'Unusual sight' as sharks seen swimming in 'cartwheel' formation


By 9News Staff

Jan 3, 2023

Scientists conducting an aerial survey of the ocean off the coast of New England in the US have come across some "unusual" behaviour.

The group witnessed several clusters of basking sharks swimming in what they called a "cartwheel formation", according to New England Aquariam.

Basking sharks are the second-largest living shark and fish after the whale shark.

READ MORE: Pilot points to potential cause of deadly crash

The aerial survey team spotted this group of four basking sharks swimming in a cartwheel formation on October 11, 2022. (New England Aquarium )

Pictures of the phenomenon were posted to social media by the aquarium.

" Usually, we see basking sharks swimming alone, so this was quite surprising," the post reads.

The post also said scientists with the aquarium had also spotted an aggregation of about 1,400 basking sharks near Martha's Vineyard, a Massachusetts island, in 2013.

"These aggregations are a known but not commonly seen basking shark behaviour," the post said.

"Their function still remains a mystery, although it is thought that food resources could draw the sharks together, and they then engage in courtship behaviour.

"One thing's certain: It's a really cool sight."

Basking sharks are the second-largest living shark, and fish, after the whale shark. .  

Adult basking sharks typically reach 7.9 metres in length. They consume plankton, which they collect by expanding their mouth and swimming at a continuous pace. (New England Aquarium )

The basking shark is a filter feeder that consumes plankton. Adults typically reach lengths of 7.9 metres.

The species is found in arctic and temperate waters.

The largest basking shark ever recorded is said to have been caught in 1851 in Canada; it measured 12.3 metres in length.

PAPACY
Benedict Aide's Tell-all Book Will Expose 'Dark Maneuvers'

January 02, 2023
Associated Press

The body of late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI laid out in state as Archbishop Georg Gaenswein stands on the right inside St. Peter's Basilica at The Vatican, Jan. 2, 2023.

VATICAN CITY —

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's longtime personal secretary has written a tell-all book that his publisher on Monday promised would tell the truth about the "blatant calumnies," "dark maneuvers," mysteries and scandals that sullied the reputation of a pontiff best known for his historic resignation.

Archbishop Georg Gaenswein's Nothing but the Truth: My Life Beside Pope Benedict XVI is being published this month by the Piemme imprint of Italian publishing giant Mondadori, according to a press release.

Benedict died Saturday at age 95 and his body was put on display Monday in St. Peter's Basilica ahead of a Thursday funeral to be celebrated by his successor, Pope Francis.

Gaenswein, a 66-year-old German priest, stood by Benedict's side for nearly three decades, first as an official working for then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then starting in 2003 as Ratzinger's personal secretary.

Gaenswein followed his boss to the Apostolic Palace as secretary when Ratzinger was elected pope in 2005. And in one of the most memorable images of Benedict's final day as pope Feb. 28, 2013, Gaenswein wept as he accompanied Benedict through the frescoed halls of the Vatican, saying goodbye.

He remained Benedict's gatekeeper, confidant and protector during a decade-long retirement, while also serving until recently as the prefect of Francis' papal household. It was Gaenswein who performed the anointing of the sick last Wednesday, when Benedict's health deteriorated, and it was he who called Francis on Saturday to tell him that Benedict had died.

Pope Benedict XVI's personal secretary George Gaenswein, left, wipes his eye as the Pope delivers his message during his last general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Feb. 27, 2013.

According to Piemme, Gaenswein's book contains "a personal testimony about the greatness of a mild man, a fine scholar, a cardinal and a pope who made the history of our time." But it said the book also contained a firsthand account that would correct some "misunderstood" aspects of the pontificate as well as the machinations of the Vatican.

"Today, after the death of the pope emeritus, the time has come for the current prefect of the papal household to tell his own truth about the blatant calumnies and dark maneuvers that have tried in vain to cast shadows on the German pontiff's magisterium and actions," the press release said.

Gaenswein's account would "finally make known the true face of one of the greatest protagonists of recent decades, too often unjustly denigrated by critics as 'Panzerkardinal' or 'God's Rottweiler,'" it said, referring to some common media nicknames for the German known for his conservative, doctrinaire bent.

Specifically, the publisher said Gaenswein would address the "Vatileaks" scandal, in which Benedict's own butler leaked his personal correspondence to a journalist, as well as clergy sex abuse scandals and one of the enduring mysteries of the Vatican, the 1983 disappearance of the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican employee, Emanuela Orlandi.

The book appears to be just part of what is shaping up as a postmortem media blitz by Gaenswein, including the release Monday of excerpts of a lengthy interview he granted Italian state RAI television last month that is to be broadcast Thursday after the funeral.

According to the excerpts published by La Repubblica newspaper, Gaenswein recounted how he tried to dissuade Benedict from resigning after the then-pope told him in late September 2012 that he had made up his mind. That was six months after Benedict took a nighttime fall during a visit to Mexico and determined he no longer could handle the rigors of the job.

"He told me: 'You can imagine I have thought long and hard about this, I've reflected, I've prayed, I've struggled. And now I'm communicating to you that a decision has been taken, it's not up for discussion,'" Gaenswein recalled Benedict saying.

Gaenswein also referred to the struggles, scandals and problems Benedict faced during his eight-year pontificate, recalling he had asked for prayers at the start to protect him from the "wolves" who were out to get him. Gaenswein cited in particular the "Vatileaks" betrayal, which resulted in the butler being convicted by the Vatican tribunal, only to be pardoned by the pope two months before his resignation.

"Anyone who thinks there can be a calm papacy has got the wrong profession," he said.

Protest, love, art: The unusual uses of blood in India

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IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES

Image caption,

Aspirants for jobs in the armed forces show a letter to the government written in blood in April

By Soutik Biswas

India correspondent

For more than a decade, a non-profit organisation in India has been creating paintings using blood donated by its members.

More than 250 such artworks honouring revolutionaries and martyrs have been made by the Delhi-based Shaheed Smriti Chetna Samiti (Society to Awaken Remembrance of the Martyrs). They are usually given away to ashrams (spiritual retreats) and small museums and displayed in exhibitions.

"Blood is rich in symbolism. We make our paintings in blood to instil patriotism among people. Love for the country is diminishing among children," Prem Kumar Shukla, who heads the non-profit group, told me.

Its founder, Ravi Chander Gupta, a retired school principal, donated blood for 100 paintings until his health began failing. "I started this to attract the public and get their attention. People are more interested if the portraits are in blood. Blood creates sentiments," Gupta, who died in 2017, once told interviewers.

Mr Shukla, his successor, is a doughty 50-year-old school teacher and poet. He claims to have donated blood for 100 paintings alone. Donors like him go to a local lab where their blood is extracted, mixed with anti-coagulants - human blood becomes sticky when its clots - put into 50ml bottles, and given to a bunch of artists. Usually 100ml of blood is enough to make two to three paintings, Mr Shukla says. "I donate blood four times a year for our paintings."

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES

Image caption,

Ravi Chander Gupta donated blood for more than 100 paintings before his death in 2017

The "blood paintings", says Mr Shukla, were inspired by the persuasive rhetoric - "give me blood and I will give you freedom" - of independence hero Subhas Chandra Bose, known as "Netaji" (respected leader). Bose raised an army of Indian soldiers to fight the British.

The politics of blood runs deep in India. Mahatma Gandhi endlessly monitored his blood pressure and had a "preoccupation with blood", write Jacob Copeman and Dwaipayan Banerjee in Hematologies, a book which examines the connections between blood and politics.

• The chemicals that linger for decades in your blood

Blood was also an anti-colonial metaphor. Gandhi, the world's most famous pacifist, hoped Indians would "possess blood that could withstand the corruption and poison of colonial violence". A blood-stained cloth worn by the leader on the day he was murdered in 1948 is among the artefacts on display in a museum in Madurai in southern India. "Metaphors of blood - its extraction and sacrifice - are inescapably rife in Indian political discourse," note Mr Copeman and Mr Banerjee.

Not surprisingly blood is a metaphor for loyalty and sacrifice. Ardent supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi have drawn his paintings in their blood. Blood is also a mode of protest: In 2013, more than 100 women from villages in Gujarat wrote a letter to Mr Modi in blood, protesting against plans to acquire their land to build a new road. They said they had written postcards, and the prime minister hadn't replied. A teenage girl in Uttar Pradesh state wrote a letter to officials with her blood, seeking justice for her mother who was burnt alive.

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES

Image caption,

Supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi display a sketch of their leader painted in blood

Protesters write petitions in blood demanding higher wages, hospitals and schools and opposing laws that they believe are draconian. Some also write love letters in blood to get attention. And people also routinely complain that politicians "suck the people's blood" as a metaphor to highlight issues like corruption and red tape.

In 2008, survivors of the 1984 gas tragedy in Bhopal - the worst industrial accident in India's history - walked 800km (497 miles) to Delhi and sent to then prime minister Manmohan Singh a letter written in their blood to draw his attention to their health and rehabilitation problems.

• The people who drink human blood

During demonstrations in the oil-rich state of Assam in 1980, a 22-year-old man used his own blood to write protest slogans on the streets of the capital, Guwahati. "We will give blood, not oil," read one of the slogans.

The street, reported a newspaper, "metamorphosed into a place of pilgrimage where the agitators started lighting earthen lamps, incense sticks and organised devotional prayers".

In 1988, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) asked its supporters to sell their blood to raise money to build a power plant in West Bengal following a funding dispute with the federal government - much of the collected blood had to be eventually destroyed because of lack of storage space, and the plant was completed with a Japanese loan. Around the same time, a group of donors in Kolkata (then Calcutta) sold blood to support a financially impoverished medical institution. (Selling blood was outlawed 10 years later.)

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES

Image caption,

Blood donation camps are organised by political parties to woo voters

Political parties organise blood donation camps to gain public attention. Supporters donate to gain advancement. One blood bank professional told the authors of Hematologies that camps organised by political parties were "terrible because there's no other motivating factor than 'I am trying to please the leader'".

Clearly, blood is a useful symbol. "Blood is associated with purity of caste. Also historically, writing in blood has been a very male thing. Purity related to caste and gender in the form of maleness are the two main forms of social expression in India. Blood is also seen as the highest form of loyalty," says Sanjay Srivastava, a sociologist. In modern-day India, however, women have used blood to break "taboos" around menstruation.

In the end, blood gains you instant attention and recognition.

In 2004, a karate teacher in Chennai (then Madras) painted 57 portraits in his blood of the late Jayaram Jayalalitha, then chief minister of Tamil Nadu state, of which the southern city is the capital.

Shihan Hussaini needed a plot of land for a karate school, and sought an appointment with the chief minister. "She brought me to her residence and promised me a million dollars [for the plot]," Mr Hussaini told the authors of Hematologies. Blood art, he said, was a "tool of propaganda, communication and influencing decision making".

Report: 100-year Coastal Floods in Africa Now Happen Every 40 Years

A new report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies says "once in a hundred years" floods will become more common in coastal communities due to rising sea levels caused by climate change. As a stretch of West Africa’s coast is set to become the world’s largest megalopolis and an economic powerhouse, academics worry rising sea levels will stymie growth and impact the continent and the world. Henry Wilkins reports from Ganvie, Benin.

UK

Scientists say Sunak's decision on testing travelers from China purely political move: The Guardian

(Xinhua) 09:15, January 03, 2023

LONDON, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Scientists have dismissed British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's decision to impose COVID-19 tests on travelers from China, calling it "a purely political manoeuvre," British newspaper The Guardian has reported.

Scientists said testing travelers from China will "make no difference to the rise or fall" of the number of COVID-19 cases in the United Kingdom (UK), according to the report published on Saturday.

UK's chief medical officer Chris Whitty on Thursday briefed the health secretary Steve Barclay, saying that no clear evidence of significant benefits was shown from testing travelers from China, said the report.

Quoting another news outlet, the Observer, the report said Barclay had discussed the issues with Sunak but the Prime Minister "decided that it was more important for Britain to align itself with those nations -- the U.S., Japan, Italy and Spain -- that had already imposed such tests."

"I don't think it's likely the UK will get any public health benefit from this measure," said Professor Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh University in the report. "This can only have been done for political reasons."

Woolhouse added that another reason for testing was to track new COVID-19 variants, but no one in the UK seemed worried about the new variant XBB.1.5, which now accounts for about 40 percent of cases and is spreading rapidly in the U.S..

"Instead, a lot of noise is being made about hypothetical variants emerging in China," said Woolhouse.

Professor Paul Hunter of the University of East Anglia also told the newspaper: "Point-of-entry and point-of-exit screening for serious infections have been shown -- on many occasions -- to be ineffective at controlling diseases."

"This isn't going to protect the UK population because it isn't going to stop the spread. So it is hard to see what will be gained by imposing these tests," said Hunter.

(Web editor: Cai Hairuo, Wu Chaolan)

‘Buddhist bin Laden’ firebrand monk feted by Myanmar junta chief

AFP
PublishedJanuary 3, 2023

Hardline Buddhist monk Wirathu (L) has long been known for his nationalist anti-Islamic rhetoric 

A firebrand monk dubbed the “Buddhist bin Laden” for his role in stirring up religious hatred in Myanmar received a national award on Tuesday, with the junta saluting his work in the country.

Wirathu — who received the moniker from Time Magazine in 2013 following deadly communal riots — was awarded the title of “Thiri Pyanchi” on Tuesday, the military’s information team said.

The award for “outstanding work for the good of the Union of Myanmar” was presented by junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, it added.

Wirathu is one of hundreds of people receiving awards and honorary titles as the junta prepares to mark the 75th anniversary of Myanmar’s independence from Britain on Wednesday.

Wirathu has long been known for his nationalist anti-Islamic rhetoric — particularly against the Rohingya Muslim minority.

In 2013, he appeared on the cover of Time Magazine as “The Face of Buddhist Terror”.

He had called for boycotts of Muslim-owned businesses and restrictions on marriages between Buddhists and Muslims.

Rights groups said these helped whip up animosity towards the community, laying the foundations for a military crackdown in 2017 that forced about 740,000 Rohingya to flee over the border to Bangladesh.

Wirathu was later jailed by Aung San Suu Kyi’s government on sedition charges.

In September 2021, the junta announced it had released Wirathu after all charges against him had been dropped.

Suu Kyi, 77, has been detained since being ousted by the military coup almost two years ago.

Last week, a junta court handed down its verdicts in the final charges against the Nobel laureate, who now faces the possibility of spending the rest of her life behind bars with a total of 33 years in prison.

France fails to end culling of male chicks

By AFP

January 2, 2023

Last June, 18 European NGOs formed a coalition demanding the end of chick and duck culling - Copyright AFP Genya SAVILOV

An exception to a New Year’s resolution by France to end the massive culling of male chicks will still allow millions to be killed, much to the consternation of animal rights activists.

Worldwide, more than six billion male chicks are killed every year because they cannot lay eggs or get fat enough to be sold for meat, according to the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research.

Following Germany’s lead, the French government announced it would ban the practice of culling as of January 1 this year.

Under the new rules, hatcheries must use in-ovo sexing technology — which determines the sex of unborn chicks — to stop males from being hatched in the first place.

But producers gained permission to continue the culling of male white hen offspring — more than 10 percent of male chicks born in France every year — because it is more difficult to determine their gender.

The culling must be done using gas rather than the traditional technique of grinding.

French animal rights group L214 has sharply objected to the exception, calling it a “betrayal”.

Techniques used to identify the sex of unhatched chicks work better for some chicken types than others.

In red hens, in-ovo technology can look through the shell and detect the sex-specific colour of the chick’s first feathers.

For white hens, however, it does not work. Hormonal analysis does but is considerably more expensive and slower.

The eggs sold in stores come from red hens, while the eggs of white hens are used to make animal feed and other agro-industry products.

In December, scientists from the US-Israeli tech company Huminn said they had successfully created egg-laying hens that only produce female chicks.

The technology involves genetically modifying the hens so that male embryos do not progress and hatch.

Last June, 18 European NGOs formed a coalition demanding the end of chick and duck culling, a practice that is allowed under EU law.

The practice may yet be prohibited with a revision of EU legislation on animal welfare set to take place before 2025, according to L214.

Joumana Seif: My dream is 'to help build a democratic Syria'

Syrian human rights activist Joumana Seif has dedicated her life to gender equality and the recognition of sexual violence as a crime against humanity. For this, she will receive the Anne Klein Women's Award 2023.

Jennifer Holleis

DW
2/01/23

Joumana Seif is a good listener. The 52-year-old Syrian lawyer and women's rights activist doesn't fidget, her eyes focus patiently and it is easy to understand why women are able to open up to her.

"I've always fought for women's rights," Seif told DW in Berlin. Even back in the 1990s, when she worked at her family's successful Adidas franchise in Damascus, she was already focusing on staff welfare and supporting women in their positions.

However, those days now seem like a lifetime ago.

In 1994, her father, Riad Seif, spurred by the huge success he was having with his business, entered the political stage as independent member of the Syrian parliament. But his criticism of the corrupt elite and calls for economic reforms weren't received well by then-President Hafez Assad.

'It was a very difficult time for us'

Riad Seif and his family started to be increasingly in the focus of the security forces. In addition, production materials for his factory were withheld, and eventually the company had to be sold.

"I understood that I needed to know more about the law, to be able to defend my father and to join the fight for human rights in Syria," said Seif. With the support of her mother, who helped with her three young children, Seif started studying law at Beirut Arab University in 2003.

By the time of her graduation in 2007, Seif had long become politically engaged herself. After the Syrian strongman Hafez Assad died in June 2000, she joined her father's regular "Damascus Spring" meetings with other members of the political opposition in his living room in Damascus. Shortly after, the group founded the National Dialogue Forum, an initiative for political change and freedom in Syria.

Joumana Seif, here with her youngest daughter and her father at a 2015 demonstration in Berlin, continues to be politically active

Image: Privat

However, the initiative was soon without a leader: In September 2001, after Riad Seif had called for an end of the monopoly of the new President Bashar Assad's ruling Baath Party, he was sentenced to prison.

Joumana Seif became his sole connection to the opposition. "It was a very difficult time for us," she said. "We were almost isolated, under pressure from the security branches and scared that they would take us to prison as well," she said, adding that she "wouldn't be able to repeat this kind of life."

However, along with the increasing crackdown against dissidents by the new president, her father became more and more recognized on the international stage. In 2003, Joumana Seif traveled to the German city of Weimar to receive the Human Rights Award on his behalf.

But upon her return, their life in Syria didn't get any easier.

"In March 2007, I was arrested at a demonstration with many of my friends. They pushed us onto a truck and scared us by accelerating and braking hard," she said, adding that "they eventually released us with the warning that next time we will go to prison." Those words carried two meanings: the threat of being behind bars for years or forever, and that of sexual violence.

Leaving home for Berlin

Despite the growing number of people who were going missing in Syria's infamous prisons, including her uncle, cousin and younger brother, Eyad, it took two attempts on her father's life and the outbreak of the Syrian revolution that led to the civil war for Joumana Seif to decide it was time to leave her home country.

Together with her three children and her parents, she went to Egypt in September 2012.

Riad Seif, who suffered from prostate cancer and needed medical help, applied for a German visa. "I thought we'd stay in Cairo until my father returns from Germany, and will then see if we can return to Syria," she said.

However, the situation in Egypt changed in 2013. Islamist President Mohammed Morsi was ousted in a military coup led by the then-minister of defense, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who became president himself the following year.

"The rising sentiment against Syrians made it difficult for us to stay," she said. Since the civil war against the opposition was raging in Syria, she decided to follow her father to Germany, and the family left for Berlin in September 2013.

Fighting for human rights from Germany

By then, Joumana Seif was even more determined to fight for human rights and to help Syrian women. She co-founded the Syrian Women's Network in 2013, the Syrian Feminist Lobby in 2014 and the Syrian Women's Political Movement in 2017.

That year, when she joined the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights as a research fellow, Seif also started advocating for the recognition of sexual and gender-based violence as crimes against humanity. Her focus area: Syria.

In the run-up to the Al-Khatib trial, the world's first legal proceeding investigating the horrors of Syria's torture chambers, which took place at the Higher Regional Court in Koblenz, Germany between 2020 and 2022, she spoke to hundreds of male and female survivors of torture and sexual violence. "It is a lot of pain to bear when women open up; it follows me into my dreams," she said.

VIDEO

The Al-Khatib trial in Germany featured the testimonies of hundreds of male and female survivors of torture and sexual violence

Bernd Lauter/Getty Images/AFP

But the personal testimonies weren't the only remarkable part of the trial for Joumana Seif. Her father was questioned on day 26 as a witness, as he was the person who had helped the main defendant, Anwar Raslan, get a visa for Germany in 2014. Riad Seif had believed Raslan when he said he feared for his life after joining the opposition in 2012. However, Raslan was not able to prove that he was indeed an opposition supporter, and the trial ended with his being given a life sentence for murder, rape and sexual assault committed at the notorious Al-Khatib prison.

For Joumana Seif, however, this trial was a stepping stone on the way to justice in Syria. "The meaning of my life is to help build a democratic Syria that offers the same rights to men and women and a life in dignity," she told DW.

"Only then will the struggle will be over."

In March 2023, Joumana Seif will receive the Anne Klein Women's Award from Germany's Heinrich Böll Foundation on behalf of global activists against sexualized violence in armed conflicts

Edited by: Timothy Jones

NZ
Serafina Tane grew up in the Camp David religious cult. This is what it felt like to leave

As told to Conversations with Sarah Kanowski

Serafina Tane left the cult as an adult after abuse allegations emerged about its leader.(ABC RN: Stacy Gougoulis)

Serafina Tane was born into a religious cult on New Zealand's South Island. The leader was the charismatic but abusive Douglas Metcalf, who claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus. For Serafina, the cult was her family. But leaving Camp David for a life without religious rules was more complicated than she had imagined.

When I've been back, I'm like, "Wow, it's like something out of a movie."

A lot of people would think that it was like living in a castle. There were watchtowers painted white and padlocks on the gates. It's home, from the inside, but on the outside it's very walled, gated. You can't get in unless you have the combination, or somebody lets you in.

It was fun. There were lots of things to explore. We had this sunken garden and it was all paved and there were waterfalls and the inside of the walls had paintings of flowers and trees.

We had a different room [for everything]. So we'd have the library, we'd have the heraldry room, we'd have the sword room.

The rock room had these all these rocks that were gifted by people who had been into collecting rocks before they joined the cult. You go in and there's just these amazing rocks. Some of them, when you turn off the lights, glow in the dark.

My family was responsible for looking after all the animals, so we rode horses and I had pet lambs. We milked the goats. I was growing up on a farm with the other kids, running around, building huts, riding our bikes around – just having lots of fun.

We wouldn't celebrate Christmas, we'd celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles in October, and we'd have a week-long celebration.

We'd dress the horses up, we'd be all dressed up in costumes and we'd walk around [the property]. It was a festival and a celebration, and it was just getting dressed up and colourful. I loved it. I really loved it. It was really exciting.

 

 Instead of Christmas, the cult celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles in October.

(ABC RN: Stacy Gougoulis)

[Cult leader Douglas Metcalf] looked like Santa, but without the white beard. It was a dark beard. He was just like a friendly grandpa kind of person. He wasn't tall. He was a little bit tubby, I suppose. Not an imposing person.

And that's the fascinating thing – it was his personality that drew people to him, his openness, his friendliness. Wherever he walked around Camp David, people would always follow him. He just had that charisma.

On special ceremonial occasions he would have a cape, and everybody would have these staffs. His was always decorated and fancy looking. He'd dress up like a prince, I could imagine, from medieval England.

There was a lot of Middle Eastern symbology, because he spent a lot of time in the Middle East and brought that into the cult. He [said he] went into the desert and an alien spaceship came and he went on the spaceship.

And I'm not sure what happened on the spaceship, but somehow, because of that, he needed to come back and create this community in New Zealand.

It was a real mixture of his own concoction of his life experiences, what he wanted to pull together and create his own version of religion and Christianity.

We were taught that Jesus didn't die on a cross and that he died on a stake with his hands above his head, not with his arms out. So actually the cross became, in a way, an evil symbol for us.

For me, a lot of what was done was around fear. In cults, they control through fear, anything that is going to make people afraid.

YOUTUBE Serafina Tane on Conversations

[As a kid] you're just so naive to everything and you completely trust everything that's going on around you. You've been told there's bad things outside of the cult, or that evil was outside of the cult, but we're safe. The only people that were OK were the people who lived in Waipara, New Zealand.

As I got older, I'm like, 'How come only 300 people in Waipara, New Zealand are going to go to heaven and everyone else in the world is going to hell?' That didn't make sense. How can God do that to these people?

As females we had to wear skirts and dresses always below our knees. We weren't allowed to wear singlets or anything like that. Our shoulders always had to be covered. We had to wear a headscarf.

We weren't allowed to wear sandals or thongs. You weren't allowed to have anything that separated your big toe from your other toe because that's a sign of slavery, apparently.

We weren't allowed to wear makeup, nail polish, anything like that. We weren't allowed to have any piercings. We weren't allowed to wear black, purple, red, gold, royal blue. We had just black and white rules.

Hear more Conversations
Conversations draws you deeper into the life story of someone you may, or may not, have heard about — someone who has seen and done amazing things.


[After Douglas Metcalf died] Daryl, his son-in-law, got anointed by the elders to become the next leader. But he was very different. No charisma. He was very authoritarian, very structured in the way that he did things.

Things started to get very serious. It slowly started to fall apart from there.

I thought people were making up [abuse allegations] to discredit Douglas Metcalf, to discredit Daryl.

That was a really hard time. It's like you realise, OK, this is real. This man that I respected, that I loved, that I looked up to, is not a good person, is a bad person and hurt people. Everything that he said is a lie.

And then you start thinking, well, everything my parents believe is a lie. And everything they've told me is a lie. It was the ultimate betrayal, I suppose.

When I first took my scarf off [after leaving the cult] I was so sure I would be struck down by lightning. I took my scarf off and I was like, "Oh, I got away with that. Nothing bad happened. What else can I do?"

And then I got my ears pierced and nothing happened apart from it being very painful. I wore jeans instead of a skirt and nothing happened. And it was just like this progression.

Chaos was the best way that I can describe it. There's no rules and you've got nothing. Everything that guided you was gone, so you have to make this up yourself.


If you can't trust people in the world and you can't trust everything that you've been raised on and the people that have raised you, then who do you trust?

You don't trust yourself because you don't know yourself, because you've never been taught to know yourself. You don't have that confidence in yourself. So it was complete chaos and you're just making it up as you go.

I wanted to travel. I always thought I would never be allowed to travel because I'd be dead. So I was just waiting to travel when Jesus came back. And I thought, I can travel now.

So I set off overseas and I travelled for about five years backpacking and I spoke to a lot of different people from different faiths, different beliefs. It was exploration. I met so many amazing people.

I didn't realise the world was full of just incredible people. It wasn't what I'd been taught. And you learn that everybody has their different points of view, the different perspectives based on their upbringing. But the majority of people in the world are just really beautiful people.

Azerbaijani Activists Continue to Call for End to Illegal Mining in Karabakh Region

By Gunay Hajiyeva January 2, 2023

 
 
 
 
 

The visit of the representatives of Azerbaijan to the deposits was derailed in the wake of illegal intervention by ethnic Armenians living in certain parts of Azerbaijan's Karabakh region. This led civil society members and volunteers of Azerbaijan to protest along the Lachin-Khankendi road on December 12. / Courtesy

 
• A
 

Azerbaijani ecological activists, civil society members and volunteers on the Khankendi-Lachin road passing near the city of Shusha carried on with protests for a third week as they demanded an end to ecological crimes in the country's Karabakh region.

The rally continued in the same spirit on Monday night with the protesters chanting their demands in Azerbaijani, Russian and English to call for immediate measures to stop illegal mining activities in the Karabakh region.

In the meantime, the Khankendi-Lachin roads remain open to humanitarian traffic despite the mass gathering. On Monday morning and afternoon, supply vehicles of the temporary Russian peacekeeping mission deployed in the region moved safely and freely from Khankendi to Lachin with no interruption from the protesters. Since December 31, more than ten vehicles of peacekeepers have been seen moving in both directions.

On December 28, a convoy of ambulances of the International Red Cross Committee evacuated three patients of Armenian origin from Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region to Armenia. The convoy returned on the same day to the Karabakh region carrying medicines and medical supplies for the hospital in Khankendi.

Since December 3, 2022, a group of experts from Azerbaijan’s Economy Ministry and Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry, and the State Property Service under the Ministry of Economy and AzerGold Company, held negotiations with the command of the peacekeeping contingent on the illegal exploitation of mineral deposits, as well as on environmental and other secondary consequences in the Azerbaijani territories under its temporary monitoring. As a result of consecutive meetings on December 3 and 4, the two sides agreed to ecological monitoring by the Azerbaijani experts at the Gizilbulag gold and Demirli copper-molybdenum deposits.

However, on December 10, the visit of the representatives of Azerbaijan to the deposits was derailed in the wake of illegal intervention by ethnic Armenians living in certain parts of Azerbaijan's Karabakh region. Back then, the Russian peacekeepers did not take preventive measures to facilitate the previously agreed visit of the Azerbaijani experts.

This led civil society members and volunteers to protest along the Lachin-Khankendi road on December 12.

Armenian authorities and media outlets interpreted the peaceful protest as an attempt to block the road that connects Armenia with the partial Armenian population in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. However, the Azerbaijani government and media have come forth with evidence proving that the Lachin-Khankendi road is used freely by the Russian peacekeepers for humanitarian cargo shipments, as well as for ambulances and civilians, including the family members of the peacekeepers. The activists even provided a hotline number to address the appeals of the Armenian citizens of Azerbaijan residing in the Karabakh region.

The armed Russian peacekeeping contingent had earlier blocked the Lachin road amidst the protests in an attempt to prevent protesters and journalists from gathering there.

The Azerbaijani authorities have been calling for more efficient control over the Lachin highway by the Russian peacekeeping contingent. The demands gained momentum after reports surfaced about the illegal transportation of minerals from the Azerbaijani territories temporarily monitored by the peacekeepers to Armenia via the Lachin road. Baku-based Caliber.Az news agency reported on November 30 that eight Kamaz trucks accompanied by a Nissan Patrol SUV with an Armenian license number 731 - AB - 61 ER, made their way from the Khankendi city of Azerbaijan to Armenia between November 10 and November 14. Moreover, on November 16-18, identical vehicles were seen along the Lachin road from Armenia to Khankendi.

According to operational data, raw materials extracted at the gold mines near the village of Gulyatagh of the former Aghdara (current Tartar) region of Azerbaijan, located in the zone of temporary responsibility of the Russian peacekeepers, have been transported on these Kamaz trucks. The materials were moved by the Base Metals company, a subsidiary of Vallex Group Company based in Switzerland, engaged in the looting of precious metals in Kalbajar, Zangilan, and Aghdara during their occupation by Armenia and currently in the area where Russian peacekeepers are stationed.

President Ilham Aliyev said the developments on Lachin road are crystal-clear legitimate rights of Azerbaijanis as their natural resources are being exploited and shipped out.

“Those plundering our natural resources are criminals according to any international legal norm. This is our territory recognized by the international community, and we have a legitimate demand for our public representatives, first of all, representatives of state bodies, to be able to conduct monitoring there,” President Aliyev said on December 24, 2022.

“They should see what is going on there and demand that all illegal activity be stopped. This is our legitimate demand. However, this situation is being presented in a completely distorted manner. There are lies again, there is slander again, and we all know who is behind that. Let me say again that the state of Armenia is not in the foreground here. But this will not deter us. We have repeatedly proven this – the Second Karabakh War and the subsequent two years have demonstrated that. No one can influence us.”