Calgary council unanimously supports motion to place limits on anti-abortion flyers


Calgary city council is taking specific aim at anti-abortion flyers with a new bylaw that would ban the delivery of uncensored images of fetuses.


Calgary City Hall was photographed on Monday, November 22, 2021.© Provided by Calgary Herald

The motion, brought forward by Ward 2 Coun. Jennifer Wyness, would require anti-abortion flyers that have images of a fetus to cover those images with adhesives or an envelope, and to include a viewer discretion warning.

The steps would prevent people from inadvertently seeing an image of a fetus — something that has been described as traumatizing by those who have suffered miscarriages or gone through an abortion.

Wyness said she’s heard from many residents who have had their young children inadvertently find the flyers in their mailbox.

“This traumatizes the children and many, many months go by of nightmares, and I’ve heard from many community members story after story about this,” said Wyness.

She said these images are too graphic for television, and they’re too graphic to be posted on social media without a warning, so she wants the same for citizens’ mailboxes.

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Mayor Jyoti Gondek described her own experience with encountering the flyers.

“It is incredibly traumatizing,” she said. “I’ve had this dropped into my mailbox after a miscarriage and that is not something I wish for other people.”

Gondek said she isn’t worried that the bylaw is too targeted. She said the city has to start somewhere, and they are starting here.

“If you want to make an argument, you can go ahead and make it. You can be pro-life all day long, but we don’t need to see your graphic images.”

Several councillors commended Wyness for attempting to address the problem, and for bearing the expected attack from critics. The motion was approved unanimously.

Wyness’s motion does not specify any fines or punishments for breaking the proposed bylaw but does leave the door open for the administration’s suggestions.

Administration has been directed to report back to council by the end of June 2023 with a proposed bylaw.

Transgender soul pioneer Jackie Shane subject of Heritage Minute

TORONTO — Groundbreaking transgender soul singer Jackie Shane is the focus of a new Heritage Minute.

Transgender soul pioneer Jackie Shane subject of Heritage Minute

Historica Canada released her story as the latest in its ongoing series of minute-long shorts celebrating influential figures and accomplishments in Canadian history.

Shane, who was born in Nashville but thrived in the Canadian R&B music scene, was selected for her contributions to "the Toronto sound," a version of electric soul shaped in the early 1960s.

But she's also considered a trans pioneer at a time when few held visible positions in the local community. She performed on stage as an androgynous man, but in her private life had come out as trans to her mother when she was 13 years old.

Shane played clubs in Montreal and Boston, but her home was at Toronto's Saphire Tavern until she suddenly quit music in 1971.

She died three years ago at age 78 shortly after the retrospective "Any Other Way" was nominated for best historical album at the Grammys.

Two of Shane's songs, "Any Other Way" and "New Way of Lovin’," are featured in the Heritage Minute.

The singer is played by African-Mohawk two-spirit trans activist Ravyn Wngz who narrates a script penned by JP Larocque, a writer on "Sort Of" and "Coroner."

The Heritage Minute, released before the start of Transgender Awareness Week on Nov. 20, is co-directed by newcomer Ayo Tsalithaba and Pat Mills, known for the LGBTQ Lifetime movie "The Christmas Setup."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 2, 2022.

David Friend, The Canadian Press

Why this Thunder Bay folk singer brought back his 1979 protest song to speak out against nuclear waste

Jon Thompson - CBC


What's old is new again in the debate around whether to store nuclear waste in northwestern Ontario.


Rodney Brown is a well-known folk singer and music teacher in Thunder Bay, Ont., he re-recorded his 1979 Freight Train Derailed to protest a plan to bury nuclear waste in northwestern Ontario.© Submitted by Rodney Brown

In 1979, when Atomic Energy of Canada was consulting on its plan to bury nuclear waste near Atikokan, Thunder Bay folk singer Rodney Brown's gave a five-minute deputation expressing his opposition to the plan.

That deputation was a performance of his new song, Freight Train Derailed.

Now 43 years later, another process designed by the Nuclear Waste Management Organization has whittled possible burial sites down to two communities including Ignace, a community of about 1,300 150 kilometres north of Atikokan, and 250 kilometres north of Thunder Bay.

And Rodney Brown is re-releasing Freight Train Derailed, this time with a new music video, to protest the project.

The plan is for a $23-billion nuclear disposal site where the nuclear waste management organization wants to inter some three million spent nuclear fuel bundles in a sprawling network of tunnels and holes 500 metres below the ground.

The controversial project is nearing the end of a years-long consultation project with communities and First Nations about whether they are willing to host the site either near Ignace or South Bruce, near London, Ont. Organization officials have said they welcome public discourse and debate, while promising a safe solution in line with international best practices.

People in Ignace are concerned about the long-term environmental and health effects of the project, but others note that it could bring back jobs and business in the economically-depressed town.

Amid that backdrop, Brown felt the time was right to bring back his protest song.

"The nuclear industry now, it's not the same kind of panel I saw in '79," Brown said. "Now it's a marketing company."


Brown originally wrote Freight Train Derailed for a play. Though the theatre troupe didn't end up using the song, its theme struck a nerve. Then, just months after Brown's deputation, a train carrying chlorine gas and other chemicals derailed in Mississauga. The accident caused an evacuation that affected 200,000 people.

The seeming increase in rail accidents was wind in the sails of Thunder Bay's anti-nuclear movement.

Brown drove from Thunder Bay to Atikokan to demonstrate against burying the waste in the area. When he arrived, he found mass unemployment due to the recent closure of the Steep Rock Iron Mines.

"The Atikokan people weren't excited about [nuclear waste] either," Brown recalls. "But there were so many jobs lost there and everybody was desperate. They needed jobs and I'm sure it's the same kind of thing now going on in Ignace. Everybody's looking at money and jobs."

Giving an old song new life

An old ally from that movement who now works with the advocacy group Environment North offered to pay for Brown to shoot a music video so Freight Train Derailed could once again bring attention to the cause.

Brown always felt the song needed a third verse so he added lyrics about the Mississauga crash, the Lac-Megantic crude oil train explosion in 2013, and the dangers of transporting nuclear waste.

The videographer introduced him to music engineer Ryan MacDonald, to re-record the song. MacDonald is also the leader of the Honest Heart Collective, a Thunder Bay-based rock band whose latest songs are charting in Italy.

The pair agreed to combine their bands and re-record the song as an inter-generational collaboration.

MacDonald doesn't identify as an activist. He grew up in the 1990s when Brown was best known as a children's performer and MacDonald can still recite the school song that Brown wrote and would perform when he visited to teach music.

"Rodney was one of — if not the first — musician who inspired me to play music," MacDonald says. "It was a big full-circle moment for me, working in the recording studio that I built with my friends in the Honest Heart Collective, to be recording the guy that got me into wanting to record music in the first place."

For Brown, the experience has opened his eyes to a new generation that is making, teaching, and recording music in Thunder Bay's north core. Brown notes how MacDonald is the same age as he was when he wrote Freight Train Derailed.

And while Brown marvels at new technology that has made quality recording affordable for independent artists to reach wider audiences, Brown laments that political progress hasn't turned out to be so linear.

He notes that political activism goes far back in history, from the labour movement of the last 150 years, even back to the French Revolution in the 18th century.

"The older you get the more you see how things go in circles," Brown said. "When I was involved in all this stuff, I thought we were on new ground, new territory, but we weren't."

Family living in a tent by the Arctic Ocean finally receives a home


After spending months living in a canvas tent as they waited on public housing, a Paulatuk couple with a young child finally has a home to move into.

Nunakput MLA Jackie Jacobson advocated for the couple on Friday in the legislature, and repeated his plea for help on Wednesday after he learned there was an available house in the community the family could move into.

"[They've] been trying to get into public housing since their baby was one month old," said Jacobson, saying the young family is currently living in a tent in the Arctic community. Being a tent, he said, it doesn't have a bathroom or other necessities for raising a baby.

"It's unbelievable that the baby's 13 months old, and I'm still advocating for the family to have a roof over their heads. Winter's sitting in. It's -20C in the community."

Back in 2020, the same couple had finally progressed through the waitlist for a home through Housing NWT, but was told their income was too high as they were receiving Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) payments during the pandemic and they were removed from the waitlist. Housing minister Paulie Chinna fixed the issue of Housing NWT counting CERB payments as income, and personally promised the couple in the summer of 2020 that their application would be prioritized when she visited their community.

Over two years later, the couple still didn't have a home until Jacobson elevated their case in the legislature.

During question period on Wednesday, Jacobson grilled the housing minister, saying that a unit was available in the community but hadn't been offered to the couple.

"I spoke to the mayor this morning," he said. "There's one unit available in Paulatuk and is ready to be moved in. So I'm just wondering if the couple is first on the waiting list like I've been told?"

"I'm not familiar with the unit that is available and the condition that the unit may be in and why the unit may be vacant," responded housing minister Paulie Chinna. "I will work with the board of directors and look at the allocation."

"The [housing] minister has the authority to make that decision right now," said Jacobson, saying the housing minister could give the couple the available home immediately. "Will the minister commit to me today that you will assign Unit 65 to that young couple?"

"The tenants are number one on the wait list, so they are potentially next up for allocation," Chinna responded.

But Jacobson wasn't backing down. He continued to press the minister until Chinna promised they would be given Unit 65 in particular, even asking her to repeat herself to confirm it, prompting cheers and applause and from other members.

"We need the minister of housing to work with our community leadership and the people on the ground to show solutions today," he said. "It's 2022, and our people are living in the High Arctic raising their children in tents."

Caitrin Pilkington, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Cabin Radio

CNN's New Morning Show Garners Less Than 400,000 Viewers, Marking Latest Loss For Network's New Boss Chris Licht
Radar Online - 

Mega© Radar Online

CNN’s new morning show, CNN This Morning, tanked in the ratings during its debut earlier this week, garnering even less viewers than the average viewership of its predecessor, RadarOnline.com has learned.

In a surprising development to come as new CNN boss Chris Licht continues to shakeup the network’s on-air talent and program lineup, CNN This Morning – which premiered on Tuesday and saw Don Lemon, Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins as its cohosts – debuted to abysmal numbers.


Mega© Radar Online

That is the revelation found by Nielsen Media Research, whose data showed only 387,000 total viewers tuned in to watch the network’s new morning show between 6 AM and 9 AM.

Even more surprising is the data showing that, of the less than 400,000 viewers to tune in, only 71,000 were in the 25-54 age demographic – a key demographic for advertisers looking to buy into networks’ programs.

New Day, CNN This Morning’s predecessor, garnered a daily average of 404,000 viewers throughout the month of October – meaning Licht’s new program with Lemon, Harlow and Collins at the helm failed to beat even the show it replaced.

Other networks’ morning shows, such as Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends and MSNBC’s Morning Joe, essentially destroyed CNN This Morning in viewership.


Mega© Radar Online

Fox & Friends received a whopping 1.5 million viewers with 236,000 of those being in the 25-54 age demographic.

Morning Joe garnered a strong 793,000 viewers with 114,000 in the 25-54 age demographic.

As RadarOnline.com previously reported, CNN This Morning’s debut bomb is just the latest decision made by Licht to ultimately backfire in his face.

Chris Wallace’s new program, Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace, scored an atrocious 44,000 viewers when it debuted in September, while Jake Tapper – who was moved to the network’s 9 PM primetime time slot ahead of the upcoming midterm elections – essentially proved to be dead on arrival.


Mega© Radar Online

Although Tapper’s new show, CNN Tonight with Jake Tapper, had President Joe Biden as its guest when it debuted in October, the show still managed to come in last place against its competitors on other major news networks.

CNN This Morning’s poor premiere also came amid reports the struggling network’s employees are becoming increasingly more irked with Licht and his abrupt changes, layoffs and budget cuts.

World ‘plunging towards societal collapse’ as era of cheap money ends

The global economy is on the path to hyperinflation and risks societal collapse if soaring prices are not brought under control, one of the world’s biggest hedge funds has warned.


rates rise recession© Provided by The Telegraph

Elliott Management, the hedge fund founded by Wall Street billionaire Paul Singer, hit out at central bank rate-setters in an apocalyptic warning to clients as rate-setters bring the era of ultra-cheap money to an abrupt end.

The world economy faces an “extremely challenging” outlook and hyperinflation could result in “global societal collapse and civil or international strife”, the letter to clients said, the Financial Times reported. It said central banks have been “dishonest” in deflecting blame for the price surge from their prolonged use of ultra-loose monetary policy.

Elliott is one of the most influential hedge funds in the world and is feared in corporate boardrooms for its approach to investor activism.

Central banks are being forced into rapid interest rate rises to tackle inflation with the rate of price growth hitting double digits and a four-decade high in the UK.

The US Federal Reserve voted for its fourth consecutive 0.75 percentage point increase to its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday while the Bank of England followed with a 0.75 percentage point jump on Thursday, the eighth straight increase.

Stock markets have already suffered a tough year as the global economic outlook darkens and interest rates are pushed to levels last seen before the financial crisis. But Elliott believes that investors should brace for a “a seriously adverse unwind of the everything bubble” because of the number of “frightening and seriously negative possibilities”.


The “everything bubble” refers to the surge in a range of investments, including stocks, bonds and house prices, since the financial crisis after central banks left interest rates at rock bottom levels for years and cranked up the printing presses under quantitative easing.

Investors should not believe they have seen everything from previous financial crises, the letter warned. The sudden end to cheap money has “made possible a set of outcomes that would be at or beyond the boundaries of the entire post-WWII period”.

The S&P 500 – the benchmark US stock index – has plunged by 22pc this year and dropped a further 2.5pc on Wednesday after Fed chairman Jerome Powell signalled more rate increases are on the way. The FTSE 100 has been one of the world’s better performing stock indices but is still 5.6pc lower.

Elliott declined to comment.

Exclusive-Shell's flagship LNG trading made nearly $1 billion loss in Q3 -sources

By Ron Bousso, Marwa Rashad and Dmitry Zhdannikov - 


LONDON (Reuters) - Shell's liquefied natural gas (LNG) trading division recorded a loss of nearly $1 billion in the third quarter of the year, three industry sources told Reuters, after traders were caught out by a sharp rally in European gas prices when Russia halted supplies.

Shell, the world's top LNG trader, last week reported its second largest quarterly profit of $9.45 billion, but said it was impacted by weaker gas trading results.

Shell does not disclose its trading results and often uses general terms to describe trading conditions.

The pre-tax loss of around $900 million in its LNG trading offers rare insight into its trading operations that can also sharply boost the group's earnings.

The loss was a result of a wrong bet on the difference between benchmark Asian and European gas prices over the summer months, according to the three sources.

Shell declined to comment.

Shell's LNG trading performance contrasts with rivals BP and TotalEnergies which both reported strong earnings from their trading divisions in the quarter, without providing details.

European gas prices hit an all-time high of nearly $90 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) on Aug. 22 as the region scrambled to secure gas supplies after Russian halted pipeline gas deliveries.

Related video: Shell posts another bumper profit

Duration 1:06 View on Watch

The rally in European prices far outpaced Asian prices, leading to a collapse in the spread between the two benchmarks.

Asia has historically set the highest LNG prices in order to attract supplies during the summer months to allow countries like Japan and China to refill storages ahead of winter.

SEASONALITY

Traders also use paper derivatives to protect, or hedge, physical cargo trades from price fluctuations.

But the paper bets badly backfired in the third quarter.

Shell's Chief Financial Officer Sinead Gorman said last week that LNG trading was impacted by "seasonality and supply constraints, coupled with substantial differences between paper and physical realisation in a volatile and dislocated market."

"Our trading and optimization organization manages risk through hedging our physical volumes," Gorman told analysts on Oct. 27.

"Due to a breakdown in correlations, some hedges were less effective. LNG trading and optimization were also impacted by a combination of seasonality and supply constraints where the business is geared towards supplying the Northern Hemisphere during the winter."

Gorman added that for the first three quarters of 2022, LNG trading results were higher than the same period a year earlier.

Asian prices have been weakened by muted Chinese demand since the start of the year due to covid and slow economic growth.

LNG prices in Europe have been benchmarked against the TTF Dutch gas prices for years and the European Union is exploring alternative benchmark after the drop in Russian pipeline supplies.

(Reporting by Ron Bousso, Marwa Rashad, Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Veronica Brown and Elaine Hardcastle)

HIDING WEALTH OFFSHORE SHOULD BE A CRIME

Higgs sees no policy change over Irving 

offshore revelations

Jacques Poitras - CBC

Premier Blaine Higgs says he won't be making any policy changes after new details emerged about the Irving companies' use of offshore tax havens.

Higgs told reporters at the legislature that because the tax strategies used by the companies were legal, there are no grounds for banning them from receiving government grants, loans or other subsidies.

The premier said he'd cut off assistance for companies breaking the rules, "but I don't have any indication of that."

"I don't think we can criticize someone for following the rules."

Higgs was reacting to a year-long investigation by CBC News and Radio-Canada looking at the Irving presence in the offshore tax haven of Bermuda.

It revealed that J.D. Irving Ltd. used an insurance company on the island, F.M.A. Limited., to insure its marine vessels, paying premiums to the Bermuda entity, which then reinsured the vessels at a lower cost, allowing it to collect millions of dollars in profits tax-free.

University of Victoria tax law professor Geoffrey Loomer told CBC and Radio-Canada that the tax strategies were legal.


A year-long investigation by CBC News and Radio-Canada looked at the Irving presence in the offshore tax haven of Bermuda.© Mike Heenan/CBC

In the legislature Thursday, Green MLA Kevin Arseneau acknowledged that's true but called for a "moratorium" on subsidies to Irving companies.

He also said J.D. Irving Ltd. should be called to testify at a legislative committee that would examine how much revenue the province has lost because of the company's tax strategy.

Finance Minister Ernie Steeves responded that the government wanted "all citizens to take advantage of what opportunities are out there. If you're from New Brunswick, we want you to take advantage of what is available to you in savings."

Higgs repeated that to reporters, saying everyone uses tax deductions to lower their tax bills as much as they can.


Finance Minister Ernie Steeves said the government wanted 'all citizens to take advantage of what opportunities are out there. If you’re from New Brunswick, we want you to take advantage of what is available to you in savings.'© Ed Hunter/CBC

He said while large companies have "more capacity" to use specialized law firms and accountants skilled at using offshore tax havens, writing off a charitable donation on an individual tax return is "kind of the same process.

"Individuals will do it to the extent of the law, and companies will do the same thing to the extent of the law," he said.

Higgs, a former Irving Oil executive before getting into politics in 2010, said it was "extremely important to follow the regulations" when he worked at the company. His role was in operations, not accounting or taxation.

He and Steeves both pointed out that taxation of foreign assets is a federal responsibility. The premier said he was confident the Canada Revenue Agency would "monitor and measure and determine that the rules are being followed."

Steeves said two officials from his department are on a federal-provincial "tax avoidance working group," and Arseneau should work with the Liberals to lobby federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland to make any changes to tax laws.

Asked in the House of Commons about the Irving revelations Thursday, National Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier said the federal government has already made it "more and more difficult" to "hide" money overseas.



Liberal Leader Susan Holt avoided taking a clear position on whether Irving companies should lose access to public subsidies.© Ed Hunter/CBC

In Fredericton, provincial Liberal Leader Susan Holt endorsed Arseneau's call for a committee to examine the issue.

"We should be making sure that New Brunswickers are all paying their fair share of tax and we have a system that people are participating in equally, so if there are loopholes and opportunities to close that we can act on and close, I think we should."

But Holt avoided taking a clear position on whether Irving companies should lose access to public subsidies.

"Folks who are receiving public funds should be fully participating in our public taxation system," she said.

Asked if using legal tax strategies amounted to not fully participating, Holt repeated her comment that the issue needs to be looked at.

Holt was CEO of the New Brunswick Business Council from 2011 to 2015, acting as spokesperson for the organization representing many of the province's largest employers.

She told reporters Thursday that during her tenure, J.D. Irving Ltd.'s membership in the council was not renewed because the company wanted to take "individual positions" on issues in their own business interest.

Detectives use cutting-edge tech to identify long-dead 'vampire'

Metro Science Reporter

Detectives have turned to cutting-edge technology to try and discover the identity of a long-dead vampire.


Detectives have used technology to make a 3D scan of the vampire’s face (Credits: Parabon NanoLabs / SWNS)© Provided by Metro

The early 19th Century man was found buried with his arms in an X shape across his chest – a burial practice believed to prevent blood-suckers rising from the grave to feed upon the living.

The remains, discovered in 1990 in Griswold, Connecticut, were determined to be those of a middle-aged man named John Barber who suffered from tuberculosis.

The unpleasant symptoms of the affliction can include sweating, weight loss, swollen neck and coughing up blood – unexplained signs that may have led paranoid locals to suspect vampirism.

Now, cutting-edge laboratory and bioinformatics techniques have been used to reveal what he looked like and confirm who he was.


A forensic facial reconstruction of John Barber 

(Credits: Parabon NanoLabs / SWNS)© Provided by Metro

The recent International Symposium on Human Identification (ISHI) conference in Washington, D.C., saw Parabon NanoLabs and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) unveil their results.

Parabon NanoLabs explain: ‘Tales of the undead consuming the blood of living beings have been around for centuries. Before scientific and clinical knowledge were used to explain infectious diseases and medical disorders, communities hit with epidemics turned to folklore for explanations.

‘They often blamed vampirism for the change in appearance, erratic behaviour and deaths of their friends and family who actually suffered from conditions such as porphyria, pellagra, rabies and tuberculosis (TB).

‘It is speculated that he (John Barber) was later disinterred and reburied because his limbs had been placed atop his chest in an X in a skull-and-crossbones configuration – a burial practice used to prevent purported vampires from rising from the grave to feed upon the living.’

Researchers employed the latest advanced laboratory and bioinformatic DNA analyses on the early 19th-century unidentified remains of a man, only known as JB55 because of the markings on his grave.


Skeletal remains of John Barber on display at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Maryland (Credits: TSgt Robert Trujillo/USAF/SWNS)© Provided by Metro

In 2019, AFDIL performed a Y-STR chromosome analysis that suggested a possible surname of ‘Barber’.

A search of historical records led to an obituary for another individual buried in the same cemetery that mentioned a man named John Barber, but no other records were found for him.

A whole-genome targeting approach, also used in Parabon’s law enforcement casework for highly degraded samples, was determined to be the most cost effective method of identification.

Using machine learning models built on published variants, along with additional variants discovered by Parabon, JB55 was predicted to have fair skin, brown eyes, brown or black hair, and freckles.

Using the trait predictions and a digital 3D image of the skull, Thom Shaw, an IAI-certified forensic artist at Parabon, reconstructed JB55’s likely appearance.


The reconstruction started with a 3D scan of his skull 

(Credits: Parabon NanoLabs / SWNS)© Provided by Metro

The other individual in the cemetery was believed to be a relative of JB, so their DNA was analysed using whole-genome enrichment, sequencing, and low-coverage imputation. Results showed a third-degree, first cousin relationship to JB.

Tracing the family trees of the GEDmatch matches led to ancestors with the surname Barber living in New England in the 18th and 19th centuries, supporting the hypothesis that his identity was most likely John Barber. GEDmatch is an online service to compare autosomal DNA data files from different testing companies.

Christian monastery possibly pre-dating Islam found in UAE

By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press - TODAY

SINIYAH ISLAND, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An ancient Christian monastery possibly dating as far back as the years before Islam spread across the Arabian Peninsula has been discovered on an island off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, officials announced Thursday.


This March 14, 2022, handout photo from the Department of Archaeology and Tourism of Umm al-Quwain shows an ancient Christian monastery uncovered on Siniyah Island in Umm al-Quwain, United Arab Emirates. An ancient Christian monastery possibly dating as far back as the years before Islam rose across the Arabian Peninsula has been discovered on an island off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, officials announced Thursday, Nov. 3, 2022. 

(Nasser Muhsen Bin Tooq/Department of Archaeology and Tourism of Umm al-Quwain via AP)

The monastery on Siniyah Island, part of the sand-dune sheikhdom of Umm al-Quwain, sheds new light on the history of early Christianity along the shores of the Persian Gulf. It marks the second such monastery found in the Emirates, dating back as many as 1,400 years — long before its desert expanses gave birth to a thriving oil industry that led to a unified nation home to the high-rise towers of Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

The two monasteries became lost to history in the sands of time as scholars believe Christians slowly converted to Islam as that faith grew more prevalent in the region.

Today, Christians remain a minority across the wider Middle East, though Pope Francis was arriving in nearby Bahrain on Thursday to promote interfaith dialogue with Muslim leaders.

For Timothy Power, an associate professor of archaeology at the United Arab Emirates University who helped investigate the newly discovered monastery, the UAE today is a “melting pot of nations.”

“The fact that something similar was happening here a 1,000 years ago is really remarkable and this is a story that deserves to be told,” he said.

The monastery sits on Siniyah Island, which shields the Khor al-Beida marshlands in Umm al-Quwain, an emirate some 50 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of Dubai along the coast of the Persian Gulf. The island has a series of sandbars coming off of it like crooked fingers. On one, to the island's northeast, archaeologists discovered the monastery.

Carbon dating of samples found in the monastery's foundation date between 534 and 656. Islam's Prophet Muhammad was born around 570 and died in 632 after conquering Mecca in present-day Saudi Arabia.

Viewed from above, the monastery on Siniyah Island's floor plan suggests early Christian worshippers prayed within a single-aisle church at the monastery. Rooms within appear to hold a baptismal font, as well as an oven for baking bread or wafers for communion rites. A nave also likely held an altar and an installation for communion wine.

Next to the monastery sits a second building with four rooms, likely around a courtyard — possibly the home of an abbot or even a bishop in the early church.

Historians say early churches and monasteries spread along the Persian Gulf to the coasts of present-day Oman and all the way to India. Archaeologist have found other similar churches and monasteries in Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

In the early 1990s, archaeologists discovered the first Christian monastery in the UAE, on Sir Bani Yas Island, today a nature preserve and site of luxury hotels off the coast of Abu Dhabi, near the Saudi border. It similarly dates back to the same period as the new find in Umm al-Quwain.

However, evidence of early life along the Khor al-Beida marshlands in Umm al-Quwain dates as far back as the Neolithic period — suggesting continuous human inhabitance in the area for at least 10,000 years, Power said.

Today, the area near the marshland is more known for the low-cost liquor store at the emirate’s Barracuda Beach Resort. In recent months, authorities have demolished a hulking, Soviet-era cargo plane linked to a Russian gunrunner known as the “Merchant of Death” as it builds a bridge to Siniyah Island for a $675 million real estate development.

Power said that development spurred the archaeological work that discovered the monastery. That site and others will be fenced off and protected, he said.

“It’s a really fascinating discovery because in some ways it’s hidden history — it’s not something that’s widely known,” Power said.

___

Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.