Several Mysterious Human-Made Pits Have Been Revealed Near Stonehenge

Stonehenge has been intensively studied for centuries. 

Yet even now, we are still discovering new aspects of the famous site.


© Karl Hendon/Getty Images

Carly Cassella - 
ScienceAlert

An archaeological 'biopsy' of the surrounding landscape has revealed a hidden network of large pits encircling the stone structure.

The study is the first extensive electromagnetic induction survey of the region, and it has helped archaeologists uncover hundreds of large pits, each over 2.4 meters (7.8 ft) wide. Some of these were most certainly made by human hands thousands of years ago.

What these large pits were used for is unknown, but given the lack of "utilitarian functions" associated with the holes, researchers suspect they were somehow related to the "long-term ceremonial structuring" of Stonehenge.

Other ancient pits, discovered near the car park of the old Stonehenge visitor center, date to about 8000 BCE and are associated with totem poles, props for hunting aurochs (a type of extinct cattle), and lunar observation.

Stonehenge itself was only built about 5,000 years ago.

"By combining new geophysical survey techniques with coring, and pin point excavation, the team has revealed some of the earliest evidence of human activity yet unearthed in the Stonehenge landscape," says archaeologist Nick Snashall, who works for the Stonehenge & Avebury World Heritage Site.

"The discovery of the largest known Early Mesolithic pit in northwest Europe shows that this was a special place for hunter-gatherer communities thousands of years before the first stones were erected."

Prehistoric pit deposits are common archaeological structures in the United Kingdom and northwest Europe, but they are usually no wider or deeper than a meter. Oval pits greater than 2.4 meters wide are very rare, but around Stonehenge and the nearby Durrington Walls Henge, they seem to be unusually concentrated.

In the recent survey of Stonehenge, geophysical sensors and direct archaeological investigation detected 415 large pits over a 2.5 km2 area. When the researchers excavated nine such pits, six were found to be human-made a long time ago, two were natural occurrences, and one was a recent agricultural deposit.

The sheer abundance of these structures is a kind of prehistoric activity not previously recognized at Stonehenge or in northwest European more generally.

The round pits range in date from the Early Mesolithic, circa 8000 BCE, to the Middle Bronze Age, circa 1300 BCE, and they are mostly concentrated on higher ground to the east and west of Stonehenge.

The oldest and largest of the pits is more than 3 meters wide and 1.85 meters deep.

The largest pit found around Stonehenge dug into chalk bedrock. (The University of Birmingham)

"What we're seeing is not a snapshot of one moment in time. The traces we see in our data span millennia, as indicated by the seven-thousand-year timeframe between the oldest and most recent prehistoric pits we've excavated," says historian Paul Garwood from the University of Birmingham.

"From early Holocene hunter-gatherers to later Bronze Age inhabitants of farms and field systems, the archaeology we're detecting is the result of complex and ever-changing occupation of the landscape."

The ability for sensor technology to scan a landscape and reveal potential archaeological sites is giving us an unprecedented view of prehistoric landscapes.

Stonehenge is just the start.

The study was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

A Samsung.com ‘expert’ has been fired after speaking up about working for free

© Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge


Mitchell Clark - 

On April 14th, The Verge published a story about how Samsung’s “Experts,” who answer customer chats at Samsung.com, were being pushed by both Samsung and staffing agency Ibbu to do some customer support for free. While we spoke to a dozen experts during our reporting, only one was willing to be named in the story: Jennifer Larson.

The day after our story was published, Larson received an email saying that she was being temporarily suspended and that she’d get an update in a week. Over four weeks later, Ibbu told her she’d been fired.

The email to Larson read, in part:

After reviewing your activity on the platform, Ibbu has determined that grounds exist to terminate you from the platform. While we value and encourage any feedback from the Ibbu community and constructive communications on the livefeed, using the Ibbu platform for personal communications violates Ibbu policy, and in this case has also led to complaints from other community members. Furthermore, disclosing confidential information about the Ibbu platform on social media, and encouraging visitors, directly into the chat, to look at third party links or content is a material breach of policy and the Agreement, which constitute grounds for termination.

Ibbu didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request to share the policies it’s quoting or for specifics on why it terminated Larson.

But Larson isn’t the only one wondering if they lost her job for speaking out. Two other experts told us that they were terminated from the Samsung Mobile “mission” after speaking to The Verge. Another expert, who we didn’t originally speak to but publicly posted our story on their LinkedIn page, was also terminated. Unlike Larson, however, they weren’t suspended before being fired, and they’re able to work on other Ibbu jobs if they want.

Before they were terminated, the experts’ job was to sell Samsung phones. In theory, that job involved logging into Ibbu’s system when they felt like it and answering questions from people who had clicked the “Chat with an expert” button on Samsung.com. But as we laid out in our previous report, based in part on testimonies and evidence provided by people who’ve now been fired, the system didn’t work as intended. Experts often found themselves dealing with support questions from people having issues with their phones or orders instead of inquiries from customers trying to decide whether to go with the S22 Plus or Ultra.

To make matters worse, the “Experts” are only paid on commission, meaning they are extremely unlikely to see a single cent for answering support chats. Despite that, and despite the fact that their contract says they shouldn’t answer support questions, the experts we talked to felt pressured to by both Ibbu and Samsung. One Samsung employee justified it by suggesting answering support chats was a way to boost the experts’ customer satisfaction numbers.

Ibbu expects its experts to end at least 14 percent of chats with a sale

That number is important to the experts — it, along with the percentage of chats that they turn into sales, determines whether they get to keep their jobs. But as several experts had pointed out to us, it’s hard to keep those numbers up when you’re disappointing customers by telling them they ended up in the wrong chat and that they have to go to a different part of Samsung.com to reach the correct person.

Samsung didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment on whether the company had anything to do with Larson or other Ibbu experts being terminated.

Aside from Larson’s case, Ibbu cited poor performance when it terminated the experts we spoke to. Over a week after it had let them go, though, the company acknowledged in an internal post that out-of-scope chats were a growing problem — though its estimate of only 2.81 percent of chats being misrouted by bots is significantly lower than what experts suggested to us. The company also said that it was “continuously working on tracking and improving this to lower this percentage as quickly as possible.”

It’s cold comfort for those who already got termination emails citing low customer satisfaction and sales numbers. One of the former experts told The Verge that this isn’t the outcome they would’ve chosen but that they “have zero desire to get that job back with Samsung Mobile.” Another said that they do want their job back but would want to see major changes from Ibbu. Both mentioned that they continued to have difficulties meeting Ibbu’s goals.

As for Larson, she’s not surprised that she ended up being fired, though she didn't expect Ibbu to keep her in limbo for so long. When it comes to speaking up about the way the company treated her, though, she said she was glad she did it. “I wouldn’t change anything.”

Israeli police beat mourners at journalist's funeral

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli police on Friday moved in on a crowd of mourners at the funeral of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, beating demonstrators with batons and causing pallbearers to briefly drop the casket.

The crackdown came during a rare show of Palestinian nationalism in east Jerusalem — the part of the holy city that Israel captured in 1967 and that the Palestinians claim as their capital.

Israel says east Jerusalem is part of its capital and has annexed the area in a move that is not internationally recognized. Israel routinely clamps down on any displays of support for Palestinian statehood.

Thousands of mourners, some hoisting Palestinian flags and chanting “Palestine, Palestine,” attended the funeral for Abu Akleh, who witnesses say was shot and killed by Israeli forces earlier this week while covering a military raid in the occupied West Bank.

“We die for Palestine to live,” the crowd chanted. “Our beloved home.” Later, they sang the Palestinian national anthem.

Ahead of the service, dozens of mourners tried to march with the casket on foot out of a hospital to a Catholic church in the nearby Old City.

Police said the crowd at the hospital was chanting “nationalist incitement,” ignored calls to stop and threw stones at police. “The policemen were forced to act,” police said.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military said its initial investigation into Abu Akleh's death showed that a heavy firefight was underway in the West Bank town of Jenin around 200 meters (yards) from where she was killed, but that it was unable to determine whether she was shot by Israeli forces or Palestinian militants.

Israel announced that an Israeli policeman was killed in new fighting in Jenin on Friday.

Recent days have seen an outpouring of grief from across the Palestinian territories and the wider Arab world. Abu Akleh was a widely respected on-air correspondent who spent a quarter century covering the harsh realities of life under Israeli military rule, which is well into its sixth decade with no end in sight.

After the heated scene outside the hospital, police allowed the family to drive the casket to a Catholic church in the Old City, which was packed with mourners, before sealing off the hospital and firing tear gas at scores of protesters.

After the service, thousands headed to the cemetery, waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Palestine, Palestine."

Several hours later, she was buried in a cemetery outside the Old City.

Qatar-based Al Jazeera had earlier said that its managing director, Ahmad Alyafei, would travel to Jerusalem to attend the funeral.

Israel has called for a joint investigation with the Palestinian Authority and for it to hand over the bullet for forensic analysis to determine who fired the fatal round. The PA has refused, saying it will conduct its own investigation and send the results to the International Criminal Court, which is already investigating possible Israeli war crimes.

In a statement issued Friday, the military said Palestinian gunmen recklessly fired hundreds of rounds at an Israeli military vehicle, some in the direction of where Abu Akleh was standing. It said Israeli forces returned fire, and that without doing ballistic analysis it cannot determine who was responsible for her death.

“The conclusion of the interim investigation is that it is not possible to determine the source of the fire that hit and killed the reporter,” the military said.

Reporters who were with Abu Akleh, including one who was shot and wounded, said there were no clashes or militants in the immediate area when she was killed early Wednesday. All of them were wearing protective equipment that clearly identified them as reporters.

Either side is likely to cast doubt on any conclusions reached by the other, and there did not appear to be any possibility of a third party carrying out an independent probe.

The PA and Al Jazeera accused Israel of deliberately killing Abu Akleh within hours of her death. Israel says a full investigation is needed before any conclusions can be drawn.

Rights groups say Israel rarely follows through on investigations into the killing of Palestinians by its security forces and hands down lenient punishments on the rare occasions when it does. This case, however, is drawing heavy scrutiny because Abu Akleh was a well-known figure and also an American citizen.

Abu Akleh, 51, had joined Al Jazeera's Arabic-language service in 1997 and rose to prominence covering the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising against Israeli rule, in the early 2000s.

She was shot in the head early Wednesday while covering an Israeli arrest raid in Jenin. Palestinians from in and around Jenin have carried out a series of deadly attacks inside Israel in recent weeks, and Israel has launched near daily arrest raids in the area, often igniting gunbattles with militants.

Israeli troops pushed into Jenin again early Friday. An Associated Press photographer heard heavy gunfire and explosions, and said Israeli troops had surrounded a home.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said 13 Palestinians were hospitalized after being wounded in the fighting, including one who was shot in the stomach. The Israeli military tweeted that Palestinians opened fire when its forces went in to arrest suspected militants. Police said a 47-year-old member of a special Israeli commando unit was killed.

Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem — including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims — in the 1967 war. The Palestinians want both territories as part of their future state. Israel annexed east Jerusalem in a move not recognized internationally and views the entire city as its capital.

Police went to Abu Akleh's family home in Jerusalem the day she was killed and have shown up at other mourning events in the city to remove Palestinian flags.

___

Associated Press reporters Majdi Mohammed in Jenin, West Bank, Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

Joseph Krauss, The Associated Press

SEE 

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2022/05/they-kill-journalist-then-attack-her.html

Michigan profs push 'pee for peonies' urine diversion plan

The Canadian Press


ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — A pair of University of Michigan researchers are putting the “pee” in peony.

Rather, they're putting pee ON peonies.

Environmental engineering professors Nancy Love and Krista Wigginton are regular visitors to the Ann Arbor school's Nichols Arboretum, where they have been applying urine-based fertilizer to the heirloom peony beds ahead of the flowers' annual spring bloom.

It's all part of an effort to educate the public about their research showing that applying fertilizer derived from nutrient-rich urine could have environmental and economic benefits.

“At first, we thought people might be hesitant. You know, this might be weird. But we've really experienced very little of that attitude,” Wigginton said. “In general, people think it's funny at first, but then they understand why we're doing it and they support it.”

Love is co-author of a study published in the Environmental Science & Technology journal that found urine diversion and recycling led to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and energy.

Urine contains essential nutrients such as nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus and has been used as a crop fertilizer for thousands of years.

Love said collecting human urine and using it to create renewable fertilizers — as part of what she calls the “circular economy of nutrients” — will lead to greater environmental sustainability.

Think of it not so much as recycling, but “pee-cycling,” Wigginton said.

“We were looking for terms that would catch on but get the idea across, and ‘pee-cycling’ seems to be one that stuck,” she said.

As part of a $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation awarded in 2016, Love and Wigginton have not only been testing advanced urine-treatment methods, but also investigating people's attitudes about the use of urine-derived fertilizers.

That is what brought them to the much-loved campus Peony Garden, which contains more than 270 historic cultivated varieties from the 19th and early 20th centuries representing American, Canadian and European peonies of the era. The garden holds nearly 800 peonies when filled and up to 10,000 flowers at peak bloom.

Love and Wigginton plan to spend weekends in May and June chatting up visitors. One important lesson they learned is about the precision of language.

“We have used the term, ‘pee on the peonies.’ And then it grabs people's attention and then we can talk to them about nutrient flows and nutrient efficiency in our communities and how to be more sustainable," Love said. "It turns out some people thought that that was permission to drop their drawers and pee on the peonies.

“So, this year, we're going to use ‘pee for the peonies’ and hope that we don't have that confusion.”

The urine-derived fertilizer the researchers are using these days originated in Vermont. But if all goes according to plan, they'll be doling out some locally sourced fertilizer next year.

A split-bowl toilet in a campus engineering building is designed to send solid waste to a treatment plant while routing urine to a holding tank downstairs. Urine diverted from the toilet and urinal were to be treated and eventually used to create fertilizers, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced the school to shut down the collection efforts.

In the meantime, the facility is undergoing an upgrade to its freeze concentrator and adding a new, more energy-efficient pasteurizer, both developed by the Vermont-based Rich Earth Institute.

“The whole idea is cycling within a community, so moving toward that we want to take urine from this community and apply it within this community," Wigginton said.

Mike Householder, The Associated Press

'Komodo dragons on steroids': Fossil of predatory water dweller recovered at mine

Yesterday 
The Canadian Press

MAGRATH, ALBERTA — A fossil of a prehistoric lizard "on steroids" has been found at a mining site in southern Alberta.

The partial fossil of a recently discovered mosasaurus was recently discovered at an ammolite mine south of Lethbridge.

It lived in the inland sea that covered Alberta during the Cretaceous Period about 75 million years ago and would often grow to be seven to eight metres long with a skull that was about one metre.

Donald Henderson from the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology said mining operations have been providing a regular supply of various fossils for years and the museum has about 30 partially complete mosasaurus skeletons.

"It does surprise me because there's long sequences of vertical layers of rock where you don't find any and then you come to a layer where there's a whole bunch," Henderson, the museum's dinosaur curator, said in an interview.

"We're very fortunate here in Alberta. We get so many fossil types of reptiles," he said. "We get a bit, I wouldn't, say blasé, but compared to other parts of the world, they would love to have what we have."

Henderson said every find is a little bit different.

"There's always something new to be learned. One of the things we've been tracking the last few years is exactly where in the rock layers they come from. The vertical layer of rock records time," he explained.

"We can see what species are occurring at what different layers … and possibly the menu items, because these things were the top predators."



Fossils have fascinated humankind from time immemorial. These preserved remains from a bygone era transport us through time to discover more about the world before our arrival. In this gallery, discover the most amazing fossils in the world.

Henderson stressed that the mosasaurus is not a dinosaur. He said it descended from land dwelling lizards and, over tens of millions of years, began to adapt to water with the addition of four modified flippers and extra joints in their skulls.

"If you know what the Komodo dragon is like — the world's biggest living lizard — these things are like Komodo dragons on steroids," he said. "A big Komodo dragon is about 10 feet (and) these things are three to four times bigger."

Henderson said they have been able to identify the mosasaurus as a top predator.

We've got a couple of specimens with stomach contents so they were chomping down on fish, turtles and other mosasaurs," he said. "They would eat whatever they could overpower."

John Issa, vice-president for business development for Korite, a Canadian company that mines and sells Alberta’s official gemstone, ammolite, said the company has found 12 mosasaurs there over the last 40 years.

"So it's not a rare occurrence, but it is a special occurrence when it happens," Issa said.

"This piece had an amazing skull piece. It had a jaw section with the teeth for both the uppers and lowers in the same rock."

Mine foreman Evan Kovacs said it was just a normal day until the skull and jawbone, which have already been sent to the museum, were spotted by the operator of the excavator.

"They just moved some material around, scraping it just to level off the machine and they found some brown material, which ended up being the bones of the mosasaur that they found," Kovacs said.

"Every time we find something (that) ends up being a vertebrate fossil, like this mosasaur, it's always a very great moment, the excitement definitely rises."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 11, 2022.

Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press

Ukraine opens online platform where the world can donate to the country

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF - Friday
© (photo credit: REUTERS/VALENTYN OGIRENKO)

Ukraine has opened an online donation platform where anyone from the worldwide web can donate to the country. President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted on Thursday afternoon that he has launched "United 24."

"Only together we have the potential to stop the war that Russia has started and to rebuild what Russia has destroyed," the Ukrainian leader said. "Together we can help freedom defeat tyranny.

"In one click, you can donate funds to protect our defenders, save our civilians and rebuild Ukraine."

All funds donated will be transferred to Ukraine's National Bank and distributed to all relevant ministries, according to the platform's website.

The site also lists the relevant actions that the funds will support, including defense and medical aid to Ukrainian civilians and soldiers.

The website will also provide reports of how much was donated to the platform, the Zelensky said. Its Twitter account wrote that it is "the main venue for making one-click donations from any country in support of Ukraine."

You can follow their Twitter @U24_gov_ua or donate directly to their website at https://u24.gov.ua

Canadian singer and activist Denise Ho among group arrested in Hong Kong: report

Wednesday
The Canadian Press


HONG KONG — Canadian singer and activist Denise Ho is one of at least four people who have been arrested in Hong Kong on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces to endanger China's national security, reports said Wednesday.

U.K.-based human rights group Hong Kong Watch said Ho was detained by Hong Kong’s National Security Police, along with Cardinal Joseph Zen, lawyer Margaret Ng and scholar Hui Po-keung.

The rights group says the arrests are apparently related to their roles as trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which provided legal aid to people who took part in 2019 pro-democracy protests that were quashed by security forces.

Scores of pro-democracy activists have been arrested under a sweeping National Security Law imposed on the city by Beijing in 2020. Ho was previously arrested and briefly detained in December.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, who had voiced her concern following Ho's first arrest, reiterated that sentiment on Wednesday.

"The news of multiple arrests in Hong Kong of former trustees of a legal defence fund, including Denise Ho, is deeply troubling," she wrote on Twitter.

"The ongoing targeting of civil society groups erodes the rights and freedoms of (Hong Kong) residents guaranteed under (Hong Kong's) basic law," Joly added, using pictograms of Hong Kong's flag in place of words.

A spokeswoman for the group Alliance Canada Hong Kong says the arrests are a sign of worsening repression in Hong Kong. "It's not exactly surprising that it happened, but it's still shocking," Ai-Men Lau said. "Especially arresting a 90-year-old cardinal for his peaceful activities," she added in reference to Zen.

Lau said Ho was born in Hong Kong but grew up in Brossard, Que., on Montreal's South Shore. Ho has previously cited her time in Canada as a source of inspiration for her activism, Lau said.

Since returning to Hong Kong, Ho has become a "significant figure" in the pro-democracy community, and she helped run the 612 Fund, said Lau, who urged the Canadian government to ensure Ho receives proper consular support.

Global Affairs Canada said in a statement Wednesday the department was providing consular services to Ho.

Ho's manager, Jelly Cheng, confirmed Ho’s arrest on Wednesday but said she had no other information.

The arrests follow the selection on Sunday of Hong Kong’s new leader, John Lee, a hardline former security chief who ran unopposed in a process controlled by Beijing.

The European Union and foreign ministers from the Group of Seven industrialized countries — including Canada — condemned the election as fundamentally undemocratic and a betrayal of the “one country, two systems” principle under which Hong Kong was supposed to retain its own political, legal and economic system for 50 years after the end of British colonial rule.

Lau, however, urged the Canadian government to go even further in supporting democracy in Hong Kong.

While the statement was a good step, "we haven't seen that followed up with concrete actions: for example, sanctions against Hong Kong officials responsible for the political crackdowns," she said.

She said she also believes Canada should further expand humanitarian programs for those impacted or those seeking to flee Hong Kong due to political persecution.

Hong Kong's government and police had no immediate comment on the reported arrests.

Zen, the retired archbishop of Hong Kong, is a fierce critic of China and has been blistering in his condemnation of the Vatican’s 2018 agreement with Beijing over bishop nominations, which he has said was a sellout of underground Christians in China.

The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, said the Holy See “learned with concern the news of the arrest of Cardinal Zen and is following the evolution of the situation with extreme attention.”

Hui was arrested at Hong Kong’s international airport as he sought to leave the city, Hong Kong Watch said.

“Today’s arrests signal beyond a doubt that Beijing intends to intensify its crackdown on basic rights and freedoms in Hong Kong,” said the group’s chief executive, Benedict Rogers.

“We urge the international community to shine a light on this brutal crackdown and call for the immediate release of these activists,” Rogers said.

The White House also called on China and Hong Kong authorities to cease targeting Hong Kong advocates and immediately release Zen and others who were “unjustly detained and charged,” deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday.

Several leading Hong Kong activists have fled to Taiwan, Britain or elsewhere, while thousands of other Hong Kongers have chosen to leave the city, raising concerns about the economic future of the Asian financial centre of 7.4 million.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 11, 2022.

— by Morgan Lowrie in Montreal; with files from The Associated Press.

The Canadian Press

As Australia votes, indigenous people press call for inclusion in constitution

By Praveen Menon - Yesterday 

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Activists at one of the world's longest-running protests for the rights of indigenous people are not pinning their hopes for change on Australia's May 21 general election.

The election campaign has been dominated by debate about rising prices, COVID-19 and climate change, with the plight of Australia’s 700,000 or so indigenous people, who track near the bottom of its 25 million citizens on almost every economic and social indicator, far from the top of the agenda.

Indigenous Australians maintain presence at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra

"I don't vote and wouldn't vote until we have our own voice," said Gwenda Stanley, an activist living at the "aboriginal tent embassy" camp of shelters on a lawn across from the old parliament building in Canberra.

The site was first occupied 50 years ago to protest against Australia's treatment of its indigenous people, who trace their roots back 65,000 years before British colonialists arrived.

While there may be cynicism about the election, indigenous activists are taking advantage of the campaign to remind political parties of their core demand - that Australia for the first time recognises its original inhabitants in its constitution.

The constitution makes no reference to indigenous people, whose leaders have struggled for generations to win recognition for injustices suffered since the beginning of European colonization in the 1700s.

Denied the vote until the mid-1960s, indigenous people face a 10-year gap in life expectancy compared with other Australians and make up 30% of the prison population. Aboriginal deaths in police custody have been a problem for years despite a Royal Commission looking into the issue since 1991.

The government only issued a formal apology for all injustices in 2008.

Campaigners are seeking a referendum, which is required to make changes to the constitution, on recognising indigenous minorities in the constitution and mandating governments to consult Aboriginal people on decisions that affect their lives.

Activists launched an information campaign last week running on all major television networks calling on political parties to back a referendum in 2023.

Constitutional recognition is a complex issue in a country that only started counting its indigenous people as part of its population in 1967.

But Australians are coming around in ever greater numbers in support of change. Public broadcaster ABC News said last week that 73% of people agreed there should be constitutional change to give indigenous Australians a greater say over their lives.

This was higher than the 64% of voters agreeing to a referendum in the 2019 election.

A successful referendum would bring Australia in line with Canada, New Zealand and the United States in formally recognising indigenous populations.

But the big political parties are divided on how to handle the demand.

Campaigning for the polls, Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week refused to back a referendum saying instead his government's policy was to establish indigenous representation in parliament through legislation.

The ruling coalition had promised in 2019 to hold a referendum and allocated $160 million for the process but little came of it.

Morrison's office did not respond to a request for comment on its views and plans on the issue.

The opposition Labor Party, however, has promised a referendum, a demand first enshrined in a 2017 Uluru Statement at a convention that brought together more than 250 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders at the sacred monolith in central Australia.

"Five years after the Uluru Statement was presented to the Australian people, there should be no more delay. We believe the Australian people are ready," a Labor spokesperson told Reuters.

'BEGGING FOR RIGHTS'

Constitutional change requires approval through a referendum, with the backing of a majority of votes in a majority of states - a rare feat achieved only eight times in 44 attempts since 1901.

But it's the only way to bring about real reform, analysts say.

"If we want to see true structural change that changes how our country works then we need to have a referendum," said James Blackwell, research fellow in Indigenous Diplomacy at the Australian National University, who belongs to the Wiradyuri people.

"It's disappointing in many aspects that we have to keep coming back begging for rights, begging for recognition. But it is the way our system works," said Blackwell, a member of the Uluru Dialogue group of community leaders, legal scholars and activists.

The activists at the Canberra protest are staying put as the politics plays out.

"That's the whole point of this embassy ... to remind the government and the rest of the world that we are still oppressed people," said Stanley, who is from the Gomeroi people.

"We are staying here forever."

(Reporting by Praveen Menon; Editing by Robert Birsel)

PHOTOS © Reuters/LOREN ELLIOTT

KANADA*

Struggle against “violent erasure” of Indigenous languages continues today

The Canadian Press

Federal funding for NEȾOLṈEW̱, an Indigenous-led language revitalization research project, would not be needed if it weren’t for the devastating impacts of colonialism.

“The heart of the matter is really that our field (of Indigenous linguistics) only exists because of the history of this country, of the intentional historical violent erasure of Indigenous languages,” said Dr. Onowa McIvor, director of the NEȾOLṈEW̱ Research Partnership.

NEȾOLṈEW̱, meaning “one mind, one people” in the SENĆOŦEN language, is currently in year six of seven years of funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

McIvor, maskékow-ininiw (Swampy Cree) and Scottish-Canadian, is a professor in Indigenous education and holds a President’s Research Chair at the University of Victoria.

She was joined by Kahtehrón:ni Iris Stacey in a one hour Zoom presentation May 12 on the first of three days for the Big Thinking lecture series hosted virtually by the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Stacey, who is Turtle Clan of the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation from Kahnawà:ke, Mohawk Territory, represents the Kahnawà:ke Education Centre (KEC), one of nine NEȾOLṈEW̱ partners.

While McIvor said it was important to understand the history of the language loss, she also stressed that challenges still existed today.

“It’s also important to remember that this is not only historic. There is an ongoing hostile environment towards Indigenous languages in Canada,” she said. “So acknowledging that ongoing difficulty is also critically important.”

McIvor said it was an “uphill battle” when it came to acknowledging Indigenous languages as the first languages of this country, in creating space and fighting for resources.

“It’s really important for us to pause and acknowledge the truth, even when it makes us uncomfortable, because then we can have a conversation in an honest space because we’re experiencing it. We can’t shy away from it. We experience it every day,” she said.

She added that there could be no reconciliation without first acknowledging the truth.

NEȾOLṈEW̱ is a “radical reclamation of Indigenous languages,” said McIvor, that has been built from the ground up in the nine partnership communities across the country.

The program focuses on adult-language learning. Over the years, it has become apparent that the majority of speakers are becoming elderly, McIvor said.

“We have far too few adult speakers, especially adult speakers who are working age, childbearing age…so there needs to be a specific and special focus on the creation of new adult speakers,” she said.

Stacey said that while in 2022 there are many initiatives and successes to celebrate, the number of language speakers continues to decline.

“The challenges in raising up new speakers are still apparent. So as a community and as the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation we’re stepping up our efforts once again,” said Stacey.

Immersion programs have proven to be the most impactful, she said, and to that end, KEC is focused on supporting their immersion staff who are teaching the language to elementary-aged children.

One in three Elders speak their language, but only one in 10 youth can claim the same.

“It’s not just about elderly speakers, but it’s also those of us who are kind of driving the movement right now that we have a responsibility (to the youth),” said McIvor.

She added that it was important to shift the focus to youth and that it was equally important to have youth guide that focus.

Stacey said language revitalization needed to have the goal of “an intergenerational community of speakers.”

She also pointed out that because of how descriptive Indigenous languages are, they are able to grow and evolve so they can continue to be used and to create vocabulary to represent new concepts or new objects.

McIvor said the focus, at this point, needed to remain with and on Indigenous communities. She said there were still too few Indigenous language speakers and too few resources to branch out into teaching non-Indigenous people.

“I do think that our movement could be strengthened by greater opportunities for non-Indigenous people to learn our languages when appropriate to do so,” she said.

But non-Indigenous people—or allies—still had a role to play in revitalizing Indigenous languages.

“We invite settler allies to take up their responsibility and to have an active role in the continuation and revival of Indigenous languages,” said McIvor, by recognizing that as Canadians, Indigenous languages are also part of their heritage.

The United Nations has declared 2022 to 2032 the Decade of Indigenous Languages.

Organized by the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Congress 2022 serves as a platform for the unveiling of thousands of research papers and presentations from social sciences and humanities experts worldwide. The goal of the three-day event is to inspire ideas, dialogue and action that create a more diverse, sustainable, democratic and just future. More than 6,000 visitors are expected to log in.

Windspeaker.com

By Shari Narine, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Windspeaker.com, Windspeaker.com

*ORIGINAL SPELLING KANADA MEANS VILLAGE IN HURON

Quebec woman raises alarm after region's only horse vet forced out over language law

The Canadian Press

MONTREAL — Horse owners in a part of western Quebec say the province's language laws are forcing them to lose their only veterinarian at a time when there's already a critical shortage of animal doctors.

Local farmer Chantal Chrétien said she learned in late April that her vet, Melissa Jowett, would have to stop treating her two horses at her farm in Quyon, Que., because her French isn't strong enough to pass the language test required to get a permanent licence.

Chrétien said that with Jowett gone, the closest vet who specializes in horses is about a two-hour drive away — which could potentially put the welfare of animals at risk.

"I’m a good advocate for French. I think there’s a good base in that (language) law," she said in a phone interview. "But when the population and the animals need care, we don’t care which language is spoken."

Chrétien said more than half of residents in the Pontiac region where she lives are native English speakers, and the rest are mostly bilingual. She said Jowett's language skills have never posed a problem.

A petition she started asking the province for an exemption for Jowett had gained more than 6,400 signatures as of Wednesday morning.

Jowett could not be reached for comment. But in a statement provided to The Canadian Press, the U.K.-born veterinarian said she had been working under a temporary licence, which she said can no longer be renewed.

"There have been many vets over the years that have been restricted from working in Quebec because of this, and in this, I am no different," she said in the statement dated April 29.

"Unfortunately, languages are not my forte, and although I get by relatively well due to the anglophone/bilingual nature of the Pontiac and La Peche regions, this does not alter the rules of the (French language office)."

Jowett added that she has been discussing with Quebec's veterinary order to see if an exemption is possible, but she says there's no indication one will be granted.

The rules state that a vet can receive a temporary one-year licence that can be extended three times — giving them four years to pass the language test needed to get a permanent permit from the province's order of veterinarians.

Quebec's language watchdog, l'Office québécois de la langue française, says that while licensing is up to professional orders, there is "no provision that allows the Office to exempt a candidate from passing the French exam."

The news comes as Quebec continues to struggle with a lack of veterinarians that has been made worse by the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

In her statement, Jowett said that, besides the issue with the licence, the pressure of being the area's only veterinarian who treats horses has pushed her "dangerously close to burnout."

"There was no support; no team members to give relief emergency cover for the equine work; I was regularly having to refer cases which I would have been able to deal with had I had access to appropriate equipment and assistance," she wrote.

Gaston Rioux, the president of Quebec's order of veterinarians, said Jowett's description of her work is unfortunately common.

He said there is only one university in Quebec that trains vets, and more people have adopted animals during the pandemic when health restrictions also limited how many animals vets can could treat.

He said vets have large overhead costs, often work alone, have to be on call nights and weekends and sometimes face anger or harassment from clients who are upset with outcomes or fees. A survey of 2,800 vets taken a year and a half ago found that 53 per cent of them were considering shifting jobs or leaving the profession altogether, he said.

In that context, he said to lose a vet such as Jowett would be too bad, especially because she works in an area where many people speak English.

"On our side, we want to be in solution mode," he said in a phone interview. "If there's a possibility to allow her to keep practising in Quebec, that's certainly what we'd like."

On the other hand, he said that professional orders in Quebec are bound by the province's language laws, and it's unclear what he can do in this case.

Rioux said the order is working on other solutions to relieve the pressure on vets, including allowing more work to be delegated to technicians, recruiting foreign-trained vets and adding another campus where candidates can study veterinary medicine.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 11, 2022.

Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press