Mysterious ‘fairy circles’ identified at hundreds of sites worldwide, new study says

Mindy Weisberger, CNN
Thu, September 28, 2023 

Thomas Dressler/imageBROKER/Shutterstock

Round discs of barren dirt known as “fairy circles” look like rows of polka dots that can spread for miles over the ground. The phenomenon’s mysterious origins have intrigued scientists for decades — and they may be far more widespread than once thought.

Fairy circles were previously spotted only in the arid lands of Southern Africa’s Namib Desert and the outback of Western Australia. But a new study has used artificial intelligence to identify vegetation patterns resembling fairy circles in hundreds of new locations across 15 countries on three continents. This could help scientists understand fairy circles and their formation on a global scale.

For the new survey, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers analyzed datasets containing high-resolution satellite images of drylands, or arid ecosystems with scant rainfall, from around the world. The search for patterns resembling fairy circles used a neural network — a type of AI that processes information in a manner similar to that of a brain.

“The use of artificial intelligence based models on satellite imagery is the first time it has been done on a large scale to detect fairy-circle like patterns,” said lead study author Dr. Emilio Guirado, a data scientist with the Multidisciplinary Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Alicante in Spain, in an email.
Hundreds of potential fairy circle sites

First, the study authors trained the neural network to recognize fairy circles by inputting more than 15,000 satellite images taken over Namibia and Australia. Half of the images showed fairy circles, and half did not. The scientists then fed their AI a dataset with satellite views of nearly 575,000 plots of land around the world, each measuring about 2.5 acres (1 hectare). The neural network scanned vegetation in those images and identified repeating circular patterns that resembled patterns of known fairy circles, evaluating the circles’ sizes and shapes as well as their locations, pattern densities and distribution.

Output of this analysis then required a human review, Guirado said. “We had to manually discard some artificial and natural structures that were not fairy circles based on photo-interpretation and the context of the area,” he explained.

The results showed 263 dryland locations where there were circular patterns similar to fairy circles in Namibia and Australia. These arid spots were distributed across Africa (the Sahel, Western Sahara and the Horn of Africa) and were also clustered in Madagascar and Midwestern Asia, as well as central and Southwest Australia.
Circle pattern recognition

Fairy circles aren’t the only natural phenomenon that can produce round, repeated bare spots in a landscape. One factor that sets fairy circles apart from other types of vegetation gaps is a strongly ordered pattern between the circles, said Dr. Stephan Getzin, a researcher in the department of ecosystem modeling at the University of Göttingen in Germany.

Getzin and colleagues published a November 2021 paper defining fairy circles and what made them unique, emphasizing details of the overall pattern structure, he told CNN in an email. And according to Getzin, who was not involved in the latest study, the newfound patterns fall short.

“Fairy circles are defined by the fact that they have, in principle, the ability to form a ‘spatially periodic’ pattern,” which is “significantly more ordered” than other patterns — and none of the patterns in the survey clear that high bar, Getzin said.

But in fact, there is no universally accepted definition of fairy circles, Guirado said. He and his coauthors identified potential fairy circles — gauging the size and shape of individual circles, as well as the patterns they formed collectively — by referencing guidelines established across multiple published studies. The metrics of those spatial patterns, in fairy circles old and new, “are virtually the same,” he said.

Of the new locations that were identified, some passed muster with Dr. Fiona Walsh, who as part of an international team has investigated fairy circles in the Australian outback. “Pattern distribution in Australia appears to be congruent with some of what we previously reported,” said Walsh, an ethnoecologist at the University of Western Australia. Walsh was not involved in the new survey.
Fairy circles’ mysterious origins

The study authors also compiled environmental data where circles were spotted, collecting evidence that might hint at what causes them to form. The researchers determined that fairy circle-like patterns were most likely to occur in very dry, sandy soils that were high-alkaline and low in nitrogen. The scientists also found the fairy circle-like patterns helped stabilize ecosystems, increasing an area’s resistance to disturbances such as floods or extreme drought.

But the question “What shapes fairy circles?” is complex, and factors that create fairy circles may differ from site to site, the study authors reported. Getzin previously wrote that certain climate conditions, along with self-organization in plants, generated fairy circles in Namibia, and while insects such as termites take advantage of the dry patches, their activities don’t directly produce the patterns, he said in the email.

Walsh, however, said that Australia’s fairy circles are inextricably linked to termite activity. Their team’s research, conducted in close collaboration with indigenous peoples, determined that in Western Australia and in the Northern Territory, termites are intrinsic to the functioning of fairy circles, called “linyji” in the Manyjilyjarra language, and “mingkirri” in the Warlpiri language, she told CNN in an email.

“Aboriginal people illustrated these patterns at least since the 1980s and said they knew of them for generations, probably millennia earlier,” Walsh said.

“In Australia, termites do not simply ‘play a role’,” she added. “They are the primary mechanism and interpretations need to be centred on termite-grass-soil-water dynamics.”

Many questions about fairy circles have yet to be answered, and the authors of the new study are optimistic that their global atlas will open a new chapter in the study of these peculiar barren spots.

“We hope that the information we publish in the paper can provide scientists around the world with new areas of study that will solve new puzzles in the formation of fairy-circle patterns,” Guirado said.

Mindy Weisberger is a science writer and media producer whose work has appeared in Live Science, Scientific American and How It Works magazine.


Mysterious ‘fairy circles’ found dotting Africa and Australia now found in more parts of world

Vishwam Sankaran
Wed, September 27, 2023


Strange circular patches called “fairy circles” dotting the arid terrains of Namibia and Australia have puzzled scientists for decades and have now been mapped across 250 locations that span 15 countries.

Until now, the enigmatic circular patterns of bare soil surrounded by plants generating rings of vegetation had only been described in Namibia and Australia.

Multiple theories have been proposed over the past five decades to explain their formation, but the global dimension of the phenomena has remained elusive, said researchers, including those from Universidad de Alicante (UA) in Spain.

The new study, published on Tuesday in the journal PNAS, used artificial intelligence to classify satellite images, obtaining 263 sites where patterns similar to the fairy circles have been described to date, including from Namibia and Western Australia.

The analysis found these patches in places like the Sahel, Western Sahara, the Horn of Africa, Madagascar, southwest Asia and central Australia, suggesting fairy circles are “far more common than previously thought”.

“Analyzing their effects on the functioning of ecosystems and discovering the environmental factors that determine their distribution is essential to better understand the causes of the formation of these vegetation patterns and their ecological importance,” study co-author Emilio Guirado from UA said.

Scientists found that the combination of certain soil and climate characteristics, such as low nitrogen content and an average rainfall of less than 200 mm/year, are associated with the presence of fairy circles.

The fairy circles seen from the air. They form an additional source of water in this arid region, because the rainwater flows towards the grasses on the edge. (Stephan Getzin)

“This study has taken into account multiple variables hitherto not considered, such as albedo or the state of the aquifers,” said Jaime Martínez-Valderrama, another author of the study.

“This is a particularly relevant factor, since the massive use of groundwater in arid areas around the world, including deserts, could disturb these formations,” Dr Martínez-Valderrama said.

Drone image of car driving through the NamibRand Nature Reserve, one of the fairy-circle regions in Namibia where the researchers undertook grass excavations, soil-moisture and infiltration measurements (Stephan Getzin)

The new findings, according to researchers, also open the door to research on whether these patterns on the soil can be indicators of ecosystem degradation with the climate crisis.

With the new study, scientists have also made available a global atlas of fairy circles and a database that could be useful in determining whether these vegetation patterns are more resilient to climate change and other disturbances.

Mysterious 'fairy circles' may appear on three different continents

Laura Baisas
Wed, September 27, 2023 



The natural circles that pop up on the soil in the planet’s arid regions are an enduring scientific debate and mystery. These “fairy circles” are circular patterns of bare soil surrounded by plants and vegetation. Until very recently, the unique phenomena have only been described in the vast Namib desert and the Australian outback. While their origins and distribution are hotly debated, a study with satellite imagery published on September 25 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) indicates that fairy circles may be more common than once realized. They are potentially found in 15 countries across three continents and in 263 different sites.

These soil shapes occur in arid areas of the Earth, where nutrients and water are generally scarce. Their signature circular pattern and hexagonal shape is believed to be the best way that the plants have found to survive in that landscape. Ecologist Ken Tinsly observed the circles in Namibia in 1971, and the story goes that he borrowed the name fairy circles from a naturally occurring ring of mushrooms that are generally found in Europe.

By 2017, Australian researchers found the debated western desert fairy circles, and proposed that the mechanisms of biological self-organization and pattern formation proposed by mathematician Alan Turing were behind them. In the same year, Aboriginal knowledge linked those fairy circles to a species of termites. This “termite theory” of fairy circle origin continues to be a focus of research—a team from the University of Hamburg in Germany published a study seeming to confirm that termites are behind these circles in July.

In this new study, a team of researchers from Spain used artificial intelligence-based models to look at the fairy circles from Australia and Namibia and directed it to look for similar patterns. The AI scoured the images for months and expanded the areas where these fairy circles could exist. These locations include the circles in Namibia, Western Australia, the western Sahara Desert, the Sahel region that separates the African savanna from the Sahara Desert, the Horn of Africa to the East, the island of Madagascar, southwestern Asia, and Central Australia.

Fairy circles on a Namibian plain. CREDIT: Audi Ekandjo.

The team then crossed-checked the results of the AI system with a different AI program trained to study the environments and ecology of arid areas to find out what factors govern the appearance of these circular patterns.

"Our study provides evidence that fairy-circle[s] are far more common than previously thought, which has allowed us, for the first time, to globally understand the factors affecting their distribution," study co-author and Institute of Natural Resources and Agrobiology of Seville soil ecologist Manuel Delgado Baquerizo said in a statement.

According to the team, these circles generally appear in arid regions where the soil is mainly sandy, there is water scarcity, annual rainfall is between 4 to 12 inches, and low nutrient continent in the soil.

"Analyzing their effects on the functioning of ecosystems and discovering the environmental factors that determine their distribution is essential to better understand the causes of the formation of these vegetation patterns and their ecological importance," study co-author and University of Alicante data scientist Emilio Guirado said in a statement.

More research is needed to determine the role of insects like termites in fairy circle formation, but Guirado told El País that “their global importance is low,” and that they may play an important role in local cases like those in Namibia, “but there are other factors that are even more important.”

The images are now included in a global atlas of fairy circles and a database that could help determine if these patterns demonstrate resilience to climate change.

"We hope that the unpublished data will be useful for those interested in comparing the dynamic behavior of these patterns with others present in arid areas around the world,” said Guirado.

We Swore These Human Populations Vanished 50 Years Ago. Scientists Just Found Them.

Tim Newcomb

POP SCI
Wed, September 27, 2023 

Found: Human Genetic Populations Once Thought Lost

francescoch - Getty Images

A research team was able to locate human populations in an African desert believed to have disappeared more than 50 years ago.

DNA studies helped show the genetic differences between neighboring groups of populations and how they changed over time.

Researching understudied regions of high ethnolinguistic diversity opens new avenues of knowledge.

Probing the deep genetic web of the African continent has revealed a deeply divergent ancestry among mixed populations in the Angolan Namib Desert. And that web certainly had some secrets to reveal, according to a recent study published in Science Advances.

“We were able to locate groups which were thought to have disappeared more than 50 years ago,” Jorge Rocha, one of the authors of the study, said in a news release.

The African continent has the highest level of genetic diversity in the world. But that diversity isn’t always clearly on display. It can be hard to tell one genetic population from another if the groups have become relatively intermixed, and if the outward signs of a population—like, say, their native languages—disappear, it can appear that the population itself is gone.

Often, clues to modern genetic populations are found by mining information from ancient DNA. But due to the natural decay of these samples, they paint an incomplete picture. In order to get the clearest possible understanding of the true genetic diversity of the Angolan Namib Desert, the team went in search of modern DNA samples that could supplement our ancient bank of genetic information.

In their search, the team located the Kwepe group, which once spoke the click language Kwadi. When evidence of the Kwadi language disappeared, researchers believed that the Kwepe were gone as well. But there they were, in the modern day. The team even found two individuals who could still speak Kwadi.

The team also contacted Bantu-speaking groups and other marginalized populations associated with foraging traditions whose original languages were previously believed lost.

“Previous studies revealed that foragers from the Kalahari Desert descend from an ancestral population who was the first to split from all other extant humans,” Mark Stoneking, a professor at the Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, said in a news release. “Our results consistently place the newly identified ancestry within the same ancestral lineage but suggest that the Namib-related ancestry diverged from all other southern African ancestries, followed by a split of northern and southern Kalahari ancestries.”

The study of these groups helps show that both genetic and linguistic differences can be associated with lifestyle variances. For example, the more different two populations lifestyles were—say, one was a pastoral group and the other was a hunter-gatherer group—the more their genetic makeup and linguistic expression seemed to differ. “A lot of our efforts were placed in understanding how much of this local variation and global eccentricity was caused by genetic drift,” Sandra Oliverira of the University of Bern said in a news release, “a random process that disproportionately affects small populations and by admixtures from vanished populations.”

The study authors said that studying ancient DNA can reveal the genetic structure of Africa before the expansion of the Bantu-speaking agriculturalists, but that understanding the potential impacts on the “genetic makeup of present-day African groups” from other potentially extinct societies “remain[s] elusive.”

By diving into the desert, the team located small-scale groups with ties to varying traditions, such as foraging and speaking Kwadi. They were then able to dissect ancestry into smaller groups and reconstruct the histories of emerging migration patterns. The team used this information to show a “deeply divergent ancestry” in groups from the Angolan Namib region.

This kind of detailed population analysis helps to reconstruct the histories and migration of southern African people—for example, the team saw how Khoe speakers mixed with the Kalahari people earlier than the Bantu speakers arrived—and demonstrates the value in modern DNA research.

“The unique genetic heritage of the Namib peoples shows how modern DNA research targeting understudied regions of high ethnolinguistic diversity,” the authors wrote, “can complement ancient DNA studies in probing the deep genetic structure of the African continent.”

ETHNIC CLEANSING

Nagorno-Karabakh will cease to exist by January, say separatist leaders

Roland Oliphant
Thu, 28 September 2023 

Samvel Shakhramanyan announced the dissolution on Thursday - Photolure/National Assembly of Republic of Artsakh

The breakaway republic of Nagorno-Karabakh will cease to exist from Jan 1, its leaders have announced, after Azerbaijani forces overran the region and forced tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians to flee.

Samvel Shakhramanyan, the separatist region’s president, announced its dissolution on Thursday, ending a 30-year struggle for independence from Baku.

The announcement came as the number of people fleeing the region reached 75,000, in what Armenian officials have described as “ethnic cleansing”.


It marks the formal end of the Nagorno-Karabakh project and the intractable frozen conflict there which lasted nearly three decades after the end of the first Armenian-Azeri war in 1994.

Mr Shakhramanyan said in his decree that “all state institutions and organisations under their departmental subordination by January 1, and the Republic of Nagorno Karabkah (Artsakh) ceases to exist.”

Residents were instructed to “familiarise themselves with the contusion of reintegration presented by the Republic of Azerbaijan,” it added.

Ruben Vardanyan, the former head of government, was accused of illegally crossing the border - Reuters

He said the decision followed the Russian-brokered agreement with Azeri officials ensuring “free voluntary and unhindered travel” via the Lachin corridor to Armenia.

Armenian officials said on Thursday afternoon that 75,000 of the 120,000 population had crossed into Armenia since Sunday.

Nikol Pashinyan, the Armenian prime minister, said the number was expected to rise and that there would likely be no ethnic Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh in the coming days.

“This is an act of ethnic cleansing of which we were warning the international community about for a long time,” he told a cabinet meeting.

Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry denied ethnic cleansing and said Baku had appealed to local residents to stay put.

Nikol Pashinyan said there would likely be no ethnic Armenians left in the coming days - EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

“We call on Armenian residents not to leave their homes and become part of Azerbaijan’s multi-ethnic society,” it said in a statement.

Russia, traditionally an ally of Armenia, said it was “closely monitoring” the situation but refused to condemn Azerbaijan’s actions.

“There is no direct reason for such actions,” Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said of the exodus.

“People are nevertheless expressing a desire to leave... those who made such a decision should be provided with normal conditions.”

He said that Russian peacekeepers continue to assist people in the area and that Russia had “taken notice” of the decree dissolving Nagorno-Karabakh.

It came as the United Nations called on Azerbaijan to respect the rights of a former leader of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

Residents gather in central Stepanakert to leave Nagorno-Karabakh

 - David Ghahramanyan/Reuters

Ruben Vardanyan, a former Nagorno-Karabakh leader, was arrested by Azeri border guards while trying to evacuate to Armenia on Wednesday.

Azerbaijan’s state security service said on Thursday that he was being charged with financing terrorism and illegally crossing the border.

Azerbaijan’s predominantly ethnic-Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh won de facto independence from Baku in a war marked by ethnic cleansing and massacres between 1988 and 1994.

The conflict remained “frozen” until 2020, when Azerbaijan launched a six-week blitzkrieg to recapture the area.

A second 24-hour assault overran the remaining Armenian controlled areas on Sept 19 this year.

Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty to wind down venture capital fund

Kalyeena Makortoff
Thu, 28 September 2023 

Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Rishi Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, is winding down her startup investment fund, months after questions were raised over its links to taxpayer-funded schemes.

Murty’s venture capital fund, Catamaran Ventures UK, gave little detail, only saying that its directors “have decided to liquidate the company”, according to its latest filings at Companies House.

Sunak’s wife used Catamaran Ventures UK to invest some of the vast wealth she derives from her 0.91% stake in her father’s Indian IT business, Infosys, which earlier this year was worth £590m.

Related: Rishi who? Sunak slips down pecking order in G20 scramble to court India

However, the fund’s operations came under scrutiny when it emerged that a number of the startups it backed received cash injections through taxpayer-backed schemes, or owed money to HM Revenue and Customs.

That included the upmarket furniture firm, New Craftsmen, which collapsed into liquidation in November 2022 after receiving £300,000 in taxpayer-funded loans handed out under policies that Sunak put in place while he was chancellor.

Catamaran also backed the education firm Mrs Wordsmith, which secured £1.3m from the Future Fund, a £250m investment scheme, designed by Sunak, that was intended to help small startups ride out the pandemic. Under the scheme, the government extended loans that would then convert into shares when the companies attracted new funding.

Mrs Wordsmith collapsed six months after receiving the funding, owing £249,000 to HMRC.

Another of its investments, the fitness chain Digme Fitness, fell into administration in 2021, after having received Covid furlough payments of up to £630,000. It also owed more than £6.1m in VAT and PAYE taxes.

Catamaran also put money behind Study Hall, an education technology business which is still trading, that was given a government grant of £349,976 from the arm’s-length body Innovate UK in 2022.

Murty’s financial arrangements have been an ongoing point of contention during Sunak’s time in Downing Street.

The prime minister came under criticism after it was revealed that Murty held “non-dom” tax status, allowing her to legally minimise tax on dividends from Infosys, which were worth £11.5m in the last financial year. She subsequently agreed to pay tax in the UK on her worldwide income.

Her shareholding in the childcare company Koru Kids later became a source of controversy, after the prime minister was found to have breached parliament’s code of conduct by failing to declare it while being questioned by MPs earlier this year . Koru Kids was among six private childcare providers poised to benefit from a pilot scheme proposed in the budget to incentivise people to become childminders. However, parliament’s commissioner for standards said the breach was inadvertent.

The Guardian contacted No 10 for comment regarding the wind-down of Catamaran Ventures UK.

Sunak declines to endorse Braverman’s claim multiculturalism has ‘failed’

CANADA DISPROVES THAT CLAIM

Sam Blewett, PA Deputy Political Editor
Thu, 28 September 2023 

Rishi Sunak has repeatedly declined to endorse Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s claim that multiculturalism has “failed” in her hardline speech on immigration.

The Prime Minister instead praised the UK’s “fantastic multicultural democracy” on Thursday, saying the nation has done an “incredible job of integrating people”.

Ms Braverman has sought to downplay suggestions that her speech in the US was paving the way for a future bid to surpass her boss as the Tory leader.

The Home Secretary said she is working ‘hand-in-hand’ with the PM (PA)

The Cabinet minister warned of what she sees as an “existential threat” of uncontrolled migration as she called for reform of international refugee rules.

She argued the “misguided dogma of multiculturalism” had “failed because it allowed people to come to our society and live parallel lives in it”.

Ms Braverman suggested it has allowed them to “pursue lives aimed at undermining the stability and threatening the security of our society”.

But Mr Sunak, the first British PM of Indian heritage, repeatedly declined to back her comments during a round of regional broadcast interviews ahead of the Tory conference.

Asked by BBC East Midlands political editor Tony Roe if he agreed with Ms Braverman, Mr Sunak said: “I think that this is something that is incredible about this country, is that it is a fantastic multicultural democracy.

“We have done an incredible job of integrating people into society and one of the lovely things about getting the job I have, as the first person from my background to hold this job, that’s a wonderful thing, but it’s also not a big deal in our country.

“I think that speaks to the progress we’ve made over the years and how far we’ve come and something we should all be collectively incredibly proud of.”

Asked if the Home Secretary was wrong, Mr Sunak said it is “important that everyone subscribes to British values” but that he believes “our country has done an incredibly good job of integrating people from lots of different backgrounds”.

Westminster observers suggested that Ms Braverman’s speech in Washington seemed like a pitch to the Tory right, in case Mr Sunak leads the party to defeat at the next general election.

But Ms Braverman, whose parents migrated from Mauritius and Kenya, told the PA news agency that such suggestions were “slightly flippant” and insisted she was working “hand-in-hand” with Mr Sunak.

Her remarks were criticised by some Conservative MPs, including Tobias Ellwood.

He told ITV’s Peston they were “clearly designed for a particular audience and don’t do the Prime Minister any good”.

A Labour spokesman said: “Weak Rishi Sunak has allowed his Home Secretary to swan off around the world delivering messages to some of our closest allies that he’s not onboard with.

“It’s official, his premiership is beyond tired, it’s redundant. This is not just embarrassing. It’s bad for Britain and they should call an election now.”

HINDUISM IS FASCISM
Disabled Muslim man lynched in Delhi after eating at Hindu temple


Namita Singh
Thu, 28 September 2023 

Representational image of police walking along streets in New Delhi, India (AFP via Getty Images)

A Muslim man was beaten to death in India’s national capital after he stole a small amount of food from a temple, police said.

Isar Mohammad, 26, was tied to a pole, tortured and beaten to death in New Delhi on Tuesday. He had been accused of taking some prasad (food offerings) and Rs 20 (20p) from a pile of offerings made by devotees of the Hindu deity Ganesha at a temporary installation during the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi.

In a graphic video purporting to show the incident that went viral on social media, five men can be seen beating Isar as he cries out in pain, pleading for them to stop.


Police said Isar had been unable to explain himself or reason with temple officials because he had a mental disability.

“He was cold like a dead body when he was brought back to our house. Seeing him like that, I too died with him,” his sister Umrana Mohammad told news portal The Quint.

The incident came to light after his father Abdul Wajid informed the police on Tuesday night, shortly after Isar succumbed to his injuries. The family said he was not a thief and had picked up the food from the offering because he was hungry.

The authorities have registered a murder case in the matter and arrested seven people, including Kamal, 23, his brother Manoj, 19, Yunus, 20, Kishan, 19, Pappu, Lucky, a food stall owner, and a 17-year-old who has not been named, reported the outlet.

A police official on the condition of anonymity told The Quint that there was no religious motivation for the crime.

“The accused claimed that around 5am, they caught Isar lurking around the area and thought that he was a thief,” Joy N Tirkey, a top police official, was quoted as saying by The Indian Express newspaper.

“They asked him questions but he was unable to reply properly since he was mentally challenged. They then tied him to an electric pole and thrashed him.”

The victim’s father told police that Isar was lying outside the house and writhing in pain, with injury marks all over his body, when he was found. He was brought home by one of their neighbours and died from his injuries shortly after, reported the Press Trust of India.

A post mortem report showed blunt-force injuries all over the victim’s body, including his head, back, arms and legs, reported The Indian Express citing a police source. The cause of death was said to be “shock and haemorrhage”.

UK
NHS nurses considering job offers in Canada as Home Office ‘risks worsening workforce crisis’ with visa fee hike


Miriam Burrell
Thu, 28 September 2023 

Doctors and nurses on an NHS ward (PA Wire)

NHS nurses are considering job offers in Canada and the US as the dream of settling in Britain with their families becomes unaffordable following the Home Office visa fee hike.

The Government risks “worsening the NHS workforce crisis” by increasing fees from October 4, the British Medical Association has warned, labelling the move “self-defeating”.

Already “tens of thousands” staff short, the NHS faces a “disaster for patient care” and “yet more disruption” if migrant nurses leave, union Unison said.

Students, workers and families wanting to live in the UK will pay between 15 and 35 per cent more for their visa applications from next week, in a move the Home Office said will allow funding for public sector pay rises.

Anyone applying for indefinite leave to remain within the UK will have to pay £2,885, a rise of 20 per cent.

Nurses working for NHS England, who hoped to apply for this visa with their families, told the Standard an increase of around £3,000 in fees has forced them to consider jobs elsewhere.

“We’ve known England to be our home and we really, really want to stay here,” a Birmingham-based nurse told the Standard.

“Because of the cost my blood pressure is going up a little bit every single day, honestly, every single day I think about it.

“I can’t even sleep at night because I’m just thinking I have to go and borrow from the bank...so we will be able to afford it.”

It will cost the renal nurse, along with her husband, a lecturer, and three children, around £15,000 to settle permanently.

The Nigerian national said she has job offers in both Canada and the US, with the cost of her residency in Canada just £819 and her children £138 each.

“But I’ve lived in England for five years now. I’ve come to love living in this country. I love the job I do,” she said.

“I do appreciate the kind of health service that has been offered here.”

The mother-of-three told the Standard she knows at least five nursing colleagues who are also considering relocating, and more than 50 nurses who left the NHS in the past year due to expensive visa fees.

A Sussex-based nurse, who identified only as May, said she and her husband have worked for the NHS for two years but the visa fee increase has left them scouting for jobs in Australia instead.

“We are setting our sights to other countries with better wages and more welcoming rules for migrant workers. Many other colleagues of ours share the same sentiment and have started the process of taking examinations and applying for jobs overseas.

“We came to the country to contribute skills, knowledge and hard work in exchange for a decent life; but instead, we feel that we are extorted.”

A recent medical graduate and GP trainee, Hashim Barkouk, told the Standard: “Many healthcare professionals, myself included, are considering moving towards locum positions, which offer higher pay but pose a risk to the stability and continuity of our healthcare system”.

Mr Barkouk added: “I am surprised that the Government had little consideration for these critical issues and their potential consequences on the healthcare system.”

Dr Kitty Mohan, British Medical Association International committee chairperson, said: “The Government’s increasingly hostile immigration policies, including these visa fee increases, risk doctors from overseas being deterred from working in the UK, which will inevitably impact patient care.

“Trying to push the cost of failure to manage public services onto people coming to work in our health system is self-defeating and short sighted. The Government must abandon the planned visa fee increases otherwise it will risk worsening the NHS workforce crisis.”

Unison, a union that represents nurses, said raising the cost of visas “is only going to encourage yet more overseas employees to quit the NHS”.

Head of health Sara Gorton said: “This spells disaster for patient care and means yet more disruption for under-pressure NHS trusts. Already tens of thousands of staff short, the health service needs all the help it can get.”

An ophthalmic technician at King’s Hospital London has been saving for three years to bring his wife and two children to the UK from Nigeria.

The NHS worker, who only wanted to be identified as Bambo, said his visa costs will amount to around £10,000, an extra £3,000 after the fee hike.

“The money is too much for a low income earner and all of a sudden [the Home Office] increases it. I don’t see the possibility of how people are going to meet [the costs]. I don’t see it,” he said.

“I know people who have moved to New Zealand before now because of this.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “It is right and fair to increase visa application fees so we can fund vital public services and allow wider funding to contribute to public sector pay."

The Home Office said it recognises the significant contribution of overseas NHS workers, especially during the pandemic, but must be fair to all who use the immigration system.

UK visa fees are broadly competitive when compared with the fees charged by comparative countries globally, the Home Office added.

The Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England declined to comment.

SCOTLAND

Nicola Sturgeon accused of hypocrisy for posing on a picket line

Daniel Sanderson
Thu, 28 September 2023 

Nicola Sturgeon was accused of chronically underfunding local government - PA

Nicola Sturgeon has been accused of hypocrisy for posing on a picket line in a show of “solidarity” with striking workers.

The former first minister was said to have wished staff whose walkout had closed a primary school “the best of luck” in their dispute, which union leaders have blamed on the Government she led only six months ago.

Unison staff completed a three-day strike on Thursday, which has shut classrooms across Scotland, in a row over pay.

They had formed a picket line outside of Royal Mile Primary School in Edinburgh, which is close to the Scottish Parliament where Ms Sturgeon remains an MSP.

She offered striking staff an apparent endorsement despite union leaders claiming that the administration she ran for more than eight years, until she officially resigned in March, had chronically underfunded local government.

Humza Yousaf, Ms Sturgeon’s successor, had urged Unison to suspend its industrial action and accept the “very good” pay offer which had been made to staff.

Stephen McCabe, the Labour leader of Inverclyde Council, one of 24 authorities where schools have been forced to close in September, said: “Hypocrisy knows no bounds.”

‘Financial mess’

“This is the person most responsible for the financial mess that councils are in today.”

Neil Findlay, a former Labour MSP, described Ms Sturgeon’s photo-op as “beyond satire”.

He added: “She presided over years of cuts to Scotland’s councils and claimed every budget was fair to local government and now has the affront to stand on a picket line.”

Unite and the GMB agreed to suspend strike plans while members consulted over a new pay offer.

However, Unison decided to go ahead with the action, with the walkouts taking place among school support staff, such as janitors and catering workers, rather than teachers.

Cosla, the local government body, said it had put a pay deal worth over £445 million on the table which would have seen the lowest paid workers receive an annual pay increase of more than £2,000.

Mr Yousaf has urged Unison to put the offer to its members although the union has accused him of failing to do enough to find a solution.

‘Show of solidarity’

In Ms Sturgeon’s final months as first minister, schools across Scotland were closed by the first national teacher strikes in Scotland since Margaret Thatcher was in power.

They were called off in March after teachers secured a 15 per cent pay rise.

Sharron Macaulay, one of the striking workers, took the photo of Ms Sturgeon on the picket line. The union posted it to social media and claimed it was a show of “solidarity” from the ex-SNP leader.

“It was great to see Nicola this morning, she was very friendly,” Ms Macaulay, a pupil support worker, said. “I hope she didn’t feel ambushed, as we shouted her over from the other side of the street.

“But she didn’t have to come over or have her photo taken with us, we are delighted she did, and she wished us all the best of luck.

“I just hope she still has some influence in the Government to get Humza around the table to help settle this dispute.”

Lilian Macer, Unison’s Scottish secretary, said: “At least when Nicola was first minister, she got around the table with Unison to negotiate a settlement. Where is Humza?”

A spokesman for Ms Sturgeon was approached for comment.

AOC Goes Off On Republicans During Impeachment Inquiry Hearing Into President Biden

Forbes Breaking News

 Sep 28, 2023

At a House Oversight Committee hearing on Thursday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) spoke about the impeachment inquiry into President Biden and called out Republicans for holding a hearing without first-hand witnesses. 

Ocasio-Cortez: Christie remarks about Jill Biden ‘disgusting, misogynistic’

Julia Mueller
Thu, September 28, 2023 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) blasted Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie for “disgusting, misogynistic” remarks about first lady Jill Biden during the second GOP debate on Wednesday night.

“It’s disgusting, misogynistic, and if Republicans want to continue pissing off an entire nation of women, please be my guest. We’ll see you at the ballot box,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote.

Christie during the debate had blasted President Biden for “sleeping with a member of the teachers unions,” arguing the president wouldn’t take on teachers unions because of his wife’s status.

Asked on “CNN This Morning” why he made the remark, the former New Jersey governor said the first lady is “a radical advocate for the worst in the teachers union” and said he brought it up because “no one else is willing to say it.”

He responded to the congresswoman’s criticism by stressing he’s “standing by the wording,” and knocked Ocasio-Cortez as a “hypocrite.”

“Let her accuse me of whatever she wants. When you look at the kind of hypocrite that she is, the kind of things that she does and lives her life as, as opposed to what comes out of her mouth. Please, I’d be happy to be accused of anything by AOC,” Christie said.

Former Vice President Mike Pence, also on the Simi Valley debate stage on Wednesday night, referenced Christie’s comment about the president’s wife later in the event.

“My wife isn’t a member of the teachers union, but I’ve got to admit, I’ve been sleeping with a teacher for 38 years. Full disclosure,” Pence said.

Zoom backgrounds have big impact on first impressions, study reveals

Anthony Cuthbertson
Wed, 27 September 2023

The UK government, under the leadership of Boris Johnson, used Zoom to hold cabinet video conferences in March 2020 (Boris Johnson)

A person’s choice of background on video call platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams can significantly impact other people’s first impressions of them, according to a new study.

Researchers at Durham University found that objects like house plants or book shelves can alter whether people perceive someone as trustworthy or competent.

Study participants were asked to judge still images of different subjects taking part in a videoconference, with statistical analysis revealing that people who used blurred, novelty or living space backgrounds were viewed as less trustworthy than those who had bookcases or plants in the background.

The research also revealed that people who smile on video calls are also generally seen as more trustworthy.

“This research shows how our Zoom backgrounds can affect the first impressions we make,” the researchers wrote.

“If you want to come across as trustworthy and competent there are some backgrounds you should use and some you should definitely avoid.”

Previous studies have demonstrated that first impressions can have significant impacts on people’s lives, capable of influencing everything from criminal sentencing decisions to romantic outcomes.

The popularity of videoconferencing platforms that arose during the Covid-19 pandemic mean first impressions are often made via video chat rather than face-to-face contact.

“In the professional environment, 75 per cent of business meetings are predicted to occur by videoconferencing by 2024. The findings of this study therefore have extensive implications for professional organisations and the general public,” the researchers wrote.

“The findings are highly relevant to recruitment processes because competence is a strong predictor of hire ability... Beyond the boardroom, the implications of the study are pervasive for the criminal justice system as defendants are increasingly appearing by videoconferencing.”

The research was detailed in a paper, titled ‘Virtual first impressions: Zoom backgrounds affect judgements of trust and competence’, published on Wednesday in the scientific journal PLoS ONE.