Ten deadliest quakes of the 21st century

Wed, 8 February 2023 


With the death toll rising by the hour, the massive earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on February 6 is already among the ten deadliest of the 21st century.

- 2004: 230,000 dead, southeast Asia -

On December 26, a massive earthquake measuring 9.1 on the Richter scale strikes off the coast of Sumatra, triggering a tsunami that kills more than 230,000 throughout the region, including 170,000 in Indonesia alone.

Huge waves of 700 kph (around 435 mph) reach heights of 30 metres (100 feet).

- 2010: 200,000 dead, Haiti -

A magnitude 7 quake on January 12 devastates the capital Port-au-Prince and the surrounding region.

The quake cuts the country off from the rest of the world for 24 hours, killing over 200,000 people, leaving 1.5 million homeless and shattering much of its frail infrastructure.

In October the same year Haiti is also hit by a cholera epidemic introduced by Nepalese peacekeepers who had come after the quake. It kills more than 10,000 people.

- 2008: 87,000 dead, Sichuan -

More than 87,000, including 5,335 school pupils, are left dead or missing when a 7.9-magnitude quake strikes southwestern Sichuan province on May 12.

Outrage erupts after it emerges 7,000 schools were badly damaged by the quake, triggering accusations of shoddy construction, corner-cutting and possible corruption, especially as many other buildings nearby held firm.

- 2005: 75,000 dead, Kashmir -

An October 8 earthquake kills more than 73,000 people, the vast majority of them in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province and the Pakistani-administered zone of Kashmir state. Some 3.5 million people are displaced.

- 2003: 31,000 dead, Bam (Iran) -

A 6.6-magnitude quake on December 26 in southeastern Iran destroys the ancient mud-brick city of Bam, killing at least 31,000 people.

Nearly 80 percent of Bam's infrastructure is damaged, and the desert citadel, once considered the world's largest adobe building, crumbles.

- 2001: 20,000 dead, India -

A massive 7.7 earthquake on January 26 hits the western Indian state of Gujarat, killing more than 20,000 people.

The quake levelled buildings across the state, with many fatalities in the town of Bhuj near the Pakistan border.

- 2011: 18,500 dead, Japan -

On March 11, Japan is struck by an enormous 9.0-magnitude earthquake, unleashing a towering tsunami that levels communities along the country's northeastern coast.

Around 18,500 people are left dead or missing as the terrifying wall of water travelling at the speed of a jet plane swallows up everything in its path.

The ensuing nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant blankets nearby areas with radiation, rendering some towns uninhabitable for years and displacing tens of thousands of residents.

- 2023: 11,200 dead, Turkey and Syria -

On February 6, a 7.8 magnitude quake strikes near the Turkish city of Gaziantep, home to around two million people.

Followed by a slightly smaller 7.5 magnitude tremor and many aftershocks, the quakes devastate entire sections of major cities in southeastern Turkey and the north of war-ravaged Syria.

The death toll reaches more than 11,200 three days after the disaster.

- 2015: 9,000 dead, Nepal -

A 7.8-magnitude earthquake on April 25 strikes in central Nepal, triggering avalanches and landslides across the Himalayan nation, destroying schools and hospitals.

The massive quake kills almost 9,000 people and renders millions homeless, while also reducing more than a hundred monuments to rubble, including centuries-old temples and royal palaces in the capital's Kathmandu valley.

- 2006: 6,000 dead, Java -

On May 26, a 6.3-magnitude quake rocks the southern coast of the Indonesian island of Java, near the city of Yogyakarta, killing around 6,000 people.

More than 420,000 are left homeless and some 157,000 houses are destroyed.

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Hefty fines could halt US-backed anti-abortion groups from breaching buffer zones


David Bol
Tue, 7 February 2023 

Abortion protesters (Image: PA)

HEFTY fines could be thrown at American anti-abortion groups to ensure police can enforce breaching new laws, the architect of plans to roll out buffer zones outside heath facilities has suggested.

A new offence or aggravator could be established to allow police to enforce buffer zones that would prohibit protests outside abortion clinics taking place.

The Scottish Government held a summit in Edinburgh yesterday on the plans to role out buffer zones on a national scale – after the Supreme Court ruled last year that similar plans in Northern Ireland were competent.

Read more: Scottish buffer zones to be rolled out 'as quickly as possible'

Greens MSP Gillian Mackay, who is proposing a members’ bill at Holyrood for the proposals, said that this year’s summit showed “it’s not now if it will happen, it’s when it’s going to happen”.

But Ms Mackay and the Scottish Government said they would not put a date on when the scheme will be rolled out, despite insiders suggesting it could be fast-tracked and in place by the summer.

SNP Public Health Minister Maree Todd stressed that the legislation will be brought forward to Holyrood “as fast as we possibly can“.

Read more: Supreme Court ruling paves way for Scottish abortion buffer zone plans

Ms Mackay, in partnership with the Back Off Scotland campaign, is to put forward a Members’ Bill in Holyrood to roll out protections across Scotland for women attending medical appointments after receiving thousands of responses to her consultation on the plans.

It comes after patients were routinely intimidated attending appointments at medical facilities by anti-abortion protesters.

Speaking after the summit, Ms Mackay said that there was “a consensus around an automatic approach across all sites, not necessarily a uniform approach”.

But she warned that a 150m buffer zone, as had been previously touted, may not be appropriate for some sites which are bigger in size.

The Greens MSP stressed that it was more likely the police would enforce any breach of the rules, instead of local authorities.

She said: “Police Scotland has a much more natural ability to share information of where laws are broken.

Read more: 'I thought abortion protests only happened in America'

“And I think certainly for me, that's my preference just for ease and ease of tracking where this behaviour is happening and who's moving around to different sites.”

Asked if a separate offence or aggravation would need to be established, Ms Mackay said: “Potentially.”

She added: “Further engagement with legal professionals, court services, police and all those sorts of things will be really instrumental in making sure that whatever crafted is enforceable as well as something that they can defend if and when a prosecutions are challenged by people who are breaching.”

Ms Mackay said that the scale of the penalties was “not settled on yet”, but suggested they would need to be substantial to put off big American anti-abortion groups of gaming the system.

She said: “Obviously, a lot of these groups have been deep pockets.

“So there have been some concerns raised by stakeholders about potentially someone who's almost being in a situation of paying to breach the rule, which is absolutely not what we want.

“We need a level of personal accountability for the people who are breaching the zones, and how we balance that proportionality in particular, and it's avoiding any ECHR challenge is where that difficulty lies.”

Ms Mackay said politicians are “acting on the presumption that there will be a legal challenge to this bill in some way, shape, or form, if not repeated the challenges to this”.

She said: “I have no doubt that when the first prosecution or the first fixed penalty notice or whatever mechanism we used, when that first one is delivered, I think we're going to see a legal challenge.”

The Public Health Minister warned that “it's not acceptable for women to have to run the gauntlet past protests or face intimidation or harassment as they access health care in Scotland”.

Asked when the plans could become law, Ms Todd said: “It might surprise you to hear that I don't have a timescale goal.

“The outcome that I'm looking for is effective legislation that effectively provides safe access to healthcare for women in Scotland, that is robust, that passes through the parliamentary process and is able to withstand the scrutiny involved in the parliamentary process.

“We are working as fast as we possibly can to introduce the legislation.

“There is no sense of dragging our heels on this. We have worked really hard on this. We've built a momentum. And we're making progress and everybody wants to see this happen quickly.”

Nicola Sturgeon, who also took part in the summit, said: “If women are suffering harassment and intimidation when they are seeking access to abortion services, which let’s remember are health services that women have a right within the law to access, then we’re not doing everything we need to do to ensure the access that I think everybody in this room thinks is important.”

She added that an “immense” amount of work is underway.

Nasa’s Mars rover finds mysterious metallic object on Red Planet

Vishwam Sankaran
Wed, 8 February 2023 

Nasa’s Mars rover finds mysterious metallic object on Red Planet

Nasa’s Curiosity rover has stumbled upon a strange metallic rock on Mars that may allow scientists to gain insights on the Red Planet’s ancient past.

The rock, dubbed Cacao, measures about a foot across and appears to be an iron-nickel meteorite, according to the American space agency.

It was discovered in the “sulfate-bearing unit” – a region on Mars’ Mount Sharp, the agency noted in a blog post on the discovery.


Nasa shared a high-resolution image of the rock that was stitched together from about 20 different individual photos taken by the rover.

One of the images is a close-up of Cacao as viewed through Curiosity’s ChemCam instrument.

This reveals a part of the meteorite that was targeted by the ChemCam instrument’s laser.

Nasa noted that this laser analysis involves zapping rocks and studying the resulting vapour to learn about the rock’s composition.

The rock’s metallic hue can be seen as it stands out in contrast to the Red Planet’s barren rust-coloured landscape.

“Rock. Rock. Rock. Rock. Rock. Rock. METEORITE! “It’s not uncommon to find meteorites on Mars – in fact, I’ve done it a few times! But a change in scenery’s always nice,” said the Curiosity rover’s official Twitter handle.

Nasa suspects the rock’s site likely had a “big crater” in the ancient past.

“Over time, erosion and other forces flatten the area around it, carving away everything but the hardest material,” said another tweet in reply to a user who asked about any evidence of impact.

The Curiosity rover has reportedly come across several such strange rocks in its decade-long exploration of the Red Planet.

In 2016, it found the “Egg Rock” also dubbed the “golf ball” and in 2014 it stumbled upon another 7-foot-long meteorite the Curiosity team named “Lebanon”.

Earlier in 2005, the Opportunity rover made the discovery of the Heat Shield Rock, a meteorite that was the first such rock to ever be identified on the surface of another planet.

Generally such metallic meteorites landing on Earth’s surface tend to rust away in a short span of geologic time, but due to little oxygen and moisture on Mars, these space rocks can remain lusturous for millions of years.

“There’s no way to date these. But it could have been here millions of years!” pointed out the Curiosity rover’s Twitter account on the new discovery.

Rise in space tourism, rocket launches pose new threat to ozone layer, researchers warn

Joanna YORK
Tue, 7 February 2023 

© Craig Bailey, AP

New research shows that increased space travel could undo efforts to repair the hole in the ozone layer. Successful global coordination to ban harmful chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gasses and restore the ozone was a rare climate triumph – but can it be replicated in the face of a potential new threat?

Researchers in New Zealand have warned that expected increases in space travel are likely to damage the Earth’s ozone layer if coordinated action is not taken.

Although emissions from rocket launches are currently relatively small compared to other human activities, they could grow to rival emissions from the aviation industry in coming decades, researchers from the University of Canterbury wrote in a new article published in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

“Many emissions products from rocket launches are ozone-depleting, and the threat to the ozone layer could be significant,” they wrote.

The ozone is a protective layer of the atmosphere that sits 15 to 50km above the Earth’s surface and absorbs almost all of the sun’s UV light, which can be harmful to humans and wildlife.

Rocket launches pose a danger to the Earth’s protective layer as they emit damaging gasses and particles “directly into the middle and upper atmosphere, where the protective ozone layer resides”, the researchers wrote.

There is strong precedent for introducing regulatory framework to protect the atmosphere.

The Last of Us ‘minus the zombie part’: How fungi could become supercharged by climate change

Angela Symons
Tue, 7 February 2023 


Rising temperatures may cause fungi to be more dangerous to our health, a new study reveals.

While bacteria and viruses are well known drivers of infection and disease, pathogenic fungi have so far only caused minor problems for healthy people.

This is usually because the human body temperature is typically too hot for infectious fungi to survive.

But that might be about to change, researchers at Duke University in North Carolina warn.

This may ring alarm bells for fans of the hit dystopian HBO series, ‘The Last of Us’, in which a heat-adapted fungus takes over humans.

“That’s exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about - minus the zombie part!” says study co-author Asiya Gusa.
What are pathogenic fungi?

Pathogenic fungi are fungi that cause disease in humans and other organisms.

Among the approximately 300 fungi known to be pathogenic to humans, Candida, Aspergillus and Cryptococcus are some of the most well known.

They are currently most dangerous to immunocompromised people who lack the defences to prevent their spread.

Climate extremes: Could high heat and humidity take a toll on mental health?

Most diseases worsened by climate change, new research reveals. Here’s what we can do about it

How could rising temperatures make fungi more dangerous?

Rising global temperatures are predicted to increase fungal diseases in humans, but they could also make those diseases more serious.

Studying the impact of heat stress on fungi, researchers found that higher temperatures led to rapid genetic changes in the human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus.

Higher temperatures were found to stimulate the fungus’s transposable ‘jumping genes’, accelerating the number of mutations and leading to adaptations in the way the genes are used and regulated.

“These mobile elements are likely to contribute to adaptation in the environment and during an infection,” says Gusa. “This could happen even faster because heat stress speeds up the number of mutations occurring.”

This could lead to higher heat resistance, drug resistance and disease-causing potential, according to the research published in the science journal PNAS.

“This is a fascinating study, which shows how increasing global temperature may affect the fungal evolution in unpredictable directions… One more thing to worry about with global warming,” says Dr Arturo Casadevall, chair of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins University.

Voices: Make no mistake, the Chinese spy balloon incident cannot be ignored


Skylar Baker-Jordan
Tue, 7 February 2023 

The suspected Chinese spy balloon drifts to the ocean after being shot down off the coast in Surfside Beach, South Carolina on 4 February (Reuters)

On Saturday night, my dog peed in my apartment game room. “Don’t you do it,” I said tersely when I caught him lifting a leg. He looked me in the eye, raised his leg further, and peed all over a cornhole sack. He knew he was being a bad boy, and he wanted me to know he knew.

The Chinese spy balloon is kind of like my dog peeing in the game room. Last summer, General Mark Milley – chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – warned that “China’s increasing in their aggressiveness in their rhetoric, but also in their activity,” noting that Chinese intercepts in the air and at sea have increased drastically over the past five years. The spy balloon, which we’ve now learned is not the first to violate US airspace, is part of that escalating bellicosity.

Xi Jinping, China’s increasingly authoritarian leader, has weathered several incidents which could jeopardize his still-tight grip on absolute power. There were protests against the nation’s restrictive Covid policies, which impeded citizens’ access to healthcare, food, and other basic human rights. The Chinese economy has slowed, with 2022 being one of the worst years for growth the nation has faced in 50 years. The Belt and Road Initiative, a drive by China to build infrastructure in more than 100 countries in an attempt to grow its influence but which has been characterized as “colonialism with Chinese characteristics has slowed. This is, of course, a play on “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” which is ostensibly the ideology of the capitalistic and authoritarian Chinese Communist Party.

It makes sense, then, that Xi would act out in order to demonstrate to those at home and abroad that he is still a force to be reckoned with. Just like my dog was trying to tell me he wasn’t getting enough attention while I played board games with my friends, China was using the balloon to communicate to the Americans that it is not to be taken lightly. “Beijing is probably trying to signal to Washington: ‘While we want to improve ties, we are also ever ready for sustained competition, using any means necessary,’ without severely inflaming tensions,” air-power analyst He Yuan Ming said in an interview with the BBC. “And what better tool for this than a seemingly innocuous balloon?”

The American people certainly seemed to find the balloon innocuous, even entertaining. The hashtag #chinesespyballoon has more than 90 million views on TikTok. Folks across the country flocked to social media, tracking the balloon as it floated from Montana to the eastern seaboard. Crowds gathered in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, cheering as the balloon was shot down over the Atlantic. Even Republicans, while throwing a temper tantrum over Biden letting the Chinese spy on us, are largely ignoring sightings of a spy balloon over Hawaii and Florida during the Trump administration.

All of this feels like the wrong reaction. There was a time when politics stopped at the shore, and Democrats and Republicans would unite against a common threat. Now, however, Republicans have spent more time criticizing Biden than China. Marjorie Taylor Greene is calling for an inquiry into why former President Donald Trump was unaware of the previous spy balloons – at least three separate incidents in his administration, we now know – instead of the fact that China is sending spy balloons in the first place.

When a dog pees on the floor, you scold him and you clean it up. You don’t focus on what his previous owner knew about his urinary habits.

Likewise, when a foreign adversary is caught brazenly spying on your homeland, you retaliate. Just as you don’t physically hurt your dog – I used my tone of voice to express my disappointment – you don’t overreact in your retaliation. But you do make it clear that spy balloons over the American heartland will not be tolerated under any circumstances.

The Biden administration, for its part, seems to understand this. Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed his trip to China over the incident. Biden himself has adopted a more muscular foreign policy towards China than Trump ever did. He has effectively warned off China from backing Putin’s illegal war in Russia. He has promised to intervene militarily should Beijing attack the island nation of Taiwan. In October, he warned that we face a “descisive decade” in our rivalry with China.

Indeed, we do. That should be the lesson every single American takes from the spy balloon saga. China is a fast-rising power with eyes on building a global empire. Xi is “deadly earnest on becoming the most significant, consequential nation in the world,” President Biden said in a speech to Congress in 2021. “He and others – autocrats – think that democracy can’t compete in the 21st century with autocracies.” Beijing’s increasingly belligerent attitude towards Taiwan, its continued crackdown on human and civil rights at home, its imperial designs on Africa and central Asia, and its flagrant violation of U.S. sovereignty with the spy balloon all point to Biden being correct.

This is not just a rivalry between two nations, but two competing ideologies – that of a free and open society verses a repressive and closed state. It isn’t even communist verses capitalist, or left verses right in the way Americans are used to thinking. It is liberty verses tyranny, democracy verses autocracy.

That is why the spy balloon is no mere social media meme or Saturday Night Live sketch (funny as Bowen Yang was and always is). This is why my dog metaphor only works to a point. While useful in discussing deliberate bad behavior as a way of communicating a message and how to proportionally respond, it works. The difference, of course, is that my dog peeing on a cornhole bag is something my friends and I could laugh about.

China openly spying on and antagonizing the United States by violating its sovereignty, on the other hand, is deadly serious. The 21st century will be a contest between democracy and autocracy. Republicans who haven’t embraced the latter – and let’s be clear, here: many have – need to put politics aside and stand with President Biden. Democrats need to welcome their support. And the American people need to start taking this threat seriously.

This time it may have been a spy balloon. Who knows what it will be next time

There’s no cycle of violence in Jerusalem – only Israel’s lethal oppression of my people


Jalal Abukhater
Tue, 7 February 2023 

Photograph: Sinan Abu Mayzer/Reuters

Almost every day, the bulldozers are on the move. In the Palestinian neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, my city, Israeli forces are demolishing homes on an almost daily basis. Dispossession and discrimination have been a longstanding reality here in the eastern part of the city, under Israeli military occupation for 56 years, but under the new far-right Israeli government, Jerusalem has seen a spike in demolitions – more than 30 structures were destroyed in January alone.

The news from our region in western capitals and media outlets tends to be dominated by bloodshed – and the Palestinian people are going through some of the most violent, destructive and lethal days in recent memory. The year 2022 was the deadliest in nearly two decades in the occupied West Bank. In January a further 31 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire. Hopelessness, frustration and despair hover over us all like a dark cloud. But the numbers alone do not express the extent of this cruelty.

Death tolls and cliched phrases in an ill-informed, biased or unquestioning media about cycles of violence are not appropriate or sufficient for relaying the power imbalance of an occupier and occupied. The violence we Palestinians are exposed to on a daily basis is not just from the Israeli army’s weapons but is also deep and structural.


There are no “cycles of home demolitions” or “tit-for-tat expulsions” – Palestinians are not confiscating Israeli properties or detaining thousands of Israelis through military courts. Any approach that suggests symmetry of power – or responsibility – is analytically and morally flawed.

A microcosm of this structural violence can be found right here in the city of my birth, Jerusalem. Last month, a Palestinian gunman killed seven Israelis in the Neve Yaakov settlement in occupied East Jerusalem. Israel’s minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, subsequently pledged to intensify the demolitions of Palestinian homes built without permits, framing the move as a response to the attack.

Most Palestinian homes are targeted for lacking a permit; indeed, in my city, at least a third of Palestinian structures lack an Israeli-issued permit, putting 100,000 residents of occupied East Jerusalem at risk of forcible displacement at any given moment.

In fact, since Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem began in 1967, virtually no public planning was conducted at all for Palestinian neighbourhoods. Fifty-five thousand homes have been built for Jewish Israelis in the eastern part of the city, while fewer than 600 homes were built for Palestinians with any kind of government support. This policy has ensured not only poor housing for Palestinians, but also that they remain a minority in the city.

Despite Palestinians comprising over 37% of Jerusalem’s residents, only 8.5% of the land in the city is designated for their residential purposes (and even there the potential to build is restricted). Between 1991 and 2018, only 16.5% of all housing construction permits issued by the Jerusalem municipality were for Palestinian neighbourhoods in the occupied and illegally annexed east. So-called illegal or unsanctioned construction by Palestinians is a response to the chronic, discrimination-based housing shortage.

Most recently, Ben-Gvir and Jerusalem’s deputy mayor, Aryeh King, announced the imminent demolition of a residential building in Wadi Qaddum, Silwan, on the basis it was built on land designated for “sports and leisure”, rather than residential use. When it goes ahead, this will be a large-scale demolition, displacing about 100 residents. In the past 10 years alone, 1,508 Palestinian structures have been demolished in East Jerusalem, rendering 2,893 people homeless, half of whom were minors.

The occupied West Bank has also been marked by a violent reality. Nearly no Palestinian construction is permitted in so-called Area C (60% of the West Bank). Israeli authorities constantly demolish Palestinian homes, roads, cisterns, solar panels and more. Settlements considered illegal under international law expand, while Palestinians are restricted to fragmented enclaves.

With the number of demolitions and displacements in Jerusalem and the West Bank increasing, entire communities are under threat. But we should remember the cost is most obvious on an individual level: the one family who lose all they have in the world. Walls crumble, children cry and parents scramble to figure out what to do or where to go next. It is a catastrophe, and it is constant.

Lacking an impossible-to-obtain permit is not the only context for demolishing Palestinian property; the Israeli occupation authorities are also destroying or sealing homes as a form of collective punishment, strictly prohibited under international law. Acts of forcible displacement of an occupied population constitute a war crime. The cruelty is astonishing.

These demolitions and displacements are one part of the structural violence we as Palestinians face every day. This Israeli government may pursue new cruel manifestations of occupation, but the foundations were laid by successive coalitions since 1967 from Labor to Likud.

That is why there is no consolation for us Palestinians in the crowds of Israelis protesting against proposed judicial reforms. For decades our lands have been confiscated and people displaced by elected Israeli politicians of various parties, rubber-stamped by every tier of the court system. Occupation and racist policies have been imposed on us by those within the current coalition – and many currently on the outside.

This violence is our reality – and confronting such a reality is a necessary first step in our fight for dignity and justice. Blaming the victim or shutting down the conversation will only prolong our suffering. It’s not a cycle of violence, it’s a system of apartheid – and must be treated as such by the outside world.

Jalal Abukhater is a writer from Jerusalem

I have seen race hate in the US and UK and the message is the same: no one is free until we are all free


Al Sharpton
Tue, 7 February 2023 

I came to London more than 30 years ago to protest against the vicious murder of 15-year-old Rolan Adams. He and his younger brother were waiting at a bus stop when they were chased by a gang of white teenagers, many yelling racial epithets. Adams was stabbed in the neck with a butterfly knife and died.

The white mobs here were eerily similar to the white mobs we witnessed while protesting in places like Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Similar stares, similar hate, similar use of the “N-word”, similar unease, similar tension and a similar lack of justice. More than three decades later, I return to share my film, Loudmouth, which chronicles my lifelong journey advocating and fighting for civil rights. While there has been progress that I have witnessed first-hand, both the US and the UK are still dealing with an excessive amount of police brutality. Whether it is back home or across the pond, the need for effective, thorough police reform is long overdue and we are here to demand it in unison.

As I left the US, my thoughts were still with the family of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who was beaten to death by officers according to videotape footage. I delivered the eulogy at his funeral and stood alongside his grieving mother, stepfather and loved ones. The pain that they will carry for the rest of their lives is just like the grief and agony that every family member of victims of police brutality endures whether in the US, the UK or elsewhere. Back home, there is case after case of officers killing unarmed Black and Brown folks in disproportionate numbers, as well as profiling, arresting, incarcerating and just plain targeting them. In the Nichols case, the accused officers are Black. This abuse is a systemic problem, just as it is a systemic problem in the UK.

Last September, the Metropolitan police shot and killed unarmed 24-year-old Chris Kaba. Police followed his vehicle and Kaba died from a single shot by an officer, according to reports. He was about to become a father. His family, members of the community, activists and even some politicians have called for accountability in the case. Similar to protests in the US, many on the ground in the UK have led rallies for reform. The Independent Office for Police Conduct said that it is conducting an investigation, but it may take anywhere from six to nine months. That is simply too long. This heartbroken family must receive answers and justice.

The problems with policing, whether here or in the states, often begin with dehumanising and devaluing Black and Brown lives. At an early age, our children are criminalised, perceived to be older than their age and treated harshly and unfairly. We saw that in the UK in a case in 2020 that garnered international outrage when a 15-year-old Black girl was strip-searched by female officers without the presence of her parents or another adult. The young girl was taken to the school’s medical room and strip-searched (while she was menstruating) by officers reportedly looking for cannabis. No drugs were found. This was not an isolated incident. According to the children’s commissioner for England, 650 children were strip-searched by police in London from 2018-2020. The majority were boys, and about 58% were Black. Simply unacceptable.

Al Sharpton delivers a eulogy for Tyre Nichols. Photograph: Getty Images

Impacts from systemic racism and a police culture that does not view us as deserving of basic human rights has detrimental reverberations. In June 2020, two sisters, Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry, were murdered and their bodies discovered in a park. Two Met police officers took pictures of their bodies, circulated them to others and made crass comments. The family also learned that a missing person log was incorrectly closed, and police failed to take any real action on the day the young women went missing. Not only was this gross negligence, but it again highlights the lack of care, respect and treatment that our communities receive. Those officers may not have killed them, but they caused further harm by their utter disregard and reprehensible behaviour.

Related: I’m tired of watching Black men like Tyre Nichols die. This shouldn’t be normal | Tayo Bero

These are just a few of the cases in recent years that have rocked neighbourhoods and communities in the UK, along with many others. It is similar to the pattern and practice misconduct we have been dealing with in the US for years and years. That’s the bad news. There is, however, a glimmer of hope and some good news. Many who’ve fought for justice in the UK are having their voices heard. Stephen Lawrence’s mother, Doreen, is a respected peer. Simon Woolley, the activist I came to protest with in 1991, is now Lord Simon Woolley and the principal of Homerton College, Cambridge. In the US, we elected our first Black president, Barack Obama, and now our first Black vice-president, Kamala Harris, who just gave a moving statement at Tyre Nichols’s funeral.

So yes, we have gained, but many things sadly remain the same. We have gained because it has not been in vain. The struggle continues as we fight for civil rights, police reform, equal treatment and justice. After all, whether in the US, the UK or around the world, none of us are free, until we are all free.

Rev Al Sharpton is an American Baptist minister, civil rights activist and radio talkshow host

Farming, pharmaceutical and health pollution fuelling rise in superbugs, UN warns

Fiona Harvey Environment editor

THE GUARDIAN
Tue, 7 February 2023 


Pollution from livestock farming, pharmaceuticals and healthcare is threatening to destroy a key pillar of modern medicine, as spills of manure and other pollution into waterways are adding to the global rise of superbugs, the UN has warned.

Animal farming is one of the key sources of strains of bacteria that have developed resistance to all forms of antibiotics, through the overuse of the medicines in farming.

Pharmaceutical pollution of waterways, from drug manufacturing plants, is also a major contributor, along with the failure to provide sanitation and control sewage around the world, and to tackle waste from healthcare facilities. Resistant superbugs can survive in untreated sewage.

The findings of the new report, published on Tuesday, show that pollution and a lack of sanitation in the developing world can no longer be regarded by the rich world as a faraway and localised problem for poor people. When superbugs emerge, they quickly spread, and threaten the health even of people in well-funded healthcare systems in the rich world.

Poor sanitation and healthcare, and a lack of regulation in animal farming, create breeding grounds for resistant bacteria, and threaten global health as a result, the UN Environment Programme found in the report. As many as 10 million people a year could be dying by 2050 as a result of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), according to the UN, making it as big a killer as cancer is today.

The rise of superbugs will also take an economic toll, resulting in the loss of about $3.4tn a year by the end of this decade, and pushing 24 million people into extreme poverty.

Inger Andersen, executive director of UNEP, said: “Pollution of air, soil and waterways undermines the human right to a clean and healthy environment. The same drivers that cause environmental degradation are worsening the antimicrobial resistance problem. The impacts of anti-microbial resistance could destroy our health and food systems.”

She called for urgent action to halt the pollution. “Cutting down pollution is a pre-requisite for another century of progress towards zero hunger and good health,” she said, at the launch of the report at the sixth meeting of the Global Leaders Group on AMR in Barbados on Tuesday.

The report found that sewage, poor sanitation, and the inadequate disposal of waste were all contributors to the problem.

Simon Clarke, microbiologist at the University of Reading, who was not involved with the report, said people often failed to recognise how big a difference antibiotic use made to modern medicine. “Because of the effectiveness of antibiotics, we have perhaps forgotten the deadly impact that many infections had in the past. The risk of doing nothing is that every injury, operation or routine trip to hospital comes with the risk of picking up a lethal infection.”

Superbugs have been associated in the past with hospital acquired infections, such as MRSA. But that was changing, warned Oliver Jones, professor of chemistry at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. “We tend to think of antibacterial resistance as being a problem associated with hospitals. What this report shows is that antibiotics and other medications ending up in the environment is a major factor in the spread of antibiotic resistance and something we need to pay attention to sooner rather than later,” he said.

Governments and private sector investors in the developed world should wake up to the risks and provide the resources to tackle pollution in the developing world, which would be in their own self-interest, the report suggested.

Farming must also be a key focus, added Matthew Upton, professor of medical microbiology at the University of Plymouth. “Although the situation is improving in some parts of the world, vast amounts of antimicrobials are used to treat and prevent infections in food animals. Improved husbandry and other infection prevention and control methods like vaccination should be used to reduce infections and the need for antimicrobial use, which in turn limits environmental pollution with antimicrobials, antimicrobial residues and resistant microbes. This is particularly applicable in aquaculture, which is going to be a major source of aquatic protein by 2050,” he said.

Catrin Moore, senior lecturer at St George’s, University of London, drew parallels with the failure by the UK’s water companies and government to control the widespread release of sewage into rivers and beaches. “This report reminds me that high levels of AMR could ultimately be on my doorstep, and in the water that I swim through with untreated human waste being released into local waterways,” she said. “Although the highest burden of AMR is found in low- and middle-income countries, and resistant bacteria can be spread easily – they show no respect to country borders. Ultimately if resistant pathogens are increasing in my local environment, reducing the burden of mortality and morbidity due to AMR will be an impossible task.”

Codebreakers uncover secrets of lost letters Mary Queen of Scots wrote from jail

Tue, 7 February 2023

Mary, Queen of Scots
Queen of Scotland from 1542 to 1567

Secret letters written by Mary Queen of Scots while she was imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth I have been cracked by a team of codebreakers.

For centuries, the contents of the coded correspondence dating from 1578 to 1584 were believed to have been lost.

Mary, who was beheaded on this day 436 years ago, used a complex cipher system to hide her messages, which the codebreakers found include musings about her time in jail, poor health and attempts t negotiate her release.

Why was she imprisoned?

Mary had already been held captive in Scotland by the time she was detained in England - her imprisonment spread across castles from Carlisle to Fotheringhay over the course of 19 years.

The newly decoded letters were written while she was in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury.

She was jailed by Elizabeth, her cousin, because she was deemed a threat to her power.

Catholics considered Mary to be the legitimate sovereign, and was first in the line of succession.

Eventually, she was executed in 1587, aged 44, for her part in an alleged plot to kill Elizabeth.

What were the letters about?

Most of Mary's letters were meant for the French ambassador to England, Michel de Castelnau de Mauvissiere, who supported her claim to the throne.

They included complaints about her poor health and her captivity conditions, as well as her mistrust and disdain for Elizabeth's principal secretary Sir Francis Walsingham and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.

She also expresses distress about the abduction of her son James, the future King, in August 1582.

Mary was known to have communicated with allies from jail - but the range of these letters, from 1578 to 1584, suggested that they were sent earlier and later than previously thought.


How were they decoded?

The team was computer scientist and cryptographer George Lasry, music professor Norbert Biermann, and physicist Satoshi Tomokiyo, who stumbled across 57 letters in the national library of France's online archives.

The library had listed them as from the first half of the 16th century and related to Italian matters - but the authors realised soon after that they were written in French.

The cipher is homophonic with a nomenclature - this means each letter of the alphabet can be encoded using several cipher symbols, making sure no one symbol appears too often.

There are also dedicated symbols for certain words, names, and places.

"The code is quite elaborate, and it took us a while to crack it," said Mr Lasry, of the University of Kassel.

"But after a while, we started to see some plausible fragments of text in French. From those fragments, it emerged that the writer was in captivity, had a son, and was a woman, which could match Mary Stuart."

Their work revealed verbs and adverbs frequently in the feminine form, mentions of captivity, and references to Walsingham - described as the "definitive clue".

It was confirmed by comparing them with the plaintext of letters in Walsingham's papers in the British Library - and successfully revealed dozens of scripts previously unknown to historians.

Their findings have been published in the peer-reviewed journal Cryptologia.

'A historical sensation'

The discovery has been hailed by leading expert John Guy, whose 2004 biography on Mary led to a 2018 film starring Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie.

"This discovery is a literary and historical sensation," he said.

"This is the most important new find on Mary Queen of Scots for 100 years. I'd always wondered if de Castelnau's originals could turn up one day - buried in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France or perhaps somewhere else - unidentified because of the ciphering.

"And now they have."

Codebreakers crack secrets of Mary Queen of Scots’ lost letters

Launched on the anniversary of Mary’s execution, study reveals 50 new letters in cipher – with some still believed missing – shedding new light on her captivity

Peer-Reviewed Publication

TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP

 

VIDEO: INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE LASRY. view more 

CREDIT: TAYLOR & FRANCIS

Secret, coded letters penned by Mary Queen of Scots while she was imprisoned in England by her cousin Queen Elizabeth I have been uncovered by a multidisciplinary team of international codebreakers.

The contents of the letters were believed for centuries to have been lost.
That was until George Lasry, a computer scientist and cryptographer, Norbert Biermann, a pianist and music professor, and Satoshi Tomokiyo who is a physicist and patents expert, stumbled upon them while searching the national library of France’s – Bibliothèque nationale de France’s (BnF) – online archives for enciphered documents.

The trio only discovered Mary was the author after solving her sophisticated cipher system. Their decipherment work of 57 letters, which is presented in the peer-reviewed journal Cryptologia, reveals approximately 50 new scripts previously unknown to historians.

These date from 1578 to 1584, a few years before her beheading on this very day 436 years ago – 8th February, 1587.

Mary’s correspondences expose fascinating insights into her captivity. Most are addressed to Michel de Castelnau de Mauvissière, the French ambassador to England. He was a supporter of Catholic Mary who was under the Earl of Shrewsbury’s custody when she wrote them.  

“Upon deciphering the letters, I was very, very puzzled and it kind of felt surreal,” says lead author Lasry, who is also part of the multi-disciplinary DECRYPT Project – involving several universities in Europe, with the goal of mapping, digitizing, transcribing, and deciphering historical ciphers.

“We have broken secret codes from kings and queens previously, and they’re very interesting but with Mary Queen of Scots it was remarkable as we had so many unpublished letters deciphered and because she is so famous.

“This is a truly exciting discovery.”

He added: “Together, the letters constitute a voluminous body of new primary material on Mary Stuart – about 50,000 words in total, shedding new light on some of her years of captivity in England.

“Mary, Queen of Scots, has left an extensive corpus of letters held in various archives. There was prior evidence, however, that other letters from Mary Stuart were missing from those collections, such as those referenced in other sources but not found elsewhere.

“The letters we have deciphered … are most likely part of this lost secret correspondence.”

One of the 16th century’s most famous historical figures, Mary was first in line of succession to the English throne after her cousin Elizabeth.

Catholics considered Mary to be the legitimate sovereign and Elizabeth had her imprisoned for 19 years because she was seen as a threat. Mary was eventually executed aged 44 for her alleged part in a plot to kill Elizabeth.

During her time in captivity, Mary communicated with her associates and allies through extensive efforts to recruit messengers and to maintain secrecy.

The existence of a confidential communication channel between Mary and Castelnau is well-known to historians, and even to the English government at the time.

But Lasry and his fellow codebreakers provide new evidence that this exchange was already in place as early as May 1578 and active until at least mid-1584.

Using computerized and manual techniques, the study authors decoded the letters which show the challenges Mary faced maintaining links with the outside world, how the letters were carried and by whom.

Key themes referred to in Mary’s correspondence include complaints about her poor health and captivity conditions, and her negotiations with Queen Elizabeth I for her release, which she believes are not conducted in good faith.

Her mistrust of Elizabeth’s spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham is also apparent, as well as her animosity for Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and a favourite of Elizabeth. She also expresses her distress when her son James (future King James I of England) is abducted in August 1582, and her feeling they have been abandoned by France.

Writing in this Special Issue version of Cryptologia, Lasry and his co-authors describe how they first came across the letters. Some were in a large set of unmarked documents in cipher and using the same set of graphical symbols.

The BnF catalogue listed them as from the first half of the 16th century, and related to Italian matters. However, the study authors say they ‘quickly realised’ – after starting to crack the code – they were written in French and ‘had nothing to do with Italy’.

Their detective work revealed verbs and adverbs often in the feminine form, several mentions of captivity, and the name ‘Walsingham’ which arose the suspicion that they might be from Mary, Queen of Scots.

This fact was confirmed by comparing them with the plaintext of letters in Walsingham’s papers in the British Library and through other methods. A search for similar letters in BnF collections uncovered 57 letters with the same cipher.

Commenting on the new paper, Mary Queen of Scots expert, John Guy, who wrote the 2004 biography of Mary Queen of Scots which led to a major Hollywood film, says this is the most significant find about Mary for a century.

“This discovery is a literary and historical sensation. Fabulous! This is the most important new find on Mary Queen of Scots for 100 years. I’d always wondered if de Castelnau’s originals could turn up one day, buried in the Bibliotheque Nationale de France or perhaps somewhere else, unidentified because of the ciphering.

“And now they have.”

Lasry and his co-authors suggest, too, that other enciphered letters from Mary which are known to have existed may still be missing. A physical inspection of documents, as well as online searches, are needed to uncover these, they add.

It is hoped, now too, that the study will lead to future research.

“In our paper, we only provide an initial interpretation and summaries of the letters. A deeper analysis by historians could result in a better understanding of Mary’s years in captivity,” adds Lasry. “It would also be great, potentially, to work with historians to produce an edited book of her letters deciphered, annotated, and translated.”

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JOURNAL

Cryptologia

DOI

10.1080/01611194.2022.2160677 

ARTICLE TITLE

Deciphering Mary Stuart’s Lost Letters from 1578-1584

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

8-Feb-2023