HAWAII
Better equipment and communications are among Maui police recommendations after Lahaina wildfire

JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER, REBECCA BOONE and CLAUDIA LAUER
Updated Mon, February 5, 2024 


 The Rev. Ai Hironaka, resident minister of the Lahaina Hongwanji Mission, walks through the grounds of his temple and residence destroyed by wildfire, Dec. 7, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. Nearly six months after a wind-whipped wildfire destroyed the historic town of Lahaina, the Maui Police Department said Monday, Feb. 5, 2024, it is releasing a preliminary report about its response to the tragedy.

 (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson, File)

HONOLULU (AP) — Nearly six months after a wildfire destroyed the historic town of Lahaina, the Maui Police Department said Monday it is working on improving its response to future tragedies, including by obtaining better equipment and stationing a high-ranking officer in the island's communications center during emergencies.

The changes are among 32 recommendations listed in a preliminary “after-action” report that looks at what went well and what didn't during the chaotic events of Aug. 8, when the deadliest U.S. wildfire in over a century leveled Lahaina, the one-time capital of the former Hawaiian Kingdom, and killed at least 100 people.

“The Maui Police Department, in collaboration with other emergency response agencies, worked tirelessly to ensure the safety of our residents, coordinate evacuations, and provide support to those in need,” the report said. “The bravery and resilience demonstrated by our officers, personnel, fellow first responders, and members of the community who continued to assist the community while suffering losses themselves, have been nothing short of extraordinary.”

Many of the report’s recommendations call for better equipment and updates to technology, from getting officers earpieces they can use when high winds make it hard to hear their radios to equipping patrol cars with breaching kits to remove downed trees or utility poles from roadways.

Others focus on improving communications between emergency personnel and officers themselves, such as stationing a high-ranking officer — a lieutenant or higher — in the communications center to help relay information to police commanders. The report also suggested giving officers in the field more briefings during recovery efforts.

The fire is being investigated by outside experts at the behest of the Hawaii attorney general's office. The investigation, by the Fire Safety Research Institute, is expected to take several more months to complete.

During a news conference Monday, police Chief John Pelletier said the after-action report would be distributed to law enforcement agencies around the country to help them better prepare for catastrophes. He defended its thoroughness, noting it had been reviewed by two outside agencies and that it would not be finalized for up to another year, to give time to incorporate suggestions.

“There's been a lot of Monday-morning quarterbacks and a lot of folks that say ‘coulda-shoulda-woulda,’ but if you weren't there, then you don't know,” Pelletier said. “And if you think you can do better, MPD is hiring.”

Pelletier described the extensive efforts made to find the remains of three people who are still listed as missing in the wildfire.

“We created strategies of where they might have escaped to and then we sent anthropological teams to go to those estimated escape routes and then we got excavators to go through the rubble,” he said. “Any lead that is given to us, we will pursue, and the search is not over.”

The wildfire was driven by high winds from a hurricane passing far to the south and spread quickly through dry, invasive grasses.

Residents fled through black smoke that blotted out the sun, frequently encountering roadblocks or traffic jams where police blocked roads due to fire or downed power lines. Communications failed. In the chaos, some people jumped over a sea wall and sought refuge in the ocean, while others remained in their vehicles and died as heat and flames overtook them.

Audio recordings of 911 calls, obtained by The Associated Press through public records requests, reflected the confusion and terror many residents faced as they were trapped in their cars or homes and unsure of where they should go. Inundated with calls, and with police and firefighters all occupied, the dispatchers became increasingly powerless to render help, resorting to offering advice like “leave if you have to leave."

Video from body cameras showed police going to great lengths to try to help. One officer sprinted from house to house, alerting people to the approaching inferno, while another coughed and swore as he drove past burning buildings with people he rescued crammed in the back seat.

Forty-two victims were found inside structures, 15 were found in cars, 39 were outdoors, and one person was found in the ocean, according to the report. Some of the remains collected were as small as a quarter.

More than 50 victims were identified by collecting DNA from biological relatives, Sgt. Chase Bell told the news conference, but one person who was reported missing had no biological relative to provide a DNA sample. Authorities obtained a hairbrush she had used from a family friend and identified her using DNA analysis of hair follicles, Bell said.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation. An AP investigation found it might have started in an overgrown gully beneath Hawaiian Electric Co. power lines, where an initial fire burned in the morning and then rekindled in high winds that afternoon.

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Boone reported from Boise, Idaho, and Lauer reported from Philadelphia.

Is the planet already hotter than we thought?

Stuti Mishra
Mon, February 5, 2024 

Is the planet already hotter than we thought?


Our planet might be hotter than we thought and may have crossed the crucial 1.5 degrees Celsius mark a decade ago, new research claims.

Findings published in the scientific journal Nature on Monday say the Earth warmed up by about 1.7C, surpassing the Paris Agreement limit of 1.5C in 2010-2012, with global warming impact noted decades before the current baseline of 1900s.

Based on untapped data collected from skeletons of Caribbean sponges, researchers from the University of Western Australia are challenging the current timeline of global warming, drawing mixed reactions from other scientists.

The researchers collected skeletons of Caribbean sponges, which are believed to be storing vital information about the temperatures in the region for around 300 years.

Scientists studied these aquatic creatures to understand various changes in the climate during the 19th century better.

They found that the Earth’s oceans started warming from the 1860s, with clear emergence by the mid-1870s, around 80 years earlier than previous studies show.

Matching this data with temperature records from land and ocean collected later, researchers estimated that the Earth might have been 0.5C hotter than what we have believed so far.

“This half a per cent [increase] is a dramatically greater number than what we currently think the global mean temperatures are and it has a number of very significant outcomes,” said Dr Malcolm McCulloch, a professor of geo-biochemistry and the lead author of the paper.

The research also says the latter 2C limit, beyond which catastrophic impacts of climate crisis can be experienced, may get crossed by the end of this decade, and not by mid-century as UN’s top scientific panel anticipated.

“The big picture is that the global warming clock for emission reductions to minimise the risk of dangerous climate change has been brought forward by at least a decade,” Dr McCulloch told journalists in a press briefing.

“This is more urgent because we’re going to experience more serious impacts from global warming sooner than we might have anticipated.”

The researchers said their study filled a gap in scientific knowledge about ocean temperatures in the late 19th century before the existence of accurate temperature records. Therefore, changing the baseline year from which global warming should be measured.

But the challenge posed to the timeline of global warming has received some scepticism from scientists. Scientists said research is needed to understand the sponges and climate records are needed from more locations.

“The importance of this paper is that it makes us ask the question: what if the planet has already warmed more than we thought?” said Professor Kate Hendry, a marine biogeochemist at the British Antarctic Survey.

Other experts have been more critical of the reliance on data from a specific region and argue that it may not be representative of global temperatures.

Dr Gavin Schmidt, head of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said people should be “careful in assuming that proxies from one part of the Atlantic are always reflective of the global mean” temperatures.

“There is a real uncertainty in what the mid-19th Century temperatures were compared to the modern period,” he added. “That complicates our ability to make definitive statements about the crossing of the 1.5C level.”

However, while the authors of the study acknowledged the limitations, they say the relationship between sponges and global ocean temperatures are robust.

“From a big global oceanographic viewpoint, the oceans are connected. They’re not disconnected entities,” explained Dr McCulloch.

“There’s no place on land that can mimic global or every land temperatures in the way you can on the ocean because the land is just too heterogeneous,” Dr McCulloch explained.

Dr Yadvinder Malhi FRS, professor of ecosystem science at University of Oxford, said that while the paper showed ocean warming in the Caribbean region began in 1860s, “it is unlikely that warming of 0.5C in the 1800s is human caused.”

He pointed out that before 1900, humans had only released 2.5 per cent of the carbon emissions we have in the atmosphere.

“This is unlikely to have caused substantial warming compared to the 1.4C of warming caused by the remaining 97.5 per cent of cumulative emissions.”

Responding to the questions from journalists, Dr McCulloch said: “We already know very well that atmospheric CO2 was already up by about 5 to 10 PPM (parts per million) during this period.”

“So, it’s not at all surprising that there’s been warming in the second part of the 1800s.”

He added that the findings also explained the “unusual” warming of land in this period, when oceans, the heat sinks of the planet, should be getting warm first.

So, their findings, that oceans were warmer in the late 19th century before the land got warmer in the 20th century, make it “more consistent” with the records.

However, Dr Daniela Schmidt, professor of earth sciences at the University of Bristol, said while knowing about temperature history is important, the focus of the discussion should be on action to prevent further heat.

“While the Paris Agreement strongly focused on 1.5C, we know that impacts increase with every increment of warming. Missing a target should not say we lose all hope but what we need to increase our efforts.”

Ocean sponges suggest Earth has warmed longer, more than thought; some scientists dubious

SETH BORENSTEIN
Mon, February 5, 2024 



A handful of centuries-old sponges from deep in the Caribbean are causing some scientists to think human-caused climate change began sooner and has heated the world more than they thought.

They calculate that the world has already gone past the internationally approved target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, hitting 1.7 degrees (3.1 degrees Fahrenheit) as of 2020. They analyzed six of the long-lived sponges — simple animals that filter water — for growth records that document changes in water temperature, acidity and carbon dioxide levels in the air, according to a study in Monday’s journal Nature Climate Change.

Other scientists were skeptical of the study's claim that the world has warmed that much more than thought. But if the sponge calculations are right, there are big repercussions, the study authors said.


“The big picture is that the global warming clock for emissions reductions to minimize the risk of dangerous climate changes is being brought forward by at least a decade,” study lead author Malcolm McCulloch, a marine geochemist at the University of Western Australia. “Basically, time's running out.”

“We have a decade less than we thought,” McCulloch told The Associated Press. “It's really a diary of — what's the word? — impending disaster.”

In the past several years, scientists have noted more extreme and harmful weather — floods, storms, droughts and heat waves — than they had expected for the current level of warming. One explanation for that would be if there was more warming than scientists had initially calculated, said study co-author Amos Winter, a paleo oceanographer at Indiana State University. He said this study also supports the theory that climate change is accelerating, proposed last year by former NASA top scientist James Hansen.

“This is not good news for global climate change as it implies more warming,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, who was not part of the study.

Many sponge species live long, and as they grow they record the conditions of the environment around them in their skeletons. Scientists have long used sponges along with other proxies — tree rings, ice cores and coral — that naturally show the record of changes in the environment over centuries. Doing so helps fill in data from before the 20th century.

Sponges — unlike coral, tree rings and ice cores — get water flowing from all over through them so they can record a larger area of ecological change, Winter and McCulloch said.

They used measurements from a rare species of small and hard-shelled sponges to create a temperature record for the 1800s that differs greatly from the scientifically accepted versions used by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The study finds that the mid-1800s were about half a degree Celsius cooler than previously thought, with warming from heat-trapping gases kicking in about 80 years earlier than the measurements the IPCC uses. IPCC figures show warming kicking in just after 1900.

It makes sense that the warming started earlier than the IPCC says because by the mid-1800s the Industrial Revolution had begun and carbon dioxide was being spewed into the air, said McCulloch and Winter. Carbon dioxide and other gases from the burning of fossil fuels are what causes climate change, scientists have established.

Winter and McCulloch said these rusty orange long-lived sponges — one of them was more than 320 years old when it was collected — are special in a way that makes them an ideal measuring tool, better than what scientists used in the mid- to late 1800s.

“They are cathedrals of history, of human history, recording carbon dioxide in the the atmosphere, temperature of the water and pH of the water,” Winter said.

“They're beautiful,” he said. “They're not easy to find. You need a special team of divers to find them.”

That's because they live 100 to 300 feet deep (33 meters to 98 meters) in the dark, Winter said.

The IPCC and most scientists use temperature data for the mid-1800s that came from ships whose crews would take temperature readings by lowering wooden buckets to dip up water. Some of those measurements could be skewed depending on how the collection was done — for example, if the water was collected near a warm steamship engine. But the sponges are more accurate because scientists can track regular tiny deposits of calcium and strontium on the critters' skeleton. Warmer water would lead to more strontium compared to calcium, and and cooler water would lead to higher proportions of calcium compared to strontium, Winter said.

University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann, who wasn't part of the study, has long disagreed with the IPCC's baseline and thinks warming started earlier. But he was still skeptical of the study's findings.

“In my view it begs credulity to claim that the instrumental record is wrong based on paleo-sponges from one region of the world. It honestly doesn't make any sense to me,” Mann said.

In a news briefing, Winter and McCulloch repeatedly defended the use of sponges as an accurate proxy for world temperature changes. They said except for the 1800s, their temperature reconstruction based on sponges matches global records from instruments and other proxies like coral, ice cores and tree rings.

And even though these sponges are only in the Caribbean, McCulloch and Winter said they are a good representation for the rest of the world because they're at a depth that doesn't get too affected by warm and cold cycles of El Nino and La Nina, and the water matches well with global ocean temperatures, McCulloch and Winter said.

Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer, who also wasn't part of the sponge study, said even if the McCulloch team is right about a cooler baseline in the 1800s that shouldn't really change the danger levels that scientists set in their reports. That's because the danger levels “were not tied to the absolute value of preindustrial temperatures” but more about how much temperatures changed from that time, he said.

Although the study stopped at 2020 with 1.7 degrees Celsius (3.1 degrees Fahrenheit) in warming since pre-industrial times, a record hot 2023 pushes that up to 1.8 degrees (3.2 degrees Fahrenheit), McCulloch said.

“The rate of change is much faster than we thought,” McCulloch said. “We're heading into very dangerous high-risk scenarios for the future. And the only way to stop this is to reduce emissions. Urgently. Most urgently.”

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Teresa de Miguel contributed to this report from Mexico City.

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Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

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Follow Seth Borenstein on X at @borenbears

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.


Sea sponges keep climate records and the accounting is grim, new study suggests
Evan Bush
Mon, February 5, 2024 



If temperature-tracking sea sponges are to be trusted, climate change has progressed much further than scientists have estimated.

A new study that uses ocean organisms called sclerosponges to measure average global temperature suggests the world has already warmed by about 1.7 degrees C over the past 300 years — at least a half degree Celsius more than the scientific consensus as laid out in United Nations reports.

The finding, published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, is startling, but some scientists say the study authors' conclusions extrapolated too much about global temperature than can be confidently gleaned from sea sponges.

But the study hits on an important question: How much did the world warm when fossil-fuel-powered machinery was chugging but humans were not very organized in measuring temperatures across the world? Scientists say it’s a critical question and something they need to better understand.

The authors of the study say that industrialization before 1900 had a larger impact than scientists previously realized, that its effect has been captured in the skeletons of centuries-old sponges, and that the baseline we’ve been using to talk about climate change politics has been wrong.

“Basically they show the industrial era of warming commenced earlier than we thought, in the 1860s,” Malcolm McCulloch, a lead author of the study who is a professor of geochemistry at The University of Western Australia, said of the sponges. “The big picture is that the global warming clock for emission reductions for minimizing the risk of a dangerous climate have been brought forward by at least a decade.”

Scientists not associated with the study said colleagues have been grappling with how much warming occurred in the early decades after the industrial revolution but before temperature records became more reliable.

“This isn’t the only effort to revisit what we call the preindustrial baseline and to suggest we may be missing increments of warming in the 19th century,” said Kim Cobb, a paleoclimate and oceanography expert at Brown University who is the director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society. “This is an area of uncertainty and importance.”

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its most recent assessment of global warming estimated that global surface temperatures have risen by as much as 1.2 degrees C since preindustrial times.

Some scientists think the IPCC’s process — which requires consensus — yields conservative results. Scientists who study Earth’s ice, for example, have raised concerns that the Earth is approaching ice sheet tipping points sooner than expected and that the IPCC’s sea level rise projections are much too low.

Cobb, who did not contribute to the Nature Climate Change study, said it would take heaps of evidence to shift what scientists refer to as the preindustrial baseline, but also that other researchers have found some indications that warming before the 1900s is not accounted for adequately.

“How big this extra increment of warming truly is remains unknown right now. Is it important to study this? Could we be missing some tenths of degree — yes — that seems born out in lines of investigation over the last 6-10 years,” Cobb said.

Sclerosponges are one of many climate proxies scientists use to glean information about past climate conditions. With sclerosponges, layers of skeletal growth serve a similar purpose to marine biologists as rings within a tree serve those working in forests.

Sclerosponges grow slowly and the chemical contents of their skeleton changes as they grow, based on their surrounding temperature. That means scientists can track temperatures by looking at the ratio of strontium and calcium as the creatures steadily grow.

Every half millimeter of growth represents about two years of temperature data, the study says. The creatures can grow and add layers to their skeletons for hundreds of years.

“These are really unique specimens," McCulloch said. "The reason we’re able to get this unique data is because of the special relationship of these animals to the ambient environment.”

The study’s authors collected sponges from waters at least 100 feet deep off Puerto Rico and near the island of St. Croix, analyzed their skeletons’ chemical composition, charted their findings and compared their data against sea surface temperature measures from 1964 to 2012, finding the trends closely matched.

The sponge skeleton data dates to 1700, which is longer than reliable human records. That gives scientists a longer reference point to evaluate what temperatures were like before fossil fuels became popular. The researchers think it does a better job than other data sets, some which were calculated using 19th-century temperature measurements from ships crossing the sea.

The sponge data shows that temperatures began to rise in the 1860s — before what’s considered by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Some outside researchers, however, said the study could be making too much out of a single type of proxy measure, particularly when the data is tied to only one location on Earth.

“People should be careful in assuming that proxies from one part of the Atlantic are always reflective of the global mean,” Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an emailed statement, adding that the author’s claims are probably “overreaching.”

The study authors said they think the waters off Puerto Rico remain relatively consistent and reflect global change as well as anywhere in the world.

The results suggest that humanity has already crossed political guardrails, like world leaders’ goal to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C.

Cobb said more work should be done with sclerosponges to make sure this work is precise. And regardless of how far we’ve already pushed the Earth’s temperatures, humanity must put the brakes on greenhouse gas production.

“Every increment of warming brings with it a whole host of increased climate impacts and worsening climate impacts,” Cobb said. “We are already living with increments of warming that are not safe. … The job hasn’t changed.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

Data from centuries-old sea creatures suggest the world has overshot a climate limit. Some scientists say not so fast

Rachel Ramirez, CNN
Mon, February 5, 2024 


Using sponges collected off the coast of Puerto Rico in the eastern Caribbean, scientists have calculated 300 years of ocean temperatures and concluded the world has already overshot one crucial global warming limit and is speeding toward another.

These findings, published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, are alarming but also controversial. Other scientists say the study contains too many uncertainties and limitations to draw such firm conclusions and could end up confusing public understanding of climate change.

Sponges — which grow slowly, layer by layer — can act like data time capsules, allowing a glimpse into what the ocean was like hundreds of years ago, long before the existence of modern data.

Using samples from sclerosponges, which live for centuries, the team of international scientists was able to calculate ocean surface temperatures going back 300 years.

They found human-caused warming may have started earlier than currently assumed and, as a result, global average temperature may have already warmed more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Researchers say the results also suggest global temperature could overshoot 2 degrees of warming by the end of the decade.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries pledged to restrict global warming to less than 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, with an ambition to limit it to 1.5 degrees. The pre-industrial era — or the state of the climate before humans started burning large amounts of fossil fuels and warming the planet — is commonly defined as 1850-1900.

The study authors argue their findings suggest the pre-industrial era should be pushed further back to between the 1700s and 1860. Changing that baseline would mean the world has already warmed at least 1.7 degrees (scientists say long-term global warming currently stands at between 1.2 to 1.3 degrees).

“The big picture is that global warming, and the urgent need for emission reductions to minimize the risk of dangerous climate change, has been brought forward by at least a decade,” Malcolm McCulloch, lead author of the study and marine geochemist at the University of Western Australia, said at a news briefing. “So, this is a major change to thinking about global warming.”

However, several climate scientists have questioned the study’s findings, especially using one type of sponge from one location in the Caribbean to represent global temperatures. Gavin Schmidt, a NASA climate scientist, said estimating global average temperature requires data from as many locations as possible, as climate varies across the planet.

“Claims that records from a single record can confidently define the global mean warming since the pre-industrial are probably overreaching,” he said in a statement.

Gabi Hegerl, a professor of climate system science at the University of Edinburgh, said the study was “a nice new record that illustrates how temperatures in the Caribbean started to rise over the industrial period.” But, she added in a statement, “the interpretation in terms of global warming goals overstretches it.”

Some went further. Yadvinder Malhi, professor of ecosystem science at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, said the way the findings have been communicated were “flawed” and have “the potential to add unnecessary confusion to public debate on climate change.”

A co-author of the study defended its robustness and argued that temperature changes in the part of the Caribbean the sponges came from have always mimicked changes around the globe.

“It’s probably one of the best areas if you’re trying to figure out global averaging on the Earth,” said Amos Winter, a professor of geology at Indiana State University. Ocean temperatures in the region are predominantly affected by planet-heating pollution, rather than natural climate variability like El Niño, he said.

Whatever the baseline for measuring global warming, what remains clear, experts say, is that the impacts will worsen with every fraction of a degree of warming.

“It’s exciting to see new research that allows us to peek centuries in the past,” said Joeri Rogelj, director of research at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, in a statement. But, he added, “relabeling the warming that has occurred until today by using a different starting point does not change the impacts we are seeing today, or the impacts we are aiming to avoid.”

Winter hopes the study will function as a call to action. “Hopefully this will help change our viewpoints of what is happening in the globe, make us act now, and not wait for some disaster to happen for us to change our habits.”

ARCHAEOLOGY

Scholars use AI to read scrolls scorched by Vesuvius eruption


Rozina Sabur
Mon, 5 February 2024 

The Herculaneum Papyri, a library of scrolls, were buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD - Vesuvius Challenge

Classical scholars believe scrolls buried by Mount Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago could soon be deciphered and “rewrite” our understanding of antiquity after a group of students used artificial intelligence to reveal charred text.

The Herculaneum Papyri, held in a library thought to belong to the family of Julius Caesar, were turned to charcoal when the Roman town was buried by the volcanic eruption in AD 79.

The collection is believed to contain thousands of ancient texts, possibly including works by Aeschylus, and Sappho, or even revelations around the early years of Christianity.


Since their discovery in 1752, most attempts to unfurl the charred scrolls and unlock their secrets have proved futile, with the carbonised lumps simply crumbling to ash.

The Herculaneum Papyri were turned to charcoal when the Roman town of Pompeii was buried by the volcanic eruption in AD 79 - Xantana/iStockphoto

But at least 15 passages have now been deciphered by three students who used AI to develop a tool that allowed them to identify the text from digital scans of a seared scroll.

Luke Farritor, a student from Nebraska, Youssef Nader a PhD student in Berlin, and Julian Schilliger, a scholar in Zurich, developed the tool in response to a global challenge set by Nat Friedman, a US tech executive, and academic Brent Seales.

The trio will share the $700,000 (£554,000) grand prize. Mr Farritor, a computer science student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, had already won $40,000 after he decoded the first letters on the scroll – spelling the Greek word for purple.

Since their discovery in 1752, most attempts to unfurl the charred scrolls and unlock their secrets have proved futile, - Vesuvius Challenge

Mr Farritor, 22, spent much of the last year developing a machine-learning model that could detect ultra-faint differences in the texture of the carbonised scrolls to identify the presence of ink not visible to the human eye.

He enlisted the help of Mr Nader and Mr Schilliger and was able to detect 15 passages comprising more than 2,000 characters, an estimated 5 per cent of the scrolls’ text.

The Herculaneum Papyri were buried inside a luxury villa believed to have belonged to Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, a Roman senator whose daughter Calpurnia was married to Julius Caesar.

It constitutes the largest surviving library from the Greco-Roman world. Most of the texts that have proven legible have been attributed to the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus.

Thousands of the manuscripts were deemed irreparably damaged but classicists hope the technology could offer an invaluable window into antiquity, perhaps including texts related to Paul the Apostle, who is known to have passed through the region decades before the volcanic eruption.

“Some of these texts could completely rewrite the history of key periods of the ancient world,” Robert Fowler, a classicist and the chair of the Herculaneum Society, told Bloomberg.

“This is the society from which the modern Western world is descended.”

The students’ discovery is still being translated, but an early analysis suggests it is a philosophical treatise on the pleasure of food and music.

“In the case of food, we do not right away believe things that are scarce to be absolutely more pleasant than those which are abundant,” the author writes.

Prof Fowler and other experts believe the newly deciphered text to be another work by Philodemus.

A preliminary analysis has also confirmed that the text was never duplicated, meaning that it has gone unread since at least AD 79.

“It’s a situation that you practically never encounter as a classicist,” Tobias Reinhardt, a professor of ancient philosophy and Latin literature at the University of Oxford, told Bloomberg.

“The idea that you are reading a text that was last unrolled on someone’s desk 1,900 years ago is unbelievable.”

Mr Friedman, who launched the $1 million Vesuvius Challenge last year, set out with the ambition of encouraging people to develop AI software capable of reading four passages from a single scroll.

On the back of its success, his goal is to use the same techniques to decipher more scrolls, and, ultimately, “unlock all of them”.

Museum basement hid an ancient royal kitchen in Poland. See the 500-year-old discovery

Moira Ritter
Mon, February 5, 2024 at 11:49 AM MST·2 min read

Around the end of the 13th century, officials in Poland initiated the construction of a royal residence in the city of Poznań. The fort-like structure included brick walls, a tower, a square and an entrance from the south.

Since then, the sprawling hilltop site that started as a fortress has taken on many iterations. It’s most recent: the Museum of Applied Arts, which opened in 2017.

Now, a team of archaeologists from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań have started exploring the site — and have unearthed a number of ancient discoveries.


The team, led by professor Artur Różański, searched the basement of the museum’s administrative building, according to a Feb. 5 news release from the university. Although the building that now houses the museum’s administrative office was constructed in 1796, it was built atop older ruins.

In the basement, experts found the remains of what is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, preserved royal kitchens in Poland, the university said.

Archaeologists said it was previously assumed that the Royal Kitchen was a medieval residential tower, but the discovery of the approximately 30-by-36 feet building changes this understanding. Records from the time the kitchen was in use indicate that it had a well in the corner of the building.

The university shared photos of the ruins in their release and on Facebook.

Experts said the royal kitchen may be the oldest in Poland.

The kitchen dates back to 500 or 600 years ago, archaeologists said.

The kitchen dates back to the 14th or 15th century, according to the team.

A large pillar — about 9 feet by 11 feet — was also found in the building, Różański told Science in Poland, according to a Feb. 3 post. The pillar once held a kitchen stove and chimney to remove exhaust from the kitchen.

Experts also explored the castle’s courtyard area, the university said.

Archaeologists dug an approximately 10-by-13 feet trench that reached about 16 feet underground and unearthed more than 6,000 artifacts, including pottery, building ceramics and animal bones, they said. Among their finds were pieces of hypocaustum tile, which is evidence that the medieval castle was heated.

Poznań is about 190 miles west of Warsaw.

Google Translate was used to translate releases from Adam Mickiewicz University and Science in Poland.

‘Incredibly rare’ ancient Roman bed uncovered in London. See the ‘extraordinary’ find

Aspen Pflughoeft
Mon, February 5, 2024 

Underneath the bustling center of London sat an “incredibly rare” piece of furniture. For centuries, the ancient treasure went unnoticed. Not anymore.

Archaeologists in the United Kingdom began excavations near Holborn Viaduct to prepare for the construction of an office building, the Museum of London Archaeology said in a Feb. 5 news release shared with McClatchy News.

Digging into the “damp mud,” archaeologists uncovered an ancient Roman cemetery with five wooden coffins and a “complete” wooden funerary bed, the museum said.

The nearly 2,000-year-old bed is “made from high-quality oak,” has “carved feet, and joints fixed with small wooden pegs,” archaeologists said. Photos show the partially buried bedframe and a reconstruction of what it might have looked like.

An archaeologists excavates the ancient Roman bed. A smaller diagram shows what the bed might have looked like.

The ancient bed was “dismantled prior to being placed within the grave but may have been used to carry the individual to the burial and was likely intended as a grave good for use in the afterlife,” archaeologists said.

Funerary beds are known from depictions “across the Roman world,” the museum said. This bed, however, “is the first complete example ever discovered in Britain.”

Archaeologists described the ancient Roman bed and wooden coffins as “extraordinary” and “incredibly rare finds.”

Archaeologists excavate the ancient Roman wooden coffins.

“We know the Romans buried their dead alongside roads, outside of urban (centers),” Heather Knight, a project officer with the museum, said in the release. The site near Holborn Viaduct fit this pattern so “it was no great surprise to discover burials at this site.”

“However, the levels of preservation we’ve encountered — and particularly uncovering such a vast array of wooden finds — has really blown us away,” Knight said.

Excavations at the Roman cemetery also uncovered human remains, beads, a lamp and a glass jar, the museum said. A photo shows these smaller artifacts.

Smaller ancient Roman artifacts found at the site near Holborn Viaduct.

Archaeologists also unearthed more recent ruins at the site, including traces of a “medieval tanning workshop,” the museum said.

The ancient Roman empire invaded modern-day Britain in 43 A.D. and maintained control for about 400 years. The cemetery near Holborn Viaduct was used during this period.

Excavations are ongoing at the site and expected to finish in early 2024. Afterward, archaeologists will continue analyzing and conserving the finds.

The excavation site is near Holborn Viaduct in central London and about half a mile north of the Thames River.


Viking ruins hid beneath farmland for at least 900 years. Now, experts have found them

Moira Ritter
Mon, February 5, 2024 at 2:33 PM MST·2 min read

A small vehicle shuttled through an expansive, bright green field. From a distance, the vehicle, which resembled a golf cart, looked like nothing more than a means of transportation — but it was actually doing much more.

The vehicle was actually equipped with georadar tools and manned by archaeologists. As it drove through the sprawling farmland, it was sending signals into the ground in search of any ruins buried beneath the field.

Archaeologists were searching the area, part of a historic farm on the island of Klosterøy, according to a Feb. 4 news release from the University of Stavanger (UiS). They were searching for ruins left by Vikings after several metal detector finds in recent years unearthed objects related to trade, including weights and coins.

After scanning the farmland in September, experts learned that a collection of ancient structures are hidden underground, the university said. Archaeologists have so far identified pit houses and three pier or boathouse foundations.


Researchers identified several pit houses and three piers or boathouses, they said.

The pit house remains are typical of Scandinavian settlements from the Viking Age — which lasted from about the ninth century until the 11th century. Experts said these ruins typically include the remains of a floor surface, post holes or fireplaces.

Pit houses are often linked to workshops, but archaeologists said they have also found evidence of burial mounds, cooking pits and agricultural remains in their examination.

The georadar data also revealed several man-made burials, according to experts. They are large pits similar in shape and size to pits found at other Viking sites in Norway.


Archaeologists said traditional excavations are necessary to confirm their findings.

Researchers said their discovery indicates the site was likely a marketplace or trading center used by the Vikings.

While the georadar surveys provided archaeologists with valuable insight, they cannot confirm with certainty that the ruins belonged to a marketplace without traditional excavations, the university said.

Klosterøy is an island off the southeast coast of Norway.

Google Translate was used to translate a news release from UiS.

5,000-year-old human shelter — with bones and blades — discovered in Armenia. See it

Brendan Rascius
Mon, February 5, 2024 at 3:44 PM MST·1 min read

Researchers in Armenia recently uncovered a human shelter filled with artifacts that dates back thousands of years.

The ancient dwelling was discovered during the archaeological exploration of a rock shelter in the Yeghegis Valley in central Armenia.

The shelter — found in 2020 — featured a collapsed roof and wall-like structure, which appeared to have ancient origins, according to a study published on Feb. 1 in the journal Antiquity.

In 2022, a 6-foot-deep trench was dug next to the shelter entrance, revealing several distinct layers littered with signs of human activity.

Approximately 8,000 animal bone shards were found at the site, most of which belonged to goats and sheep, while others belonged to pigs, deer and cattle. An even smaller portion were traced to canines and bears.


Artifacts found at the site, including obsidian tools, bones and a copper pin

The bone shards from four separate layers were subjected to radiocarbon dating — the oldest of which dated back over 5,300 years.

Through this technique, researchers estimated the site was occupied by humans for at least 300 years.

About 2,000 other artifacts were also found, including pieces of copper, obsidian blades, beads and pottery.

“Preliminary results from the Yeghegis rockshelter underscore the potential of this site to provide important insights into human lifeways during the Chalcolithic,” also known as the Copper Age, researchers said.

Additional excavations are planned to further explore the site to shed light on ancient human activity in the region.

Ancient urn — still holding 2,500-year-old remains — unearthed during road

 construction

Moira Ritter
Mon, February 5, 2024 

At least 2,500 years ago, someone died and was cremated. Their ashes, feet bones and parts of their skull were then placed in an urn and buried in a sprawling cemetery in Poland.

That’s where the remains stayed — until recently when archaeologists discovered the ancient burial site amid road construction, according to a Feb. 5 release from the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways - Warsaw Branch.

Archaeologists working on three sections of a highway found the cremation cemetery in eastern Poland between Kałuszyn and Groszki, officials said. At the site, experts unearthed urns and pit graves.

Archaeologists found the artifacts just east of Warsaw. K Drewniak /General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways - Warsaw Branch

The cemetery dates to between the sixth century B.C. and the fifth century B.C., officials said. At that time, cremation was a common practice involving burning the deceased’s body, collecting their remains and placing them in a vessel that was then buried.

In one of the unearthed urns, archaeologists discovered foot bones at the bottom of the vessel and skull fragments at the top.

It was common practice to cremate the dead and bury their remains in urns or similar vessels, according to experts. General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways - Warsaw Branch

At another construction site near the cemetery, experts identified the remains of a 19th century brewery, according to officials.

Remains of the brewery’s foundation and floors were found at one of the construction sites, experts said. General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways - Warsaw Branch

Experts unearthed a hearth from one of the sites. General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways - Warsaw Branch

Remains of the structures foundations and floors were unearthed alongside glass pieces, ceramic artifacts and traces of plants used in beer. Evidence indicates that the brewery closed by the beginning of the 20th century, experts said.

The discoveries were made roughly 30 miles east of Warsaw.

Google Translate was used to translate a news release from the General Directorate for National Roads and Motorways.

Mysterious ruins found hidden in courtyard of 500-year-old castle in Norway. See them

Aspen Pflughoeft
Mon, February 5, 2024
1
On a small island off the coast of Norway sat the ruins of a 500-year-old castle. The castle’s history was well-known and most of the structure had been extensively studied, but the courtyard hid a secret — until now.

Steinvikholm castle was built on Steinvikholmen island in the 1520s as a stronghold for a Catholic archbishop, according to the Large Norwegian Encyclopedia. The complex has a central courtyard surrounded by four wings and two round towers on opposite sides.

The central courtyard was the only part of the castle that archaeologists had not completely explored, the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research said in a Jan. 24 news release.

In a corner of the yard, the ground had collapsed, prompting speculation about a hidden structure, the manager of the regional antiquities association, Merethe Skjelfjord Kristiansen, said in the release.

Intrigued, archaeologists decided to scan the courtyard with ground penetrating radars to see if there was anything buried there.

There was.

An archaeologists scans the courtyard with a ground penetrating radar.

The radar scans identified the ruins of a structure buried just over 2 feet down, the release said. The fragmented structure was rectangular and measured about 26 feet by about 23 feet.

The ruins don’t connect to the surrounding castle or align with it, the institute said. Instead, the ruins probably belong to a separate building and are most likely older than the castle.

A pair of photos show the radar scans of the courtyard and the brown outline of the structure.

Archaeologists don’t know the exact age of the buried ruins or what purpose the structure served, the institute said.

The secret structure might be a hidden cellar or a temporary workshop used during the castle’s construction and then destroyed, archaeologists said.


The castle courtyard as seen in the radar scans (top) and with the outline of the buried ruins marked in brown (bottom).

Radar scans of the area outside the castle revealed traces of an old road and a well, the institute said.

A YouTube video shared by Ståle Kotte shows the Steinvikholm castle from above.

Steinvikholmen island is about 240 miles north of Oslo.

Google Translate was used to translate the news release from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) and the article from the Large Norwegian Encyclopedia.

Namibia president and anti-apartheid activist Hage Geingob dies. He pushed for Africa on world stage

FARAI MUTSAKA and SONJA SMITH
Updated Sun, February 4, 2024 




Newly sworn in Namibian acting president Nangolo Mbumba, left, shakes hands with Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwa, his deputy, after taking the oath of office in the capital, Windhoek, Sunday, Feb, 4.2024.Namibia, one of Africa's most stable democracies, Sunday swore in a new leader hours after the death of the country's president Hage Geingob. Geingob died while receiving medical treatment at a local hospital, his office announced.(AP Photo/Ester Mbathera)

WINDHOEK, Namibia (AP) — Namibia's president and founding prime minister Hage Geingob died Sunday at age 82 while receiving treatment for cancer, and the southern African nation quickly swore in his deputy to complete the term in office.

Geingob played a central role in what has become one of Africa's most stable democracies after returning from a long exile in Botswana and the United States as an anti-apartheid activist. He was the country’s third president since it gained independence in 1990 following more than a century of German and then apartheid South African rule.

He had been president since 2015 and was set to finish his second and final term this year. His deputy, Vice President Nangolo Mbumba, was sworn in as acting president in the capital, Windhoek, to complete the term as allowed by the constitution.

Elections are set for November. A government statement said Mbumba will lead Namibia until Mar. 21 of next year, when the winner takes office.

The presidential office said Geingob died in a local hospital with his family by his side. He had returned to Namibia last month from the United States, where he underwent a trial two-day “novel treatment for cancerous cells,” according to his office. In 2014, he said he had survived prostate cancer.

Soft-spoken but firm on advancing Africa’s agenda as an important stakeholder in world affairs — “the exclusion of Africa from the Security Council is an injustice,” he once said in a United Nations address — Geingob maintained close relations with the U.S. and other Western countries but also, like many African leaders, forged a warm relationship with China and other powers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was among the leaders who sent condolences Sunday, saying he would “forever cherish” his memories of meeting Geingob. “It is difficult to overestimate his personal contribution to developing friendly relations between Namibia and Russia," a statement said.

Geingob hosted U.S. first lady Jill Biden last year as she visited ahead of what had been an expected trip to Africa by her husband in 2023. That didn’t take place.

Namibia, with just over 2.5 million people, is rich in minerals such as diamonds, gold and uranium. Despite being classified as an upper-middle-income country, socioeconomic inequalities are still widespread, according to the World Bank.

The nation on the southwestern coast of Africa enjoys political and economic stability in a region that has long seen conflict and disputed elections. Namibia's opposition criticized Geingob last year for endorsing disputed elections in Zimbabwe.

But opposition leader McHenry Venaani paid tribute on Sunday.

“Indeed, President Geingob’s passing is a great loss not only to Namibia, but to the African continent as a whole," Venaani said. “Such was the caliber of this master negotiator and statesman, a lighthouse of steadfast leadership in turbulent times.”

Geingob, who was Namibia’s first prime minister from 1990 to 2002 and served in the same capacity from 2008 to 2012, could be outspoken on issues at home and abroad. In January, he criticized former colonial master Germany for supporting Israel after South Africa filed a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice accusing it of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

“Germany cannot morally express commitment to the United Nations convention against genocide, including atonement for the genocide in Namibia, whilst supporting the equivalent of a holocaust and genocide in Gaza,” Geingob said.

He was referring to events between 1904 and 1908 when colonial security forces in Namibia killed tens of thousands of people while putting down an uprising. Germany in 2021 acknowledged that the actions amounted to genocide and pledged more than $1 billion for infrastructure projects in the country.

Condolences from African leaders poured in on Sunday.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa described Geingob as “a towering veteran of Namibia’s liberation from colonialism and apartheid.”

Kenyan President William Ruto said Geingob “strongly promoted the continent’s voice and visibility at the global arena.”

Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa posted on X that Geingob’s “leadership and resilience will be remembered.”

___

Mutsaka reported from Harare, Zimbabwe.

___

AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa


Berlin honours 'path of reconciliation' taken by late Namibian leader
DPA
Sun, February 4, 2024

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa speaks at the G77 + China Leaders’ Summit during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28). 

Mahmoud Khaled/COP28/dpa

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier paid tribute to the late president of Namibia as a formative statesman for his country after Hage Geingob's death on Sunday.

Against the backdrop of German colonial crimes a century ago in what is now Namibia, Steinmeier said that Geingob had taken a path of reconciliation with Germany "despite the heavy burden of our history."

Germany remains "committed to the path of reconciliation with Namibia and to coming to terms with the genocide perpetrated by Germany," Steinmeier said.

Geingob was Namibia's third president and had been in office since 2015. He was one of the leading political figures in the country for decades and played a decisive role in gaining Namibia's independence in 1990.

Under the presidency of Sam Nujoma, he served from 1990 to 2002 as the first prime minister of independent Namibia. Geingob campaigned for reconciliation and the reconstruction of the former German colony with a population of 2.6 million.

The German Empire was the colonial power in what was then called German South-West Africa from 1884 to 1915 and brutally put down rebellions.

The mass murders committed by German forces during the Herero Wars between 1904 to 1908 are now considered the first genocide of the 20th century. Historians estimate that 65,000 out of 80,000 Herero and at least 10,000 out of 20,000 Nama were killed during that time.

"Namibia has lost a great and influential statesman," Steinmeier wrote in a letter of condolence to Geingob's widow.

He recalled Geingob's decades-long struggle for "the liberation of Namibia from the yoke of apartheid."

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also expressed his condolences and stated that Germany was losing "a partner who was committed to the process of coming to terms with Germany's colonial history with great openness."

"Just three months ago, we spoke on the phone about the progress of the reconciliation process and he was full of hope about the successful conclusion of the Joint Declaration," Stenmeier said.

In 2021, Germany recognized the crimes as genocide and the two governments have long been negotiating a proposed reconciliation agreement.

However, the reconciliation agreement and Germany's planned payments of €1.1 billion ($1.1 billion) for development projects in Namibia are currently on hold.

Berlin refuses to negotiate directly with the descendants of the victims of the time about personal compensation. Instead is negotiating with the Namibian government, reasoning that it represents the whole of Namibia under international law.

The aid money is slated for development projects in the Herero and Nama territories.

Other leaders paid tribute to Geingob, who died in the early hours of Sunday morning at the age of 82. He had been treated in hospital for cancer.

South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa said Namibia had lost an "extraordinary leader" "President Geingob was a towering veteran of Namibia’s liberation from colonialism and apartheid," he said in a statement.

Referring to Namibia's support during the South African freedom struggle against the white minority government there, he added that Geingob was "also greatly influential in the solidarity that the people of Namibia extended to the people of South Africa so that we could be free today."

South Africa is grateful to Geingob and saddened by his death, Ramaphosa added.

Hage Gottfried Geingob, President of Namibia, speaks at a meeting with Germany's Minister of Economics Habeck and business representatives at State House.

 Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa

Aston ‘Family Man’ Barrett, bassist with Bob Marley and the Wailers – obituary

Telegraph Obituaries
Tue, 6 February 2024 

Aston Barrett in 1993 - David Corio/Redferns

Aston “Family Man” Barrett, who has died aged 77, was the bass guitarist with the Wailers and played a key role in the band’s rise – producing and arranging several of their records – as reggae broke out of Jamaica and became a global phenomenon; he also played with Lee “Scratch” Perry, Burning Spear and Peter Tosh in a wide-ranging career.

Besides his melodic bass lines, locked into hypnotic sync with the drumming of his brother Carly, he co-wrote several songs with Bob Marley, and as arranger whipped the band into shape, making them one of the tightest outfits to emerge from their island.

He played on such hits as I Shot the Sheriff, Get Up Stand Up, Stir it Up, Jamming, No Woman, No Cry and Could You Be Love, and was a passionate believer in the centrality of the bass guitar to reggae. “The drum, it is the heartbeat, and the bass, it is the backbone,” he once said. “If the bass is not right, the music is gonna have a bad back, so it would be crippled.”

With Bob Marley in 1975 - Ian Dickson/Redferns

Aston Francis Barrett was born on November 22 1946 in Kingston, Jamaica, the second of five children, to Wilfred, a blacksmith, and Violet, née Marshall. The house was filled with soul music, and he quickly gravitated to the bass guitar, building his own from scratch; his younger brother Carlton, or Carly, an aspiring drummer, built his own drum kit.

Aston worked for a while as a welder, blacksmith and bike mechanic, while finding session work with Carly. Seeing himself leading a band in the years to come, Aston adopted the nickname “Family Man” before he had fathered any of his 41 children.

The brothers performed under a succession of monikers, starting with the Soul Mates, moving on to the Rhythm Force, and – with Max Romeo on vocals – the Hippy Boys. They played with Lee “Scratch” Perry and the Upsetters, then in 1969 joined Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer in the Wailers.


Marley had heard some Jamaican records while he was staying for a while with his mother in the US, and when he went home he sought out the rhythm section that had so impressed him on those discs. He recruited Aston and Carly to the Wailers, and the brothers played on the 1971 Soul Rebels album.

In 1972 the band joined Chris Blackwell’s Island label, and the following year began to make international waves with Catch a Fire, regularly cited as one of the best reggae albums ever released. A string of hit albums and singles followed, but in 1981 Marley died of cancer and the Wailers carried on in a sequence of changing line-ups.

In the 1970s Barrett was a pioneer in the burgeoning dub genre, and mentored Robbie Shakespeare of the bass-and-drums duo Sly and Robbie (“Family Man is the one who kicked my butt,” Shakespeare recalled). He played on albums by Burning Spear in that decade, as well as Peter Tosh’s acclaimed album Legalize It and Bunny Wailer’s Blackheart Man (both 1976).

The Wailers in 1972, l-r, Earl Lindo, Bob Marley, Carlton Barrett, Peter Tosh and Aston Barrett - Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

In 1987 Carly Barrett was shot dead outside his home in Jamaica aged 36; his widow Albertine was convicted of conspiracy to murder, along with two men, one of whom was reportedly her lover. (Peter Tosh was also shot dead in his home the same year.)

In 1989 Aston Barrett formed the Wailers Band, then in 2015 assembled Wailers Reunited; they toured the UK and US the following year.

In 2006 he filed a lawsuit against Island claiming £60 million in royalties. The judge ruled that he had signed away his rights for a few hundred thousand dollars in 1994; landed with £2 million in legal fees, he had to sell two of his houses in Jamaica.

Aston Barrett was appointed to Jamaica’s Order of Distinction, Commander Class, in 2021.

Aston Barrett had 23 daughters and 18 sons. One son, Aston Barrett Jnr, plays bass with the modern incarnation of the Wailers.

Aston Barrett, born November 22 1946, died February 2 2024

West Bank Palestinians 'exhausted' by omnipresent Israeli surveillance

Anne-Sophie Labadie
Tue, 6 February 2024

Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron say Israeli forces regularly use facial recognition tech (HAZEM BADER)

Rotating cameras planted on a rooftop terrace "follow our every move", said Hebron resident Umm Nasser, protesting intensified Israeli surveillance of her occupied West Bank city since the start of the Gaza war.

"Psychologically, I'm exhausted," admitted the 55-year-old Palestinian woman.

She lives above the Abu al-Rish checkpoint, the site of frequent violence at the heart of historical Hebron.

It is one of numerous sentry boxes manned by Israeli forces separating Palestinian streets from Jewish settler enclaves in the old town, which hosts a disputed holy site. Known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi mosque and to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs, it is revered by both faiths.

Dozens of heavily armed Israeli soldiers guard the site, assisted by security cameras.

Umm Nasser said that surveillance enhanced by artificial intelligence tools has become "especially difficult during the war" between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

To Umm Nasser, the use of technology is stifling.

"We've tried putting pieces of wood or fabric over the cameras to maintain our privacy, but every time, the army removes them," she said.

"One day, soldiers took our identity cards and told us they were going to use them for a facial recognition system."

She said she hadn't heard about it since.

Shai Cohen, a 23-year-old Israeli settler, said the surveillance cameras scattered all over the city "very (much) help us" to feel safe.

Israel describes itself as a "start-up nation" and takes pride in its leading cyber industry and cutting-edge surveillance and weapons technology.

Facial recognition technology -- highly regulated in civilian settings -- is used by Israeli forces along with a range of advanced tools in the Palestinian territories they have occupied since 1967.

- 'Automated surveillance' -

"Blue Wolf", for example, is an app soldiers use on their mobile phone. They take face pictures of Palestinians, which are then checked against a database.

Once matched, the system indicates whether the person photographed is wanted for arrest.

This system is part of the Israeli army's "frictionless occupation strategy", said Sophia Goodfriend, a doctoral student specialising in artificial intelligence and human rights.

The app "relies on automated surveillance technology, often based on artificial intelligence and designed to reduce interaction" between soldiers and Palestinians, Goodfriend told AFP.

Another system, "Red Wolf", has been deployed at Israeli checkpoints in Hebron since at least 2022, according to an investigation by human rights group Amnesty International.

Soldiers know "before I approach the checkpoint that I'm 'red' in the system. It means I'm 'a threat'," said Hebron activist Issa Amro, lamenting yet "another layer of humiliation".

He said residents had their photos taken without their consent, and they do not know how Israel uses their images and data that it collects.

The army in late 2022 confirmed it was testing a surveillance system with riot control tools, developed by a private firm, Smart Shooter.

The remote-controlled system can fire shots which, according to the army, are not lethal.

Asked by AFP about the system and the "Wolf" software, the Israeli military did not comment.

- 'Anxiety and fear' -

The automated tools make for "more and more efficient" control over the lives of Palestinians who are further "dehumanised" in the process, according to Israeli anti-occupation group Breaking the Silence.

"The very purpose and essence of the system is to create anxiety and fear," said Adel, a rights defender living in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem who asked to use a pseudonym because of security concerns.

"Our behaviour and movements are scrutinised."

In east Jerusalem, he said, facial recognition technology is regularly used by Israeli forces during demonstrations.

Adel recalled an inspection at a checkpoint when "many pages of data appeared on the tablet" used by the soldiers.

"They mentioned an arrest that occurred several years earlier and for which I had been cleared by the courts," he said.

Tensions have soared since October 7, when Hamas militants breached the Gaza border and attacked southern Israel, triggering a devastating war.

Hamas fighters began their attack by targeting remote-controlled surveillance and defence systems on the border.

The unprecedented attack resulted in more than 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly of civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data.

Israel retaliated with a massive military offensive that has killed more than 27,500 people in the besieged Gaza Strip, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

Footage and media reports from Gaza have raised concerns over the use of facial recognition technology by Israeli forces there, too.

The army said that as part of the war it was conducting "security and intelligence operations".

Online videos from mid-November showed Gazans, fleeing south for safety, passing through gates allegedly equipped with surveillance tech.

And official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported "smart" cameras had been installed at Gaza City's Al-Shifa hospital during a raid by Israeli troops.

al-ha/blb/dla/ami/kir

Justin Trudeau bans British expats from buying homes in Canada

Noah Eastwood
Tue, 6 February 2024 

Jusin Trudeau

Justin Trudeau has extended a ban on foreign nationals purchasing homes anywhere in Canada, in a blow to British expats.

Only foreigners who are asylum seekers, some international students and temporary workers will be permitted to buy residential property in the country until 2027, Ottawa has said.

Thousands of Britons living in Canada could be hit by the moratorium, designed to stop houses falling into the hands of a “speculative financial asset class,” Canada’s finance minister Chrystia Freeland.

“By extending the foreign buyer ban, we will ensure houses are used as homes for Canadian families to live in and do not become a speculative financial asset class.

“The government is intent on using all possible tools to make housing more affordable for Canadians across the country,” she said in a statement on Sunday.

Around 650,000 British expats currently live in Canada. Britons seeking to own a second home, or live in the country without permanent residency, will be caught out by the ban.

Those planning to move to Canada from the UK need to obtain citizenship or become a permanent resident to purchase property.

Buying a house and falling foul of the rules could result in a fine of up to C$10,000 (£5,890) and a compulsory order to sell the property.

It also applies to foreign commercial enterprises, as well as people who are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents.

The ban was originally brought in on January 1 last year, after being agreed in 2022, and was due to expire at the start of 2025.

It will now be extended to January 2027, despite criticism that it has had little impact on increasing house prices.

Tom Davidoff, associate professor at the University of British Columbia, told Canadian media that it is “very hard to believe” the ban had been successful.

“In the most affordability-challenged markets, it’s very hard to believe there was a lot of impact because there were so few foreign buyers to begin with,” he said.

The latest available figures from Canada’s national statistics agency, from 2021, show that prime markets in Toronto and Vancouver had relatively low foreign residential property ownership, with 2.6pc and 4.3pc respectively.

It comes as Canadians face high levels of immigration under Trudeau’s leadership, with almost one million people estimated to arrive over the next two years, according to government figures.

The controversial prime minister has set a target of attracting 500,000 new immigrants to Canada every year.

According to the 2023-2025 Immigration Levels Plan, it will welcome 485,000 new permanent residents in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025.

Canadian media previously reported that the government was warned by officials in 2022 that increasing immigration would likely make housing more unaffordable.

House prices surged 56pc between the end of 2019 and the summer of 2022, research by Oxford Economics shows, amid record arrivals from overseas.

Rents have also gone up, according to a report by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which showed that prices had risen 8pc across 17 metropolitan areas, from C$1,250 (£736) to C$1,359 (£800) in the past 12 months.

Bishop hits back over Braverman’s claims asylum seekers are faking Christian conversion


Gabriella Swerling
Mon, 5 February 2024 at 2:26 pm GMT-7·4-min read

The Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, said: 'Churches have no power to circumvent the Government’s duty to vet and approve applications' - Rob Welham/Camera Press

A bishop has attacked Suella Braverman after she said that churches were fuelling fake asylum claims.

Mrs Braverman said that during her time as home secretary she “became aware of churches around the country facilitating industrial-scale bogus asylum claims”, with migrants “directed to these churches as a one-stop shop to bolster their asylum case”.

She made her comments in The Telegraph amid a row over Abdul Ezedi, 35, the refugee suspected of being behind the Clapham chemical attack who was granted asylum on his third attempt, with the support of a priest, having claimed he had converted to Christianity and would be persecuted in his native Afghanistan.

While the Home Office is responsible for checking the criminal records and safety of asylum seekers, religious institutions are under increasing scrutiny over the legitimacy of those wishing to convert.

The Church of England has rejected Mrs Braverman’s criticism, with the Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, writing in The Telegraph on Monday: “We are not politicians, and we know that to be involved in political debate can be bruising.

“But those who have claimed a link between the abuse of our asylum system and the action of bishops in parliament are simply wrong.

“It is saddening to see this being implied by former holders of senior ministerial office, who have had opportunity but not sought to raise these concerns with senior clergy before.”
Church ‘not responsible’

Dr Francis-Dehqani, who will become the lead bishop on immigration later in February, denied that the Church was in any way responsible for the criminal history of converted asylum seekers.

He said: “Churches have no power to circumvent the Government’s duty to vet and approve applications – the responsibility for this rests with the Home Office.”

The bishop also denied that church support for asylum seekers’ claims amounted to a “magic ticket” for entry to the UK, adding that the notion that a person may be “fast-tracked through the asylum system, aided and abetted by the Church is simply inaccurate”.

Writing in The Telegraph over the weekend, Mrs Braverman questioned the clergy’s role in conversions from Islam, saying: “Attend mass once a week for a few months, befriend the vicar, get your baptism date in the diary and, bingo, you’ll be signed off by a member of clergy that you’re now a God-fearing Christian who will face certain persecution if removed to your Islamic country of origin. It has to stop.”

According to Home Office guidance for officials making asylum decisions concerning Christian converts, “ultimately, evidence even from a senior church member is not determinative”.

Friends of Ezedi told The Telegraph last week that he remained a “good Muslim” who bought half a Halal sheep every fortnight despite his apparent conversion.

On Monday an evangelical church leader said priests must look for “red flags” when baptising asylum seekers because some were faking conversion.

Pastor Graham Nicholls, the director of Affinity, a network of 1,200 evangelical churches and ministries in the UK, said that church leaders “need discernment” to “test whether people are genuine in their beliefs”, adding that in some cases prospective converts were “faking it”.
Undue haste for baptism

He said “red flags” may consist of large numbers of people presenting as converts, an undue haste from people to receive some credible sign of being a Christian such as baptism, a “rather mechanical assent to believing but without any obvious heart change”, and a general sense they might not be genuine.

He acknowledged that “these things are hard to judge” and that “we cannot see into people’s souls”, but added: “There seems to be a problem of asylum seekers claiming to have been converted to Christianity to support their applications.”

On Monday Met detectives said they had arrested and bailed a 22-year-old man on suspicion of assisting an offender as the manhunt continued. Police added that the mother Ezedi is suspected of dousing with a corrosive liquid may lose the sight in her right eye.

Ezedi arrived illegally in the UK in the back of a lorry in 2016, claiming his life would be in danger if he was returned to Afghanistan.

Despite being convicted of a sex offence two years later, he went on to claim asylum successfully. He was granted leave to remain in 2021 or 2022 on his third attempt after a priest vouched for his conversion, arguing that he was “wholly committed” to his new religion.

A Church of England spokesman previously said: “It is the role of the Home Office, and not the Church, to vet asylum seekers and judge the merits of their individual cases.”

The Home Office was contacted for comment.