of female empowerment -- an unmarried, working parent, who is about to break the political glass ceiling.

Laura Boldrini, one of Italy's most high-profile female politicians, said she did not think Meloni in charge "would mean women's lives improve".

"Meloni has never been about affirming women's rights, about valuing women or breaking down prejudices against them," she said this week.

Michela Murgia, a writer and political activist, said Meloni was a "violent creature... who has learned to speak in a reassuring way" so that "positions previously considered extremist now appear good sense".

Italy would do well, she said, to remember the Meloni at the Vox rally, "who seems possessed" and would "bring the same violence to her political rule".

© 2022 AFP

Women’s rights denied: Abortion on the line as Italy’s far right eyes power

Benjamin DODMAN - 23/09/22

Italy’s surging far-right parties have been eroding abortion rights at the regional level, adding further hurdles to what was already an obstacle course for many women. With Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing coalition tipped to win the country’s general election on Sunday, there are fears the same policies could be replicated at the national level.


 Marco Bertorello, AFP file photo

When Silvia* was taken off the pill on medical grounds, her doctor did not mention the possibility of using other contraceptive methods. When she ended up with an unwanted pregnancy months later, the same doctor chose to ignore her request for an abortion.

Over the next 10 days, the young woman from rural Abruzzo raced from one health centre to another looking for a way to terminate her pregnancy. By the time she found a clinic willing to help her in the neighbouring Marche region, the deadline for a medical abortion there had lapsed, meaning she would have to undergo a surgical procedure she was hoping to avoid.

“It’s bad enough having to make such a decision,” said the 35-year-old mother of one, voicing her anguish and shame at the process. “It’s a lot worse when you have to repeat the same things to a dozen strangers, waiting in long lines, and hear them answer things like, ‘Have you given it proper thought?’”

Silvia’s obstacle race tells the story of a state that has abdicated its responsibility to uphold women’s hard-won rights – and of a concerted political effort to make a difficult situation worse. It also highlights the crucial work carried out by a small number of health professionals and activists plugging a hole in Italian healthcare, many of whom are delaying retirement because no one will replace them.

Italy legalised abortion in 1978, making the procedure freely available during the first 90 days of pregnancy. In practice, however, women face obstacles at every turn, from doctors refusing to approve or carry out abortions to regional governments ignoring the law and staffing key agencies with anti-abortion activists.

Silvia was fortunate to land at AIED, a non-profit family clinic in the town of Ascoli Piceno that provides abortion services in an area where the public service fails to. The clinic’s deputy head Tiziana Antonucci flagged a “lack of political will” to properly enforce the law.

“It’s up to the regions to guarantee abortion services and they are failing in their duty. Some are even adding further hurdles,” she said, pausing to take a phone call from another anguished patient who was denied an abortion by her gynaecologist.

New hurdles are being raised in regions administered by far-right parties, like Marche and Abruzzo, where Giorgia Meloni’s party Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) rules in coalition with the anti-immigrant Lega of Matteo Salvini. Women’s rights activists fear the same could happen nationwide after the country’s general election on September 25, in which Meloni and her allies are tipped to win a sweeping majority.

Marche, a picturesque central region wedged in between the Apennines and the Adriatic Sea, was once reliably moderate in its politics – but the mood has changed. Its equal opportunities councillor, in charge of women’s rights, is openly opposed to abortion. When Italy's health ministry issued guidelines in 2020 allowing women to have non-surgical abortions as outpatients until nine weeks of pregnancy, the regional government refused to implement them.

“The guidelines were designed to relieve the pressure on hospitals at the height of the pandemic, but the authorities here rejected them on ideological grounds,” said Antonucci. “They didn’t care about public health, the risk of contagion, or the risk of complications from delaying abortions,” she added. “The only objective was to raise more obstacles for women.”

When AIED was founded back in 1953, its first battle was to repeal a Fascist-era law that labelled contraception a crime “against the Italian race”. Antonucci says similar language has resurfaced in recent years amid mounting anxiety over Italy’s declining birthrate. Carlo Ciccioli, the Brothers of Italy group leader in Marche’s regional council, has dismissed abortion as a “rearguard battle” and warned of “ethnic substitution” in Italian schools.

A scion of Italy's post-fascist right, Meloni’s party has made bolstering Italy’s low birthrate a key priority. At a recent rally in Milan, she warned that the “Italian nation” was “destined to disappear”. Like other far-right oufits, her party has supplemented its nationalist, anti-immigrant pitch with messages about conservative social values and the protection of traditional families. Its motto is “God, homeland, family”.

Brothers of Italy denies it plans to repeal the country’s landmark abortion law, arguing instead that it will “improve” it by guaranteeing “alternatives to abortion”. Its policy platform contains ambiguous language, such as a pledge to “protect life from the beginning”. At a rally staged by Spain's far-right Vox party in June, Meloni shouted: “Yes to the culture of life! No to the culture of death!”

Influencer takes on Meloni

The Meloni juggernaut hit a curb on August 24 when her party’s thinly disguised efforts to frustrate abortion rights were denounced in an Instagram story sent out to 27 million smartphones. Its author was Chiara Ferragni, Italy’s best-known influencer, who claimed Brothers of Italy had made it “practically impossible” for a woman to have an abortion in Marche.

“This is a policy which risks becoming national if the right wins the elections,” said the former model and businesswoman, whose husband, prominent rapper Fedez, has also sparred with the far right. “Now is the time to act and to ensure that these things do not happen,” she added.

Ferragni’s unrivalled audience ensured her post triggered a furious row, pushing abortion rights into the limelight. Her comments drew angry complaints from the right and opportunistic plaudits from left-wing parties usually accustomed to sweeping the subject under the rug.

“She cast a spotlight on Marche – and we certainly thank her for raising the issue,” said AIED’s Antonucci. “But similar difficulties can be encountered in regions across Italy,” she added, noting that centre-left administrations have done little to tackle the many obstacles to abortion.

One prominent hurdle is the high number of medical practitioners who refuse to carry out or assist in abortions, ostensibly on moral grounds. They account for two thirds of all gynaecologists in Italy, according to the health ministry’s latest tally, though the figure conceals significant regional disparities.

While the law protects health workers’ right to be “conscientious objectors”, it also states that the authorities have a duty to ensure abortions can be carried out at all public facilities. That obligation is routinely flouted. Data published in May by the Luca Coscioni Association, which advocates for abortion rights, found that objectors exceeded 80 percent of staff at 72 hospitals across the country, including 22 where the figure was 100 percent.

To get around such roadblocks, feminist groups like Obiezione Respinta (Objection Overruled) have created interactive online maps where women can warn others where they will be turned away. Such initiatives are a crucial help to women abandoned by the state, said Marina Toschi, one of two gynaecologists who carry out abortions in Ascoli on behalf of AIED.

“If you live in Milan or some other big city, you’re mostly fine. But if you come from a small village in the Marche, it’s a whole different matter,” she said. “It’s a jungle. There’s no information, no helpline, no way of knowing who will help you and who won’t. The state should accompany you, but it doesn’t. Instead, you must follow the cursed path, relying only on friends, feminist groups and yourself.”

‘Saboteurs of the law’

A “combative pensioner”, Toschi travels twice a month to Ascoli from her home in Umbria, crossing the Sybilline Mountains steeped in legends of matriarchal societies subdued by Christianity.

“Pressure from the Church” is one reason the Italian state has failed to uphold women’s reproductive rights, she said, “starting from schools where sex education is glossed over and contraception often taboo”. The pattern is much the same in higher education: “One can do five years of specialised studies in gynaecology without knowing how to fit a contraceptive coil or what an abortion pill even looks like.”

The combination of societal pressure, lack of funding and dim career prospects ensures health workers continue to steer clear of abortions in later years, added the gynaecologist, for whom “moral” objection is often based on expediency.

“Forget ethical objections – if doctors were paid €100 for an abortion they’d be lining up to do them,” she quipped. “But when all the money is put elsewhere, why waste your time and career prospects helping out the poor souls begging for an abortion?”

Toschi argues that the excessive focus on objectors deflects attention from the root of the problem – those she describes as “saboteurs” of the law. They include politicians who staff family planning clinics with "pro-life" activists, pharmacists who refuse to dispense morning-after pills, hospital managers who fail to hire qualified non-objectors, and authorities that allow them to get away with this scot-free.

Marte Manca, a member of the feminist group Nonunadimeno (Not one [woman] less), said opponents of Italy’s abortion law have become increasingly assertive, inflicting what she describes as “psychological terrorism” on women who seek to terminate a pregnancy.

“Pro-life activists have infiltrated hospitals and family planning clinics, spreading their word in state facilities that should be secular,” she said. “Their aim is to make women feel guilty and delay abortions as much as they can – which is dangerous, because it means playing with women’s health.”

A laboratory for the far right

While successive centre-left administrations “simply ignored the problem”, Manca said right-wing councils in Marche and other regions are making an already difficult situation worse.

In northern Piedmont, the ruling far-right coalition has offered cash handouts to pregnant women who plan to abort, to convince them to reconsider. In Abruzzo, the first region administered by Brothers of Italy, the party unsuccessfully pushed a law last year that would have required a grave burial for all aborted fetuses, even against the wishes of the woman.

“They can’t repeal the abortion law, but they can make it even more impracticable,” said Manca, pointing to Marche’s decision to ignore national guidelines on medical abortion, “which effectively makes non-surgical abortions almost impossible”. She cited other policies, including the decision to scrap the region’s sponsorship of the annual gay Pride, as signs of a broader pushback on rights in the region.

Marche has served as a laboratory for the far right’s policies, according to Paolo Berizzi, a journalist at Italian daily La Repubblica who has been under round-the-clock police protection for the past three years after receiving death threats from neo-fascist groups.

“They’ve experimented on a local scale a model they are preparing to reproduce at the national level,” said Berizzi, who has written extensively about the extreme right in Italy. “This involves rolling back on certain rights, introducing policies tailored for traditional families, and campaigning against abortion. It’s a path that is anti-progressive, that is opposed to modernity and the principle of equal rights for all, in which men and women are assigned specific roles.”

Back in Ascoli, AIED’s Antonucci spoke of a strategic plan to occupy key positions – such as the equal opportunities portfolios – in order to shape public policy and boycott certain rights. The far right’s attempts to prevent women from terminating unwanted pregnancies are misguided, she argued, “because history shows you cannot stop abortion – it simply goes underground”.

Instead of harassing women, she added, governments should fulfil their legal obligation to provide free contraception, which would spare many women the hardship and tragedy of an abortion while also saving the state a lot of money.

“If anti-abortion campaigners think they can strip citizens of certain rights we fought hard for, they’re mistaken,” Antonucci warned. “There will be no going back.”

*Silvia's name was changed to protect her privacy

11 Police Hurt At Mexico Protest Over Missing Students

09/22/22 

Protesters demanding justice for 43 Mexican students who disappeared in 2014

 paint graffiti outside the attorney general's office in Mexico City 

AFP / RODRIGO ARANGUA

A protest to demand justice for 43 Mexican students who disappeared in 2014 turned violent on Thursday, leaving 11 police officers injured, authorities said.

A confrontation took place outside the attorney general's office in Mexico City after demonstrators gathered, calling for people linked to the case to be arrested.

"Some protesters physically assaulted officers and threw explosive devices at them," Mexico City's public security secretariat said in a statement.

"Consequently, 11 police were injured by firecrackers and bruises from blows to different parts of the body," it said.

The officers were taken to hospital for evaluation and were found to be out of danger, the statement said.

Demonstrators scrawled graffiti outside the attorney general's office and carried banners demanding the safe return of the students.

So far, the remains of only three victims have been identified.

On Wednesday, relatives of the students protested outside Israel's embassy, demanding the extradition of Tomas Zeron, a former top investigator wanted in connection with the case.

Zeron is one of the architects of the so-called "historical truth," the official version of the case presented in 2015 that was rejected by the victims' relatives and independent experts.

The 43 teaching students had commandeered buses in the southern state of Guerrero to travel to a demonstration in Mexico City before they went missing.

Investigators say they were detained by corrupt police and handed over to a drug cartel that mistook them for members of a rival gang, but exactly what happened to them is disputed.

Last month, a truth commission tasked by the current government to investigate the atrocity branded the case a "state crime" involving agents of various institutions.

The next day, former attorney general Jesus Murillo Karam, who led the controversial "historical truth" investigation, was detained on charges of forced disappearance, torture and obstruction of justice.

Prosecutors said that arrest warrants had been issued for more than 80 suspects, including 20 military personnel, 44 police officers and 14 cartel members.

Mexico City police injured by explosion at protest

Fabiola Sanchez And Fernando Llano
The Associated Press

Thursday, September 22, 2022

A police officer calls for paramedics after several of their own were injured by an explosive device during clashes outside of Mexico's Attorney General's Office in Mexico City, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022. The demonstrators were marching ahead of the anniversary of the 2014 disappearance of 43 students of a teachers' college in Iguala, Guerrero. Multiple police were injured by the explosion and loaded onto ambulances. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

MEXICO CITY -- An explosion occurred outside Mexico's Attorney General's Office on Thursday, injuring police as protesters demonstrating ahead of the anniversary of the 2014 disappearance of 43 students clashed with officers clad in riot gear.

Those injured by the explosion were loaded onto ambulances. Broken glass and blood were visible.

Members of a bomb squad cordoned off the area. One undetonated object that an explosives technician recovered appeared to be a small pipe bomb – a tube with two capped ends.

Mexico City's police department said that 11 police officers were injured by shrapnel from fireworks and some suffered bruises. They were all taken to hospitals and the injuries were not considered life threatening.

The protest was just one of a host of activities planned in advance of Monday's 8th anniversary of the students' disappearances. Protests that includes relatives of the disappeared students have usually remained peaceful.

Thursday's demonstration started that way too, with chants and speeches. Most of the protesters boarded buses and left before a small group that stayed behind clashed with police.

Some masked protesters threw rocks and launched bottle rockets into police lines. Others spray painted areas around the building with demands for the missing students' safe return.

The police bunched together, crouching below their plastic shields and were engulfed in smoke.

"I was in the entrance to my store when four bombs went off like bottle rockets which is what they launched at the Attorney General's Office, toward the windows," said 19-year-old Jose Rivera Cruz, who sells clothing to one side of the office. "There was smoke and they closed the metro bus station (across the street). And most of the police were running and trying to get to the patrol cars and the ambulances."

As more police arrived to help the injured and secure the area, the protesters left, he said.

On Sept. 26, 2014, local police in Iguala, Guerrero abducted 43 students from a radical teachers' college. They were allegedly turned over to a drug gang and never seen again. Three victims were later identified by burned bone fragments.

Last month, Interior Undersecretary Alejandro Encinas, who leads a truth commission investigating the case, called it a "state crime" and directly implicated the military, among other state actors including local and state police.

Former Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam, who oversaw the original investigation into the disappearances, was arrested last month on charges of torture, official misconduct and forced disappearance. Last week, Mexico arrested a retired general, who had been in charge of the local army base in Iguala when the abductions occurred.

Dozens of student protesters arrived at the Attorney General's Office aboard buses Thursday morning. Police with helmets and riot shields formed several lines of defence in front the entrances.

On Wednesday, activists had vandalized the exterior of Israel's embassy in Mexico City. Mexico is seeking the extradition from Israel of another key figure in the investigation of the students' disappearances.