HINDUTVA ETHNIC CLEANSING
Indian town abuzz as divisive temple nears completion

AFP
Fri, December 29, 2023 

Ram is one of the most revered deities in the Hindu pantheon (Arun SANKAR)

In an Indian town known as a flashpoint for sectarian violence, workers are crafting the final touches on a divisive temple that has come to symbolise the country's rising tide of Hindu nationalism.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will next month inaugurate Ayodhya's new shrine to Lord Ram on a site where a mosque once stood, before it was torn down by Hindu zealots more than three decades ago.

Muslim residents of the city, remembering the deadly riots that accompanied the demolition, have been wary of its renewed atmosphere of religious fervour.

But for many more, the project is both a means of restoring Ayodhya to the glory of its depiction in ancient Hindu texts, and proof of Modi's commitment to defending India's majority faith just months ahead of national elections.

"Modi has stayed true to his promise," housewife Gudiya Devi told AFP outside another temple in Ayodhya after her morning prayers.

"All these years we dreamt of a majestic Ram temple and now that dream is coming true," she added. "This is all thanks to Modi. He is our true leader."

Artisans were toiling on top of bamboo scaffolds Friday to finish ornamental details on the main structure of the imposing shrine, which will stand 50 metres (160 feet) tall at its highest point.

With a price tag of an estimated 20 billion rupees ($240 million) according to project manager Jagdish Aphale, its builders expect tens of millions of Hindu pilgrims to visit the temple each year.

Immense sums from government coffers have poured into Ayodhya to give the city's dilapidated infrastructure a facelift ahead of the inauguration.

A new international airport will open on Saturday, road and rail connections have been upgraded and a crop of new hotels have sprung up almost overnight.

Sidewalks and pillars have been decorated with the saffron flags and marigold flowers used in Hindu festivities to welcome travellers.

"So many pilgrims have already started pouring into the city," said Shubh Mangal, a 52-year-old who makes his living selling flowers and other offerings for Hindu worshippers.

"My profits have doubled. We are all overjoyed."

- 'Full of dread' -

Ram is one of the most revered deities in the Hindu pantheon as the protagonist of the Ramayana, one of the faith's two foundational epics, which chronicles his battles with the demon-king Ravana.

Devout Hindus believe that Ram was born in Ayodhya around 7,000 years ago but that during the rule of the Mughal Empire, the Babri Masjid mosque was built on top of his birthplace in the 16th century.

Modi's presence at the inauguration is effectively the opening salvo in his campaign for re-election later in 2024.

His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has campaigned for decades to build a temple on the site and its activists were instrumental in the mosque's demolition.

One senior BJP leader travelled around the country to rally the faithful to the cause in a Toyota sedan fitted to resemble Ram's mythical chariot -- a procession that sparked multiple religious riots in its wake.

The mosque was torn down by a mob in 1992, triggering another wave of riots across the country that killed 2,000 people, mostly Muslims.

Its destruction was a hammer blow to the foundations of India's secular political order, paving the way for the rise of Hindu nationalism to become the country's dominant political force.

The site lay dormant for decades before a Supreme Court decision in 2019 permitted construction of the Ram temple.

Haji Mehboob, a witness for the losing side of that case, said Modi's presence at the temple's inauguration was another milestone in the increasing entanglement of Hindu worship and politics.

"The prime minister of a secular country is coming to inaugurate a Hindu temple... with an eye on winning the 2024 elections by reaching out to his Hindu base," he told AFP.

"The Muslim community in Ayodhya is full of dread over what the future holds for them."

abh/gle/dva

Opinion: The open-air camps outside San Diego are a healthcare crisis for migrants

Sadie Munter, Karyssa Domingo and Weena Joshi

 Los Angeles Times
Fri, December 29, 2023 

Asylum seekers from Colombia huddle against the cold and rain at a makeshift camp while waiting to be transported by the U.S. Border Patrol in Jacumba Hot Springs, Calif., in November. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

An hour and a half east of San Diego in late October, surrounded by haphazard makeshift tents, an asylum seeker lies in the desert with his leg propped up. Our team of volunteer physicians and medical students learned that he sustained a serious foot injury on his perilous journey to the United States. By the look of his swollen and seeping wound, the antibiotics he has been taking for the last 10 days are not warding off infection. He’s been taking half the prescribed dose of antibiotics because he’s not sure how long he’ll be traveling and doesn't want to run out.

While we dress his wound, a doctor on our team steps away, motioning for the rest of us to follow. We find ourselves conflicted over the limited options, not knowing when this patient will next access medical care. Moreover, once he is transferred from this site to an official detention facility, his medications, including antibiotics, may be confiscated. After considering these factors, we all come to the same conclusion: If he does not receive proper care, this injury could cause permanent damage, or worse, a fatal blood infection. So what happens next?

Read more: Migrants struggle against the elements in San Diego's open-air desert camps

For the last two months, we have mobilized local healthcare providers to help asylum seekers in rural San Diego County. A handful of uninhabitable places around the small town of Jacumba Hot Springs have become open-air detention sites for hundreds of asylum seekers. Migrants wait in the desert to be transferred to an official detention facility for processing. While some are transported within a few hours, many spend days without consistent access to food, water or medical care, with no shelter from increasingly harsh environmental conditions.

Migrants have been told by Border Patrol agents that if they leave the sites to seek medical care, their asylum process may be significantly delayed or endangered. Yet since Jacumba is not an official detention center, these asylum seekers are denied the basic resources and services required by Border Patrol policy for those in custody.

We see a medical crisis unfolding. People are suffering from deep tissue infections and ulcers, acute appendicitis, seizures, heart attack symptoms and pregnancies with complications. We provide services with whatever donated supplies we can get our hands on. We wash dust-filled eyes with saline, hand out Vaseline for cracked skin and provide face masks to limit the spread of upper respiratory infections that overwhelm the sites. Plastic spoons serve as splints for broken fingers, children are examined in makeshift tents and cough drops are handed out by the hundreds.

Read more: Opinion: Our failed immigration policy is causing a child labor epidemic in the U.S.

On any given day, volunteers in different fields are providing critical services for hundreds of migrants in Jacumba, supported by donations, mutual aid groups and nonprofit teams including Border Kindness and Al Otro Lado.

As temperatures approach freezing and winter rains fall, we are increasingly concerned about frostbite, hypothermia and exacerbations of chronic health conditions such as asthma and diabetes. At least one preventable death has been reported at an open air site along the border. We fear that the next one could occur in Jacumba.

International and U.S. laws recognize seeking asylum as a human right. We have a responsibility to provide safe conditions for migrants when they exercise that right.

Read more: Over 1,000 migrant families separated at border near San Diego since September, advocates say

To ensure that no further harm is done, local, state and federal authorities need to stop utilizing loopholes, or sidestepping legal responsibility, to detain migrants in “unofficial” camps where they are experiencing dehumanizing, preventable suffering. If hundreds of people are being kept by our country at a site, that location should be acknowledged as a detention center with the obligation to meet detainees’ basic needs.

As our day at the site comes to a close, we rejoin the migrant with the leg infection and our colleagues who have finished changing his dressing. We share our concerns and coach him through communicating with medical staff at his next destination, most likely an official detention center. A minute in, we pause — this is too much information to remember. Someone produces a marker, and one physician begins writing on the waterproof tape. She scrawls out a note to Border Patrol and instructions for the next medical team, signing her name at the bottom as she would a prescription. Right now, this is the best we can do out here.

Sadie Munter and Karyssa Domingo are second-year medical students in San Diego, where Weena Joshi is a practicing pediatrician. 

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

South Carolina nuclear plant's cracked pipes get downgraded warning from nuclear officials

Associated Press
Updated Fri, December 29, 2023 

 The working nuclear reactor is seen at V.C. Summer Nuclear Station, in Jenkinsville, S.C. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission downgraded its preliminary “yellow” warning for V.C. Summer Nuclear Station issued this October to a final “white" one after owner and operator Dominion Energy showed its generator could still run for six hours in an emergency, the agency announced Thursday, Dec. 28, 2023.

 (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins, File)

JENKINSVILLE, S.C. (AP) — Federal regulators have lessened the severity of their warning about cracks discovered in a backup emergency fuel line at a South Carolina nuclear plant northwest of the state capital.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission downgraded its preliminary “yellow” warning for V.C. Summer Nuclear Station issued this October to a final “white" one after owner and operator Dominion Energy showed its generator could still run for six hours in an emergency, the agency announced Thursday.

That demonstration calmed officials' concerns that Dominion Energy's failure to maintain cracks and leaks — discovered at least five times over the past two decades — had neutralized the plant's ability to cool down its reactors if electricity failed.

The new rating means that the generator is underperforming but still meeting its key targets.

“While not indicative of immediate risk, this finding underscores the need for continuous vigilance and improvement in the plant’s corrective action process,” NRC Region II Administrator Laura Dudes said in a statement.

The plant runs pressurized water heated by uranium fuel through a steam generator. A different loop of steam powers the turbine that makes electricity. Cooling water then condenses the steam, which gets reheated, and the system starts over again.

Officials plan to complete another inspection to see if Dominion Energy fixes the ongoing issues. In a statement to The Associated Press on Friday, the company said it immediately replaced the piping and will install “more resilient piping” early next year. Dominion Energy said the station only needs one power source for safe maintenance, and that the emergency diesel generators are only necessary if two offsite power supplies are unavailable. The company added that the November 2022 fuel oil leak marked the first time in 40 years that such a problem had put an emergency diesel generator out of operation.

“Dominion Energy’s commitment to safety, along with the NRC’s process for regulating nuclear power stations, ensure we continue to operate to the highest safety standards," the company said in the statement. "We thank the NRC for considering additional information we provided, which resulted in categorizing the initial issue as low-to-moderate significance.”

Still, The State Newspaper reported that a leader at a watchdog group said the length of the problem warranted the more serious finding. The risk is that fires could break out, according to Edwin Lyman, the director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists. The changes from Dominion Energy seem to be “pencil-sharpening exercises that make a bad situation look better on paper,” Lyman told The State.

China's share of the global economy is falling by the most since Mao Zedong, and the historic turn could 'reorder the world'


Filip De Mott
Fri, December 29, 2023 

Mao Zedong.Getty Images

China's share of world GDP is on pace to shrink 1.4 percentage points over two years, Ruchir Sharma wrote in the Financial Times.


It's the largest decline since the 1960s and 1970s, when Mao Zedong oversaw a weak economy.


"In a historic turn, China's rise as an economic superpower is reversing," Sharma said.

The Chinese economy's decades-long run of tremendous growth has finally found its end, Ruchir Sharma wrote in the Financial Times in November.

Now, the world's second-largest economy accounts for a smaller share of global GDP.

"In a historic turn, China's rise as an economic superpower is reversing. The biggest global story of the past half century may be over," the Rockefeller International chairman said.

In nominal dollar terms — which Sharma argues is the most accurate measure of an economy's relative strength — China's share of world GDP began slipping in 2022 as strict zero-COVID measures remained in place for most of the year.

Despite expectations for a blowout rebound, China's share will fall further in 2023, hitting 17%. That puts China on pace for a two-year drop of 1.4 percentage points, a slide not seen since the 1960s and 1970s, when Mao Zedong presided over a weak economy, he added.

Back then, Mao's disastrous "Great Leap Forward" was still wreaking havoc on the economy. Not until new leadership pivoted to market-based reforms in the late 1970s did the economy start to turn around.

In 1990, China's share of the global economy was less than 2%, but by 2021 it had soared to 18.4%. Such a rapid increase had never been seen before, Sharma noted.

But with its current slide, China will account for none of the growth of global GDP over the past two years, estimated at a total increase of $113 trillion.

"China's decline could reorder the world," Sharma said. "Since the 1990s, the country's share of global GDP grew mainly at the expense of Europe and Japan, which have seen their shares hold more or less steady over the past two years. The gap left by China has been filled mainly by the US and by other emerging nations."

India, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil and Poland will account for half the emerging-market gains, he added later, calling that "a striking sign of possible power shifts to come."

For its part, Beijing has maintained a 5% annual growth target and expects to meet it this year. The forecast is supported by the International Monetary Fund, which sees 5.4% growth for 2023.

But Sharma dismisses the use of real GDP growth as a metric, saying it leaves too much room for Chinese authorities to tweak the numbers to fit their outlook and obscure a decline. In nominal dollar terms, the country's GDP will fall this year for the first time since 1994, he said.

Among key factors for the decline are growing government intervention in China's businesses, the ongoing debt turmoil, slower productivity, fewer workers, and the loss of foreign investors.

Still, Chinese President Xi Jinping has remained optimistic and hinted recently at a policy pivot while meeting with US President Joe Biden in November.

"But almost no matter what Xi does, his nation's share in the global economy is likely to decline for the foreseeable future," Sharma concluded. "It's a post-China world now."

Lebanon targets UNESCO register for pioneering TV archive

Norma Abdul Karim
Sat, December 30, 2023 

Pioneering Arab television Tele Liban has the region's oldest audiovisual archive in the region which it hopes will earn Lebanon a place on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register (ANWAR AMRO)


For decades, Tele Liban has been a mainstay of Lebanese living rooms. Now the country is seeking UNESCO recognition for the archives of its pioneering Arab broadcaster.

Lebanon's Information Minister Ziad Makary told AFP that Beirut would apply to have the full archives of Tele Liban added to the UN cultural body's Memory of the World Register, which UNESCO says "aims to prevent the irrevocable loss of documentary heritage".

Tele Liban was "the first television (network) to be established in the Arab world on a state level", Makary said, adding that Lebanon had the region's "oldest audiovisual archive".

The collection includes footage that dates back "to World War II and the 1940s", although Tele Liban was only established the following decade, the minister said from his Beirut office.

Were it to join the register, it would sit alongside hundreds of other entries, spanning print, audiovisual, digital and other heritage from across the globe.

The only television channel in Lebanon until 1985, the broadcaster's archive is brimming with years of history, politics and culture not only from Lebanon but across the Arab world, during tumultuous decades in the region.

It counts more than 50,000 hours of recordings, from interviews and news programmes to music concerts, including of Egypt's revered 20th-Century singer Umm Kalthoum and French diva Dalida.

The collection captured Lebanon's "cultural and political life" and was unique in the country, Alfred Akar, Tele Liban's head of archives, told AFP.

In multi-confessional Lebanon, there is nostalgia for the now cash-strapped Tele Liban's "golden age" during the 1960s and 70s, when it featured prominent personalities on its programmes, from entertainment and comedy to drama.

As sectarian tensions peaked and the country plunged into the gruelling 1975-1990 civil war, Tele Liban became a witness to the country's divisions and suffering.

Makary noted the need to preserve history, pointing to "the archive's importance in the collective memory and (its) cultural impact on the region".

- 'Treasure' -

If successful, its entry on the UNESCO register would have great symbolic importance and put Lebanon's "media heritage on the world map", Makary said.

The aim is to include not only Tele Liban's archive but also that of the public radio and the National News Agency, Makary said, adding that work on the official submission would begin next month.

Lebanon already counts two entries on the Memory of the World Register -- commemorative stelae spanning more than three millennia at a site north of Beirut, and the Phoenician alphabet, which the UN body's website describes as "the prototype for all alphabets in the world".

In 2010, work began on modernising the Tele Liban archive and transferring it to updated equipment despite little financial support, in a country where dysfunctional public services have now been swallowed by a crushing four-year economic crisis.

The digitisation process remained ongoing, said Akar.

Zaven Kouyoumdjian, author of two books on television including "Lebanon on Screen", said Tele Liban was part of a modernising effort in the Arab world and also "brought all Lebanese together".

The broadcaster's archive is "a national treasure", said the author, who is also a television personality.

It "stores Lebanon's cultural identity", he told AFP.

nor/lg/dcp/hkb

Sinbad, real-life WWII Coast Guard 'salty dog,' retired in Barnegat Light

Gretchen F. Coyle
Updated Fri, December 29, 2023

Location, location, location, pontificate the Realtors.

What could have been better for a World War II veteran than retiring in Barnegat Light - ocean and bay in full view, surrounded by congenial people, room and board provided, plus free drinks at Kubel’s?
Lucky mixed breed dog

Sinbad in his younger days, being admired by a few of the crew on the S. S. Campbell.

Such was the luck for Sinbad, a crew member of the Coast Guard Cutter Campbell for 11 years. According to Mike Walling, who wrote a new introduction to George F. Foley’s 1945 book “Sinbad of the Coast Guard,” “Retired from the Coast Guard on September 21, 1948, Sinbad lived at Barnegat Coast Guard Station in New Jersey until his death on December 30, 1951. He was honored with a full military funeral and was placed to rest at the foot of the flagpole, his grave marked by a bronze plaque.”

Ah, did we mention that Sinbad was a four-legged mixed breed mutt destined for stardom?

Sinbad just happened to be in the right place at the right time, running wild, no doubt a puppy someone had ditched.
Superstar Sinbad

Sinbad’s story began in 1938 when he was found on the streets of New York. The appealing puppy was smuggled aboard the 327’ Campbell by two crew members.

Sinbad’s exploits, travels and escapades soon made him famous.

“An old sea dog has favorite bars and plenty of girls in every port,” reported Life Magazine. He had an autobiography, was paw-printed, and interviewed by ABC news.

Sinbad in his younger days, being admired by a few of the crew on the S. S. Campbell.

Sinbad soon became a popular crew member, attaining status as more than a mascot, with “his own service number, medical history, bunk, uniforms, and battle station” wrote Walling.

When the Campbell was torpedoed by the German submarine U-606, most personnel were transferred to a destroyer. However, Sinbad was ordered to stay aboard. Whether by luck or cunning, Sinbad “led” the ship (under tow) to safety.

Creating his own international incidents was not unusual for Sinbad.

More: Favorite stories of 2023: Baby comes home, Amazon Fresh and sports champions

Blithely wandering places like Casablanca and Greenland, this feisty four-legged Coast Guard member was occasionally in trouble. According to the U.S. Coast Guard History:

“Sinbad is a salty sailor, but he’s not a good sailor. On a few occasions, he has embarrassed the U.S. Government … he’s as bad as the worst and as good as the rest of us.”

“He wore his extensive collection of service ribbons and awards on his collar. Sinbad earned each of the five ribbons he wore … American Service, European Theatre, and Pacific Theatre.”

For three years Sinbad wandered the small village of Barnegat Light, stopping regularly at Kubel’s for a cold one, two front paws resting on the old wooden bar. Rumor has it that Sinbad favored a shot of whiskey with a beer chaser. He didn’t need an escort; he just scratched at the front door until someone let him inside. Cold winter evenings were spent lying in front of Kubel’s fireplace.

Bob Melchiori was stationed at the Barnegat Lifeboat Station from 1954 to 1958, and is familiar with Sinbad stories, his popularity and notoriety.

“He had his own little sea bag with his uniform, collar, and money pouch where he carried his money, contributed by crew members, so he could buy his drinks in various bars he visited.”

Upon visiting the station about nine years ago, Bob asked about the sea bag.

“The commanding officer told me that he had a copy of the inventory of several boxes of historical value, but Sinbad’s sea bag was not listed.”

Occasionally the outlandish pup kept watch from the Coast Guard tower, an official hat on his head, and those same front paws draped over the metal railing.

Matt Walter, who was stationed at Barnegat Light, wrote that “most of his duty was apparently performed at Kubel’s.”

Sinbad died on Dec. 30, 1951.

Buried under the base of the flagpole, his headstone read “Sinbad Chief Dog U.S. C.G.C. Campbell w 32, 1937-1951.”

Mike Walling wrote, “He was honored with a full military funeral. I’m looking forward to drinking with Sinbad when I pass.”

Matt Walter added:

“My second tour of duty in the U.S. Coast Guard was at Station Barnegat Light. Every 30th of December, we would gather at the flagpole at the old station (now the Boro offices, East 7th Street) and Salute Sinbad with a few toasts, Semper Paratus Sinbad!”

Old timers remember a lot of Sinbad look-alikes in the Barnegat Light area during the 1950s, which goes to show that retirement for a four-legged Coastie after World War II sure had its perks.

It has been written that Sinbad was a real scoundrel, as bad as some of the rowdiest participants during World War II, so many felt a strong bond with him.
Animals aboard ships

An exhibit at the New Jersey Maritime Museum draws visitors of all ages.

Actually, it is not a unique story, as many ships smuggled a pet or two onboard for fun; most of them were excellent for morale.

Cats were aboard ships as far back as 425 BC, probably for getting rid of mice and rats. Cats were domesticated back in Egyptian times. They were the most popular animals aboard ships both during commercial voyages and during wars.

Romans took chickens aboard to predict outcomes of battles. Not to eat? Supposedly, if the hens ate, victory was assured. If not, they were thrown overboard as bad luck.

The New Jersey Maritime Museum, 528 Dock Road, Beach Haven, has an exhibit on Sinbad. Visitors of all ages are captivated by Sinbad tales during World War II and his Barnegat Light years, where he was regularly seen at his favorite watering hole, Kubel’s, and on duty with a fellow Coast Guard member. DVDs are complimentary for anyone who wants to watch some of Sinbad’s travels.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Sinbad the dog, a Coast Guard mascot, retired in Barnegat Light
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Montgomery Castle: Story behind Wales' most fought-over castle

Neil Prior - BBC News
Sat, December 30, 2023 

Today all that remains of Montgomery Castle is its crumbling towers and low walls

Montgomery Castle may not be the oldest or biggest in Wales and it certainly isn't the best preserved.

Instead its claim to fame is being the most fought-over in Welsh history.

The ruined castle in Powys has changed hands more than any other following battles between the Welsh and English, Royalists and Parliamentarians.

This year marks 800 years since it was first built under the order of Henry III in response to the growing power of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth.

One of William the Conqueror's soldiers, Roger de Montgomery, first established a stronghold a mile to the west on the site of a Roman fort known locally as Hen Domen in 1067, just a year after the Norman invasion.

Professor of Medieval history at Swansea University, Daniel Power, said by the 13th Century Hen Domen had simply become indefensible.

"In the earliest days of the Norman invasion the Marcher castles along Wales' eastern borders were primarily about containment, about keeping the Welsh out of England," he said.

"However by the 13th Century the English royal policy had become more interventionalist, and making big statements to face down the Welsh."

Montgomery Castle - here as a model of how it originally appeared - looks over the Wales/England border

He said during its construction Montgomery was subject to frequent attacks.

"It wasn't necessarily the most advantageous position on which to build a castle, but it did send a message out across the River Severn," he said.

He said it was painted in whitewash "so everyone could see it" and "it held a commanding position" of the joining of three routes to Shrewsbury "a major trading town at that time".

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Montgomery Castle was the base from which Henry III and Llywelyn ap Gruffydd made a peace treaty in 1267, whereby Llewelyn agreed to pay homage to Henry in return for being recognised as the first Prince of All Wales.

Though the peace wouldn't last long, as just 15 years later soldiers from Montgomery Castle helped Henry III's son, Edward I, conquer Wales in 1282.

The castle walls were destroyed after the second civil war

Just over a century later Owain Glyndwr captured it for the Welsh, marrying his daughter to Sir Edmund Mortimer.

He chose not to occupy the castle, instead putting it out of English use by damaging the walls so badly that they'd be difficult to defend again.

David Thomas, curator of the Old Bell Museum in the town, said it was a habit which has repeated itself over the years.

"Montgomery Castle was once a key point in the first English Civil War, sight of the largest civil war battle on Welsh soil," he said.

"But after the second Civil War in 1649 the castle walls were destroyed so that they could never be used again in a military conflict."

He said they have excavated parts of the castle's grounds and the well and have found "helmets, scissors, billhooks and all manner of pottery dating from medieval times to the civil wars".

Montgomery Castle was a private residence until 1655 but fell into ruin soon after.

Its legend has given hope to Hungarian nationalists over the years, and its grounds have been used for public celebrations, including the 1918 Armistice party

Today all that remains of the castle is its crumbling towers and low walls.

But as Cadw, which works to protect Wales' historic buildings, says - although is may be in ruin, it retains a powerful atmosphere and presence that transcend its state of preservation.

Did humans cross the Bering Strait after the land bridge disappeared?

Amanda Heidt
Sat, December 30, 2023 at 3:00 AM MST·4 min read

Two indigenous Arctic peoples paddle through icy waters in a traditional canoe-style boat.


The Bering Land Bridge once connected Russia to Alaska and was a crossing point for some of the first humans to populate the Americas. But during certain periods, the bridge was either impassable or submerged due to sea level rise, seemingly stranding later waves of people on both sides.

But was it possible for early humans to traverse the Bering Strait by boat? And if so, what evidence exists to support their crossings?

According to John Hoffecker, a research fellow emeritus of early human history at the University of Colorado Boulder, recent evidence has shown "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the Bering Land Bridge first emerged around 35,700 years ago before disappearing again about 12,000 years ago, near the end of the last ice age, when glaciers melted and sea level began to rise.

At times, the bridge would have resembled the tundra of northern Alaska and been home to large mammals, Hoffecker said. But that wasn't always the case. Recent research on the region's paleoclimate posits that the bridge was often locked up in impassable ice except during brief windows from 24,500 to 22,000 years ago and 16,400 to 14,800 years ago. Archaeological and genetic evidence supports the idea that early humans, including members of the Clovis culture, may have crossed the land bridge around 14,000 years ago during one of these stretches.

Related: How did humans first reach the Americas?

Successive waves of people streamed across the Bering Strait, including members of a group known as the Paleo-Inuit or Paleo-Eskimo who had appeared in the Arctic by 4,500 years ago and belonged to a culture called the Arctic Small Tool tradition (ASTt). It's less clear, however, how they did so.

Andrew Tremayne, an archaeologist who previously conducted research in Alaska for the National Park Service, said that ASTt peoples were likely advanced mariners, and artifacts found on islands in the Bering Strait and in Alaska today suggest that ASTt people may have been in the area as early as 5,000 years ago. In the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, in 2013, Tremayne and his team found stone tools from Siberia at an ASTt site dated to about 4,000 years ago.

A map showing how Beringia, which includes the famous ice age land bridge, looked at the last glacial maximum, about 18,000 years ago.

"The people that brought that raw material with them either walked across the frozen Bering Strait or boated," Tremayne told Live Science, noting that even now, the 55-mile-wide (89 kilometers) strait sometimes freezes during the winter. "But based on evidence that they had a rather sophisticated maritime culture, I tend to favor the hypothesis that they boated over."

That idea is bolstered by archaeological sites in North America. Once ASTt people arrived in Alaska, some turned northward, wending their boats between the Canadian Arctic's jumble of islands to become the first people to reach Greenland. Along this punishing route, archaeologists have found evidence of marine mammals being used as food and boats that are similar to the umiaks used by today's Yupik and Inuit peoples in Alaska, Canada and Russia. Made of wood or whale bone covered by seal skin and powered by oars or paddles, a large umiak would have held as many as 20 people.

"I think of these people as some of the most rugged in the history of humans," Tremayne said. "The ASTt people are the first to really start to make a living in that Arctic maritime environment.'

Much later, around 1,000 years ago, ASTt peoples were displaced by the direct ancestors of modern Inuit, Aleut and Yupik peoples who migrated by boat across the Bering Strait from Asia in a later expansion, Tremayne said.

RELATED MYSTERIES

—How did humans first reach the Americas?

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—Why did the last ice age end?

Whether there might have been even earlier water crossings, perhaps by the Clovis people, is a question that may never be answered, Hoffecker said, although the evidence is shifting in that direction. During the last ice age, sea level in the region that includes the land bridge — known as Beringia — was significantly lower, and hundreds of miles of coastline was exposed along Siberia, Alaska and other parts of North America. Today, any coastal sites that early humans might have used during their travels south are buried beneath sea and sediment.

But even as the story continues to unfold, Hoffecker said he has become "a strong believer in the Pacific Northwest coast as the main root of migration for the initial movement of people out of Beringia and into the Americas."

 ‘Rare’ 7,000-year-old bottle — with a mysterious purpose — unearthed in tomb in China

Aspen Pflughoeft
Fri, December 29, 2023 


Buried in an ancient tomb in China sat a small, distinctly shaped bottle. The 7,000-year-old bottle might look simple, but it held a mystery.

Archaeologists uncovered the bottle while excavating a tomb in the Peiligang site, according to a Dec. 25 news release from the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the China Archaeology Network.

The roughly 4-inch-long bottle has a small mouth at the top and pointed end at the bottom, the release said. A photo shows the almost teardrop-shaped bottle.

Similarly shaped bottles have been found before and are considered a representative artifact of the prehistoric Yangshao culture. These pottery pieces have been found in houses, ash pits and tombs — but their purpose is a source of debate.

Archaeologists believe these ancient bottles might have been used as water carriers, during brewing and winemaking, or for burials.

The “rare” bottle found at the Peiligang site is unique because of its abnormally small size and its age, according to an article from the People’s Daily Online, a Chinese government-run news outlet. Researchers initially estimated the bottle to be about 7,700 years old, the “earliest dated artifact of its kind in China.”

The Peiligang site is considered “one of the birthplaces of Chinese agricultural civilization,” the People’s Daily Online reported. The settlement is between 7,600 and 8,000 years old.

Archaeologists also found stone relics, fragments of ostrich eggs and other artifacts at the site, the release said. Excavations are ongoing.

The Peiligang site is in Xinzheng, Henan Province, and about 410 miles southwest of Beijing.

48 human remains — some with sharpened teeth and modified skulls — found in Mexico

Brendan Rascius
Fri, December 29, 2023 


A massive gravesite — dating back at least 1,300 years — was unearthed in central Mexico, offering a glimpse into the cultural practices of the region’s pre-Hispanic occupants.

The remains of 48 individuals were found buried beneath tombstones in Tula, located about 75 miles northwest of Mexico City, according to a Dec. 21 news release from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

Many of the individuals were buried in a seated position and oriented toward the sunrise or sunset, and some of them displayed signs of body modification, officials said.

For example, the incisors of one individual were filed down to have sharpened points, while the individual’s canines contained holes.

Some of the skulls showed evidence of cranial modification, a practice once carried out by various pre-Hispanic groups.

Also found at the gravesite was a cache of various artifacts — likely offerings — including ceramic pipes, seashell earrings and weapons, officials said.

A young male was buried wearing a necklace fashioned from 29 snails, which resembled the fangs of a carnivorous animal, officials said. Also located with his remains were two obsidian knives, which were likely placed inside of a bag.

Over a dozen hearths unearthed nearby allowed researchers to conclude the site was used by Pueblito and Huasteca groups between 250 and 650 A.D. — well before the Spanish conquest of Mexico in the 16th century.

This time frame encompasses the Early and Middle Classic periods, which saw the flourishing of various indigenous communities in Mexico, including the Mayan in Teotihuacán, according to the American Museum of Natural History.

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

Farmer hits ‘rock’ while plowing — and finds unusual World War II artifact in Slovakia

Aspen Pflughoeft
Fri, December 29, 2023


While plowing a field in western Slovakia, a farmer hit a “rock.” This wasn’t the first time the annoying “rock” had gotten in his way, but he decided it was going to be the last time. He started digging — and found an unusual World War II artifact.

As the farmer in Kostolná-Záriečie dug, a circular concrete structure started to emerge, the Monument Office of the Slovak Republic said in a Dec. 11 news release.

Photos shared by the village of Chocholná-Velčice in an Oct. 17 Facebook post show the excavation process. The partially buried object looks almost like a crater.

The partially buried machine gun nest found in a field in Kostolná-Záriečie.

Officials identified the farmer’s find as the bottom half of a machine gun nest used by the Nazi German military during World War II. These machine gun nests were also known as a kugelstand and kugelbunker.

The machine gun nest as it was dug up from a field in Kostolná-Záriečie.

These defensive structures were made of reinforced concrete and had a spherical shape with a hole on top. They were used as shelters and firing points for machine guns or other infantry soldiers, the release said. A photo shows what the machine gun nest would have looked like while in use.

The World War II machine gun nest after being fully excavated.

In 1945, near the last few months of World War II, the village of Chocholná-Velčice was located along the front lines for about two weeks, the Facebook post said. The Nazi German army defended the village from advancing Soviet-Romanian armies before finally retreating. During this time, the German military fortified their position with machine gun nests.

Metal detectorists searched the field in Kostolná-Záriečie but did not find any other artifacts, the release said. The lack of any findings suggests that this machine gun nest probably wasn’t an active firing location.

At some point after World War II, the upper part of the machine gun nest was destroyed, possibly because it disrupted plowing, officials said. The underground structure was forgotten — until now.

The inside of the World War II machine gun nest after being fully excavated.

Officials estimate that up to a thousand machine gun nests were used by Nazi German forces in Slovakia during World War II. After the war ended, some structures were destroyed, others left in place and some reused as flower pots, playground equipment or other objects.

The machine gun nest from Kostolná-Záriečie was relocated to the Trenčín Museum, the release said.

Kostolná-Záriečie is about 70 miles northeast of Bratislava and near the Slovakia-Czechia border.

First contact with aliens could end in colonization and genocide if we don't learn from history

David Delgado Shorter, University of California, Los Angeles; 

Kim TallBear, University of Alberta, 

William Lempert, Bowdoin College

THE CONVERSATION
Fri, December 29, 2023 

SETI has been listening for markers that may indicate alien life -- but is doing so ethical? Donald Giannati via Unsplash


We’re only halfway through 2023, and it feels already like the year of alien contact.

In February, President Joe Biden gave orders to shoot down three unidentified aerial phenomena – NASA’s title for UFOs. Then, the alleged leaked footage from a Navy pilot of a UFO, and then news of a whistleblower’s report on a possible U.S. government cover-up about UFO research. Most recently, an independent analysis published in June suggests that UFOs might have been collected by a clandestine agency of the U.S. government.

If any actual evidence of extraterrestrial life emerges, whether from whistleblower testimony or an admission of a cover-up, humans would face a historic paradigm shift.

As members of an Indigenous studies working group who were asked to lend our disciplinary expertise to a workshop affiliated with the Berkeley SETI Research Center, we have studied centuries of culture contacts and their outcomes from around the globe. Our collaborative preparations for the workshop drew from transdisciplinary research in Australia, New Zealand, Africa and across the Americas.

In its final form, our group statement illustrated the need for diverse perspectives on the ethics of listening for alien life and a broadening of what defines “intelligence” and “life.” Based on our findings, we consider first contact less as an event and more as a long process that has already begun.

Who’s in charge of first contact

The question of who is “in charge” of preparing for contact with alien life immediately comes to mind. The communities – and their interpretive lenses – most likely to engage in any contact scenario would be military, corporate and scientific.

By giving Americans the legal right to profit from space tourism and planetary resource extraction, the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015 could mean that corporations will be the first to find signs of extraterrestrial societies. Otherwise, while detecting unidentified aerial phenomena is usually a military matter, and NASA takes the lead on sending messages from Earth, most activities around extraterrestrial communications and evidence fall to a program called SETI, or the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

SETI is a collection of scientists with a variety of research endeavors, including Breakthrough Listen, which listens for “technosignatures,” or markers, like pollutants, of a designed technology.

SETI investigators are virtually always STEM – science, technology, engineering and math – scholars. Few in the social science and humanities fields have been afforded opportunities to contribute to concepts of and preparations for contact.

In a promising act of disciplinary inclusion, the Berkeley SETI Research Center in 2018 invited working groups – including our Indigenous studies working group – from outside STEM fields to craft perspective papers for SETI scientists to consider.

Ethics of listening

Neither Breakthough Listen nor SETI’s site features a current statement of ethics beyond a commitment to transparency. Our working group was not the first to raise this issue. And while the SETI Institute and certain research centers have included ethics in their event programming, it seems relevant to ask who NASA and SETI answer to, and what ethical guidelines they’re following for a potential first contact scenario.

SETI’s Post-Detection Hub – another rare exception to SETI’s STEM-centrism – seems the most likely to develop a range of contact scenarios. The possible circumstances imagined include finding ET artifacts, detecting signals from thousands of light years away, dealing with linguistic incompatibility, finding microbial organisms in space or on other planets, and biological contamination of either their or our species. Whether the U.S. government or heads of military would heed these scenarios is another matter.

SETI-affiliated scholars tend to reassure critics that the intentions of those listening for technosignatures are benevolent, since “what harm could come from simply listening?” The chair emeritus of SETI Research, Jill Tarter, defended listening because any ET civilization would perceive our listening techniques as immature or elementary.

But our working group drew upon the history of colonial contacts to show the dangers of thinking that whole civilizations are comparatively advanced or intelligent. For example, when Christopher Columbus and other European explorers came to the Americas, those relationships were shaped by the preconceived notion that the “Indians” were less advanced due to their lack of writing. This led to decades of Indigenous servitude in the Americas.

This 16th century engraving shows Christopher Columbus landing in the Americas, where he and his explorers deemed the Indigenous people there as ‘primitive,’ as they had no writing system. Theodor de Bry/Wikimedia Commons

The working group statement also suggested that the act of listening is itself already within a “phase of contact.” Like colonialism itself, contact might best be thought of as a series of events that starts with planning, rather than a singular event. Seen this way, isn’t listening potentially without permission just another form of surveillance? To listen intently but indiscriminately seemed to our working group like a type of eavesdropping.

It seems contradictory that we begin our relations with aliens by listening in without their permission while actively working to stop other countries from listening to certain U.S. communications. If humans are initially perceived as disrespectful or careless, ET contact could more likely lead to their colonization of us.

Histories of contact

Throughout histories of Western colonization, even in those few cases when contactees were intended to be protected, contact has led to brutal violence, pandemics, enslavement and genocide.

James Cook’s 1768 voyage on the HMS Endeavor was initiated by the Royal Society. This prestigious British academic society charged him with calculating the solar distance between the Earth and the Sun by measuring the visible movement of Venus across the Sun from Tahiti. The society strictly forbade him from any colonial engagements.

Though he achieved his scientific goals, Cook also received orders from the Crown to map and claim as much territory as possible on the return voyage. Cook’s actions put into motion wide-scale colonization and Indigenous dispossession across Oceania, including the violent conquests of Australia and New Zealand.

The 1768 voyage of British captain James Cook, center, put into motion wide-scale colonization and Indigenous dispossession across Oceania. John Hamilton Mortimer via the National Library of Australia

The Royal Society gave Cook a “prime directive” of doing no harm and to only conduct research that would broadly benefit humanity. However, explorers are rarely independent from their funders, and their explorations reflect the political contexts of their time.

As scholars attuned to both research ethics and histories of colonialism, we wrote about Cook in our working group statement to showcase why SETI might want to explicitly disentangle their intentions from those of corporations, the military and the government.

Although separated by vast time and space, both Cook’s voyage and SETI share key qualities, including their appeal to celestial science in the service of all humanity. They also share a mismatch between their ethical protocols and the likely long-term impacts of their success.

The initial domino of a public ET message, or recovered bodies or ships, could initiate cascading events, including military actions, corporate resource mining and perhaps even geopolitical reorganizing. The history of imperialism and colonialism on Earth illustrates that not everyone benefits from colonization. No one can know for sure how engagement with extraterrestrials would go, though it’s better to consider cautionary tales from Earth’s own history sooner rather than later.

This article has been updated to correct the date of James Cook’s voyage.

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.The Conversation has a variety of fascinating free newsletters.

It was written by: David Delgado Shorter, University of California, Los Angeles; Kim TallBear, University of Alberta, and William Lempert, Bowdoin College.

Read more:

Signatures of alien technology could be how humanity first finds extraterrestrial life

Blasting out Earth’s location with the hope of reaching aliens is a controversial idea – two teams of scientists are doing it anyway

Colonialism has shaped scientific plant collections around the world – here’s why that matters

David Delgado Shorter has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the University of California, and the California Community Foundation.

William Lempert has received funding from Bowdoin College, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Fulbright IIE US Scholar Program, the Lois Roth Endowment, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies.