Rolex worn during WWII 'Great Escape' sells for US$189,000 in New York

Gerald Imeson wore the watch until his death in 2003 at the age of 85.

 PHOTO: AFP


NEW YORK (AFP) - A Rolex watch worn by a British prisoner -of-war  during the real-life "Great Escape" from the Nazi Stalag Luft III prisoner-of-war (POW) camp sold for US$189,000 (S$261,000) on Thursday (June 9) in New York.

The final sum for the timepiece, sold to an anonymous buyer, was less than the US$200,000 and US$400,000 expected by Christie's.

The watch was worn by Gerald Imeson on the night of March 24, 1944, when a group of Allied soldiers undertook the daring escape that inspired the 1963 movie starring Steve McQueen.

Imeson had ordered the watch from Rolex in Switzerland, who shipped it via the Red Cross to the prison camp near the present-day Polish town of Zagan, Christie's said.

The steel watch with a black luminous dial and hands was "instrumental in the planning and execution" of their bid for freedom, the auction house added.

Christie's said it believed Imeson's watch helped calculate the time it would take the prisoners to crawl through tunnels used in the breakout as well as timing the patrols of the camp guards.

Imeson wore the Oyster Chronograph watch as he waited 172nd in line to escape, according to Christie's.

Of the 200 prisoners who participated in the plan, 76 briefly escaped. Imeson was not among them. All but three of the men were captured and 50 were executed.

Imeson was liberated from another POW camp at the end of the war in 1945.

He wore the watch until his death in 2003 at the age of 85. It was first auctioned in Britain in 2013.

The watch was sold along with several other items, including a Royal Air Force whistle and a membership card for The Goldfish Club - reserved for pilots and crew who have crash landed into the sea and survived.

Wreck of 17th-century royal warship found off UK coast


LONDON (AP) — Explorers and historians are telling the world about the discovery of the wreck of a royal warship that sank in 1682 while carrying a future king of England, Ireland and Scotland.



The HMS Gloucester, traveling from southern England to Scotland, ran aground while navigating sandbanks off the town of Great Yarmouth on the eastern English coast. It sank within an hour, killing an estimated 130 to 250 crew and passengers.

James Stuart, the son of King Charles I, survived. He went on to reign as King James II of England and Ireland, and as James VII of Scotland from 1685 to 1688, when he was deposed by the Glorious Revolution.

The wreck of the Gloucester was found in 2007 by brothers Julian and Lincoln Barnwell and others after a four-year search. It was firmly identified in 2012 with discovery of the ship’s bell.

The discovery was only made public Friday because of the time it took to confirm the identity of the ship and the need to protect the historical site.

Claire Jowitt, an expert in maritime history at the University of East Anglia, said the wreck was “one of the important ‘almost’ moments in English history.” The Gloucester's sinking almost caused the death of the Catholic heir to the Protestant throne at a time of great political and religious tension in Britain.


“If he had died, we would have had a very different British and European history as a result,” Jowitt said.

“I think this is a time capsule that offers the opportunity to find it out so much about life on a 17th-century ship. The royal nature of the ship is absolutely incredible and unique,” she added.

She believes the wreck is the most important maritime discovery since the Mary Rose, the warship from the Tudor navy of King Henry VIII. The Mary Rose capsized with a crew of around 500 in 1545 in the Solent, a strait between the Isle of Wight and the British mainland. A huge salvage operation brought it back to the surface in 1982.

There are no current plans to raise the wreck of the Gloucester because much of it is buried under sand.

“We’ve only just touched the tip of an iceberg," Julian Barnwell said.

Artifacts rescued from the wreck include clothes, shoes, navigational equipment and many wine bottles. One bottle bears a seal with the crest of the Legge family — the ancestors of George Washington, the first U.S president. The crest was a forerunner to the Stars and Stripes flag.

An exhibition is planned next spring at Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery to display finds from the wreck and share ongoing research.

Sylvia Hui, The Associated Press

Textile industry set to unravel under Pakistan's power crisis


Fri, June 10, 2022


Pakistan's textile exports are set to dramatically dip as the sector is hobbled by a nationwide energy crisis forcing daily power cuts on factories, with an industry leader warning about "a state of emergency" for the manufacturing hub.

The South Asian nation is in the midst of a dire economic crisis, with runaway inflation, a depleted rupee and dwindling foreign exchange reserves hampering energy imports.

Meanwhile a heatwave has caused a surge in electricity demand, leaving a shortfall of over 7,000 megawatts -- one-fifth of Pakistan's generation capacity -- on some days this month, according to government figures.

The energy shortage has hit Pakistan's vital textile industry, which supplies everything from denim to bed linen towards markets in the US and Europe, and accounts for 60 percent of the country's exports.

"The textile industry is in a state of emergency," Qasim Malik, the vice president of the Chamber of Commerce in the manufacturing hub of Sialkot, told AFP.

With authorities forced to ration the power supply with staggered blackouts, Malik said the "unannounced and unscheduled" outages disrupt the textile supply chain, which is "causing millions of rupees of losses".

"Should the power cuts persist there could be a decline of more than 20 percent in exports," warned Sheikh Luqman Amin of the Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

Larger factories tend to have independent power plants, leaving small- and medium-sized factories in cities such as Lahore, Faisalabad and Sialkot most exposed.

Owners have complained of power cuts of eight to 12 hours on a daily basis and face the dilemma of lower production or installing generators powered by petrol, which is also sharply rising in cost.

"We can't accept new orders because we are already behind on previous ones," said Sialkot garment factory owner Usman Arshad.

"Things can't continue to go on this way."

Despite the nation's economic woes, textile exports surged 28 percent to a record $17.67 billion in the fiscal year July-May 2021/22, the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association reported this week.

The Pakistani industry was buoyed by the tail end of the coronavirus pandemic, when it was freed of restrictions earlier than regional rivals India and Bangladesh.

The new government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is set to announce a budget on Friday attempting to turn around Pakistan's dire finances.

It is expected the ledger will include a raft of measures to convince the International Monetary Fund to revive a stalled $6 billion bailout package.

kf/jts/ecl/dhc

La Nina likely to last at least till August: WMO

Jayashree Nandi - TODAY
Hindustan Times

New Delhi: There is a high probability that the ongoing La Niña, which has affected temperatures and rainfall patterns, exacerbated drought and flooding globally, will continue until at least August, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Friday. Some predictions even suggest it might persist into 2023. If so, it will only be the third such instance since 1950 of La Niña lasting three years, WMO said.


© Provided by Hindustan TimesLa Niña has exacerbated drought and flooding globally. (AP)

Experts said La Nina’s continuation may not be bad because it supports good rainfall in India during monsoon. “The first 15 days of monsoon may be slow but we are expecting it to pick up from next week. The forecast of La Nina conditions continuing at least till August is good news,” said Mahesh Palawat, vice president (climate change and meteorology) at Skymet Weather. He added they continue to expect a normal monsoon between 96 to 104% of long period average (LPA). “In fact, rain is likely to be on the higher side of the normal category.’

But longer projections indicate evolving El Nino conditions next year, which could mean severe heat and a poor monsoon in India. “Some projections are [also] suggesting...a devolving La Nina next year. Its early to tell but El Nino, if it arises, will definitely hamper our monsoon in 2023,” said Palawat.

The ongoing drought in the Horn of Africa and southern South America, above average rainfall in South-East Asia and Australasia and predictions for an above average Atlantic hurricane season are all linked to La Nina, WMO said.

“Human induced climate change amplifies the impacts of naturally occurring events like La Niña and is increasingly influencing our weather patterns, in particular through more intense heat and drought and the associated risk of wildfires – as well as record-breaking deluges of rainfall and flooding,” said WMO secretary general Petteri Taalas.

The current La Niña started in September 2020 and continued through mid-May 2022 across the tropical Pacific. There was a temporary weakening between January and February but it has strengthened since March

WMO’s long range forecasts indicate there is about a 70% chance of the La Niña conditions extending into boreal summer this year (June to October), and about 50-60% during July-September.

There are some indications that the probability may increase slightly during the boreal fall of 2022 and early boreal winter of 2022-23 (December to February). “Despite the stubborn La Niña in the equatorial central and eastern Pacific, widespread warmer than-average sea-surface temperatures elsewhere are predicted to dominate the forecast of air temperatures for June-August 2022. However, the extent and strength of predicted warming is less than during March-May 2022... ,” WMO said.

According to India Meteorological Department (IMD), moderate La Niña conditions are prevailing over the equatorial Pacific region. La Niña conditions are likely to continue throughout the forecast period till September. The probability forecast for El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) indicates the enhanced probability for La Niña conditions is likely during most of the forecasted seasons.

In May, IMD said monsoon rainfall between June to September is likely to be “normal” at 103%, with a model error of +/-4%. in April, IMD said monsoon rainfall was likely to be 99% of LPA.

IMD director general M Mohapatra said last month that they have increased the quantum of rainfall likely during monsoon because projections are showing La Nina conditions will continue till the end of monsoon. “La Nina conditions will support normal rains which may be countered a little due to development of negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) conditions over the Indian Ocean.”

La Nina has a cooling influence in India even as it recorded a very unusual spring and summer dominated by extreme record-breaking heat spells. Experts said worse is yet to come during the upcoming El Nino season.

Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology climate scientist Roxy Mathew Koll said intensity of El Ninos has increased and is protected to increase further under background ocean warming. “It is too early to tell if we would have an El Nino next year, but as per the climate cycle and recent trends, it might appear in the next two years and that would break records in terms of global temperatures.”

Koll said El Ninos generally weaken the monsoon winds and can reduce the amount of rainfall in India. “It can also lead to intense marine heatwaves in the Indian Ocean that can affect cyclones and fisheries. So, we should be watchful of upcoming El Ninos, particularly the strong ones.”

La Niña involves the large-scale cooling of the ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean coupled with changes in the tropical atmospheric circulation (winds), pressure and rainfall. It usually has the opposite impacts on weather and climate. El Niño is the warm phase of ENSO, which has a major influence on weather and climate patterns such as heavy rains, floods and drought. In India, El Nino is associated with drought or weak monsoon. La Nina is associated with strong monsoon and above average rains and colder winters.

Art therapy: Dakar's Biennale showcases artwork by psychiatric patients

Issued on: 10/06/2022

With music softly playing in the background and the smell of brewing tea floating in the air, patients at the 'Atelier d'EX-pression' at the Moussa Diop psychiatric clinic in Dakar are busy preparing for the opening of their art exhibition as part the contemporary African art biennale in the Senegalese capital.

Old tricks, new crises: how US misinformation spreads

Daniel FUNKE
Thu, June 9, 2022, 


With gun control under debate and monkeypox in the headlines, Americans are facing a barrage of new twists on years-old misinformation in their social media feeds.

Accurate news stories about mass shootings have attracted eyeballs but algorithms have also spurred baseless conspiracy theories from trolls who want to push lies to attract traffic. And thousands have unwittingly shared them on Facebook, Twitter and other sites.

The May 24 attack at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas was a "false flag" operation aimed at pushing restrictive gun laws, according to Telegram posts from supporters of QAnon.

Carl Paladino, a New York congressional candidate, was among those who shared a similar theory on Facebook, later deleting it.

Others misidentified a shooting victim as "Bernie Gores" -- a made-up name paired with an image of a YouTuber who has been wrongly linked to other major news events, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Experts say such misinformation is part of a pattern in which unscrupulous operators intentionally repurpose old narratives.

"A lot of this stuff is put together almost in this factory production style," said Mike Caulfield, a misinformation researcher at the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public.

"You have a shooting event, you have these various tropes you can apply."

Groundless claims of a "false flag" operation, which refers to political or military action that is carried out with the intention of blaming an opponent, can be traced back to the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

After 20 children and six staff members were killed, InfoWars founder Alex Jones falsely claimed the Newtown casualties were "crisis actors" -- people who are paid or volunteer to play disaster victims.

In November 2021, a Connecticut judge found Jones liable for damages in a defamation suit brought by parents of the victims.

But regardless, allegations of staged mass shootings have routinely spread from fringe online networks such as 4chan to mainstream platforms -- including the social media feeds of politicians such as Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and, more recently, Arizona state senator Wendy Rogers.

Hoax posts misidentifying gunmen or victims as internet personalities have also become common.

In the race to capture online attention following breaking news, recycled narratives can be produced quickly and are easier for audiences to digest, Caulfield said. Content producers "make guesses" about what may go viral based on past popular tropes, which can help monetize that attention.

"When you spread this stuff, you want to be seen as in the know," he said, even though the information is demonstrably false or misleading.

- Copying the Covid-19 playbook -

Similarly, false claims about the recent spread of monkeypox -- a rare disease related to smallpox -- borrow from Covid-19 misinformation.

Since the outbreak, social media posts have claimed without evidence that the virus is a bioweapon, that the outbreak was planned, and that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is behind it. Others have falsely equated monkeypox to other viruses, including shingles.

Those claims resemble debunked conspiracy theories from the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Memetica, a firm that conducts digital investigations, has researched some of the top Covid-19 misinformation recycled for monkeypox. One widespread theory points to a 2021 threat preparation exercise conducted by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) as purported evidence that the outbreak was planned.

That conspiracy theory is nearly identical to claims about Event 201, a pandemic simulation held in October 2019, that circulated online in early 2020.

"What was surprising to me was how similar (Covid-19 misinformation) is now to monkeypox," Adi Cohen, chief operating officer at Memetica, told AFP.

"It's the same exact story -- oh, this is all planned, it's a 'plandemic,' here's the proof."

Some monkeypox theories have been shared by conservative figures including Glenn Beck and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr, according to Memetica's research. Both have previously promoted misinformation about Covid-19.

Cohen said such tactics may be an effective way to get engagement on social media, regardless of the falsity of the information being shared.

"It's the replication of what seems to work in the past," he said. "Why work hard when you don't have to?"

df/adm/sst/aha

Open season: Italy to allow public tenders to manage beaches

Author: AFP|Update: 10.06.2022 

Running Italy's beaches can be lucrative, with a set of two loungers and a parasol costing up to 100 euros ($108) a day / © AFP

Italy has some spectacular beaches but the majority are private, run in an opaque and sometimes shady manner that the government has finally decided to bring into the light.

Up and down Italy's 7,500-kilometre (4,660-mile) coastline, rows of parasols and matching sunbeds fill the sand, with only a few so-called "free beaches" dotted between them.

They provide comfort and shade from the blazing heat, but are also money-making operations, with a set of two loungers and a parasol costing up to 100 euros ($108) a day at peak periods.

Yet the concessions for the beaches have since 1992 been automatically renewed, with the result that they often pay a pittance and are subject to very little oversight -- opening the door to tax fraud, mismanagement and even criminal elements.

Following years of pressure from the European Union, Prime Minister Mario Draghi's government has finally agreed to bring in a public tender system, to take effect from 2024.

Everyone who owns a concession will have to reapply, but details of how to compensate the losers for past investments in parasols, shower units and restaurants are still being ironed out.

Maurizio Rustignoli, head of the Fiba-Confesercenti, a trade union that represents beach managers, says the uncertainty is "unacceptable".

In Fregene, a popular beach resort north of Rome, Fabio Di Vilio is the third generation of his family to run the La Scialuppa restaurant and resort.

"I think it's fair if it's done seriously," he said of the reform, as he prepared the tropical-style straw parasols for the start of the season last month.

Beaches are managed by local authorities, and there are vast regional differences / © AFP

He noted the need "to ensure -- if we were to go to auction -- that there were no irregularities".

But the 38-year-old is frustrated at the lack of thought for concession-holders like him.

"You have to give security to those who have a whole history behind them, it's not only an economic investment, it's also a sentimental question," he told AFP.

- 'Not always legal' -

Although the idea of paying to sit by the sea is an unwelcome surprise for many tourists, most Italians are used to the idea, as long as the facilities and the beach are kept clean.

"It would certainly be a good thing if there were more free beaches, provided they do not become, as we often see, a dump," noted Luca Siciliano, 71, sunbathing on the Fregene beach.

He said it was a "good thing" to introduce more competition into the private establishments.

"Because as we know, and I'm sorry to say, behind all this sometimes there are things that are not always legal," he said.

Although the idea of paying to sit by the sea is an unwelcome surprise for many tourists, most Italians are used to the idea / © AFP

As often occurs in Italy, the mafia have got in on the act.

Last month, the Italian agency that manages assets seized from organised crime groups launched a public call for tenders for a concession in Calabria, home of the 'Ndrangheta.

And there is also the matter of undeclared revenues. Despite their number -- there were just over 12,000 concessions in May 2021, according to official figures -- the state only takes in 100 million euros a year from such establishments.

Beaches are managed by local authorities, and there are vast regional differences.

In 2020, 59 concessions in Arzachena, on Sardinia's exclusive Costa Smeralda, brought in just 19,000 euros -- an average of 322 euros paid by each per year, according to daily Il Fatto Quotidiano.

The government has already moved to regularise the system by introducing a minimum annual payment of 2,500 euros.

Even with this, many beach concessions are big business.

According to Il Fatto, almost 6,000 concessions monitored by the finance ministry declared average revenues of 180,000 euros a year -- and two thirds failed to declare the full amount.

ALWAYS DO THE UNEXPECTED
'No choice': The young UK climate activist pushing protest boundaries

Sylvain PEUCHMAURD
Thu, 9 June 2022,

At the age of just 21, former engineering student Louis McKechnie has already been arrested 20 times and spent six weeks in prison.

It's made him one of the most recognisable faces among Britain's climate change activists.

In the last two years, he's been part of a number of groups using increasingly radical, hard-hitting stunts to raise awareness of the issue.

After Extinction Rebellion, Animal Rebellion and Insulate Britain, McKechnie is now a full-time member of Just Stop Oil, which wants a halt to all new fossil fuel projects.

In March, he risked the wrath of football fans when he tied himself to a goalpost in the middle of a match between Newcastle and Everton.

"I was seriously terrified," he told AFP. "It was 40,000 people screaming 'wanker, wanker, wanker'."

Despite feeling a "wave of guilt" at intruding on the fans' sporting passion, he managed to halt the Premier League fixture for seven minutes.

McKechnie, who used a zip tie around his neck, said he felt vindicated.

"I was doing it for them (the fans) at the same time. Their government is lying to them and they deserve the right to know that," he said.

One angry fan kicked him in the head but McKechnie said he didn't feel it. Hundreds of death threats afterward though forced him off social media.
- Selfish minority -

"I was expecting to be public enemy number one... but it's a sacrifice I'm perfectly willing to make. We knew we wouldn't be popular," said McKechnie.

But he believes it was worth it, if even just a fraction of the crowd looked up Just Stop Oil online afterward to see what it is about.

"I don't need them to agree with the tactics, just agree with the message," he said.

Since his first direct action protest -- a solo roadblock -- McKechnie has disrupted the red carpet at the BAFTA awards.

He spent 53 hours 50 feet (15 metres) off the ground on the pipes of an oil terminal in Scotland and damaged pumps at a petrol station.

It was a protest blockading the London orbital motorway the M25 that landed him behind bars, along with eight other members of Insulate Britain, which campaigns for better home insulation.

He was jailed on his 21st birthday on November 17.

The judge accused the protesters of breaking "the social contract under which, in a democratic society, the public can properly be expected to tolerate peaceful protest".

Behind bars, though, he said two inmates approached him shortly after his arrival to say thank you.

The right-wing tabloid press has been particularly critical of the protesters, calling them "eco-anarchists" and accusing them of "sabotage".

The Daily Mail branded McKechnie an "eco-zealot" and took aim at his long hair and aviator-style glasses, calling him a "John Lennon lookalike".

The government now wants to bolster its legislative arsenal against the "guerrilla" techniques of what it calls a "selfish minority of protesters" for disrupting the lives of ordinary Britons.

But McKechnie said: "We're not going to stop, because we can't afford to. We're more scared of the climate crisis."
- 'More radical, more outrageous' -

McKechnie added he sees no end to the protests, as long as they remain non-violent and do not endanger lives.

"We're not doing this because it's fun. We're doing this because we're desperate," he said.

Three decades of demonstrations and petitions have not worked, he noted.

"If things keep not working, we're going to have to keep escalating. We're going to have to keep getting more radical, more outrageous.

"Not because we want to, but because we have no choice."

McKechnie is originally from Weymouth, a small coastal town in southern England that is threatened by rising sea levels.

He was still a child when his mother, a local environmentalist, studied sustainable development in lower income countries.

"A big part of her life was trying to get change through the political system and I saw her try and fail for so many years," he said.

His father Alex, a teacher, describes his son as a "studious, thoughtful, quiet young man".

"He's not a hooligan," he told AFP.

"He's not afraid of confrontation. He's in the right place at the right time, and that's very gratifying as a parent to see," he added.

For McKechnie, the road might be long but he's not giving up.

"We're trying to educate people," he said. "It's working slower than we'd like but it is working."

spe/gmo/phz/jj/jv

Turkish hilltop where civilisation began

by Fulya Ozerkan

Mysterious: The carved T-shaped megaliths at the prehistoric Gobekli Tepe near Sanliurfa, Turkey.

On a sun-blasted hillside in southeast Turkey, the world's oldest known religious sanctuary is slowly giving up its secrets.

"When we open a new trench, we never know what to expect," said Lee Clare of the German Archaeology Institute, who has been excavating there since 2013.

"It is always a big surprise."

Gobekli Tepe, which means "Potbelly Hill" in Turkish, is arguably the most important archaeological site on Earth.

Thousands of our prehistoric ancestors gathered around its highly-decorated T-shaped megalith pillars to worship more 7,000 years before Stonehenge or the earliest Egyptian pyramids.

"Its significance is hard to overstate," Sean Lawrence, assistant professor of history at West Virginia University, told AFP.

Academics believe the history of human settlement began in these hills close to the Syrian border some 12,000 years ago when groups of Stone Age hunter gatherers came together to construct these sites.

Gobekli Tepe—which some experts believe was never actually inhabited—may be part of a vast sacred landscape that encompasses other nearby hilltop sites that archaeologists believe may be even older.

Endless mystery

Archaeologists working on the Gobekli Tepe site in southeastern Turkey, one of the most important in the world.

None of which anyone would have guessed before the German archeologist and pre-historian Klaus Schmidt began to bring the first discoveries to the surface in 1995.

German and Turkish archaeologists have been laboring in the sun there since, with lengthening queues of tourists now joining them to ponder its many mysteries.

When exactly it all began is even unclear.

"Exact years are nearly impossible to verify," Lawrence said.

"However, the oldest Egyptian monument, the Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara, was built around 2700 BCE," more than seven millennia after Gobekli Tepe.

"This was the end of what is often thought of as Stone Age hunter gatherer societies and the beginning of settled societies," Lawrence added.

"There remain endless mysteries surrounding the site, including how labor was organized and how the sites were used," he said.

Earth mother: One of the carved stones found at the prehistoric Gobekli Tepe site in Turkey shows a woman giving birth.

Gobekli Tepe has even inspired the Netflix sci-fi psychological thriller series "The Gift", which turns on one of the ancient inscriptions on its pillars.

Schmidt—who often wore a white traditional turban on the dig—puzzled over the megaliths carved with the images of foxes, boars, ducks, lizards and a leopard for over two decades until his early death at the age of 61 in 2014.

'Zero point in time'

The site was initially believed to be purely ritual in nature. But according to Clare, there is now "good evidence" for the beginning of settled life with some buildings similar to those of the same age found in northern Syria.

Turkey—which in the past has not been renowned for making the best of its vast archaeological heritage—has wholeheartedly embraced the discoveries.

The items excavated from Gobekli Tepe are shown in the impressive archaeological museum in the nearest city, Sanliurfa, which is itself so ancient that Abraham is believed to have been born there.

Indeed its new museum built in 2015 boasts "the most extensive collection of the neolithic era in the world," according to its director Celal Uludag. "All of the portable artifacts from Gobekli Tepe are exhibited here."

Major draw: Visitors take pictures at the archaeological site of Gobekli Tepe near Sanliurfa, Turkey.

"This is a journey to civilisation, (to the) zero point in time," said Aydin Aslan, head of Sanliurfa Culture and Tourism Directorate.

"Gobekli Tepe sheds light on pre-history, that's why it's a common heritage of humanity," he said proudly.

'Go deeper'

Last year Turkey's culture ministry boosted funding for further excavations in the region as a part of its "Stone Hills" project, including cash for the Karahan Tepe hilltop site—around 35 kilometers from Gobekli Tepe—which some suspect is even older.

"We will now go deeper because Gobekli Tepe is not the one and only," Culture Minister Nuri Ersoy said last year.

The extra funding "gives us a fantastic opportunity to compare our results from Gobekli Tepe with new sites in the Sanliurfa region of the same age," Clare said.

Gobekli Tepe has also breathed life back into a poor and long neglected region, which has been further hit by the civil war just across the border. Syrian refugees now make up a quarter of Sanliurfa's population.

Carvings of ducks on one of the pillars at the prehistoric Gobekli Tepe site in Sanliurfa, Turkey.

Over one million tourists visited Sanliurfa in 2019 and the city expects to reach pre-pandemic levels this year.

"Today Gobekli Tepe has started directly touching the economy of the city," Aslan said, who hopes that its glorious past could be a key part of the city's future.


Explore furtherGeometry guided construction of earliest known temple, built 6,000 years before Stonehenge

© 2022 AFP

The age of outbreaks: Experts warn of more animal disease threats

Author: AFP|10.06.2022 

Bats are a common spreader of zoonotic diseases, which experts warn could increase due to a range of human-induced upheavals to the animal world / © ANP/AFP/File

With the spread of monkeypox across the world coming hot on the heels of Covid-19, there are fears that increasing outbreaks of diseases that jump from animals to humans could spark another pandemic.

While such diseases -- called zoonoses -- have been around for millennia, they have become more common in recent decades due to deforestation, mass livestock cultivation, climate change and other human-induced upheavals of the animal world, experts say.

Other diseases to leap from animals to humans include HIV, Ebola, Zika, SARS, MERS, bird flu and the bubonic plague.

The World Health Organization said on Thursday that it is still investigating the origins of Covid, but the "strongest evidence is still around zoonotic transmission".

And with more than 1,000 monkeypox cases recorded globally over the last month, the UN agency has warned there is a "real" risk the disease could become established in dozens of countries.

The WHO's emergencies director Michael Ryan said last week that "it's not just in monkeypox" -- the way that humans and animals interact has become "unstable".

"The number of times that these diseases cross into humans is increasing and then our ability to amplify that disease and move it on within our communities is increasing," he said.

Monkeypox did not recently leap over to humans -- the first human case was identified in DR Congo in 1970 and it has since been confined to areas in Central and Western Africa.

Monkeypox / © AFP/File

Despite its name, "the latest monkeypox outbreak has nothing to do with monkeys," said Olivier Restif, epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge.

While it was first discovered in macaques, "zoonotic transmission is most often from rodents, and outbreaks spread by person-to-person contact," he told AFP.

- Worse yet to come? -

Around 60 percent of all known human infections are zoonotic, as are 75 percent of all new and emerging infectious diseases, according to the UN Environment Programme.

Restif said the number of zoonotic pathogens and outbreaks have increased in the past few decades due to "population growth, livestock growth and encroachment into wildlife habitats".

"Wild animals have drastically changed their behaviours in response to human activities, migrating from their depleted habitats," he said.

"Animals with weakened immune systems hanging around near people and domestic animals is a sure way of getting more pathogen transmission."

WHO has warned there is a "real" risk that monkeypox could become established in nations where it has recently spread 

© Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/AFP/File

Benjamin Roche, a specialist in zoonoses at France's Institute of Research for Development, said that deforestation has had a major effect.

"Deforestation reduces biodiversity: we lose animals that naturally regulate viruses, which allows them to spread more easily," he told AFP.

And worse may be to come, with a major study published earlier this year warning that climate change is ramping the risk of another pandemic.

As animals flee their warming natural habitats they will meet other species for the first time -- potentially infecting them with some of the 10,000 zoonotic viruses believed to be "circulating silently" among wild mammals, mostly in tropical forests, the study said.

Greg Albery, a disease ecologist at Georgetown University who co-authored the study, told AFP that "the host-pathogen network is about to change substantially".

- 'We have to be ready' -

"We need improved surveillance both in urban and wild animals so that we can identify when a pathogen has jumped from one species to another -- and if the receiving host is urban or in close proximity to humans, we should get particularly concerned," he said.

Hidden threat: 10,000 viruses that could infect humans are 'circulating silently' among wild mammals in tropical forests / © AFP/File

Eric Fevre, a specialist in infectious diseases at Britain's University of Liverpool and the International Livestock Research Institute in Kenya, said that "a whole range of new, potentially dangerous diseases could emerge -- we have to be ready".

This includes "focusing the public health of populations" in remote environments and "better studying the ecology of these natural areas to understand how different species interact".

Restif said that there is "no silver bullet -- our best bet is to act at all levels to reduce the risk".

"We need huge investment in frontline healthcare provision and testing capacity for deprived communities around the world, so that outbreaks can be detected, identified and controlled without delays," he said.

On Thursday, a WHO scientific advisory group released a preliminary report outlining what needs to be done when a new zoonotic pathogen emerges.

It lists a range of early investigations into how and where the pathogen jumped to humans, determining the potential risk, as well as longer-term environmental impacts.