Canada alleges Indian minister Amit Shah behind plot to target Sikh separatists

Kanishka Singh
Tue, October 29, 2024 

India's newly appointed Home Minister Amit Shah greets the media upon his arrival at the home ministry in New Delhi

By Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) - The Canadian government alleged on Tuesday that Indian Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah, a close ally of Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was behind the plots to target Sikh separatists on Canadian soil.

The Indian government has dismissed Canada's prior accusations as baseless, denying any involvement.

The Washington Post newspaper first reported that Canadian officials alleged Shah was behind a campaign of violence and intimidation targeting Sikh separatists in Canada.



Canadian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister David Morrison said to a parliamentary panel on Tuesday that he told the U.S.-based newspaper that Shah was behind the plots.

"The journalist called me and asked if it (Shah) was that person. I confirmed it was that person," Morrison told the committee, without providing further details or evidence. The High Commission of India in Ottawa and the Indian foreign ministry had no immediate comment.

India has called Sikh separatists "terrorists" and threats to its security. Sikh separatists demand an independent homeland known as Khalistan to be carved out of India. An insurgency in India during the 1980s and 1990s killed tens of thousands.

That period included the 1984 anti-Sikh riots that left thousands dead following the assassination of then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards after she ordered security forces to storm the holiest Sikh temple to flush out Sikh separatists.

Canada in mid-October expelled Indian diplomats, linking them to the 2023 murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil. India also ordered the expulsion of Canadian diplomats.

The Canadian case is not the only instance of India's alleged targeting of Sikh separatists on foreign soil.

Washington has charged a former Indian intelligence officer, Vikash Yadav, for allegedly directing a foiled plot to murder Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen and Indian critic in New York City.

The FBI warned against such a retaliation aimed at a U.S. resident. India has said little publicly since announcing in November 2023 it would formally investigate the U.S. allegations.

The accusations have tested Washington and Ottawa's relations with India, often viewed by the West as a counterbalance to China.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Richard Chang)

Top India Minister Authorized Murder Plots in Canada, Official Alleges

Brian Platt
Tue, October 29, 2024

BLOOMBERG



(Bloomberg) -- Indian Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah authorized a wave of violence across Canada that included extortion and homicides, said a senior Canadian government official.

David Morrison, Canada’s deputy foreign minister, told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that he had confirmed the identity of Shah in a newspaper report earlier this month.

The Washington Post reported that Canadian security agencies had collected evidence that “a senior official in India” had “authorized the intelligence-gathering missions and attacks on Sikh separatists” in Canada. The story went on to say that a Canadian source identified Shah as being the Indian official in question.

“The journalist called me and asked me if it was that person,” Morrison said. “I confirmed it was that person.”

India’s Ministry of External Affairs on Wednesday didn’t immediately respond to the allegations against Shah. It’s previously dismissed Canada’s accusations that India’s government was involved in the alleged attacks against Sikh activists, calling them “baseless.”

Morrison was appearing at the committee alongside other Canadian police and government officials about the escalation of a diplomatic dispute two weeks ago. Canada ejected India’s high commissioner and five other diplomats from the country, and India then responded with a similar action.

A year earlier, India expelled 41 Canadian diplomats after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there were “credible” allegations that Narendra Modi’s government helped orchestrate the killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil. But instead of the matter ending there, Canadian officials allege India continued a violent campaign against activists in Canada.



The US has also charged an Indian national and an Indian government employee with attempting to kill a Sikh activist on American soil. Modi’s government launched an internal probe of the allegations that concluded rogue agents were behind the plot, Bloomberg News has reported.

Shah is a close ally of Modi for more than three decades and is considered a possible successor to the prime minister. He has a controversial past, though, and previously faced charges in 2001 of running an extortion racket and ordering three murders while an official in Gujarat state. He denied the allegations at the time, and a court eventually threw out the case in 2014 after Modi came to power.

Evidence Presented

Nathalie Drouin, Trudeau’s national security adviser, told the parliamentary committee Tuesday that she had personally attended a meeting where evidence was presented connecting Indian agents and diplomats to the crime wave in Canada.



Drouin flew to Singapore for an Oct. 12 meeting with her Indian counterpart, during which both sides agreed to keep the matter quiet while they worked on addressing it, she said.

“Instead, the government of India chose to not respect our agreement and go public the next day, Sunday, Oct. 13, and use again their false narrative that Canada has not shown any evidence,” Drouin said during testimony to a Canadian parliamentary committee.

In response, Canadian police held an extraordinary news conference the following day to outline their evidence, and the government announced it was ejecting six Indian diplomats — including High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma.

Drouin said Canadian officials also decided at that point to brief international media on the evidence Canada held, selecting the Washington Post.

In Singapore, Canadian officials provided evidence that Indian government agents in Canada had been collecting information on certain Canadians, primarily Sikh activists, and then passing that information to an organized crime outfit to carry out extortion, assassination plots and killings, she said.

“Given how alarming the evidence was, we knew we had to act and act quickly,” Drouin testified. “We needed the agents of the government of India to stop their illegal activities in Canada, and sought a collaborative approach with Indian officials.”

Drouin said Canadian officials gave multiple options to India on how to proceed, including Canada’s preferred option of India publicly opening an investigation into the matter, similar to the approach India has taken with the US assassination case.

But she said India quickly made it clear they weren’t interested in that course of action.


“By going public, the government of India clearly signaled that they were not going to be accountable or take the necessary actions we needed to ensure public safety,” Drouin said.

Drouin ended her testimony by stressing that Canada did not act lightly, and does not want to ruin its relationship with India especially in the broader context of having to counteract China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

“Canada remains open to cooperation with India, but we need to have a meaningful engagement from India on our grounded and serious concerns,” she said.

--With assistance from Sudhi Ranjan Sen and Swati Gupta.

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.

Member of Modi's inner circle behind Canadian criminal plot, official says
Mounties have alleged India is involved in widespread crimes in Canada, including murder and intimidation

CBC
Tue, October 29, 2024 

Narendra Modi and Justin Trudeau

A senior official in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government is alleged to have authorized a campaign to intimidate or kill Canadians, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs David Morrison told MPs Tuesday.

Morrison joined other senior officials testifying before MPs on the public safety and national security committee. MPs on the committee are asking questions about the RCMP's shocking claim two weeks ago that agents of the Indian government were complicit in widespread crimes in Canada, including murder, extortion and intimidation.

Conservative MP Raquel Dancho, the party's public safety critic, led off the hearing with questions about information the Canadian government shared with the Washington Post.

The newspaper reported that Canadian officials identified Indian Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah as one of the senior officials who authorized intelligence-gathering missions and attacks on Sikh separatists in Canada.

"The journalists called me and asked me if it was that person. I confirmed it was that person," Morrison said.

Shah has been described as India's "second most powerful man" and is one of Modi's closest confidants.

Before Tuesday, Canadian officials would only state on the record that the plot could be traced back to the "highest levels of the Indian government."

RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme also testified Tuesday. He has said police evidence shows Indian diplomats and consular staff collected information for the Indian government, which was used to issue instructions to criminal organizations to carry out acts of violence in Canada.

He said the Mounties also have assembled evidence of credible and imminent threats to members of the South Asian community, specifically members of the pro-Khalistan movement seeking a separate homeland for Sikhs.

On Thanksgiving Monday, the federal government announced it had expelled six Indian diplomats — including the high commissioner, India's chief envoy to Canada. India has denied the accusations and swiftly retaliated by kicking Canadian diplomats out of its territory.

Commissioner Mike Duheme tells Power & Politics that RCMP allegations about acts of violence and extortion in Canada link to the upper echelons of India's government, and provides an update on police progress against threats to public safety.

WATCH | 'Strong evidence' links 'highest levels' of Indian government to violence: RCMP

This embedded content is not available in your region.

Duheme said police have warned 13 Canadians since September 2023 that they could be targets of harassment or threats by Indian agents. Police say some of those individuals have received multiple threats.

Duheme told CBC he believes those people are safer since the Indian diplomats were expelled.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Hinduism Is Fascism

Israel’s ban on UNRWA continues a pattern of politicizing Palestinian refugee aid – and puts millions of lives at risk

Nicholas R. Micinski, University of Maine and Kelsey Norman, Rice University
Tue, October 29, 2024 

The Israeli parliament’s vote on Oct. 28, 2024, to ban the United Nations agency that provides relief for Palestinian refugees is likely to affect millions of people – it also fits a pattern.

Aid for refugees, particularly Palestinian refugees, has long been politicized, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA, has been targeted throughout its 75-year history.

This was evident earlier in the current Gaza conflict, when at least a dozen countries, including the U.S., suspended funding to the UNRWA, citing allegations made by Israel that 12 UNRWA employees participated in the attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. In August, the U.N. fired nine UNRWA employees for alleged involvement in the attack. An independent U.N. panel established a set of 50 recommendations to ensure UNRWA employees adhere to the principle of neutrality.

The vote by the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to ban the UNRWA goes a step further. It will, when it comes into effect, prevent the UNRWA from operating in Israel and will severely affect its ability to serve refugees in any of the occupied territories that Israel controls, including Gaza. This could have devastating consequences for livelihoods, health, the distribution of food aid and schooling for Palestinians. It would also damage the polio vaccination campaign that the UNRWA and its partner organizations have been carrying out in Gaza since September. Finally, the bill bans communication between Israeli officials and the UNRWA, which would end efforts by the agency to coordinate the movements of aid workers to prevent unintentional targeting by the Israel Defense Forces.

Refugee aid, and humanitarian aid more generally, is theoretically meant to be neutral and impartial. But as experts in migration and international relations, we know funding is often used as a foreign policy tool, whereby allies are rewarded and enemies punished. In this context, we believe Israel’s banning of the UNRWA fits a wider pattern of the politicization of aid to refugees, particularly Palestinian refugees.
What is the UNRWA?

The UNRWA, short for United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, was established two years after about 750,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled from their homes during the months leading up to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the subsequent Arab-Israeli war.

Palestinians flee their homes during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Pictures from History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Prior to the UNRWA’s creation, international and local organizations, many of them religious, provided services to displaced Palestinians. But after surveying the extreme poverty and dire situation pervasive across refugee camps, the U.N. General Assembly, including all Arab states and Israel, voted to create the UNRWA in 1949.

Since that time, the UNRWA has been the primary aid organization providing food, medical care, schooling and, in some cases, housing for the 6 million Palestinians living across its five fields: Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, as well as the areas that make up the occupied Palestinian territories: the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The mass displacement of Palestinians – known as the Nakba, or “catastrophe” – occurred prior to the 1951 Refugee Convention, which defined refugees as anyone with a well-founded fear of persecution owing to “events occurring in Europe before 1 January 1951.” Despite a 1967 protocol extending the definition worldwide, Palestinians are still excluded from the primary international system protecting refugees.

While the UNRWA is responsible for providing services to Palestinian refugees, the United Nations also created the U.N. Conciliation Commission for Palestine in 1948 to seek a long-term political solution and “to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation.”

As a result, UNRWA does not have a mandate to push for the traditional durable solutions available in other refugee situations. As it happened, the conciliation commission was active only for a few years and has since been sidelined in favor of the U.S.-brokered peace processes.

Is the UNRWA political?

The UNRWA has been subject to political headwinds since its inception and especially during periods of heightened tension between Palestinians and Israelis.

While it is a U.N. organization and thus ostensibly apolitical, it has frequently been criticized by Palestinians, Israelis as well as donor countries, including the United States, for acting politically.

The UNRWA performs statelike functions across its five fields, including education, health and infrastructure, but it is restricted in its mandate from performing political or security activities.

Initial Palestinian objections to the UNRWA stemmed from the organization’s early focus on economic integration of refugees into host states.

Although the UNRWA officially adhered to the U.N. General Assembly’s Resolution 194 that called for the return of Palestine refugees to their homes, U.N., U.K. and U.S. officials searched for means by which to resettle and integrate Palestinians into host states, viewing this as the favorable political solution to the Palestinian refugee situation and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In this sense, Palestinians perceived the UNRWA to be both highly political and actively working against their interests.

In later decades, the UNRWA switched its primary focus from jobs to education at the urging of Palestinian refugees. But the UNRWA’s education materials were viewed by Israel as further feeding Palestinian militancy, and the Israeli government insisted on checking and approving all materials in Gaza and the West Bank, which it has occupied since 1967.

A protester is removed by members of the U.S. Capitol Police during a House hearing on Jan. 30, 2024. Alex Wong/Getty Images

While Israel has long been suspicious of the UNRWA’s role in refugee camps and in providing education, the organization’s operation, which is internationally funded, also saves Israel millions of dollars each year in services it would be obliged to deliver as the occupying power.

Since the 1960s, the U.S. – the UNRWA’s primary donor – and other Western countries have repeatedly expressed their desire to use aid to prevent radicalization among refugees.

In response to the increased presence of armed opposition groups, the U.S. attached a provision to its UNRWA aid in 1970, requiring that the “UNRWA take all possible measures to assure that no part of the United States contribution shall be used to furnish assistance to any refugee who is receiving military training as a member of the so-called Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) or any other guerrilla-type organization.”

The UNRWA adheres to this requirement, even publishing an annual list of its employees so that host governments can vet them, but it also employs 30,000 individuals, the vast majority of whom are Palestinian.

Questions over links of the UNRWA to any militancy has led to the rise of Israeli and international watch groups that document the social media activity of the organization’s large Palestinian staff.

In 2018, the Trump administration paused its US$60 million contribution to the UNRWA. Trump claimed the pause would create political pressure for Palestinians to negotiate. President Joe Biden restarted U.S. contributions to the UNRWA in 2021.

While other major donors restored funding to the UNRWA after the conclusion of the investigation in April, the U.S. has yet to do so.
‘An unmitigated disaster’

Israel’s ban of the UNRWA will leave already starving Palestinians without a lifeline. U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said banning the UNRWA “would be a catastrophe in what is already an unmitigated disaster.” The foreign ministers of Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and the U.K. issued a joint statement arguing that the ban would have “devastating consequences on an already critical and rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation, particularly in northern Gaza.”

Reports have emerged of Israeli plans for private security contractors to take over aid distribution in Gaza through dystopian “gated communities,” which would in effect be internment camps. This would be a troubling move. In contrast to the UNRWA, private contractors have little experience delivering aid and are not dedicated to the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality or independence.

However, the Knesset’s explicit ban could, inadvertently, force the United States to suspend weapons transfers to Israel. U.S. law requires that it stop weapons transfers to any country that obstructs the delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid. And the U.S. pause on funding for the UNRWA was only meant to be temporary.

The UNRWA is the main conduit for assistance into Gaza, and the Knesset’s ban makes explicit that the Israeli government is preventing aid delivery, making it harder for Washington to ignore. Before the bill passed, U.S. State Department Spokesperson Matt Miller warned that “passage of the legislation could have implications under U.S. law and U.S. policy.”

At the same time, two U.S. government agencies previously alerted the Biden administration that Israel was obstructing aid into Gaza, yet weapons transfers have continued unabated.

Sections of this story were first used in an earlier article published by The Conversation U.S. on Feb. 1, 2024.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Nicholas R. Micinski, University of Maine and Kelsey Norman, Rice University

Read more:


Israel’s mass displacement of Gazans fits strategy of using migration as a tool of war


A year of escalating conflict in the Middle East has ushered in a new era of regional displacement


Europe is not prepared for the looming Lebanese refugee crisis

As Israel strikes deeper into Lebanon, fear rises in communities where the displaced took refuge

PREMPTIVE WAR IS NOT SELF DEFENSE

KAREEM CHEHAYEB and MALAK HARB
Mon, October 28, 2024 
 

AITO, Lebanon (AP) — Dany Alwan stood shaking as rescue workers pulled remains from piles of rubble where his brother’s building once stood.

An Israeli airstrike destroyed the three-story residential building in the quiet Christian village of Aito a day before. His brother, Elie, had rented out its apartments to a friend who'd fled here with relatives from their hometown in southern Lebanon under Israeli bombardment.

Things were fine for a few weeks. But that day, minutes after visitors arrived and entered the building, it was struck. Almost two dozen people were killed, half of them women and children. Israel said it targeted a Hezbollah official, as it has insisted in other strikes with high civilian death tolls.


This strike — in northern Lebanon, deep in Christian heartland — was particularly unusual. Israel has concentrated its bombardment mostly in the country’s south and east and in Beirut's southern suburbs — Shiite-majority areas where the Hezbollah militant group has a strong presence.

Strikes in the traditionally “safe” areas where many displaced families have fled are raising fears among local residents. Many feel they have to choose between helping compatriots and protecting themselves.

“We can’t welcome people anymore,” Alwan said as rescue teams combed through the rubble in Aito. “The situation is very critical in the village, and this is the first time something like this has happened to us.”

The war brings out long-running tensions

Aito is in the Zgharta province, which is split between Christian factions who are supporters and critics of Hezbollah.

Some Christian legislators critical of Hezbollah have warned of the security risks that could come with hosting displaced people, mostly from the Shia Muslim community. They worry that many may have familial and social ties to Hezbollah, which in addition to its armed wing has civilian services across southern and eastern Lebanon.

Some also worry that long-term displacement could create demographic changes and weaken the Christian share in Lebanon’s fragile sectarian power-sharing system. The tiny country has a troubled history of sectarian strife and violence, most notably in a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990.

Lebanon for decades has struggled to navigate tensions and political gridlock within its sectarian power-sharing government system. Parliament is deeply divided among factions that back and oppose Hezbollah and has been without a president for almost two years.

When Hezbollah fired rockets at northern Israel in solidarity with Palestinian ally Hamas in the war-torn Gaza Strip, the move was met with mixed feelings. Critics say it was a miscalculation that has brought the widespread devastation of Gaza here.

Many have been moved to help

After nearly a year of low-level fighting, the Israeli military escalated its attacks against Hezbollah a month ago, launching daily aerial bombardments and a ground invasion. Most of Lebanon’s estimated 1.2 million displaced people fled over the past month.

In late September, traffic jams stretching for miles clogged streets leading to Beirut as people left, some with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

For many, the violence has moved them to help their fellow residents, cutting across sectarian lines.

Michella Sfeir, who was safe in the north, said she wanted to take action after seeing a picture of a driver pouring water from his bottle into a nearby driver’s empty one.

“The first thing you can think of is: How can I help immediately?” she said.

She now helps prepare meals at a women’s art center that's become a community kitchen and donation dropoff center for blankets, clothes, and supplies in Aqaibe, a seaside town just north of Beirut. Displaced women who found shelter in surrounding neighborhoods regularly visit, while some people involved in other initiatives help deliver the hot meals to shelters around dinnertime.

“We get lots of questions like, ‘When you go to give the help, is there a member of Hezbollah waiting for you at the door?’” Sfeir said, citing blowback in the community from people who perceive the displaced as Hezbollah members, supporters and relatives.

“Some people ... would ask us ‘Why are you helping them? They don’t deserve it; this is because of them.'”

Anxiety rises far from the border

Though northern coastal cities such as Byblos and Batroun with pristine beaches and ancient ruins have not felt the direct pain of the conflict, anxiety is rising in surrounding areas.

On one coastal road — the busy Jounieh highway — an Israeli drone struck a car earlier this month, killing a man and his wife.

Such rare but increasing Israeli strikes have rattled residents in the north. Many feel torn: Should they risk their security by hosting displaced people, or compromise their morals and turn them away?

Zeinab Rihan fled north with family and relatives from the southern Nabatiyeh province when they couldn’t bear the airstrikes approaching closer to their homes.

But, Rihan said, they found many landlords quoting outlandish rent figures in an apparent attempt to turn them away.

Some might have been acting out of personal prejudice, Rihan said, but it's likely most were simply afraid.

“They were scared that they might rent their place to someone who turns out to be targeted,” Rihan said. “But this is our current reality, what can we do?”

For some, helping is a sense of duty

A resident of one northern town near the coast said the local government didn't want to welcome displaced people, but many residents pressured the municipality to change course.

He cited the town’s common sympathy and sense of duty to help others, despite the security risks. He spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of stirring tension among residents.

Elsewhere, in the hilly village of Ebrine, a stone’s throw away from Batroun, residents have been regularly visiting dozens of displaced families sheltering in two modest schools. This month, an Israeli strike hit a village a short drive away, but that hasn't stopped some residents from hiring the displaced — for some, to work in olive groves during the harvest season.

Back in Aqaibe, some displaced women from nearby areas have joined Sfeir and others volunteering at the kitchen: chopping vegetables, cooking rice in vats, packaging meals in plastic containers, and having coffee together on the balcony.

“Just because we’re in an area that doesn’t have direct conflict or direct war doesn’t mean that we’re not worried about Beirut or the south,” said Flavia Bechara, who founded the center, as she took a break from chopping onions and potatoes. “We all used to eat the olives and olive oil of the south, and we used to go there to get fruits and vegetables.”

Bechara and several women finished packing dozens of meals for the day, and a group of women came to pick up winter clothes for their kids. Bechara said she isn’t phased by the criticism or questions she gets from some of her neighbors.

“There’s always anxiety," said Bechara, who just recently could hear strikes a short drive away, in Maisra. "There’s always (the fear) that what is happening there can happen here at any moment.”

44444444444444444









Displaced children who fled southern Lebanon with their families during the ongoing Hezbollah-Israel war play outside a school in the village of Ebrine, northern Lebanon, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Trump risks backlash with anti-trans ads targeting Harris

Anuj CHOPRA
Tue 29 October 2024 

The transgender community has been a growing target among US conservatives in recent years (Leonardo Munoz) (Leonardo Munoz/AFP/AFP)

Anti-trans ads targeting Kamala Harris are flooding the airwaves in the closing stretch of a nail-biting US election, as Donald Trump seeks to win over undecided voters with a divisive strategy that experts warn could backfire.

The Trump campaign and Republican groups have poured tens of millions of dollars into the inflammatory television ads, which have aired in key battleground states and during nationally-broadcast professional football games that draw a strong viewership.

The advertising blitz -- which rights groups say demonizes an already vulnerable transgender community –- suggests Republicans are banking on "culture war" messaging to move the needle in a US election that is still too close to call.


"Kamala supports taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners," a female narrator says in one of the ads.

"Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you," she adds, referring to the pronouns used by some transgender and non-binary people.

The ad ends with Trump's voice, asserting that he "approves this message."

"What is most alarming is the size and scope of these ad campaigns -- comprising some of the GOP's largest TV ad investment," Imara Jones, chief executive of the nonprofit TransLash Media, told AFP.

"These ads, mostly focused on the healthcare needs of trans inmates, are designed to trigger deep fear" among voters, added Jones, who is herself a Black trans woman.

- 'Deeply cynical' -

Over the first half of October, the Trump campaign and its allies spent $21 million on ads attacking Harris over "LGBTQ rights," CNN reported, citing data from the media tracking agency AdImpact.

That is nearly one-third of their total spending on broadcast TV ads in that period, AdImpact said.

Nearly all the ads featured clips of Harris from four years ago expressing her support for gender-affirming care for federal prisoners and detained immigrants.

Lost in the discourse is former president Trump's own record –- officials under his administration also offered some inmates an array of gender-affirming treatments, according to US media.

Earlier this month, a Gallup survey of registered voters found that 38 percent of Americans said a candidate's position on transgender rights was "extremely" or "very" important to them.

But it ranked last among about two dozen leading topics that resonate with voters such as the economy, immigration, education, health care, and abortion.

That chimed with another recent study by the advocacy group GLAAD and Ground Media that the anti-trans ads campaign triggered "no statistically significant shift in voter choice, mobilization or likelihood to vote."

"What this demonstrates is that attacking the trans community isn't just a weak and feckless political strategy -- it's a deeply cynical one," said David Rochkind, chief executive of Ground Media.

"These ads weaponize trans-identity to sow fear and division, making our country less safe for everyone."

- 'Mean-spirited' -

The study warned that the ads could have potentially "harmful consequences" for trans Americans, with its participants reported feeling less accepting towards the community after being exposed to the campaign.

In recent years, the transgender community has been a growing target among conservatives, with Republican lawmakers introducing bills across the country to limit gender-affirming care, bathroom access and their ability to participate in sports.

The anti-trans ads are "designed to rile up the Republican base," Todd Belt, director of the political management program at George Washington University, told AFP.

"It has very limited appeal to undecided voters, and often comes off as mean-spirited," Belt said, adding that many Americans were tired of the "culture war playbook."

The issue, however, does resonate with Trump's core base, many of whom are vehemently opposed to transgender athletes competing in women's sports.

Drawing cheers and applause at his rallies, Trump has pledged to fight "transgender insanity" and to "keep men out of women's sports."

More than half of all Americans believe changing one's gender is "morally wrong," according to another Gallup survey.

"In an election where every vote counts, Republicans are betting that these ads will move the needle with a small set of voters in tight races where a few votes make a big difference," TransLash Media's Jones said.

"They know that these messages are effective at moving voters on the margins."

ac/bjt

 

Harris campaign s ays 75,000 people at Ellipse speech – 22,000 more than Trump’s Jan 6 crowd at same spot

Josh Marcus
Tue 29 October 2024

Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign claimed she drew a crowd of more than 75,000 people in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to hear her speech at the Ellipse, the site of Donald Trump’s infamous 2021 speech exhorting supporters to “fight like hell” in the moments just before the January 6 Capitol riot.

If its own early estimate is to be believed, the Harris event drew about 22,000 more people than the Trump speech, whose crowd was estimated by the House committee investigating the Capitol riot to be about 53,000 people.

Trump routinely exaggerates his crowd, with January 6 2021 being no exception. He has claimed that he had as many people in attendance that day as Martin Luther King Jr attracted for his “I Have a Dream” speech near the Lincoln Memorial, on August 28 1968.

Estimates suggest King’s crowd was actually closer to 250,000 – about five times as big as Trump’s on January 6.

Speaking at the Ellipse, a park between the White House and the National Mall, Harris sought to paint a clear contrast between herself and her Republican opponent and offer a “closing argument” to voters.

“America, we know what Donald Trump has in mind. More chaos. More division. And policies that help those at the very top and hurt everyone else. I offer a different path. And I ask for your vote,” Harris told the crowd.

“And here is my pledge to you: I pledge to seek common ground and common sense solutions to make your lives better,” she added. “I am not looking to score political points. I am looking to make progress.”

The message could not be more different than Trump’s speech at the site, where he made false claims about the election and railed against Republicans who would not go along with his plan to halt the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 win.

Kamala Harris addressed supporters on October 29 at the Ellipse, the site of Donald Trump’s infamous 2021 speech just before the Capitol riot (Getty Images)

Though Trump told supporters to “peacefully and patriotically” make their voices heard, the Republican also used the speech to pressure his vice president, Mike Pence, to suspend the certification and called on MAGA fans to “fight like hell” to preserve their country.

“We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he told the crowd, as he repeated false claims that the election had been stolen from him.

He told the crowd: “And by the way, does anybody believe that Joe had 80 million votes? Does anybody believe that? He had 80 million computer votes. It’s a disgrace. There’s never been anything like that. You could take third-world countries. Just take a look. Take third-world countries. Their elections are more honest than what we’ve been going through in this country. It’s a disgrace. It’s a disgrace.”

Trump has claimed speech telling supporters to fight to challenge election results in moments before Capitol riot was part of day of ‘love and peace’ (Getty Images)

According to testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson during the January 6 hearings, Trump had reason to believe some of the crowd were armed. She said he wanted the magnetometers being used to check for weapons taken away so that the crowd would fill up more quickly.

“I don’t f***ing care that they have weapons,” Trump said according to Hutchinson. “They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f***ing mags away.”

Trump is facing federal criminal charges in Washington for his attempts to subvert his 2020 loss.

On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump has taken to describing the events surrounding January 6 as non-violent, refering to the day as a “peaceful transfer of power” and a day of “love and peace.”

The change agent v the tyrant: Harris’s big speech focuses on Trump

David Smith in Washington

THE GUARDIAN
Tue 29 October 2024 

Kamala Harris on the Ellipse on 29 October 2024 in Washington DC.Photograph: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images


Whither the politics of joy? Kamala Harris’s solid if unspectacular closing argument for why she should be elected US president was not about Kamala Harris. It was first and foremost about Donald Trump.

The Democratic nominee’s big speech in Washington mentioned Trump by name 24 times and Joe Biden only once. It confirmed that, even when Trump is not commander-in-chief, he still commands the American psyche.

A week before election day, Harris chose her venue carefully: the Ellipse, a park just south of the White House. Trump “stood at this very spot nearly four years ago”, she noted, adding that he sent an armed mob to the US Capitol to overturn his 2020 election defeat.


A very different, more diverse, larger crowd – some estimated 75,000 – gathered here on Tuesday, basking in unseasonal afternoon heat, wrapping against an evening chill. They waved “USA” signs and the stars and stripes and wore wristbands glowing blue or red. They chanted “Kamala! Kamala!” and “We’re not going back!” They were surrounded by great symbols of the republic: the Washington monument, the Jefferson memorial, the White House itself.

Speaking at a lectern behind protective glass, Harris went on to warn of Trump’s enemies list and intention to turn the military against those who disagree with him. “This is not a candidate for president who is thinking about how to make your life better,” she said. “This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance, and out for unchecked power.”

The vice-president went on to sketch out some of her own biography as a prosecutor and law enforcement officer fighting for the people. Yet somehow the argument again came back to the Republican nominee. “On day one, if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemies list,” she said. “When elected, I will walk in with a to-do list.”

It was a far cry from the start of the Harris candidacy, which launched with joyous euphoria and her running mate Tim Walz branding Trump and his allies “weird”. That felt like a refreshing tonic after years of anxiety and misery in the Trump era. At the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia, speaker after speaker mocked Trump and made him seem small (Barack Obama even parodied his manhood).

Notably, even then, Harris began to adopt a more serious tone about the threat he poses, and in recent weeks she embraced former Trump officials’ use of “fascist” to underline his authoritarian ambitions, though she did not deploy that word here. His rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden on Sunday, and its echoes of a pro-Nazi rally that took place there in 1939, provided more fodder.

There is some political logic to this choice: make the election a referendum on Trump rather than Harris; make him seem like the incumbent and Harris the change agent. “It is time to turn the page on the drama and conflict, the fear and division,” she said. “It is time for a new generation of leadership in America.”

That would explain why she has sought to distance herself from Biden and is reportedly brushing off his offers to campaign for her. Although her Tuesday rally in Washington was Bidenesque in its dire warnings about the Trump threat, it used the president’s favoured word, “democracy”, only once. Instead, the word “freedom” was spelled out on three giant blue banners, along with “USA”.

Some Democrats are also eager for Harris to separate herself from Biden on the issue of the war in Gaza. A protester was led away shouting: “Stop arming Israel! Arms embargo now!” But Harris did not throw a bone to the peace movement during her remarks.

Whereas Biden used to tout job growth and economic good news, Harris again offered some practical promises: tax cuts for working people and the middle class, the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on groceries, a cap on the price of insulin and help for first-time home buyers.

These were important things that ought to win votes. But they were not accompanied by a grand vision. Mario Cuomo’s old adage was campaign in poetry, govern in prose, but there was not a great deal of soaring rhetoric in Harris’s address. A decade of Trump had been bad for the soul.

The vice-president did deliver a memorable image towards the end, however, recalling how, nearly 250 years, America wrested itself free from a petty tyrant (British monarch George III) and how generations of Americans have preserved that freedom. “They did not struggle, sacrifice and lay down their lives, only to see us cede our fundamental freedoms, only to see us submit to the will of another petty tyrant,” she said. “The United States of America is not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators.”

Then, from fear, a pivot to hope: “The United States of America is the greatest idea humanity ever devised. A nation big enough to encompass all our dreams. Strong enough to withstand any fracture or fissure between us. And fearless enough to imagine a future of possibilities.”

Doug Emhoff joined Harris on stage with a hug and a kiss as the crowd cheered. Next Tuesday, they will be back in Washington for the most nail-biting presidential election since George W Bush v Al Gore in 2000. They will be hoping this Democratic vice-president fares better than Gore did. A wafer-thin margin of a few thousand votes in a swing state or two may determine whether Harris’s closing argument looks like strategic genius or a catastrophic miscalculation.

She told the crowd: “Donald Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other. That’s who he is. But America, I am here tonight to say: that’s not who we are.”

The phrase “this is not who we are” has been used often in the Trump era. Sometimes the evidence says otherwise. Next week, the country will find out who we really ar



Kamala Harris calls for a ‘new generation of leadership’ in Washington speech

Lauren Gambino in Washington

THE GUARDIAN
Tue 29 October 2024 

Kamala Harris makes her ‘closing argument’ in Washington on Tuesday.

With the White House illuminated behind her, Kamala Harris asked the vanishing slice of undecided Americans to elect a “new generation of leadership”, likening Donald Trump to a “petty tyrant” who had stood in the very same spot nearly four years ago and, in a last-gasp effort to cling to power, helped incite the mob that stormed the US Capitol.

The choice between her and Trump in the deadlocked presidential contest was “about whether we have a country rooted in freedom for every American or ruled by chaos and division”, Harris said, from the Ellipse near the White House’s South Lawn, where tens of thousands of supporters gathered one week before the final votes of the 2024 election are cast.

“I ask for your vote,” she told the crowd, which spilled beyond the park, toward the Washington monument, and the many more watching at home.


In a speech her, campaign billed as the former prosecutor’s “closing argument” with the American people as her jury, Harris repeatedly gestured behind her as she described the progress she hoped to make as the 47th president of the United States on lowering prices, protecting abortion rights and addressing immigration.

“In less than 90 days, either Donald Trump or I will be in the Oval Office,” she said as the crowd – which the campaign placed at 75,000 – erupted into chants of “Kamala! Kamala!” “On day one, if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemies list,” she continued. “When elected, I will walk in with a to-do list.”

The oval-shaped park also served as reminder of Trump’s actions on January 6, when he exhorted his followers to “fight like hell” and walk to the Capitol where Congress was certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. Aggrieved and “obsessed with revenge”, Trump was “out for unchecked power” , Harris warned, charging that he would spend the next four years focused on his problems, not the country’s.

Although Harris framed the stakes of the 2024 election as nothing less than the preservation of US democracy, she sought to offer an optimistic and hopeful tone, in stark contrast to the dark, racist themes that animated Trump’s grievance-fueled rally at Madison Square Garden. Harris called on Americans to “turn the page” on the Trump era and “start writing the next chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told”. Americans had forgotten, she said, that “it doesn’t have to be this way”.

From his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida earlier on Tuesday, Trump waved off criticism of the rally, calling it an “absolute love fest”.

The daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica, Harris recalled attending civil rights marches with her parents as a toddler and the memory of her mother, “a cup of tea in hand”, poring over bills at the kitchen table.

“I’ve lived the promise of America,” Harris said, and without an explicit reference to the history-making nature of her candidacy, she grounded it in a fight for “freedom” that has propelled generations of “patriots” from Normandy to Selma, Seneca Falls and Stonewall.

“They did not struggle, sacrifice, and lay down their lives only to see us cede our fundamental freedoms, only to see us submit to the will of another petty tyrant,” she said, her voice building as she declared: “The United States of America is not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators.”

In recent days, Harris has amplified warnings of her opponent’s lurch toward authoritarianism and open xenophobia. Her campaign is running ads highlighting John Kelly, a marine general and Trump’s former chief of staff, saying that Trump met the definition of a fascist. Harris has said she agrees.

Don’t miss important US election coverage. Get our free app and sign up for election alerts

In her remarks, Harris attempted to balance the existential and the economic – focusing on the threat Trump poses to US institutions while weaving in her plans to bring down prices and build up the middle class. She portrayed Trump as a tool of the billionaire class who would eliminate what is left of abortion access and stand in the way of bipartisan compromise when it does not suit him politically.

Responding to her Ellipse speech, a Trump campaign spokesperson accused the vice-president of “lying, name-calling, and clinging to the past”.

Polls show the contest between Trump and Harris virtually tied in the seven battleground states like to decide the presidential election.

Trump has sought to rewrite the history of January 6, the culmination of his attempt to cling to power that resulted in the first occupation of the US Capitol since British forces set it on fire during the war of 1812. Trump recently declared the attack a “day of love” and said he would pardon the January 6 rioters – whom he has called “patriots” and “hostages” – if he is elected president.

Hundreds of supporters have been convicted and imprisoned for their conduct at the Capitol, while federal prosecutors have accused Trump of coordinating an effort to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. Trump maintains that he played no role in stoking the violence that unfolded, and still claims baselessly that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

In a press call on Tuesday morning, Harris’s campaigned expressed a bullishness about her prospects. “We know that there are still a lot of voters out there that are still trying to decide who to support or whether to vote at all,” Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, Harris’s campaign’s chair, told reporters before her remarks on Tuesday. She said many Americans were “exhausted” by the tribalism and polarization Trump has sharpened since his political rise in 2016.

In an abbreviated 100-day campaign that Harris inherited from Biden after he stepped aside in July, the Democratic nominee has unified her party, raised more than $1bn, blanketed the airwaves and blitzed the battleground states. And yet the race remains a dead heat nationally and in the seven swing states that will determine who wins the White House.

After her speech, Harris will return to the campaign trail, where she will keep a frenetic pace ahead of what her campaign has called a “margin-of-error election”.

“We see very good signs for us across the battleground states, in particular in the blue wall,” O’Malley Dillon said on the Tuesday morning call, referring to Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Harris has barnstormed in recent weeks. “And we see that we’re on pace to win a very close election.”

A to-do list, size matters and a 'petty tyrant': Key moments from Kamala Harris' speech

COLLEEN LONG and DAN MERICA
Tue 29 October 2024




Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks during a campaign event at the Ellipse near the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Kamala Harris on Tuesday sought to remind Americans what life was like under Donald Trump and then offered voters a different path forward if they send her to the White House, in a speech billed as her campaign's closing argument.

“I will always listen to you, even if you don’t vote for me,” she said, speaking before a massive crowd that spilled from the grassy Ellipse near the White House to the Washington Monument.

Some key moments from her half-hour speech:

The location of the speech reinforced her message

Harris chose to speak from the Ellipse on purpose. It's the same spot in Washington where Republican Donald Trump helped incite a mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. But the vice president didn't devote much of her speech to the violence of that day, instead using the field between Constitution Avenue and the White House more as a backdrop — a quiet reminder of the different choices Americans face.

“Donald Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other," she said, adding that he wants back into the White House “not to focus on your problems, but to focus on his.”

Kamala Harris, the prosecutor, argued her case

Harris spent years working as a prosecutor. She was California's attorney general before she became a U.S. senator. And she often says on the campaign trail that she's only ever had one client — the people. In her speech, she talked about her past work taking on scammers, violent offenders who abused women and children, and cartels that trafficked in guns and human beings.

She said she'd bring with her to the White House an instinct to protect.

“There’s something about people being treated unfairly, or overlooked, that just gets to me," she said.

It's me, Hi. I'm the presidential nominee. It's me.

One week before the election, Harris allowed that “I know many of you are still getting to know who I am.”

The Democratic nominee has been running for only three months in a compressed campaign launched after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race. Harris still is confronting voters who say they want to learn more about her and how she will govern. So she spent some time Tuesday talking about her career, her goals and background.

“I’ll be honest with you: I’m not perfect. I make mistakes. But here’s what I promise you: I will always listen to you, even if you don’t vote for me."

To-do list for Day One at the White House

Harris devoted a good chunk of her speech to talking about policies she'd enact if she were to win the White House, including helping first-time homeowners with down payments and aiding the so-called “sandwich generation" of adults who are caring for young children and older parents by allowing elder care to be funded by Medicare. She said she'd work to pass a bipartisan border security bill that tanked last year after Trump encouraged congressional Republicans to let it die.

And she said she would work to bring back abortion protections. “I will fight to restore what Donald Trump and his hand-selected Supreme Court justice took away from the women of America,” Harris said. The Supreme Court, with three Trump-appointed justices, overturned federal protections of abortion in 2022. Abortion has since become one of the most motivating issues for the Democratic base in the 2024 election.

“On Day One, if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemies list,” she said. “When elected, I will walk in with a to-do list.”

Size matters on the campaign trail — especially to Trump

The Ellipse is a grassy expanse between the White House and the Washington Monument that has long played host to political events and national traditions like the annual holiday tree lighting. On Tuesday, the space was packed. Crowds spilled onto the National Mall back toward the Washington Monument, where giant screens and speakers were set up for people to hear and see from afar.

The cheers of the boisterous crowd could be heard from the White House driveway. Harris' campaign said it was her biggest rally to date. She's already packed stadiums and other venues with supporters during her rallies. Harris loves to needle Trump about crowd size — a particular preoccupation for the Republican leader, who claimed the campaign had to bus people in Tuesday to fill the space.

Harris has called Trump ‘unhinged’ and ‘unstable.’ Now she's adding ‘petty tyrant’

Harris boiled down criticism of Trump into two words: "petty tyrant."

She warned Trump is a man governed by grievances, one who would focus on himself and his “enemies list” when he got into the White House. She harked back to the nation's founding when Americans fought for freedom, then sped through decades of hard-fought civil rights battles.

“They did not struggle, sacrifice and lay down their lives only to see us cede our fundamental freedoms. They didn't do that only to see us submit to the will of another petty tyrant," she said. "These United States of America, we are not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators.”

Meanwhile, a Biden complication emerges

Just moments before Harris was to speak, Biden was on a campaign call reacting to a comic who called Puerto Rico garbage during a Trump rally last weekend. The president said, "The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”

He’d joined a national call organized by the advocacy group Voto Latino. Biden urged those on the call to “vote to keep Donald Trump out of the White House," adding, “He’s a true danger to not just Latinos but to all people."

Biden's remarks were quicky seized on by Republicans who said he was denigrating Trump supporters, a distraction for Harris when she is trying to reach out to GOP voters.

Biden quickly sent out a social media post seeking to clarify his remarks.

“His demonization of Latinos is unconscionable," Biden said of Trump. “That’s all I meant to say.”

There's still plenty to come after what Harris called her ‘closing argument’

The event was framed as a campaign finale meant to lay out in stark terms the choice for voters next week. But it's far from Harris' last campaign event. She'll be hitting all the key battleground states as she makes her last pitch to voters.

She will headline events in Wisconsin, North Carolina and Pennsylvania on Wednesday, and on Thursday she will have rallies in Arizona and Nevada. More events are expected before Election Day.

The campaign is looking to pick up voters across many different demographics in the hope that a swing vote here and there may add up to a win in a razor's-edge race with Trump.

Kamala Harris Likens Trump to Mad ‘Petty Tyrant’ King George

Mini Racker
Tue 29 October 2024 

Vice President Kamala Harris delivers a speech on the National Mall.


WASHINGTON—Kamala Harris made her presidential bid’s “closing argument” Tuesday night, warning an electrified crowd of tens of thousands that Donald Trump is “unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance, and out for unchecked power.”

She alluded to Trump’s recent threats to use the U.S. military against Americans who disagree with him, implicitly comparing her GOP opponent to King George III, the British monarch who suffered from mental illness and spoke loquaciously until foam ran out of his mouth.

“Nearly 250 years ago America was born when we wrested freedom from a petty tyrant,” she said at the Ellipse, a location loaded with symbolism.

The Harris campaign estimated that 75,000 supporters flocked to the National Mall for Kamala Harris' final major campaign speech.

The Ellipse is where Trump, on Jan. 6, 2021, riled up his followers to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell” to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden as president. The expansive lawn on the National Mall sits just behind the White House, where Harris hopes to live come January.

“Americans died as a result of that attack,” Harris said, noting that as the violence unfolded on television that day, Trump’s response to his staff describing how protesters wanted to kill Mike Pence was reportedly, “So what?”

With the White House behind her, Harris said one of Trump’s “highest priorities is to set free the violent extremists who assaulted those law enforcement officers on January 6th.”

Douglas Emhoff, and potential future first gentleman, was front and center for his wife's speech.

The Metropolitan Police Department originally expected 20,000 attendees at the Ellipse, but that number ballooned to more than 52,000. More than 75,000 attended, a Harris campaign official told the Daily Beast, the largest crowd Harris has drawn this year.

“This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance, and out for unchecked power, trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other,” Harris warned Tuesday night. “That is who he is.”

Her aspirational speech was also laden with policy as she recapped her campaign promises to give tax cuts to middle-class families and entrepreneurs, protect and expand affordable health care, make housing affordable and—an issue paramount to her campaign—make abortion legal nationally and fight “Trump abortion bans” at the state level.

Kamala Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff, the second gentleman, embrace on stage.

The speech marked the beginning of the end of a whirlwind three-month campaign. Harris’ entrance into the race after Biden stepped aside sparked wild enthusiasm among Democrats, and though she insisted she’s the “underdog,” her party was riding high for months.

But in the final weeks of the campaign, the Democratic candidate’s apparent lead over Trump has slipped, leaving them deadlocked in the polls just days away from Election Day.

A sense of deflation mingled with signs of hope in the shadows of the Washington Monument Tuesday night. Audience members who spoke to the Daily Beast said that they were hopeful Harris would defeat Trump, but few were confident, even though they streamed like a pilgrimage to the Ellipse to witness history.

Supporters wait for Kamala Harris to take the stage for her final major speech before Election Day.

Inside the security barriers, attendees waved American flags. Outside the fences, throngs of people looked on, with the crowd stretching past the Washington Monument and out of sight.

Harris urged everyone who came to vote on Tuesday.

“I’ve lived the Promise of America,” she said. “I see the Promise of America in all of you.”

Animals become less sociable as they age in similar way to humans, research shows

Nicola Davis Science correspondent
Mon 28 October 2024 

A decline in connections had one benefit to rhesus macaques, according to one study that showed it reduced the risk of diseases.Photograph: Brennan Linsley/AP


While Victor Meldrew was a cantankerous caricature, humans are known to become less social as they get older. Now researchers say we are not alone with many animals behaving in the same way – and the trait is not always a bad thing.

Experts studying animals from wild deer to insects, monkeys and birds have revealed a host of insights into the relationship between age and social connections.

“Overall, it’s looking like there’s a very general pattern of individuals becoming less social with age,” said Dr Josh Firth from the University of Leeds, adding the research also explored possible causes and consequences, as well as showing that the trend not only has costs but benefits, too.

Firth said it was possible older individuals were less socially connected because they did not need to share information in the same way as younger individuals did, while the approach could also help them dodge infections – something that could be important if their immune responses become less robust with age.

“As such, while it is certainly [worth] still trying to mitigate the obvious disadvantages that might come with people reducing their social connections as they age, we should also consider the potential benefits,” Firth said, adding that new technologies – such as virtual interactions – could help humans get the best of both worlds.

As an editor of a new series of 16 papers published as a special issue of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences, Firth said studying how animals changed their social behaviour as they aged had benefits as scientists can often follow animals over their entire life course and carry out experiments – both of which are difficult in humans.

In one study, researchers analysed data for more than 150 different species, finding that species that are more social live longer, have longer generation times and longer reproductive windows.

In another, researchers analysed six years of data for house sparrows, finding older birds had smaller social circles and were less well connected – apparently because peers of the same age die as they get older. By contrast, a study looking at common terns unpicked a genetic contribution to age-related social changes.

And while a decline in connections is often seen as negative, at least for humans, it can also bring benefits: a modelling study based on observed social interactions in rhesus macaques found older animals could reduce their risk from diseases that were particularly severe for their age group by being less connected in their social networks.

Another study, co-authored by Firth and looking at parasitic worm infections in wild adult female red deer, pointed to similar conclusions.

“We found that in general, you’re more likely to get infected by these nematodes as you’re growing older, but you can offset that by not interacting with as many individuals,” he said.

A Mountaintop Discovery is Changing Everything We Knew About the Silk Road

Michael Natale
Tue, October 29, 2024 

One Find is Changing Our Picture of the Silk RoadMarc Dozier - Getty Images

A new LiDAR survey of previously discovered Silk Road sites reveals a more sprawling urban history than first imagined.

An aerial survey of the Tashbulak and Tugunbulak sites in Uzbekistan uncovered more than 300 medieval archaeological features, suggesting a robust urban community.

The Silk Road—which existed from 114 B.C. to 1450 A.D.—was a vital and expansive trade route that connected the Eastern and Western worlds

A new survey of two archaeological sites along the Silk Road has unveiled a stunning new discovery that rewrites our understanding of the famed Eurasian trade route that spanned continents and centuries.

As reported in Newsweek, a new aerial survey of Tashbulak and Tugunbulak—two archaeological sites roughly three miles apart in the Uzbekistan mountains—utilized LiDAR (a remote sensing technique that uses laser pulses to create 3D images of a landscape) to reveal more than 300 medieval archaeological features. The two sites, which were discovered in 2011 and 2015, are located 6,562 to 7,218 feet above sea level. At that elevation, the land was unlikely to have supported large-scale urban development at the time, given the difficulties posed to construction and agriculture.

But this new survey—the results of which were published in Nature—indicates that that’s exactly what occurred at Tashbulak and Tugunbulak.

“The LiDAR results indicate that the scale of urbanization in this area was much more expansive than previously known,” Brown University researcher Zachary Silvia told Newsweek. Silvia, while not involved directly in the study, has published a News & Views article for Nature about the results, and singled out the significance of this revelation. “This is the first—and probably only—ancient or medieval city located at this elevation in Central Asia, which forces us to reconsider what we know about urbanization in the area.”

Among the structures discovered by the study’s LiDAR flights were “watchtowers connected with walls along a ridgeline, evidence of terracing, and a central fortress surrounded by walls made of stone and mud brick.” But while this survey revealed what structures were once present at Tashbulak and Tugunbulak, there are still more questions to be answered.

“Typically, remote sensing techniques are one tool within the broader tool kit of the archaeologist,” Silvia noted to Newsweek. “The next step for the team would be to confirm their findings through geophysics—techniques that ‘see’ below the surface—and targeted excavations that can confirm whether or not this is indeed such an extensive settlement. I am optimistic that this is precisely what the team will find in the coming years.”

Lost Silk Road cities rediscovered by scientists in mountains of Uzbekistan

Amelia Neath
Mon 28 October 2024 

Researchers excavate medieval pottery at the newly rediscovered medieval Silk Road city Tugunbulak in 2022 (via REUTERS)


Two cities lost for centuries have been uncovered by archaeologists in Uzbekistan along the Silk Road in a discovery that could shift the perspective on what we know about the ancient trading route.

The cities were discovered in the rugged mountains only 3km apart using laser remote-sensing technology that can detect structures under vegetation.

Researchers sent out LiDAR scanning technology, used to measure topography, on drones to map the scale and layout of the cities, uncovering structures, plazas, roads and other urban features indicating city settlements.

Their placement among the mountains, around 2,000-2,200m (6,562-7217 feet) above sea level, is particularly interesting as an altitude this high would have delivered bittely cold winters – with temperature levels that only three per cent of the global population live at today.

Publishing their findings in the scientific journal Nature, the researchers also said the discovery of these cities, which appear to have been mysteriously abandoned hundreds of years ago, could shift the understanding of the economic and cultural landscape of historic Central Asia.

“The key finding of this study is the existence of large, fortified and planned cities at high elevation, which is still a rare occurrence but is much more exceptional in ancient times,” research leader Michael Frachetti from Washington University in Saint Louis, said, per Reuters.

A 2018 drone photograph of a part of the newly discovered medieval Silk Road city Tugunbulak, located in the mountains of southeastern Uzbekistan (via REUTERS)

Tugunbulak, the larger of the two cities, existed from around the 6th to the 11th century CE, spanning across 300 acres. Researchers believe it once had a population of tens of thousands and is thought to be one of the largest cities of its time within the region.

The vast city had five watchtowers and a central fortress all protected by thick stone and mud-brick walls.

After excavating one of Tugunbulak’s fortified buildings, the researchers found the remains of kilns and furnaces, leading them to believe that it could have been a factory where metalsmiths were producing iron or steel.

"Tugunbulak in particular complicates much of the historical understanding of the early medieval political economy of the Silk Routes, placing both political power and industrial production far outside the regional ‘breadbaskets’ such as Samarkand," Frachetti said.

The other city, Tashbulak, was around ten times smaller than its neighbour, with a population reaching into the low thousands. It existed in a similar period from 730-750 to 1030-1050 AD.

Excavations of Tugunbulak being carried out in 2022 (via REUTERS)

While Tasbulak is not thought to be an industrial hub on the same scale as Tugunbulak, the smaller city has shown interesting cultural aspects reflecting the early spread of Islam.

Researchers unearthed 400 graves of men, women and children, including some of the oldest Muslim burials that have been discovered in the region.

"The cemetery is mismatched to the small size of the town. There’s definitely something ideologically oriented around Tashbulak that has people being buried there," Frachetti said.

The scientists first discovered Tasbulak in 2011, then found Tugunbulak a few years later.

With more research, they hope to unearth why these people chose to set up life in the mountains in a move that strayed away from the norm of the typical agricultural societies of the time.

“If we’re right, we’ve got a new kid on the block,” Frachetti told National Geographic, which funded the research.

“These people weren’t the barbarian horse-riding hordes that history has often painted them as. They were mountain populations, probably with nomadic political systems, but they were also investing in major urban infrastructure. This changes everything we thought we knew about Central Asian history.”