Tiny Worms Living Near Chernobyl Have Evolved a Remarkable New Talent

Story by Michelle Starr

Microscopic worms that live their lives in the highly radioactive environment of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ) appear to do so completely free of radiation damage.

Nematodes collected from the area have shown no sign of damage to their genomes, contrary to what might be expected for organisms living in such a dangerous place. The finding doesn't suggest the CEZ is safe, the researchers say, but rather the worms are resilient and able to adroitly adapt to conditions that might be inhospitable to other species.

This, says a team of biologists led by Sophia Tintori of New York University, could offer some insights into DNA repair mechanisms that could one day be adapted for use in human medicine.

Since the explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in April 1986, the area around it and the nearby town of Pripyat in Ukraine have been strictly off-limits to anybody without government approval. The radioactive materials deposited into the environment expose organisms to extremely unsafe levels of ionizing radiation, greatly enhancing the risk of mutation, cancer, and death.

It's going to be thousands of years before 'Chornobyl', as it is spelt in Ukraine, is safe for human habitation again. Most of us know that and steer clear accordingly. But animals … well, they don't understand to stay away. They go where they want, and the exclusion zone has since become a strange sort of radioactive, 2,600-square kilometer (1,000 square mile) animal sanctuary.

Tests of animals that live in the region have shown clear genetic differences from animals that don't. But there's still a lot we don't know about the effects of the disaster on the local ecosystems.

"Chornobyl was a tragedy of incomprehensible scale, but we still don't have a great grasp on the effects of the disaster on local populations," Tintori says. "Did the sudden environmental shift select for species, or even individuals within a species, that are naturally more resistant to ionizing radiation?"

One way to gain insights into this question is to look at nematodes – microscopic roundworms that live in a range of habitats (including the bodies of other organisms). Nematodes can be remarkably hardy; there have been multiple cases of nematodes reawakening after thousands of years frozen in permafrost.

They have simple genomes, and live short lives, which means multiple generations can be studied in a short space of time. This makes them excellent model organisms for studying a range of things, from biological development, to DNA repair and toxin response. This is why Tintori and her colleagues went digging in Chornobyl to find nematodes of the species Oschieus tipulae, which typically lives in soil.

They collected hundreds of nematodes from rotten fruit, leaf litter, and the soil in the CEZ, using Geiger counters to measure ambient radiation and wearing protective suits against radioactive dust. The researchers cultured nearly 300 of their collected worms in a laboratory, and selected 15 specimens of O. tipulae for genome sequencing.

These sequenced genomes were then compared to the sequenced genomes of five specimens of O. tipulae from elsewhere in the world – the Philippines, Germany, the United States, Mauritius, and Australia.

The CEZ worms were mostly more genetically similar to each other than they were to the other worms, with the genetic distance corresponding to the geographic distance for the entire 20-strain sample. But signs of DNA damage from the radiation environment were lacking.

The team carefully analyzed the worms' genome, and found no evidence of the large-scale chromosomal rearrangements expected from a mutagenic environment. They also found no correlation between the mutation rate of the worms, and the strength of the ambient radiation at the location each worm hailed from.

Finally, they conducted tests on the descendents on each of the 20 worm strains to determine how well the population tolerates DNA damage. Although each lineage had a different tolerance level, this, too, had no correlation with the ambient radiation to which their ancestors were exposed.

The team could only conclude that there is no evidence of any genetic impact of the CEZ environment on the genomes of O. tipulae.

And what they did find could help researchers try to figure out why some humans are more susceptible to cancer than others.

"Now that we know which strains of O. tipulae are more sensitive or more tolerant to DNA damage, we can use these strains to study why different individuals are more likely than others to suffer the effects of carcinogens," Tintari says.

"Thinking about how individuals respond differently to DNA-damaging agents in the environment is something that will help us have a clear vision of our own risk factors."

The research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

GEMOLOGY

Lab-grown diamonds come with sparkling price tags, but many have cloudy sustainability claims




PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The muted sounds of hammering and sanding drift down to the first floor of Bario Neal, a jewelry store in Philadelphia, where rustic artwork that mimics nature hangs on warmly-lit walls.

Waiting for one of those rings is Haley Farlow, a 28-year-old second grade teacher who has been designing her three-stone engagement ring with her boyfriend. They care about price and also don't want jewelry that takes a toll on the Earth, or exploits people in mining. So they're planning on buying diamonds grown in a laboratory.

“Most of my friends all have lab-grown. And I think it just fits our lifestyle and, you know, the economy and what we’re living through,” said Farlow.

In the U.S., lab-grown diamond sales jumped 16% in 2023 from 2022, according to Edahn Golan, an industry analyst. They cost a fraction of the stones formed naturally underground.

Social media posts show millennials and Generation Zs proudly explaining the purchase of their lab-grown diamonds for sustainability and ethical reasons. But how sustainable they are is questionable, since making a diamond requires an enormous amount of energy and many major manufacturers are not transparent about their operations.

Farlow said the choice of lab-grown makes her ring “more special and fulfilling” because the materials are sourced from reputable companies. All of the lab diamonds at Bario Neal are either made with renewable energy or have the emissions that go into making them countered with carbon credits, which pay for activities like planting trees, which capture carbon.

Related video: Lab-grown diamonds (Action News Jax)

Duration 2:55   View on Watch

But that's not the norm for lab-grown diamonds.

Many companies are based in India, where about 75% of electricity comes from burning coal. They use words like “sustainable” and “environmentally-friendly” on their websites, but don't post their environmental impact reports and aren’t certified by third parties. Cupid Diamonds, for example, says on its website that it produces diamonds in “an environmentally friendly manner,” but did not respond to questions about what makes its diamonds sustainable. Solar energy is rapidly expanding in India and there are some companies, such as Greenlab Diamonds, that utilize renewables in their manufacturing processes.

China is the other major diamond manufacturing country. Henan Huanghe Whirlwind, Zhuhai Zhong Na Diamond, HeNan LiLiang Diamond, Starsgem Co. and Ningbo Crysdiam are among the largest producers. None returned requests for comment nor post details about where it gets its electricity. More than half of China's electricity came from coal in 2023.

In the United States, one company, VRAI, whose parent company is Diamond Foundry, operates what it says is a zero-emissions foundry in Wenatchee, Washington, running on hydropower from the Columbia River. Martin Roscheisen, CEO and founder of Diamond Foundry, said via email the power VRAI uses to grow a diamond is "about one tenth of the energy required for mining.”

But Paul Zimnisky, a diamond industry expert, said companies that are transparent about their supply chain and use renewable energy like this “represent a very small portion of production.”

“It seems like there are a lot of companies that are riding on this coattail that it’s an environmentally-friendly product when they aren’t really doing anything that’s environmentally friendly,” said Zimnisky.

HOW IT'S DONE

Lab diamonds are often made over several weeks, subjecting carbon to high pressure and high temperature that mimic natural conditions that form diamonds beneath the Earth’s surface.

The technology has been around since the 1950’s, but the diamonds produced were mostly used in industries like stone cutting, mining and dentistry tools.

Over time the laboratories, or foundries, have gotten better at growing stones with minimal flaws. Production costs have dropped as technology improves.

That means diamond growers can manufacture as many stones as they want and choose their size and quality, which is causing prices to fall rapidly. Natural diamonds take billions of years to form and are difficult to find, making their price more stable.

Diamonds, whether lab-grown or natural, are chemically identical and entirely made out of carbon. But experts can distinguish between the two, using lasers to pinpoint telltale signs in atomic structure. The Gemological Institute of America grades millions of diamonds annually.

MARKETING COMPETITION


With lower prices for lab-grown and young people increasingly preferring them, the new diamonds have cut into the market share for natural stones. Globally, lab-grown diamonds are now 5-6% of the market and the traditional industry is not taking it sitting down. The marketing battle is on.

The mined diamond industry and some analysts warn lab-grown diamonds won't hold value over time.

“Five to ten years into the future, I think there’s going to be very few customers that are willing to spend thousands of dollars for a lab diamond. I think almost all of it’s going to sell in the $100 price point or even below,” said Zimnisky. He predicts that natural diamonds will continue to sell in the thousands and tens of thousands of dollars for engagement rings.

Some cultures view engagement rings as investments and choose natural diamonds for their value over the long term. That’s particularly true in China and India, Zimnisky said. It's also still true in more rural areas of the United States, while lab-grown diamonds have taken off more in the cities.

Paying thousands of dollars for something that drops most of its value in just a few years can leave the buyer feeling cheated, which Golan said is an element that is currently working against the lab-grown sector.

“When you buy a natural diamond, there’s a story that it is three billion years in the making by Mother Earth. This wondrous creation of nature … you cannot tell that story with a lab-grown,” said Golan. “You very quickly make the connection between forever and the longevity of the love.”

“If we really want to get technical here, the greenest diamond is a repurposed or recycled diamond because that uses no energy,” Zimnisky said.

Page Neal said she co-founded Bario Neal in 2008 to “create jewelry of lasting value that would have a positive impact on people and the planet.” All of the materials in her jewelry can be traced throughout their supply chain. The store offers both lab-grown and natural diamonds.

“Jewelry is a powerful symbol ... it’s a keeper of memories,” she said. “But when we’re using materials that have caused harm to other people and the environment to create a symbol of love and commitment or identity, to me it feels at odds. We want to only work with materials that we feel like our clients would be proud to own."

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Isabella O'malley, The Associated Press

Jason Momoa: From the ashes we rise — how nature can still heal

Opinion by Opinion by Jason Momoa

Editor’s Note: Jason Momoa is an actor and UN Environment Programme’s Global Advocate for Life Below Water. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.

Seven months ago, a fiery blaze raged through my ancestral land of Hawaii, consuming thousands of acres, with Lahaina in Maui at the epicenter. Experts say the fires were supercharged by climate change, and native plant species being replaced with less fire-resistant ornamental species.

Almost 100 human lives were claimed, along with those of countless domestic and wild animals. Thousands of buildings were destroyed, with rebuilding costs estimated at over $5 billion. Cancerous pollutants have turned up in the public water system, and accelerated soil erosion stands to further degrade the island’s corals.


Jason Momoa - Courtesy Jason Roman© Provided by CNN

Many more hearts are broken as wildfires spread across the continents all the way to the Arctic. The UN Environment Programme, for which I am a Global Advocate for Life Below Water, says that by the end of the century, the number of global wildfires could rise by 50%.

Wildfires are just one cause for alarm over the future of the world’s ecosystems. There is no shortage of signals of the breakdown of nature itself at the hands of mankind. Around 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction. Freshwater sources and coastlines are rapidly degrading. So are forests, grasslands, shrublands, and peatlands. From vast savannahs and mountainous landscapes to urban and rural microecosystems, three-quarters of the Earth’s land surface has been significantly altered by human actions, as has two-thirds of the world’s ocean, which makes up 70% of Earth’s surface.

An aerial image taken on August 10, 2023, shows buildings burned to the ground in Lahaina by wildfires in western Maui, Hawaii. - Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images© Provided by CNN

Several weeks after fires turned much of our historic town of Lahaina into ashes, newspapers raved about a colossal 150-year-old banyan tree that was charred and then sprouted new green leaves. As encouraging as nature’s resilience and spontaneous rebirth may be, it is not enough to heal nature at the rate we need.

The harm caused to nature since the dawn of the industrial era is so extensive that efforts must be taken to protect what is left and restore what has been degraded. This means immediate action, joining hands, and working together from the poles to the Pacific islands.

Key to this success will be putting Indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge and community voices at the heart of our decision-making going forward. Western systems have blinded our vision. Indigenous people protect the land, the Earth. We need to go back to allowing them to do so. We must apply this thinking towards the recovery of Lahaina, with local organizations and grassroots initiatives at the forefront and working tirelessly to support their community.

Benefiting from the collective wisdom of the Hawaiian people, who have been traveling across the Pacific for over 2,000 years, using traditional navigational methods to migrate the 2,400-mile path to and from Tahiti, requires recognizing them as the Indigenous people of the ocean.

Governments are also starting to act: All 193 countries that are members of the United Nations committed to a Decade of Restoration and to build back one billion hectares by the end of this decade, an area about the size of China. In the twilight of 2022, a historic deal to protect nature was reached, followed by a first-ever deal to protect the high seas, and other landmark decisions.

On the ground, the world’s most visionary efforts towards building back nature are happening now, reclaiming more and more human-encroached spaces. From an initiative to save Andean forests across seven countries and 3,000 miles, to the expansion of Sri Lanka’s mangrove cover by 50%, and a restored forest that helped double Nepal’s tiger population; from regreening efforts in collaboration with farmers from Senegal to Tanzania to create hundreds of thousands of jobs and bring vast areas affected by desertification back to life, through investments by Pakistani communities in restoring over 30% of the Indus River Basin following deadly floods that struck the country, to the largest-ever restoration initiative to prevent wildfires across the Mediterranean.


In Nepal, the Terai Arc Landscape initiative has helped wildlife to bounce back.

 - Muna Thapa© Provided by CNN

These seven initiatives have now been recognized as UN World Restoration Flagships. Last week in Nairobi, in an assembly of the world’s environment ministers, restoration featured prominently in discussions of ministers of environment and other leaders from more than 180 nations.

There is a viral quality to acts of kindness towards nature, and they can inspire additional action from individuals, communities, NGOs, celebrities, scientific institutions, corporations, and governments. Solutions are bound to breed more hope, and every individual action can build up to a massive wave of change, which I call mana (spiritual life-force) nalu (wave).

Even without superpowers, we’re the most powerful creatures in Earth’s history. It remains entirely up to us to determine how that power shall be unleashed.

Do we restore Lahaina and other degraded areas using nature-based solutions that build on what had worked for centuries before, or do we let powerful profit-driven corporations steamroll our voices? My appeal to our generation is to embrace and advocate for the restoration of nature and start making waves.

First Nations Life Expectancy Has Plummeted. How to Change That

Story by The Canadian Press

 

Due to the toxic drug crisis and later the COVID-19 pandemic, life expectancy for First Nations people in British Columbia decreased by 7.1 years between 2015 to 2021.

The largest drop happened between 2019 and 2021 when life expectancy shortened 5.8 years, says Dr. Nel Wieman, chief medical officer at the First Nations Health Authority. Wieman is Anishinaabe from Little Grand Rapids First Nation.

The unregulated toxic drug supply is the leading cause of the decrease, with First Nations people “vastly overrepresented” in toxic drug deaths, Wieman says.

In comparison, life expectancy of non-Indigenous residents of B.C. decreased by 1.1 years between 2019 to 2021.

Some of the biggest factors are inequities and trauma caused by colonialism; Indigenous-specific racism in every part of the health-care system, as reflected in the 2020 “In Plain Sight” report; stigma around drug use; and a lack of services available for First Nations people, experts told The Tyee.

For the last 50 years, First Nations life expectancy had been increasing annually by 0.2 years, says Dr. Danièle Behn Smith, deputy provincial health officer for Indigenous health. Behn Smith is Eh Cho Dene of Fort Nelson First Nation and Franco-Manitoban/Métis from the Red River Valley.

Related video: Pierre Poilievre commits to giving First Nations control of tax and resource funds (The Canadian Press)   Duration 4:35   View on Watch

In 2011, life expectancy was 75.9 years. Then 2014 hit, when the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl entered the unregulated drug market and drove up toxic drug deaths for First Nations and the general population alike. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated harm by isolating people, keeping them from harm reduction services and driving them to use alone.

Historic and present-day colonial impacts create inequity in almost every part of society for First Nations people, Behn Smith says. There is food insecurity when people are unable to access traditional food systems. There is “manufactured poverty” — where Canada has gotten rich from resource extraction, but the majority of First Nations have not. There are high rates of overcrowding or being unhoused.

For these reasons and others, First Nations have higher rates of underlying health conditions that, for example, affect lung health and increase rates of diabetes.

Then there’s intergenerational trauma from a history of colonialism and system of oppression.

Tania Dick, Indigenous nursing lead at the University of British Columbia’s school of nursing, says residential schools added “hugely traumatic layers to our existence that are still raw and fresh.” Indigenous Peoples are trying to work their way through the trauma and heal but society at large isn’t helping them do that, she adds. Some Indigenous people use drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism, leading to high rates of addiction.

Behn Smith says that when she worked as a family doctor, she would acknowledge drug use as “really powerful medicines that they need right now,” and then see if she could shift a patient to something with less harmful side-effects over time.

The increasing toxicity of illicit drugs has increased the chances these side-effects will be deadly. Behn Smith compares the current unregulated drug supply to “Russian roulette” because the drugs are so potent and likely contaminated with a toxic level of other substances.

Then there’s Indigenous-specific racism, pushing Indigenous people away from health services the same way getting repeatedly burned after touching a hot object teaches you to stay away, Dick says.

Wieman says she’s heard racism called the third undeclared public health emergency because it negatively affects people’s ability to access harm reduction services or prescribed safer supply.

“People choose not to access health services because they fear the treatment or are worried because of a past experience or stories they heard from friends and family,” Wieman says.

Canada has also had “decades and decades of approaching drugs in quite a punitive way that created a lot of stigma,” Behn Smith says. This pushes people to use alone, not access harm reduction services and not ask for help when they need it.

There’s also the issue of access.

Impact from lack of services

Dick, who is a member of Dzawada̱ʼenux̱w First Nation of Kingcome Inlet, says nurses fly into her community to offer health care, but two weeks can go by without a visit.

Health-care providers often must fly into an Indigenous community, or people are expected to drive out to access mainstream services that can be culturally unsafe, she says.

“Our people are unwell and want to deal with their issues but they only see harm and fear, so they generally avoid the health-care industry,” Dick adds. “It has so many layers and complexities to it. Nurses are on the ground and often people’s first and last point of contact. We can do better.”

One improvement Dick would like to see is the regular deployment of registered psychiatric nurses to communities to offer mental health services.

Geography can also prohibit people from accessing services. Prescribed safer supply programs, for example, may require a pharmacist to supervise someone every time they take their medication, which can mean hours of daily driving for some patients, Wieman says.

People who want to access culturally safe mental health services, detox and treatment programs are also often put on waiting lists that can take two to nine weeks, Dick says.

“If someone wants to stop using drugs and wants to access medically supervised detox, we need to respond to them that minute because the odds are they will end up back on the street and using drugs if they can’t get help that day,” Dick adds.

Intergenerational trauma and effects on youth

First Nations communities are seeing a lot of toxic drug deaths in younger generations. “The youth being affected in these numbers is devastating,” Dick says. “This is heartbreaking. We look at these children as our future.”

Dick’s village has lost a couple of people who were in their early 20s and living outside of the community to go to school. The deaths “absolutely rocked our village and turned it upside down,” she says.

“People are grieving and they don’t have time to finish grieving before there’s another death,” Behn Smith says. This can push people back towards medicating emotional, physical and spiritual pain with substances.

The COVID-19 pandemic further disconnected people from their families, community and services.

“It made us sit still in our own skin, which let traumas come up because you can’t keep busy,” Dick says.

Dick says she isolated with aunts, uncles and cousins during the lockdowns. Her parents are both residential school survivors, and she was surprised at how many complex feelings came up during that time. But she was grateful to be surrounded with family where they could all talk about what they were thinking and feeling.

“Imagine what it was like for people disconnected from their community or away from home who weren’t able to unpack everything,” she says. “They just had to sit in it and spiral.”

Because of the likelihood of other underlying health conditions, Indigenous people were more likely to suffer severe infections, be hospitalized and die, Behn Smith says.

“Every time one of our relatives or member of our nation dies, it’s a threat to our cultural community,” she says. “Many people hold teachings in our communities, and if they die suddenly, then that knowledge is gone. Every Elder we lose, especially in communities with few fluent language speakers, is truly an existential threat in many ways.”

Where to go from here

Each expert had their own recommendations for how to improve First Nations’ life expectancy.

The studies showing us where to go have already been done, Behn Smith says. We just need to implement them. She points to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action, the “In Plain Sight” report, the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the Declaration Act Action Plan. All the solutions emerge in simply listening to Indigenous people, “who have been very clear and articulate for what are life-saving solutions for us,” she says.

Behn Smith also echoed Dr. Bonnie Henry’s call for B.C. to explore a medical and non-medical prescribed safer supply program. The existing prescription model has been accessed by only about five per cent of the total estimated people who could benefit from it. A different model could reach more people by reducing barriers.

Wieman says that for First Nations people the recovery journey should offer harm reduction, treatment and healing. This can be participation in traditional activities, ceremonies or other cultural involvement.

“Substance use is in many cases a symptom of trauma and not knowing how to deal with trauma,” she says. “We need to look at short-term and long-term healing so people don’t feel compelled to use substances as coping mechanisms when distressed.”

Dick also highlights the importance of culture.

She says she went home for a potlatch recently and saw youth taking on roles and responsibilities in the ceremonies and engaging with traditions and language. They had such confidence and an aura of intense joy to have this path and purpose, she says.

The legacy of residential schooling means that Dick does not speak her language — her parents were not able to teach her. Through her learning, she says, she’s showing younger generations how to reconnect with culture.

“We’re reclaiming space and culture and knowledge and finding more resources to relearn and reclaim,” Dick says. “It’s happening more and more and having a big impact.”

Michelle Gamage, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Tyee

Italy's migrant detention centers in spotlight after death of Guinean and calls to close them down



ROME (AP) — Pressure is building on authorities in Italy to close a notorious Rome migrant detention center where a 19-year-old Guinean allegedly hanged himself last month. Visiting opposition senators have decried “undignified” conditions for people ordered to leave Italy but awaiting repatriation.

Italy’s 10 migrant repatriation centers have long been criticized by human rights groups. They describe them as black holes of human rights violations where undocumented migrants are essentially detained for months without charges in conditions worse than prisons.

The centers are supposed to be temporary holding facilities for migrants whose asylum bids failed, or foreigners who have been ordered expelled for criminal or other reasons while the paperwork is completed to send them home.

But because of bureaucratic delays and a lack of repatriation agreements with countries of origin, only around half of the detainees are actually sent back and the centers end up acting as de facto prisons but without a prison’s rehabilitation, educational or proper medical facilities, rights groups say.

The right-wing government of Premier Giorgia Meloni has defended the use of the centers and even called to expand them as a necessary component of a broader strategy to manage Italy’s migration flows. Her government has extended the amount of time migrants can be held to 18 months as part of a deterrent strategy to persuade would-be refugees and their traffickers to stay home.

The Radicali Roma, an association affiliated with the Italian Radical Party, started an online petition Friday calling on center-left Mayor Roberto Gualtieri to close Rome’s repatriation center in Ponte Galeria, citing repeated episodes of violence, suicide and protests by desperate detainees.

Last month, the body of Ousmane Sylla was found in the center after he apparently hung himself. He had been ordered expelled from the country, but Italy has no repatriation agreement with his native Guinea. After his body was discovered, detainees set mattresses on fire and threw objects at law enforcement personnel, resulting in 14 arrests. The center has a maximum capacity of 125 people.

In recent days, another six migrants attempted to kill themselves at the same facility, said Marco Stufano, the head of the office of Rome’s prefect. One remained hospitalized, two were returned to the center and three were transferred to other facilities because their conditions were deemed “incompatible” with detention at Ponte Galeria, he said.

Last month, Rome’s city assembly called on Gualtieri to open “urgent” negotiations with government authorities to close the Ponte Galeria, given the “serious violations of human rights suffered by people detained there.”

Even Italy's national guarantor for the rights of prisoners, Mauro Palma, weighed in after visiting the center in December. In letters to Rome's prefect and police chief, Palma decried the lack of monitoring at the center, saying any facility that deprives people of their freedom must have a functioning system of registering critical events and medical interventions for violence that results in injury, riots and attempted escapes to ensure the basic rights of detainees are being respected.

This week, three opposition senators visited the center and emerged stunned by what they saw.

“This place is worse than a penitentiary,” said Sen. Ivan Scalfarotto, of the Italy Alive party. “The rooms where they live are absolutely unwatchable, toilets are below any human standard. Inside this place people do nothing all day, there is no labor, training, no education, something that is normally provided in all our penitentiaries. People are kept here without any hope.”

Sen. Walter Verini, with the opposition Democratic Party, said while criticism of the centers had been continuous for years, the government’s new provisions allowing for detention of up to 18 months required immediate action.

“We have to fight because this is something unworthy of a civilized and democratic country,” he said.

Interior Minister Matteo Piatedosi has described the expansion of the network of repatriation centers as a “fundamental” element in the government’s overall migration strategy, and said the difficult conditions found in them are the result of riots and vandalism by the detainees.

At a recent press briefing, he said 50% of the detainees are repatriated, that there had been an increase of 20%-30% in repatriations so far this year compared to the previous year, and that he expected the numbers to grow.

But the actual number of repatriations is among the lowest in Europe, with an average of 3,000 people sent back every year out of more than 150,000 arrivals in 2023 and more than 105,000 in 2022.

“There is no prospective to deny any human rights, but in these centers are people who – after a long process of checks of irregularity in their residency permits -- present conditions of danger that are confirmed by judicial authorities,” he said.

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Associated Press writer Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

Paolo Santalucia, The Associated Press

CHINA

‘Faces of Sanxingdui’: Bronze Age relics shed light on mysterious ancient kingdom

Story by By Christy Choi, CNN •

A golden face with patinaed turquoise eyes stares out of the darkness. Illuminated around it stand three other bronze heads — some have flat tops, others round — all looked over by a giant bronze statue almost 9 feet high. All have the same piercing, angular eyes.

There’s something about the “Faces of Sanxingdui” — as this collection of sculptures is being billed — that feels both familiar and alien. Currently on display at the Hong Kong Palace Museum, they may appear Mayan or Aztec to the untrained eye, but these over-3,000-year-old sculptures weren’t unearthed anywhere near Mesoamerica’s ancient civilizations. They were discovered on China’s Chengdu Plain, at an archeological dig site called Sanxingdui (which translates as “three star mound”).

Thought to be the largest and oldest site left by the Shu kingdom, a civilization in southwestern China once only hinted at in myths and legends, Sanxingdui was not discovered until the 1920s, when a farmer stumbled across objects while digging an irrigation ditch. The site has since been found to contain the ruins of an ancient city made up of residences, sacrificial pits and tombs enclosed by high dirt walls. Archaeologists from the Sanxingdui Museum say the city was established some 4,800 to 2,800 years ago, until it was abandoned around 800 BC for unknown reasons.


A gold mask is among the thousands of ancient artifacts discovered at Sanxingdui in what is, today, in China's Sichuan province. - Noemi Cassanelli/CNN© Provided by CNN

The Chinese government has long promoted Sanxingdui as evidence of the country’s long, uninterrupted history — with the discoveries included in history textbooks for more than a decade. And while thousands of visitors have already flocked to the groundbreaking exhibition in Hong Kong, some analysts suggest that the items are also being used to support the Chinese government’s vision of national identity

The mysterious and talented Shu

The Shu kingdom, which emerged in the Sichuan basin during the Bronze Age, is believed to have developed independently of the Yellow River Valley societies traditionally considered the cradle of Chinese civilization. Its inhabitants created exquisitely crafted bronze, jade, gold and ceramic objects, depicting fantastical beasts, kings, gods and shamans with bulging eyes and enlarged ears.

Around 120 of the items are currently on display in Hong Kong, and it’s the first time many of these objects, most of which were excavated between 2019 and 2022, have been showcased outside Sichuan province.


Many of the artifacts from Sanxingdui were found buried in a series of sacrificial pits. - Shen Bohan/Xinhua/Sipa USA© Provided by CNN

Remarkably, the sculptures predate the Terracotta Army, a collection of earthenware statues depicting the armies of China’s first emperor Qin Shi Huang, by at least 1,000 years. Wang Shengyu, an assistant curator at the Palace Museum told CNN said the objects are far more advanced, imaginative, and artistic than those being produced anywhere else in China at that time.

“You can tell that it’s very sculptural and very artsy,” Wang told CNN at the exhibition opening, pointing to a roughly 1-foot-tall bronze figure whose fantastical, braided hair extends out to three times the height of its body and, had it not been broken, would stretch much further. “You can imagine how magnificent it was. From above his nose and all the way up, it would’ve been over 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) tall, according to the fragments (archeologists) found. The end of the pigtail is on his shoulder.”

Little is known about the Shu kingdom other than what’s been discovered on the 3.6-square-kilometer (1.4-square-mile) site outside Chengdu. There is no evidence of a written Shu language, and historical literature contains scant information about its culture other than a handful of myths and legends, including a reference to a Shu king called Can Cong whose eyes were said to have protruded — perhaps explaining why so many of the 13,000 relics recovered from the site feature bulging eyes.


'Kneeling figure with a twisted head', bronze, at the Hong Kong Palace Museum in Hong Kong, China on September 26, 2023. - Noemi Cassanelli/CNN© Provided by CNN

After the Shu state was conquered by the Qin dynasty in 316 BC, Shu culture was “buried” under the “mainstream” culture that later emerged on China’s central plain, Chinese authorities wrote in a 2013 UNESCO submission seeking to have Sanxingdui and two nearby archeological sites recognized as World Heritage Sites. They are currently on UNESCO’s “tentative list.”

Since 1986, eight excavated pits at Sanxingdui have yielded giant masks of gods with bulbous, insect-like eyes and protruding ears, mythical creatures with gaping mouths and an almost 4-meter-tall (13-foot) bronze “tree of life” sculpture decorated with ornaments like a Christmas tree. All the items were found shattered, burned and buried, leading experts to believe the pits were used for ritual sacrifices. Some have now been painstakingly re-constructed by archaeologists. “It took 10 years to reconstruct the tree,” said Wang Shengyu, an assistant curator at the museum who helped curate the exhibition.

That tree is not on show in Hong Kong, as it is considered too precious to send abroad, but a section of one of six others discovered and ornaments are on display at the museum, as well as a 3D holographic projection of what experts think it would have looked like – its layers and branches adorned with birds, flowers, fruit, dragons, bells as well as jade and gold foil ornaments. The set are thought to have been part of a theater space.


A mythical creature depicted in bronze. - Noemi Cassanelli/CNN© Provided by CNN
‘Historical myth’ of a continuous civilization

The exhibition places these items in the context of other ancient civilizations and includes the Shu among the many societies to have existed in the country’s “5,000-year history.” According to a press release from organizers, museum and Hong Kong government officials at the opening stressed the “continuity, inventiveness, unity, inclusiveness and emphasis on peace and harmony” of Chinese history.


Henry Tang, chairman of the governing body behind the West Kowloon Cultural District (where the Palace Museum is located) and a former candidate for Hong Kong’s top leadership role, said in a statement that the district and museum are looking to “promote cultural and artistic exchanges between China and the world, ‘tell China’s story well’, and strengthen the public’s cultural self-confidence.”

But the narrative that the Shu kingdom was innately Chinese is contentious, according to Ian Johnson, a senior fellow for China Studies at US think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations.


A figure on display at the Hong Kong Palace Museum. - Noemi Cassanelli/CNN© Provided by CNN

“Over the past few decades, the (Chinese Communist Party) has been trying to push a historical myth that all the peoples who have ever lived inside the current borders of the People’s Republic are ‘Chinese,’” he told CNN over email.

“The basic idea is that the PRC (People’s Republic of China) encompasses people who naturally belong together and therefore, from today’s standpoint, form a nation. Hence any effort to have autonomy or even independence is taboo — it runs against history.”

The People’s Republic of China was established in 1949, and its government has often used China’s continuous history as evidence that ethnic groups such as the Tibetans and the Uyghurs have always belonged to China.


Vessels found at Sanxingdui. - Noemi Cassanelli/CNN© Provided by CNN

Johnson said that there was little support for the idea that civilizations along the Yellow River had much in common with those in the Sichuan Basin.

“They have commonalities but are not the same — just as ancient Assyrians and Phoenicians and Greeks weren’t the same, even if they shared certain things in common,” he said, adding: “sponsoring these kinds of exhibitions are popular and win the government credit.”

When asked to comment, the Hong Kong Palace Museum said the exhibition was “curated based on academic and archaeological research” and that it reinforces its mission to deepen audiences’ “understanding of the lives and cultures of various regions and ethnic groups as well as exchanges among them in ancient China, which have contributed to the magnificence of China’s civilization and its ‘diversity in unity’ pattern of development.”

Hong Kong's new national security bill includes stiff penalties and more power to suppress dissent

The bill allows prosecutions for acts committed anywhere in the world for most of its offenses.



HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong unveiled a proposed law that threatens life imprisonment for residents who “endanger national security" on Friday, deepening worries about erosion of the city’s freedoms four years after Beijing imposed a similar law that all but wiped out public dissent.

It’s widely seen as the latest step in a crackdown on political opposition that began after the semi-autonomous Chinese city was rocked by violent pro-democracy protests in 2019. Since then, the authorities have crushed the city's once-vibrant political culture. Many of the city’s leading pro-democracy activists have been arrested and others fled abroad. Dozens of civil society groups have been disbanded, and outspoken media outlets like Apple Daily and Stand News have been shut down.

Hong Kong leader John Lee has urged legislators to push the Safeguarding National Security Bill through “at full speed," and lawmakers began debate hours after the bill was released publicly. It's expected to pass easily, possibly in weeks, in a legislature packed with Beijing loyalists following an electoral overhaul.

The proposed law will expand the government’s power to stamp challenges to its rule, targeting espionage, disclosing state secrets, and “colluding with external forces" to commit illegal acts among others. It includes tougher penalties for people convicted of working with foreign governments or organizations to break some of its provisions.

Related video: Hong Kong Publishes Draft of New Security Law (Bloomberg)

Duration 3:09  View on Watch

The law would jail people who damage public infrastructure with the intent to endanger national security for 20 years — or life, if they collude with an external force to do so. In 2019, protesters occupied the airport and vandalized railway stations.

Similarly, those who commit sedition face a jail term of seven years, but colluding with an external force to carry out such acts increase that penalty to 10 years.

On Thursday, an appeals court upheld a conviction for sedition against a pro-democracy activist for chanting slogans and criticizing the Beijing-imposed 2020 National Security Law during a political campaign.

Its expansive definition of external forces includes foreign governments and political parties, international organizations, and “any other organization in an external place that pursues political ends” — as well as companies that are influenced by such forces. Beijing said the 2019 unrest was supported by external forces, and the city government has condemned what it called external interference during the protests.

The bill allows prosecutions for acts committed anywhere in the world for most of its offenses.

Critics say that the proposed law would make Hong Kong even more like mainland China.

The European Union said the bill covers “an even wider range” of offenses than previously disclosed, including sweeping bans on external interference and significantly hardened provisions on sentencing.

“The legislation risks exacerbating the erosion of fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong brought about, in particular, by the 2020 National Security Law,” it said.

However, Beijing insisted that the bill balances maintaining security with safeguarding rights and freedoms. The city government said it was necessary to prevent a recurrence of the massive anti-government protests that rocked the city in 2019, insisting it would only affect “an extremely small minority” of disloyal residents.

It defined national security as a status in which the state's political regime and sovereignty are relatively free from danger and threats, so are the welfare of the people and the state's economic and social development among other “major interests.”

The legislature's president, Andrew Leung, told reporters that the process was accelerated because the bill was necessary to safeguard national security.

“If you look at other countries, they enacted it within a day, two weeks, three weeks. … So why can't Hong Kong do it in a speedy manner? You tell me," the pro-Beijing politician said.

But the British consulate in Hong Kong urged authorities to “allow time for proper legislative scrutiny.” The city was a British colony until it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, requires the city to enact a national security law, but a previous attempt sparked a massive street protest that drew half a million people, and the legislation was shelved.

Such protests against the current bill are unlikely, due to the chilling effect of the 2020 law after it was enacted to quell the 2019 protests.

During a one-month public comment period that ended last week, 98.6% of the views received by officials showed support, and only 0.72% opposed the proposals, the government said. The rest contained questions or opinions that did not reflect a stance on the law, it added.

But businesspeople and journalists have expressed fear that a broadly framed law could criminalize their day-to-day work, especially because the proposed definition of state secrets includes matters linked to economic, social and technological developments. The government has sought to allay concerns by adding a public interest defense under specific conditions in the proposal.

John Burns, an honorary professor of politics and public administration at the University of Hong Kong, said it remains to be seen how courts will interpret the provision that allows a public interest defense to charges of disclosing state secrets.

The bill, if passed as tabled, is likely to have chilling effect on local civil society, Burns said, especially political and public policy lobby groups that have benefited from connections to overseas counterparts.

“At least initially, I expect them to be especially cautious about expanding links with similar groups overseas,” he said.

Eric Lai, a research fellow at Georgetown Center for Asian Law, said fears about the law “are now materialized."

He called it “overbroad and vague," particularly for offenses involving state secrets and external forces, and said it would undermine due process by allowing extended detention without charges, and by limiting the right to a lawyer.

People arrested on suspicion of national security offenses and released on bail could face “movement restriction orders” which limit the places they can go and where they can live, as well as prevent them from communicating with certain people.

Police can also apply to the court to extend detentions and prohibit suspects from consulting certain lawyers.

Authorities would also be empowered to use financial sanctions to punish people who have fled abroad, such as preventing other people from hiring them, leasing them property, starting businesses with them, or providing economic support to them.

Last year, police offered bounties of 1 million Hong Kong dollars ($128,000) on more than a dozen activists living abroad, including former lawmakers Nathan Law and Ted Hui, whom they accuse of colluding with external forces to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and China.

Prisoners convicted of national security offenses will not be eligible for sentences reductions until authorities are confident early release would not risk national security. This would apply to all national security prisoners, even those whose sentences were imposed prior to the bill.

___

Follow AP's Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

Kanis Leung And Zen Soo, The Associated Press

'Culture wars are getting us nowhere': Florida lawmakers tiring of DeSantis’ 'war on woke'

Story by Carl Gibson • AlterNet

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gives a speech during the Jerusalem Post conference at the Museum of Tolerance on April 27, 2023 in Jerusalem, Israel.

 (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)© provided by AlterNet

Ever since scuttling his presidential ambitions, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) has been slowly losing influence in the Florida legislature.

The Sunshine State's annual legislative session gaveled out this week, with several of DeSantis' major culture war priority bills failing to advance through Florida's far-right Republican supermajority legislature. The Washington Post reported that one of the two-term Florida governor's biggest obstacles was Republican state senate president Kathleen Passidomo, who declined to bring up several hot-button bills for a vote.

One of those bills would have penalized municipal officials in towns that removed Confederate monuments. One speaker at a committee hearing reportedly extolled that bill to "push white culture, white supremacy." That legislation was praised by DeSantis, who said it was "totally appropriate," and likened efforts to remove Confederate statues to a "hyper-woke 21st century test." The bill advanced through its respective committee, but Passidomo never brought it up in the full senate, calling it "so abhorrent to everybody."

READ MORE: DeSantis admits he's 'looking' for 'credible case' to ban Biden from Florida's 2024 ballot

Another bill that would have banned public buildings from displaying rainbow flags — as some do during June, when LGBTQ+ Pride Month is celebrated — didn't even make it past the Florida House subcommittee where it was introduced. Other culture war-related bills suffered a similar fate: Legislation that would have forced transgender Floridians to use their assigned sex at birth on their driver's licenses didn't make it, nor did a bill that would have penalized public employees from using transgender individuals' chosen pronouns. A separate "fetal personhood" bill was also killed this session.

The Post reported that the Florida governor loudly supported all of those bills as part of his "war on woke," yet despite his party having a solid 86-34 majority in the house and a 28-12 majority in the senate, he wasn't able to sign them into law this session. Democratic state senator Shevrin Jones told the Post that "a lot of [DeSantis'] influence and power died" after DeSantis suspended his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

"II think that people in Florida and across the country, including Republicans, are starting to see that the culture wars are getting us nowhere," Jones said.

Politico reported that DeSantis' grip on the legislature has waned considerably since he was swept into a second term in the 2022 election, and subsequently rammed numerous far-right bills through the statehouse in the 2023 session. Republican state representative Paula Stark remarked to the outlet that "everything was just crazy" in last year's session.

READ MORE: Ron DeSantis campaign blames 'election interference' after losing Iowa Caucus

"You had all these things that everybody wanted you to stand up and support because it was a governor’s initiative … Now this session has been calmer," she said.

DeSantis' presidential campaign sputtered out after the Iowa Republican Caucuses, in which he failed to win a single one of Iowa's 99 counties despite visiting all of them ahead of the 2024 nominating contest (colloquially known as a "full Grassley"). The Florida governor spent millions of dollars courting Iowa Republicans, only to come in a distant second place to former President Donald Trump. His prolonged absence from Tallahassee during his presidential campaign angered some of his constituents — along with his campaigning against the former president.

"He backstabbed our president," GOP voter Sally Maltais told NPR in November. "And now I have no respect for DeSantis. I'm sorry. I don't."

Trump also frequently mocked DeSantis, particularly amid the so-called "bootgate" controversy in which the Florida governor was accused of wearing inserts in his boots to appear taller. A Trump campaign press release suggested DeSantis' boots "are more appropriate for America’s Next Top Model than the campaign trail."

READ MORE: 'He backstabbed our president': Florida Republicans say they have 'no respect' for DeSantis
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Josie Cox's New Book Champions Gender Equality Through Remarkable Women's Stories   (Exclusive)

Story by Lizz Schumer • 5d • PEOPLE

One of the people featured in 'Women Money Power' is Mae Krier, 97, the last of the "Rosie the Riveters" who stepped into the workforce during WWII


Nancy Borowick, Abrams Josie Cox with her book 'Women Money Power'

© Provided by People

In a sense, business journalist Josie Cox has spent her whole career gearing up to write her new book. Women Money Power: The Rise and Fall of Economic Equality. But one interview with a wealthy business mogul crystallized its urgency.

When Cox asked an ”extremely prominent businessman” about the gender pay gap, he reasoned that “sometimes when women decide to start a family and leave the paid labor market briefly to take maternity leave, when they come back, they're just not as professionally ambitious as men,” Cox tells PEOPLE. "That infuriated me, and it made me realize that these views and these opinions are still so prevalent.”

That fury fueled Cox’s new book (out March 5 from Abrams), which charts women’s fight for financial freedom as well as the social and political hurdles that make it so challenging. It features pioneers who stood up to norms of their time, including the “Rosies” who filled industrial jobs left open by men during World War II, the heiress who helped create the birth control pill, the investor who breached the boys’ club of the New York Stock Exchange and the namesake of equal pay legislation who refused to accept less than she deserved.

As she researched, Cox expected to find a trajectory of progress, a story of hope. But what she found was that American culture has a long way to go.


Abrams Cover of Women Money Power: 

The Rise and Fall of Economic Equality by Josie Cox

© Provided by People

Related: Women's History Month: How It Started, Why We Celebrate in March and More Questions Answered

“Unlike the laws that were introduced in the 1970s and 1980s that prevented a woman from getting fired for getting pregnant, prevented men and women for from getting paid different amounts of money for doing exactly the same work, laws allowing women to get credit to start a business, to get a mortgage to open a bank account — that really led to tangible, measurable progress,” Cox says, explaining, “Culture is not tangible, and it's not measurable. And so that's the part of the equation that we're still struggling to fix.”

One of the pioneers who’s spent the last 40 years as a part of that struggle is Anna “Mae” Krier, 97, the last of the Rosies who took engineering jobs at Boeing when the men were called to fight in WWII. Krier joined the workforce when the country needed women to fill the boys’ shoes in 1941, and hasn’t stopped working for equality since.


courtesy of Anna "Mae"Krier Mae Krier, one of the original "Rosies"

© Provided by People

Mae still drives herself around in her red Ford pickup (she mused that she'll have to renew her license when she turns 100 in a couple of years) and recently got a chance to get behind the wheel of a Sherman tank when attending a ceremony in Texas. Although she declined the offer to skydive while she was there, she’s not afraid of much, least of all speaking her mind.
“When women went into the workplace, it was the men's world up until 1941. They didn't know how capable American women were, and we were amazing. We were much better than a lot of the men, and they'll even admit that sometimes,” she tells PEOPLE.

“But I've never stopped working for equal pay for the same job, because this was so unfair we were every bit as good or better than the men, and yet they got paid a lot more than we did,” Mae adds. “We’re not there yet, and we’ve got a ways to go.”

Related: Celebrating Women's History Month: These 20 Women's Words Will Undoubtedly Inspire You

It’s no exaggeration to say that Mae and her fellow Rosies helped win the war, but they weren’t treated that way when the troops came home. “The men came home to flying flags and praise, and we came home with the pink slip. The men got the G.I. Bill, education, mortgages. We didn't,” Mae recalls. “In our day, if a man and woman applied for the same job, the man would get his foot in the door, and the woman would go home. So it isn't fair at all.”


courtesy of Anna "Mae"Krier A younger Mae Krier

© Provided by People

Cox hopes her book sheds light not only on the persistent wage gap and how it continues to impact women today, but also help show her own daughter that gender shouldn’t be a deterrent to her dreams.

For her part, Mae travels around the country spreading that same message. “When I speak to these girls [in schools], I say to them, ‘You're just as capable as the boy next to you,’” she tells them. “‘Just don't let him think that he can do it better, because he's a male. That's not the case.’”

Through portraits of the women whose shoulders we all stand on and incisive commentary on how we reach higher from where we stand, Cox hopes her book makes its way to everyone who has a hand in working toward equality. That is, just about everyone.

“I really want to convey with this book that inequality is everybody's problem and as a result of that, everybody stands to benefit from a more equal society and a more equal economy,” Cox explains.

Or, one of Mae’s personal mantras: “Change has got to start somewhere.”

 

UN chief: Legal equality for women could take 300 years as backlash rises against women's rights

“Poverty has a female face; One in every 10 women in the world lives in extreme poverty.”

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Legal equality for women could take centuries as the fight for gender equality is becoming an uphill struggle against widespread discrimination and gross human human rights abuses, the United Nations chief said on International Women’s Day.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a packed U.N. commemoration Friday that “a global backlash against women’s rights is threatening, and in some cases reversing, progress in developing and developed countries alike.”

The most egregious example is in Afghanistan, he said, where the ruling Taliban have barred girls from education beyond sixth grade, from employment outside the home, and from most public spaces, including parks and hair salons.

At the current rate of change, legal equality for women could take 300 years to achieve and so could ending child marriage, he said.

Guterres pointed to “a persistent epidemic of gender-based violence,” a gender pay gap of at least 20%, and the underrepresentation of women in politics. He cited September’s annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, where just 12% of the speakers were women.

“And the global crises we face are hitting women and girls hardest — from poverty and hunger to climate disasters, war and terror," the secretary-general said.

In the past year, Guterres said, there have been testimonies of rape and trafficking in Sudan, and in Gaza women women and children account for a majority of the more than 30,000 Palestinians reported killed in the Israeli-Hamas conflict, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health

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He cited a report Monday by the U.N. envoy focusing on sexual violence in conflict that concluded there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Hamas committed rape, “sexualized torture” and other cruel and inhumane treatment of women during its surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7. He also pointed to reports of sexual violence against Palestinians detained by Israel.

International Women’s Day grew out of labor movements in North America and across Europe at the turn of the 20th century and was officially recognized by the United Nations in 1977. This year’s theme is investing in women and girls to accelerate progress toward equality.

Roza Otunbayeva, the head of the U.N. political mission in Afghanistan, told the Security Council on Wednesday that what is happening in that country “is precisely the opposite” of investing in women and girls.

There is “a deliberate disinvestment that is both harsh and unsustainable,” she said, saying the Taliban’s crackdown on women and girls has caused “immense harm to mental and physical health, and livelihoods.”

Recent detentions of women and girls for alleged violations of the Islamic dress code “were a further violation of human rights, and carry enormous stigma for women and girls,” she said. It has had “a chilling effect among the wider female population, many of whom are now afraid to move in public,” she said.

Otunbayeva again called on the Taliban to reverse the restrictions, warning that the longer they remain, “the more damage will be done.”

Sima Bahous, the head of UN Women, the agency promoting gender equality and women’s rights, told the commemoration that International Women’s Day “sees a world hobbled by confrontation, fragmentation, fear and most of all inequality.”

“Poverty has a female face,” she said. “One in every 10 women in the world lives in extreme poverty.”

Men not only dominate the halls of power but they “own $105 trillion more wealth than women,” she said.

Bahous said well-resourced and powerful opponents of gender equality are pushing back against progress. The opposition is being fueled by anti-gender movements, foes of democracy, restricted civic space and “a breakdown of trust between people and state, and regressive policies and legislation,” she said.

“We all feel this pushback acutely,” Bahous said. “Our values and principles have never been as challenged as they are today.”

Guterres urged nations to prioritize equality for women and girls. He announced that the U.N. is launching a “Gender Equality Acceleration Plan” to support governments in designing and implementing policies and spending that respond to the needs of women and girls.

Bahous drew strong applause when she called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, which Guterres has long sought as well.

She also urged funding for women and girls, stressing that when this happens economies grow, governments thrive and peace is achieved sooner.

“But in spite of these clear facts, we continue to stubbornly invest in weapons more than we invest in women and girls,” Bahous said.

Edith M. Lederer, The Associated Press