Tanzanian president ditches Magufuli's rejection of masks
Story by Reuters 


Tanzania's new president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, on Friday stressed the importance of face masks in fighting Covid-19, ditching one of the most controversial policies of her late coronavirus-sceptic predecessor.

© AFP/Getty Images New Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan, pictured at a military parade following her swearing-in the as the country's first female President on March 19, 2021.

Hassan took office in March after the death of John Magufuli, who had urged Tanzanians to shun masks and denounced vaccines as a Western conspiracy, to the frustration of the World Health Organization.

Last month, she formed a committee to research whether Tanzania, which under Magufuli stopped reporting coronavirus data, should follow the course that the rest of the world has taken against the pandemic.

On Friday, wearing a face mask and flanked by senior government and security officials, also all in masks, Hassan addressed prominent community elders in the commercial capital, Dar es Salaam.

"We have come with face masks because elders are in a group of people who are at higher risk of contracting the prevailing disease," she said. "We have found it is important to protect you."

One of those present was Health Minister Dorothy Gwajima, who, while Magufuli was president, urged Tanzanians to embrace steam inhalations, traditional medicines and even vegetable smoothies to protect themselves against Covid-19.

Magufuli died in March after weeks of speculation that he was ill with Covid-19.

Hit by COVID, Senegal's women find renewed hope in fishing


BARGNY, Senegal — Since her birth on Senegal’s coast, the ocean has always given Ndeye Yacine Dieng life. Her grandfather was a fisherman, and her grandmother and mother processed fish. Like generations of women, she now helps support her family in the small community of Bargny by drying, smoking, salting and fermenting the catch brought home by male villagers. They were baptized by fish, these women say.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

But when the pandemic struck, boats that once took as many as 50 men out to sea carried only a few. Many residents were too terrified to leave their houses, let alone fish, for fear of catching the virus. When the local women did manage to get their hands on fish to process, they lacked the usual buyers, as markets shut down and neighbouring landlocked countries closed their borders. Without savings, many families went from three meals a day to one or two.


Dieng is among more than a thousand women in Bargny, and many more in the other villages dotting Senegal’s sandy coast, who process fish — the crucial link in a chain that constitutes one of the country's largest exports and employs hundreds of thousands of its residents.

“It was catastrophic — all of our lives changed,” Dieng said. But, she noted, “Our community is a community of solidarity.”

That spirit sounds throughout Senegal with the motto “Teranga,” a word in the Wolof language for hospitality, community and solidarity. Across the country, people tell each other: “on es ensemble,” a French phrase meaning “we are in this together.”

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This story is part of a yearlong series on how the pandemic is impacting women in Africa, most acutely in the least developed countries. AP’s series is funded by the European Journalism Centre’s European Development Journalism Grants program, which is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. AP is responsible for all content.

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Last month, the first true fishing season since the pandemic devastated the industry kicked off, bringing renewed hope to the processors, their families and the village. The brightly painted vast wooden fishing boats called pirogues once again are each carrying dozens of men to sea, and people swarm the beach to help the fishermen carry in their loads for purchase.

But the challenges from the coronavirus — and so much more — remain. Rising seas and climate change threaten the livelihoods and homes of those along the coast, and many can't afford to build new homes or move inland. A steel processing plant rising near Bargny’s beach raises fears about pollution and will join a cement factory that also is nearby, though advocates argue they are needed to replace resources depleted by overfishing.

“Since there is COVID, we live in fear," said Dieng, 64, who has seven adult children. "Most of the people here and women processors have lived a difficult life. ... We are exhausted. But now, little by little, it’s getting better.”

Dieng and her fellow processors weathered the pandemic by relying on each other. They’re accustomed to being breadwinners — one expert estimated that each working woman in Senegal feeds seven or eight family members. Before the pandemic, a good season could bring Dieng 500,000 FCFA ($1,000). Last year, she said, she made little to nothing.

Dieng's husband teaches the Qur’an at the mosque next door to their home, and the couple pooled their money with their children, with one son finding work repairing TVs. Other women got help from family abroad or rented out parts of their refrigerators for storage.

They survived, but they missed their work, which isn't just a job — it is their heritage. “Processing is a pride,” Dieng said.

Most fishing in Senegal is small-scale, and carried out in traditional, generations-old methods, as old as the ways Dieng and other villagers process the fish. They refer to it as artisanal fishing. Once processed, the fish is sold to local and international buyers, and preserving it means it lasts longer than fresh and is cheaper for all who purchase it. In Senegal alone, the fish accounts for more than half of protein eaten by its 16 million residents — key for food security in this West African country.

Industrial fishing is carried out in Senegal’s waters as well, via motorized vessels and trawlers instead of the traditional pirogues, and more than two dozen companies also specialize in industrial processing in the country alongside fishmeal factories and canning plants. The fishmeal factories price women like Dieng out by paying more for the fish and depleting resources — 5 kilos of fish are needed for 1 kilo of fishmeal, a lower-grade powder-like product used for farm animals and pets.

Senegal’s government also has agreements with other countries allowing them to fish off the country’s coast and imposing limits on what they can haul in, but monitoring what these large boats from Europe, China and Russia harvest has proven difficult. The villages say the outsiders are devastating the local supply.

Dieng has become a local leader and mentor whose neighbours increasingly come to her for advice on everything from money woes to their marriages, and she and others are now part of a rising collective voice of women in Senegal working for change along the coast and beyond.

Senegal has designated land near Bargny as an economic zone in its efforts to invest in redevelopment. Dieng’s neighbour Fatou Samba is a town councillor and president of the Association of Women Processors of Fish Products, and she’s testified about the challenges in artisanal fishing. She hopes to stop much of the expansion of big industry as fishmeal companies scoop up fish and send the product to Europe and Asia.

“If we let ourselves be outdone, within two or three years, women will not have work anymore,” Samba said. “We are not against the creation of a project that will develop Senegal. But we are against projects that must make women lose the right to work.”

Samba also warns of the effects of climate change, with rising tides eroding Senegal's coast and forcing fisherman to seek their catch further out to sea. Samba and Dieng have each lost at least half of their seaside homes as water gutted rooms during the rainy seasons of the past decade.

In addition to their laborious work processing fish, Samba and other women handle the bulk of the work at home.

“Especially in Africa, women are fighters. Women are workers. Women are family leaders,” Samba said. “Therefore, women must be empowered.”

Dieng, Samba and other women want to be heard — by the government, and by the companies building projects near them. They want better financing, protection of their fish and processing sites, and improved health regulations.

These women open their doors to family, friends, neighbours and even strangers who are eager to hear about the work they take such pride in, and which they want preserved — to help put food on the table for their families and to pay school fees for their children so they can have a future that might not involve fish. But while they’re happy to talk about the work, they hesitate to focus on themselves. Community is what they are most comfortable with.

Late last month, when word spread that fishermen were finally coming back to Bargny with catches, Dieng and others hurried to meet the pirogues, tethered by ropes to the beach. It was the longest Dieng had been away from the catch. She bought enough to have her haul carried by horse-drawn cart to the plot of land she and friends claimed along acres of black sand. Then she started the work she’s known for decades.

Once the fish were piled onto the ground, the women smoothed them out with a small, flat piece of wood. They covered them in light brown peanut shells, bought by the sack, and then lit embers in a bowl and placed those on the shells, which started to burn. Smoke billowed everywhere, a sign of progress. But it also made trying to breathe as brutal as toiling under the hot sun — even tougher during Ramadan, when the women are fasting.

The women stoked the fire, and after feeling confident it would smoke for hours, stepped away. After a day or so, they returned to turn the fish and let it dry in the sun. Another day passed, and the women returned to clean it. Finally, the fish was packaged in vast nets, sold and taken away in trucks.

The pandemic has taught villagers a crucial lesson: Money from fish may not always be there, so it’s important to try to save some of their earnings.

The pandemic also is not over, so Dieng and other women go door to door to raise awareness and urge people to get vaccinated. Like many other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Senegal imposed strict measures at the start of the pandemic. The government was widely commended for its overall handling of the pandemic, and curfews have been lifted and restrictions largely eased. But the country has had more than 40,000 cases, and both volunteer and government campaigns aim to keep another wave at bay.

At the end of a long day of work, and before she goes home to break fast of Ramadan with her family, Dieng stands in front of her smoking fish and records a video she hopes will to motivate the women working in the industry.

"It’s our gold. This site is all, this site is everything for us," Dieng said of the coast and its vital importance to Bargny. "All the women must rise up. ... We must work, to always work and work again for our tomorrows, for our future.“

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Meet the women of Bargny: See the portrait series.

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Follow Carley Petesch on Twitter: https://twitter.com/carleypetesch

Follow AP's multiformat Africa news on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Africa

Carley Petesch, The Associated Press

M-C-M

Rolls-Royce relaunches sale of Norway-based Bergen - source

LONDON (Reuters) - British engineering company Rolls-Royce has put its Norwegian maritime engine unit Bergen back on the block, less than two months after Norway blocked a previous deal for it to be bought by a Russian company.

© Reuters/NTB A view of Bergen Engines AS factory in Bergen

"The sale process has restarted," a source close to the matter said on Monday.

Norway in March stopped Rolls-Royce from selling Bergen for 150 million euros to a company controlled by Russia's TMH Group on national security grounds, in a blow to the British company's disposal programme.

Rolls-Royce is aiming to raise 2 billion pounds ($2.82 billion) from disposals by 2022 as part of plans to repair finances which have been battered by the pandemic, as airlines stopped flying during the pandemic.

The sale of Bergen is now underway at the same time as the sale of Rolls's Spanish unit ITP Aero, which the company hopes will go for up to 1.5 billion euros.

Rolls-Royce could provide more details of the two sale processes on Thursday when it publishes a trading update ahead of its annual general meeting on the same day.

($1 = 0.7092 pounds)

(Reporting by Sarah Young, Editing by Paul Sandle)

U.N. committee to consider racism complaint of N.S. Mi'kmaq fishers against Ottawa

HALIFAX — A United Nations committee on racial discrimination is asking the federal government to respond to allegations it committed racist actions in its treatment of Mi'kmaq lobster fishers in Nova Scotia.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The April 30 letter of notice from the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination asks Leslie Norton, Canada's permanent representative to the U.N., to respond to allegations by Sipekne'katik First Nation by July 14.

The First Nation has argued that it has the right to fish for a "moderate livelihood" when and where they wish, based on a decision from the country's Supreme Court.

The court later clarified that ruling to say Ottawa could regulate the treaty right for conservation and other purposes.

Members of the Sipekne'katik band encountered violence from non-Indigenous residents last fall, resulting in the destruction of a lobster pound and the burning of a band member's van as the First Nation conducted a fishery outside of the federally regulated season in southwestern Nova Scotia.

The federal minister has repeatedly noted the principle of closed seasons exists for conservation purposes and has said her department will negotiate the distribution of commercial licences, which occur within existing seasons, tailored to the needs of each First Nation.

Talks with the band broke down earlier this year, and Sipekne'katik says it is planning to resume a self-regulated lobster fishery outside of federal seasons.

However, the United Nations committee says it is considering allegations the RCMP and the federal Fisheries Department "failed to take appropriate measures to prevent these acts of violence and to protect the fishers and their properties from being vandalized," and that treaty rights weren't respected last year.

"The committee is concerned about allegations of lack of response by the state party authorities to prevent and to investigate the allegations of racist hate speech and incitement of violence online as well as acts of violence and intimidation against Mi’kmaq peoples by private actors," says the letter of notice to the Canadian representative.

The committee's letter noted its prior recommendations requesting governments that have signed the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination "take steps to prevent racist hate crimes against all ethnic and minority groups, migrants and Indigenous peoples."

The letter asks Canada to respond to the allegations and indicate what actions have already been taken to deal with allegations of racism.

The notice is signed by Yanduan Li, the chair of the committee and a representative of China.

The First Nation's leader, Chief Mike Sack, said in a news release Sunday that it intends to proceed with a lobster fishery beginning in June, despite the lack of an agreement with the federal Fisheries Department.

Sack has said he will request United Nations peacekeepers if federal enforcement officers remove his band's lobster fishing gear from the fishing area in southwest Nova Scotia.

He said the involvement of the racial discrimination committee is encouraging.

"Being recognized by a body that represents marginalized people experiencing the destructive and intergenerational effects of systemic racism is a new milestone in our community’s efforts to overcome poverty and oppression,” said Sack in the release.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 9, 2021.

Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press

Video: 

KELOWNA BC Road construction effecting migratory bird habitat 

(Global News)

Parks Canada captive caribou breeding proposal gets OK from scientific review panel

JASPER, Alta. — A last-ditch attempt to save some of Canada's vanishing caribou herds is a step closer after a scientific review panel's approval of a plan to permanently pen some animals and breed them to repopulate other herds.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The captive breeding program would be a first, said Dave Argument, conservation manager for Jasper National Park.

"This idea of bringing in wild caribou (and) raising them in captivity to augment a wild herd is certainly a novel approach."

No one doubts Jasper's caribou are in trouble. One of the park's three herds has already disappeared and the others are down to a handful of animals.

Parks Canada has proposed a $25-million project that would permanently pen up to 40 females and five males in a highly managed and monitored area of about one square kilometre surrounded by an electrified fence. The agency suggests the captive breeding could produce up to 20 calves a year — enough to bring Jasper's herds to sustainable levels in a decade.

The plan received a big boost last week when an independent scientific review panel concluded that it would likely work.

The panel, an international group of conservation experts, agreed that without dramatic measures Jasper's caribou will disappear. Strategies such as predator control or penning and protecting pregnant cows won't work in a national park, it concluded.

"We are confident that the case has been made for the proposed breeding program," the panel's report says.

It does warn that careful monitoring would be required to assess the survival rate of young caribou released into the wild. The effects of climate change on habitat would have to be watched and wolves might occasionally have to be culled, it adds.

"Predators will need to be monitored and managed."

Wolf density in Jasper is low enough that the animals would not be expected to be a major threat to rebuilding herds, the report says.

Justina Ray, a caribou biologist and head of the Wildlife Conservation Society, said the program would also have to consider conditions outside the parks, where energy activity, forestry and road-building continue to degrade habitat.

"Conversion of caribou habitat for all these mountain caribou in southern Alberta and (British Columbia) is ongoing, and these conditions outside the park are very relevant to anything that happens within it," she wrote in an email.

Access to caribou habitat within the park would also have to be managed, she said.

"Access management (roads) ... will need to be stronger than it has been to date if animals are to be released into a safe space."

Parks Canada has met resistance when it has closed parts of Jasper park for part of the year to protect caribou.

Argument welcomed the panel's conclusion. But issues remain before a final decision is made, he said. Budgets need to be approved and consultations conducted.

"There's still an element of public support required," said Argument. "We're not going to proceed without the support of our Indigenous partners."

A preliminary site has been chosen. It's remote from the Jasper townsite and wouldn't be open to public visits.

"It's not going to be a zoo," Argument said.

The caribou have to remain as wild as possible if they are to make it outside the fence, he said.

"Releasing naive animals from a captive breeding facility into the wild comes with certain risks."

If all goes well, Argument said, the fenced pen could be built next year and accept its first animals as early as 2023.

Caribou herds are in trouble across the country. Argument said captive breeding wouldn't help much in places where habitat loss is the problem, such as in areas heavily affected by industry, but it could work in other situations.

"Different circumstances call for different solutions," he said.

"There are other situations across the country where this tool might be very useful. We're at the cutting edge in potentially applying it here."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 9, 2021

— By Bob Weber in Edmonton. Follow @row1960 on Twitter

Posthaste May 10: Pipeline hack highlights vulnerability of North America's stretched energy infrastructure

 

© Provided by Financial Post Storage tanks at the Colonial Pipeline Co. Pelham junction and tank farm in Pelham, Alabama, U.S., on Monday, Sept. 19, 2016. Fuel suppliers are growing increasingly nervous about the possibility of gasoline and diesel shortages across the eastern U.S. almost two days after a cyberattack knocked out a massive pipeline

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Yadullah Hussain

Good morning!

Energy infrastructure’s vulnerability has long been identified as a clear and present threat to North America’s energy security.

And it came to pass over the weekend.

Hackers seeking ransom broke into privately-owned Colonial Pipeline Co.’s systems, forcing the company to shut one of the country’s major arteries for fuel delivery.

The Georgia-based company said it moved quickly to contain the threat and halted operations as it sought to restore the system. It has yet to identify a restart date.

“While our mainlines (Lines 1, 2, 3 and 4) remain offline, some smaller lateral lines between terminals and delivery points are now operational. We are in the process of restoring service to other laterals and will bring our full system back online only when we believe it is safe to do so, and in full compliance with the approval of all federal regulations,” the company said in a statement.

The pipeline connect refineries throughout the Southern and Eastern United States through a pipeline system that spans more than 5,500 miles between Houston, Texas and Linden, New Jersey. Koch Capital Investments Co. LLC and Shell Midstream Operating LLC are among the five entities that own the pipeline.

The shutdown of the conduit, which ships around 2.5 million bpd of refined products, has already pushed up prices of gasoline and diesel, as the expectation is that both will be in short supply as long as the pipeline is sidelined.

“Given that the pipeline delivers nearly half of the diesel and gasoline consumed on the East Coast, depending on the duration, the supply shock could leave the region with widespread fuel shortages, sparking a jump in diesel and retail gasoline prices that at US$2.96/gal are already flirting with the highest nationwide levels in over five years,” according to Michael Tran, an analyst with the Royal Bank of Canada.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.4 per cent to US$65.14 Monday morning.

The U.S. Department of Transportation introduced emergency measures on Sunday to facilitate deliveries, lifting driver restrictions on fuel haulers in 17 states affected by the shutdown, and noted that it could take additional measures if the outage continues.

“Similar to the February freeze crisis, the impacts will be localized. While northeastern and southeastern states may see increased prices at the pump, other regions with more robust products inventories, such as the U.S. Gulf Coast, may not see the same price surge,” according to Rystad Energy.

The cyberattack also underscores the vulnerability of North America’s energy infrastructure, which has long been stretched due to delays in building new energy systems, poor economics and environmental fights.

“The importance of Colonial cannot be underplayed given that it is one of the few major sources of oil products deliverable into the refinery challenged East Coast (the line services 14 states). Due to poor

refinery economics, regional units have shut over recent years, leaving the U.S. Northeast as the least independent and energy secure district in the country,” wrote RBC’s Tran.

A former U.S. official and two industry sources told Reuters that among their suspects are DarkSide, a notorious group comprising veteran cybercriminals. But the group has stayed uncharacteristically silent, in contrast to its penchant for promoting its successes, Reuters noted.

Given the heightened political and environmental scrutiny around energy infrastructure, especially pipelines, the latest attack should alarm companies and intelligence agencies on both sides of the border.

Nor is old-school energy the only vulnerable point. A report by the U.S. Department of Energy last year warned that as the use of wind and other renewable energy systems become more widespread, “cybersecurity for integrated control systems and related technology has become an increasingly important and urgent matter.”

While the pandemic response has taken priority for businesses and governments over the past year, Canadian companies continue to report higher rates of cyberattacks. A recent CDW Canada report revealed that 99 per cent of businesses it surveyed had experienced a cyberattack over the past year.

Pipeline ransomware attack: US invokes emergency transport rules to keep fuel flowing
Liam Tung 

The US Department of Transportation (USDOT) has invoked emergency powers in response to the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in order to make it easier to transport fuel by road.

© Getty Images/iStockphoto

Many new small iron metal shut-off valves, regulating valves with flanges for installation on pipelines, units, vessels at an oil refinery, petrochemical, chemical industrial plant, enterprise.

The ransomware attack, disclosed late last week, impacted the pipeline company, which is responsible for supplying 45% of the East Coast's fuel, including gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, home-heating oil, and fuel for the US military.

Colonial said it is developing a system restart plan and said that while its mainlines remain offline, some smaller lateral lines between terminals and delivery points are now operational.

"Quickly after learning of the attack, Colonial proactively took certain systems offline to contain the threat. These actions temporarily halted all pipeline operations and affected some of our IT systems, which we are actively in the process of restoring," the company said.

In the meantime, the USDOT's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has issued a Regional Emergency Declaration – temporary exemptions involving laws restricting road transport of fuel, and allows drivers to work for longer.

The exemptions apply to vehicles transporting gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other refined petroleum products to Alabama, Arkansas, District of Columbia, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

"Such emergency is in response to the unanticipated shutdown of the Colonial pipeline system due to network issues that affect the supply of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and other refined petroleum products throughout the affected states," FMCSA said in a statement.

Cybersecurity experts told Reuters today that the ransomware group DarkSide is suspected to have carried out the attack on Colonial Pipeline.

Darkside runs a ransomware-as-a-service business that other cybercrime groups can rent. It's been active since mid-2020 and although a decryptor was released in January, security firm Cyber Reason noted that the group recently released DarkSide 2.0. The group is known for encrypting, as well as stealing, some data and using the threat of its exposure on the internet as leverage for the victim to pay ransoms.

SEE: Ransomware just got very real. And it's likely to get worse

FMCSA's exemption is aimed at providing commercial tanker operators regulatory relief while directly supporting emergency efforts to patch up fuel supply shortages "due to the shutdown, partial shutdown, and/or manual operation of the Colonial pipeline system".

The shutdown of Colonial Pipeline might impact fuel prices depending on the length of the disruption.

Gaurav Sharma, an independent oil market analyst, told the BBC that a lot of fuel is banking up at Texas refineries.

"Unless they sort it out by Tuesday, they're in big trouble," said Sharma. "The first areas to be impacted would be Atlanta and Tennessee, then the domino effect goes up to New York."

Colonial Pipeline confirmed on Sunday it was the victim of ransomware and said it had engaged an external cybersecurity firm to assist with its recovery effort.

GONE THE WAY OF THE BUGGY WHIP MAKERS

Pakistan's water bearers quench thirst in Ramadan, but fear for their trade

KARACHI (Reuters) - Mohammad Ramzan pumps water into a large goat skin bag before carrying it down an alley and up several flights of stairs to deliver to a resident in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city

© Reuters/AKHTAR SOOMRO A traditional mashki delivers water in goatskin bags in Karachi

© Reuters/AKHTAR SOOMRO A traditional mashki delivers water in goatskin bags in Karachi

For more than four decades Ramzan has been a "mashki", or water bearer, an age-old profession now in decline as water companies and tankers increasingly supply residents.

But his services are at least in high demand during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, during which fasting can be a challenge when the weather is hot.

"In Ramadan, the poor mashkis have a very tough time delivering water to us inside buildings that are four or five storeys high," said resident Mohammad Imran, as Ramzan, 60, arrived with his load

.

© Reuters/AKHTAR SOOMRO A traditional mashki delivers water in goatskin bags in Karachi

"The tanker people often do not even answer our calls; they also charge too much. We are really grateful to these mashkis."

Karachi needs about 1,200 million gallons per day of water to meet the demand of its estimated population of 20 million people. But officials say its two main water sources only provide the city with about 580 million gallons per day.

© Reuters/AKHTAR SOOMRO A traditional mashki delivers water in goatskin bags in Karachi

Some of the water is lost due to dilapidated infrastructure and water theft, while experts say climate change and dams built upstream by India also reduce water supplies.

Ramzan stops to catch his breath as he climbs the narrow stairwell, carrying his leather "mashk" which can normally hold up to 35 litres of water.

"During the month of Ramadan, it becomes especially difficult for people to collect water from water points, so I bring water for them in the hope that Allah will bless me for it ... I also earn my living this way."

GLOBALIZATION

Water bearers have existed in South Asia for centuries, providing water to travellers and warriors during battles in ancient times.

But Ramzan worries that the days of the mashki are numbered.

"Tankers are delivering water everywhere; mineral water companies are supplying water from house to house," he said.

"Because of this, the profession of the mashki looks like it will not last long."

(Reporting by Waseem Sattar and Sheree Saradar; Writing by Ana Nicolaci da Costa; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

'Extraordinary': Fossils of nine Neanderthals unearthed in Italy cave

Nathan Howes 
 The Weather Network

The unravelling of nine Neanderthal fossils is being hailed as a significant discovery that the "whole world will talk about."

Play Video Remains of nine Neanderthals discovered in Italian cave

That's according to Italy's Culture Minister Dario Franceschini, who made the remarks in a news release with the agency's announcement Saturday. The fossils were unearthed in the Guattari Cave in San Felice Circeo, about 88 kilometres southeast of Rome, Italy.

“An extraordinary discovery that the whole world will talk about...because it enriches research on Neanderthals. It is the result of the work of our superintendency together with universities and research bodies, truly an exceptional thing," said Franceschini.

SEE ALSO: Ancient human species may have gone extinct because of climate change

The findings included the fossils of skulls and skull pieces, two teeth and other bone fragments. The date of one of the fossils can be traced as far back as 90,000 to 100,000 years ago, and the remaining pieces are thought to be 50,000 to 68,000 years old, according to Italy's cultural ministry.

© Provided by The Weather Network

Nine Neanderthal fossils were unearthed in the Guattari Cave in San Felice Circeo, about 88 kilometres southeast of Rome, Italy. (Italian Ministry of Culture)

EXCAVATIONS BEGAN IN 2019

The diggings began in 2019 in a part of the cave that had never been investigated including what anthropologist Alberto Carlo Blanc called a “pond” due to the presence of water in the winter months.

The systematic research was handled by the Superintendence of Archeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for Frosinone and Latina, in collaboration with the University of Rome Tor Vergata.

The Ministry of Culture called the Guattari Cave "one of the most significant places in the world for the history of Neanderthals." A Neanderthal skull was also discovered in the cave in 1939.

© Provided by The Weather Network

The diggings began in 2019 in a part of the cave that had never been investigated. (Italian Ministry of Culture)

Mauro Rubini, director of the SABAP anthropology service for Frosinone and Latina, said in the release that the discovery will "shed an important light on the history of the population of Italy."

"Neanderthal man is a fundamental stage of human evolution. He represents the apex of a species and is the first human society we can talk about," said Rubini.
WORK ON HISTORICAL REMAINS CONTINUES

Work is underway to build a paleoecological picture of the Pontine plain between 125,000 and about 50,000 years ago, according to the ministry, a time period when the Neanderthals frequented the Lazio region.

The cave has been able to keep the environment from 50,000 years ago fully intact. In addition to the Neanderthals, other fossilized remains found in the cave include elephant, rhinoceros and giant deer, among others.

© Provided by The Weather Network

The date of one of the fossils can be traced as far back as 90,000 to 100,000 years ago, and the remaining pieces are thought to be 50,000 to 68,000 years old. (Italian Ministry of Culture)

"Biological analyzes and genetic research will allow us to reconstruct the vegetation, climate and environment in which our ancestors lived. Isotope analyzes will allow us to reconstruct the diet of the animal species examined and the ancient diet of Neanderthal man," the ministry said in the release.

Thumbnail courtesy of Italian Ministry of Culture.