UN aid official questions world's 'humanity' as Gaza war rages

United Nations (United States) (AFP) – A top UN aid official on Thursday questioned "what has become of our basic humanity," as the war in Gaza rages and humanitarian operations struggle to respond.


Issued on: 30/08/2024 
A Palestinian man who returned to Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip to check on his home sits atop items salvaged amid the devastation © Eyad BABA / AFP

Joyce Msuya, acting head of the UN's humanitarian office (OCHA), said that "we cannot plan more than 24 hours in advance because we struggle to know what supplies we will have, when we will have them or where we will be able to deliver."

"Civilians are hungry. They are thirsty. They are sick. They are homeless. They have been pushed beyond... what any human being should bear," she told the Security Council.

Msuya's comments came after the UN had to halt the movement of aid and aid workers within Gaza on Monday due to a new Israeli evacuation order for the Deir al-Balah area, which had become a hub for its workers.

"More than 88 percent of Gaza's territory has come under an (Israeli) order to evacuate at some point," Msuya said, adding that civilians, "in a state of limbo," were being forced into an area equivalent to just 11 percent of the Gaza Strip.

"The evacuation orders appear to defy the requirements of international humanitarian law," she added.

Israel's war against Palestinian militant group Hamas has come under increasing scrutiny as the civilian death toll rises, but international powers including the United States have failed so far to help negotiate a ceasefire.

The current fighting was sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 40,602 people in Gaza, according to the territory's health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

"What we have witnessed over the past 11 months... calls into question the world's commitment to the international legal order that was designed to prevent these tragedies," Msuya said.

"It forces us to ask: what has become of our basic sense of humanity?"

Calling on the Security Council and wider international community to use its leverage to end the war, Msuya urged the release of hostages and "a sustained ceasefire in Gaza."

© 2024 AFP

Israel faces backlash from EU, US over growing West Bank violence


Issued on: 29/08/2024 - 

Video by:Eliza HERBERT

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Thursday he will urge the bloc's 27 member states Thursday to back sanctions on Israeli ministers accused of fomenting "hatred" towards Palestinians. It follows new sanctions imposed by Washington on Israeli settlers in the West Bank over increasing violence against Palestinians.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell urges allies to allow Ukrainian airstrikes in Russia


Issued on: 29/08/2024 -

Video by:FRANCE 24

The European Union’s top diplomat on Thursday ramped up pressure on Ukraine’s international backers to lift restrictions on the use of weapons they provide to the conflict-ravaged country to allow its armed forces to strike targets inside Russia. FRANCE 24's Douglas Herbert provides analysis.

TYRANT

Tunisian President Saied: ‘A populist criticising representative democracy’ standing for re-election

Tunisian President Kais Saied is standing for a second term in an election set for October 6. Accused of authoritarianism by the opposition, the incumbent is maintaining an iron grip on the country’s political life, which has seen arrests of potential candidates and the recent replacement of 19 ministers. FRANCE 24 speaks with Tunisian essayist Hatem Nafti.


Issued on: 29/08/2024 - 

A supporter of Tunisian President Kais Saied holds up his image along Habib Bourguiba Avenue, Tunis, July 25, 2024. © Ons Abid, AP

By:FRANCE 24

In a speech broadcast on Sunday night, Saied announced the dismissal of Tunisia' foreign minister, the defence minister and 17 other cabinet members. The move followed the surprise replacement of former premier Ahmed Hachani with Prime Minister Kamel Madouri on August 7.

The president justified this sweeping change in the name of “national security” and “the supreme interest of the state”. He said that “a corrupt system whose participants hope for a return to the past” has “managed to manipulate” a large number of officials and block the inner workings of the state.

At least three candidates will face him in the October 6 presidential vote: Zouhair Maghzaoui, a former MP from the pan-Arab left; Ayachi Zammel, an industrialist and the leader of a liberal party; and Abdellatif Mekki, a conservative Islamist.

A Tunisian court on Thursday accepted the appeal of Mondher Znaidi, a former minister who worked with the late president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, against the rejection of his candidacy by the election authority.

The final list of candidates must be made official during the first week of September. Some potential challengers to Saied, who was elected in 2019, have complained that they have faced administrative obstacles to obtaining the sponsorship forms and copies of judicial records that are required to stand.

Tunisian essayist Hatem Nafti, the author of “Tunisie, vers un populisme autoritaire?” ("Tunisia, towards an authoritarian populism?), published in 2022, and “Notre ami Kaïs Saïed. Essai sur la démocrature tunisienne” ("Our friend Kais Saied: Essay on the condition of democracy in Tunisia), due for publication on October 3, judges Saied’s five-year term harshly.

FRANCE 24 spoke to Nafti about the arrest of opposition figures and critical voices, the propagation of conspiracy theories and the advent of authoritarianism in Tunisia.

FRANCE 24: In what kind of political climate will the October 6 presidential election unfold?

Hatem Nafti: First of all, we need to remember that the current president, Kais Saied, under the pretext of an economic and health crisis, staged a coup d’état on July 25, 2021. Since then, he has completely transformed political governance by moving towards a regime with very, very extensive presidential powers.

He has, for example, given himself the right to dismiss judges. Simply on the basis of a police report saying that so-and-so is a corrupt judge, he can dismiss him. The judges who don’t rule as the president would like can find themselves suddenly banned from practicing or forcibly transferred. The executive puts pressure on the judiciary and the president makes no secret of it.

In practice, we have an ultra-presidential regime where the president decides on almost everything. Saied governed by decree-laws between September 2021 and March 2023. With Decree 54 against cybercrime (in 2022), he went back on the liberalisation that Tunisia had experienced since the revolution in 2011. Concerning press offences, until now we had laws which did not provide for prison sentences for defamation.

Decree 54 is supposed to fight fake news but many people who support the president actually spread it, inciting hatred morning, noon and night, and they are hardly ever investigated. The decree above all targets the opposition and voices that are critical of the regime.

01:24



Which candidates will face the president in the October 6 vote?

The list of accepted candidates has not been finalised, but most of the opposition candidates are in prison. Among the three opposition candidates selected so far (editor’s note: this interview took place before the Tunisian Administrative Court upheld Znaidi’s appeal), one must travel every day from town to town to respond to accusations of supposedly having tampered with the sponsorships needed for his candidacy.

On Tuesday, the former health minister, Abdellatif Mekki, a figure in the conservative Islamist party Ennahda, was authorised to stand. But an examining magistrate has banned him from travelling beyond his district, speaking to the press or using social media.

We must also remember that after the coup, the independent electoral body, whose members were elected by a qualified majority of two-thirds of the parliament, was dissolved – and the president has since named members of a new body himself.

In this context, do you think that Tunisian voters will go to the polls?

It’s very difficult to say. Turnout was between 11 and 12 percent for the 2022-2023 legislative elections. A world record! Except this time, there’s something at stake. In Tunisian culture, a presidential election is very important, like in France. Everything is going to depend on the ballot's line-up, which is still in flux.

The opposition does not dare call for a boycott because there may be serious candidates who represent the different political families (people from Ben Ali's regime, the Islamists and the democrats). It’s thus difficult to say, today, if the elections will be valid. This will depend on the conduct of the executive and the resilience of the opposition.

It’s also important to emphasise that there is a massive rejection of the entire political class by the population, a sort of resignation: “anyway, there’s no alternative for president”. There could therefore be a legitimist reflex among many Tunisians who view the post-revolutionary period (2011- 2021) as a sort of dark age.

In your publications, you denounce the conspiracy theories that Saied frequently invokes to explain Tunisia’s ills. Will these theories have an impact on voters?

Saied explains his failures in terms of plots, either by old elites or from abroad. He explains everything in terms of plots, whether it relates to the economy when there are supply problems or the drought hitting Tunisia for the past seven years.

In the face of the influx of sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisia, he invokes the “great replacement” theory instead of saying the European Union supports any government in power to reinforce control of its southern borders to prevent migrants from reaching Europe (editor’s note: Tunisia in July 2023 signed a “strategic and comprehensive partnership” with the EU on immigration, providing Tunisia with €150 million in direct aid.)

The way he speaks about the issue of immigration is very effective in the eyes of many Tunisians, who wait in line every day to buy bread and often perceive migrants as colonisers.

Is Saied still perceived by some in Tunisia as a bulwark against the Islamist party Ennahda?

No, we need to stop with that. Many people supported his coup because they thought he would rid them of the Islamists. But Saied introduced Sharia law into the constitution. When it comes to secularism, I’ve seen a little better.

This is a major misunderstanding among the Tunisian elite and a part of the Western elite. Saied is a populist who criticises representative democracy. He is opposed to political Islam because he is against all political parties, who are for him a perversion of the popular will. He is also against all intermediary bodies, including associations and particularly NGOs, which he considers to be the "armed wing" of the Western powers.

This interview is a translation of the original in French.

ECOCIDE

Yemen's Huthis blew up stranded oil tanker: video

Sanaa (AFP) – Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels announced Thursday they had booby-trapped and detonated the Greek-flagged oil tanker Sounion, stranded in the Red Sea after a drone and missile attack earlier this month.


Issued on: 29/08/2024 - 

This picture released on by Yemen's Huthi Ansarullah Media Centre shows fireballs and smoke aboard the oil tanker Sounion 

© - / ANSARULLAH MEDIA CENTRE/AFP

The group's leader said the operation took place earlier this week. Since then, the rebels have agreed to allow rescue teams to access the ship.

A video shared on the rebels' media outlets showed masked men planting explosives on the vessel and then detonating them, causing several fires on board.

The Sounion was hit by the Huthis off the coast of Hodeida on August 21, according to the UKMTO maritime agency, which said at the time the attack caused a fire and cut engine power.

The European Union's Red Sea naval mission, Aspides, had rescued its 25 crew members last week, leaving the vessel -- now at risk of causing an oil spill -- abandoned.

The EU naval force was formed in February to protect merchant vessels in the Red Sea from attacks by the Huthi rebels, who have waged a campaign against international shipping that they say is intended to show solidarity with Palestinian group Hamas in its war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.

Rebel chief Abdul Malik al-Huthi on Thursday said his forces had "stormed" the tanker earlier this week.

He added in a speech that the Sounion had violated the Huthis' "embargo" on shipping to Israeli ports.

The vessel had departed from Iraq and was destined for a port near Athens, carrying 150,000 metric tons of crude oil, according to Greek port authorities.

On Wednesday, Iran's mission to the UN said the Tehran-backed Huthis had agreed to "a temporary truce for the entry of tugboats and rescue ships into the incident area", citing fires and "subsequent environmental hazards".

A Huthi spokesman confirmed late Wednesday on social media the group had granted a request from "numerous international parties, particularly European" to access the vessel.

The Aspides mission said on Thursday there were "reports that multiple fires have been detected in several locations on the main deck of the vessel", but "there's no oil spill, and the ship is still anchored and not drifting".

The EU mission was "preparing to facilitate any courses of action, in coordination with European authorities and neighbouring countries, to avert a catastrophic environmental crisis", it said on social media platform X.

© 2024 AFP

Israel, Hamas agree to limited pauses in Gaza fighting to allow for polio vaccinations

Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization's senior official for the Palestinian territories, said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to limited pauses in the fighting in Gaza to allow vaccinations against polio. Hamas said it is “ready to cooperate with international organisations to secure the campaign", according to a statement from Hamas’s political bureau. The urgent campaign comes after a 10-month-old Palestinian boy was partially paralyzed by a mutated strain of the virus, having missed the chance to be vaccinated because he was born just before the October 7 attacks by Hamas militants and Israel's ensuing offensive.


Issued on: 29/08/2024 -

Palestinian children play outside a medical tent in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, July 11, 2024.

 © Ramadan Abed, Reuters

By:NEWS WIRES|
Video by FRANCE 24

The U.N. World Health Organization said Thursday it has reached an agreement with Israel for limited pauses in fighting in Gaza to allow for polio vaccinations for hundreds of thousands of children after a baby contracted the first confirmed case in 25 years in the Palestinian territory.

Described as “humanitarian pauses” that will last three days in different areas of the war-ravaged territory, the vaccination campaign will start Sunday in central Gaza, said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO’s representative in the Palestinian territories.

That will be followed by another three-day pause in southern Gaza and then another in northern Gaza, he said, noting that the pauses will last eight or nine hours each day. He thinks that health workers — more than 2,000 — will take part among U.N. agencies and Gaza’s Health Ministry might need additional days to complete the vaccinations.

Peeperkorn told reporters via video conference that they aim to vaccinate 640,000 children under 10 and that the campaign has been coordinated with Israeli authorities.

“We need this humanitarian pause,” he said. “And that has been very clear. We have an agreement on that, so we expect that all parties will stick to that.”

These humanitarian pauses are not a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas that mediators U.S., Egypt and Qatar have long been seeking, including in talks that are ongoing this week.

Hamas is “ready to cooperate with international organizations to secure this campaign,” according to a statement from Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’ political bureau.

An Israeli official said before the plan was announced that there was expected to be some sort of tactical pause to allow vaccinations to take place. The official had spoken on condition of anonymity before the plan was finalized.

Israel didn’t immediately comment Thursday on the vaccination campaign. The Israeli army has previously announced limited pauses in limited areas to allow international humanitarian operations.

WHO said health workers need to vaccinate at least 90% of children in Gaza to stop the transmission of polio.

“I’m not going to say this is the ideal way forward. But this is a workable way forward,” Peeperkorn said of the humanitarian pauses. Later he added, “It will happen and should happen because we have an agreement.”

The campaign comes after 10-month-old Abdel-Rahman Abu El-Jedian was partially paralyzed by a mutated strain of the virus that vaccinated people shed in their waste. The baby boy was not vaccinated because he was born just before Oct. 7, when Hamas militants attacked Israel and Israel launched a retaliatory offensive on Gaza.

He is one of hundreds of thousands of children who missed vaccinations because of the fighting between Israel and Hamas.

(AP)

00:35

Do cats grieve?

The Conversation
August 29, 2024 

Cat (Youtube)

As we grieve the loss of a pet, we may not be the only ones feeling the pain. Research is showing that cats who are left behind when another animal in their home dies could be mourning along with us.

Grief is a well-documented human response to loss – but its roots may be far more ancient as some scientists believe it evolved in extinct species of humans. Corvids – members of the crow family – primates, and marine mammals like dolphins and whales, have all been observed to change their behaviour when one of their own dies, from carrying dead offspring for days, to staying close by the body, as if keeping vigil.

One theory is that grief is a by-product of the natural stress response to separation seen in social animals. According to this idea, distress and searching behaviour probably evolved to encourage animals to reunite with lost group members, which was beneficial for survival. These responses persist when separation is permanent, like in death, leading to the enduring pain of grief.

While there’s plenty of research on how losing a pet affects humans, much less is known about how cats cope with loss, something recent research by US-based comparative psychologists Brittany Greene and Jennifer Vonk investigated.

Unlike typical social species, the cat’s wild ancestor was largely solitary. However, domestication has reshaped their behaviour, enabling them to live in groups and form social bonds.

Green and Vonk’s study suggests that cats can grieve the loss of a fellow pet. In their study of 452 cats, many displayed signs of distress, such as increased attention-seeking, vocalising and reduced appetite, following the death of a companion. The study found that the strength of the bond between the animals, their time spent together, and daily interactions were key factors in this grief-like behaviour.



Cats showed altered behaviour after their companion died Julia Cherk

This study builds on earlier research by animal welfare researcher Jessica Walker and her team in 2016, which examined how cats and dogs react to the loss of a companion. Walker’s study, conducted in New Zealand and Australia, found that 75% of surviving pets showed noticeable behavioral changes, with cats showing increased affection, clinginess and anxiety-related vocalisations.


It should be noted that both studies relied on owner perceptions to assess changes in pet behavior, which presents a potential problem. While pet owners are often the most attuned to subtle changes in their animals, their observations may also be influenced by their own grief and emotional state.
Is it really grief?

There is an alternative explanation for changes in behavior the owners in studies observed after a companion’s death. The presence of a deceased animal can signal danger in the environment, causing pets to change their behavior as a safety measure, rather than being a grief response.

Although this hasn’t been studied in domestic cats, 2012 research on western scrub-jays revealed that seeing a dead member of their species can prompt alarm calls and behavior aimed at avoiding danger, much like how they would react to a predator.

Similarly, a 2006 study on bumblebees found that they were less likely to visit flowers that contained a freshly killed bee or its scent, probably reducing their own risk of being attacked.

This suggests that what we interpret as grief might, in some cases, be a survival instinct. Some behavior the owners in the studies noticed after the death of a companion, such as their cat hiding or seeking higher vantage points, could support this idea.

A question you might be asking is whether cats mourn the deaths of their owners. Though we would like to think that our cat would mourn our death, at the minute, we simply don’t know. There seems to be little to no research on how cats react to the death of their owner.

One unsettling behavior that has been well documented upon death of an animals’ owner is the consumption of their remains. While cats often get a bad reputation for this, dog lovers should note that both cats and dogs have been known to scavenge human remains.

In fact, pet dogs are more frequently documented doing so. Some scientists suggest this behavior might stem from hunger, but it has also happened when food was plentiful.

Another theory, better aligned with the idea of grief, is that scavenging might start as an attempt to revive an unresponsive owner. When nudging or licking doesn’t work, the animal may escalate to nipping or biting in an effort to rouse them.

So the jury is still out on whether cats grieve in response to loss, or if are they responding to changes in their environment that we have yet to fully understand.

Grace Carroll, Lecturer in Animal Behavior and Welfare, School of Psychology, Queen's University Belfast

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

We discovered a new way mountains are formed – from ‘mantle waves’ inside the Earth

The Conversation
August 29, 2024 

The Drakensberg mountains form part of the Great Escarpment 

encircling southern Africa. Ondrej Bucek / Shutterstock

In 2005, I was navigating winding roads through the Drakensberg Mountains, in Lesotho, Southern Africa. Towering cliff-like features known as escarpments interrupt the landscape, rising up by a kilometer or more. Taken aback by the dramatic scenery, I was struck by a question: how on Earth did it form?

The outer shell of our planet is fractured into seven or eight major sections, or tectonic plates, on which the continents sit. We expect to see the continents rise up at the active boundaries of these plates, where volcanism and earthquakes are often concentrated.

But why – and how – do these dramatic features form far away from these boundaries? Our new theory, published in Nature after nearly two decades of thinking and forensic work, explains how uplift like that seen in Drakensberg can occur in supposedly stable parts of continents.

The continents we now recognise were once united as single, great “supercontinents”. One such example was Gondwana, which existed hundreds of millions of years ago and started to break up during the age of the dinosaurs. We believe that when these supercontinents break apart, it triggers a kind of stirring process under the continents, which we now call a “mantle wave”. This motion deep in the Earth ripples slowly across the partially molten underbelly of the landmass, disturbing its deep roots.

The mantle is the 2,900km-thick layer of Earth that lies beneath the outer crust that we live on. To study what happens when continents break apart, we built sophisticated dynamic models to mimic the properties of the Earth’s crust and mantle, and how they are physically strained when forces are applied.


Cross section through Earth showing the mantle. USGS

When continents separate, the hot rock in the mantle below rushes up to fill the gap. This hot rock rubs against the cold continent, cools, becomes denser, and sinks, much like a lava lamp.

What had previously gone unnoticed was that this motion not only perturbs the region near what’s called the rift zone (where the Earth’s crust is pulled apart), but also the nearby roots of the continents. This, in turn, triggers a chain of instabilities, driven by heat and density differences, that propagate inland beneath the continent. This process doesn’t unfold overnight – it takes many tens of millions of years for this “wave” to travel into the deep interior of the continents.


This theory could have profound implications for other aspects of our planet. For example, if these mantle waves strip some 30 to 40 kilometers of rocks from the roots of continents, as we propose they should, it will have a cascade of major impacts at the surface. Losing this rocky “ballast” makes the continent more buoyant, causing it to rise like a hot air balloon after shedding its sandbags.


Steep slopes are more susceptible to erosion by rivers. Andrew Mohamed

This uplift at Earth’s surface, occurring directly above the mantle wave, should cause increased erosion by rivers. This happens because uplift raises previously buried rocks, steepens slopes, making them more unstable, and allows rivers to carve deep valleys. We calculated that the erosion should amount to one or two kilometers or even more in some cases.

The innermost parts of the continents are considered some of the toughest and most stable parts of the planet, so removing a few kilometers from these regions is no mean feat.

But near the edges of these stable continental regions, called cratons, we get kilometer-high escarpments, just like the one in Lesotho. These giant escarpments encircle these regions, extending for thousands of kilometers. They are testament to a fundamental disruption of the landscape at roughly the same time that the supercontinent Gondwana broke apart – starting around 180 million years ago.

Mystery plateaus

Inland from these great escarpments, we find plateaus, such as the Central Plateau of South Africa, which rise over a kilometer above sea level. The origins of these plateaus have long been enigmatic and have typically not been linked with the escarpments.

Some scientists have previously invoked a phenomenon known as mantle plumes – colossal upwellings of hot, buoyant material from deep within the Earth – as a possible explanation for the plateaus.

Such plumes could potentially push up and dynamically support the Earth’s crust. However, there is no evidence of such an inner continental plume feature in geological records from surrounding continents or oceans during the relevant time period. Could our mantle wave offer a fresh explanation?

To test our predictions, we turned to thermochronology –- a science that helps us understand how rocks, now at or near the surface, have cooled over time. Certain minerals, like apatite, are sensitive to both temperature and time. Much like a flight recorder, these minerals capture a “cooling history”, providing snapshots of how the temperature of a given rock has changed.

Here, we used multiple existing measurements scattered across Southern Africa. This analysis confirmed our model’s predictions: several kilometers of erosion occurred across the region at broadly the times suggested by our models. Even more remarkably, the erosion moved across Southern Africa in a pattern closely mimicking the mantle wave in our simulations.

To probe this linkage further, we applied a different kind of simulation called landscape evolution modeling, which examines how water interacts with the landscape and how, as the landscape is sculpted by rivers, the Earth’s surface effectively bounces or “flexes” in response.

When we included the mantle wave in our computer model, it showed how it could, in theory, form a high elevation plateau. Our results explain how vertical movements of continents can occur far from active tectonic plate boundaries, where most uplift is generally known to occur.

The massive erosion that occurs during these mantle wave events can give rise to intense chemical weathering of rocks, which removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, promoting global cooling. These uplifts can also physically separate flora and fauna, leading to speciation and shaping evolution. We’ve come a long way in understanding the processes that lead mountain ranges to form away from the edges of continents. And it still amazes me that all this started with an awe-inspiring view of Lesotho’s landscape.


Thomas Gernon, Professor in Earth & Climate Science, University of Southampton

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Monkey monikers: Like humans, marmosets give each other names

Washington (AFP) – Naming others is considered a marker of highly advanced cognition in social animals, previously observed only in humans, bottlenose dolphins and African elephants.


Issued on: 29/08/2024 - 

Pygmy marmoset cubs are pictured with their mother in their enclosure at the Mulhouse Zoo, eastern France 

© SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP/File

Marmoset monkeys have now joined this exclusive club, according to a new study published in Science on Thursday.

The diminutive primates use loud, high-pitched calls to assign each other "vocal labels," as shown in research conducted by a team at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

"We are very interested in social behavior because we think that social behavior is essentially what drove us humans to be so special compared to other animals," senior author David Omer told AFP.

"We don't run fast, we don't fly, we don't excel in anything else besides being social and all our achievements as a society are our societal achievements."

Marmosets are ideal subjects to study the evolution of social behavior and language in humans, he explained, because they exhibit similar traits, living in small monogamous family groups of six to eight individuals that cooperatively rear their young.

Led by graduate student Guy Oren, the researchers recorded natural conversations between pairs of marmosets separated by a visual barrier, as well as interactions between the monkeys and a computer system that played back pre-recorded calls.

They discovered that marmosets use "phee calls" -- very high-pitched vocalizations, as loud as power tools -- to address one another. Notably, the monkeys could recognize when such calls were directed at them and were more likely to respond when addressed by their name.

Machine learning advances

The ten marmosets they tested came from three separate families, and the research also revealed that members within a family group used similar sound features to code different names, akin to dialects or accents in humans. This held true even for adult marmosets that weren't related by blood, suggesting they learned from others within the family group.

Marmosets are relatively distant relatives of humans. We last shared a common ancestor around 35 million years ago, while the split between ourselves and chimpanzees could have happened 5-7 million years ago.

Rather than genetic proximity, Omer attributes the acquisition of vocal labels by marmosets to "convergent evolution," or the idea that they evolved similar traits in response to comparable environmental challenges.

For marmosets, vocal labeling may have been crucial for maintaining social bonds and group cohesion in the dense rainforests of South America, where visibility is often limited.

How and when humans first began talking is a matter of debate, but until recently many scientists had dismissed the idea we could look to other primates for clues. Omer stressed the latest research was yet another blow to that long-standing opinion.

"We can still learn a lot from non-human primates about the evolution of language in humans," he said.

The team's statistical analysis of the marmosets' calls was made possible by recent advancements in computational power and machine learning, he added. Looking ahead, one exciting avenue for future research could be leveraging AI to further decipher the content of marmoset conversations.

© 2024 AFP

Harris election bid galvanizes Black students at her alma mater

Washington (AFP) – At Howard University, the historically Black college that educated Kamala Harris four decades ago, students are dreaming about how her victory in the US presidential election could elevate the institution -- and their own ambitions.


Issued on: 29/08/2024

Howard University in Washington is one of around 100 so-called Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in the United States 

© Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP

"I like seeing people that look like me and are doing such great things, like Kamala," said Serena Evans, who said she experienced racism at majority-white schools in her native North Carolina before she enrolled at Howard two years ago.

Evans followed in the footsteps of Democratic presidential nominee Harris, who began her studies in 1982 at the university, located in the nation's capital -- one of around 100 such institutions nationwide that cater primarily, though not exclusively, to African Americans.

For many, these so-called "historically black colleges and universities" or HBCUs serve as safe havens in a country still marred by racism -- even if those same racist attitudes lead to some doubting Howard's credibility.

"People think that we're underdeveloped compared to Ivy League schools like Harvard," said Evans, who is studying classics.

But with Harris aiming for the White House in November's vote, Howard students are feeling "on top of the world," 20-year-old Jomalee Smith told AFP.

"I feel like once Kamala wins, (Howard) will not only be an American thing, it will be a global thing," said Smith, an international relations student.

"More people will know about Howard. It will showcase more job opportunities internationally, not just domestically," Smith added.
'She loves Howard'

Vice President Kamala Harris gave a speech on abortion at Howard University in April 2023 © Stefani Reynolds / AFP/File

Among the red-brick buildings and their tall columns, white students are rare, and it's difficult to find anyone who isn't proud to be studying at the vice president's alma mater.

For her part, Harris, 59, regularly returns to the Washington campus -- and was there earlier this month to prepare for her September debate against Donald Trump, according to the New York Times.

"She loves Howard," said Yusuf Kareem, who came from Texas on the advice of a cousin who was disappointed by her experience at a majority-white university.

"For people to see that a Black woman could be the president of the United States, and she went to Howard University -- they can't take us as a joke," Kareem said.

Other major figures have passed through Howard, including Nobel Prize in Literature winner Toni Morrison, and the first Black Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall.

"All we want is a fair shot, you know, a foot in the door," said Kareem, a second-year finance student.

'Refuge'

Access to education is still an ongoing battle for racial minority groups in the United States © Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP

Access to education is still an ongoing battle for racial minority groups in the United States.

Among Black adults, 28 percent have an undergraduate degree or higher, compared to about 40 percent of all Americans, according to 2022 data from the Pew Research Center.

In June 2023, the Supreme Court effectively ended the right for colleges and universities to consider race when admitting applicants.

MIT, a prestigious college in Boston, said it saw a nine percentage point drop in admissions of students identifying as Black, Hispanic, Native American or Pacific Islander following the ruling.

Developments like that make Howard -- where 82 percent of the incoming class last year was Black, in a country where African Americans make up 14 percent of the population -- stand out more than ever before.

For Howard law student Opeyemi Faleye, historically Black colleges provide a "refuge, a sanctuary, where you don't have to pretend, you don't have to engage in that kind of performance, you just are accepted, and that allows you to thrive."

Sitting on a campus bench with a laptop on his knees, he said the colleges "have been sort of the hallmark of Black-centered education."

"And I feel if things continue to go the way that they are, where other institutions become increasingly hostile or increasingly sort of discriminatory, then historically Black universities will sort of become even more of a refuge," Faleye said.

© 2024 AFP