Wild horse species returns to the Kazakh steppes

Agence France-Presse
June 10, 2024 


The horses emerge after 20 hours in containers and are the first of 40 to be released into the wild in this vast Central Asian nation over the next five years (Abduaziz MADYAROV/AFP)


After a few hesitant steps following a long flight from Prague, three Przewalski horses galloped off for the first time into the Kazakh steppe -- the native habitat of this endangered species.

The horses emerged after being locked in containers for 20 hours and are the first of 40 which are to be released into the wild in this vast Central Asian country over the next five years.

"We have been waiting for this moment for a very long time," Albert Salemgareyev from the Association for the Conservation of Biodiversity in Kazakhstan told AFP.

"A lot of work has been carried out in recent months in order for the Przewalski horses to come to Kazakhstan."

The project run by the Prague and Berlin zoo is aimed at preserving this species of stockily built horse with large heads which share a common ancestry with modern domestic horses but are genetically different.

Przewalski horses are commonly referred to as one of the world's last breeds of wild horse.

"We know that the Przewalski horses are suited to this steppe," said Salemgareyev.
The horses are capable of resisting harsh winters like the ones in Kazakhstan where temperatures can drop below minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit) and food runs scarce.

The three first specimens -- Zorro, Ypsilonka and Zeta II -- arrived earlier this month. Four more landed in Kazakhstan from Berlin on Thursday morning and were released in the afternoon.

They will initially be under observation in the Golden Steppe nature reserve before being left in the wild.

"This year we will follow their health and see how they acclimatise," Salemgareyev said.

- Perilous journey -

The 5,000 kilometre (3,000-mile) journey -- first by plane to the town of Arqalyk and then by truck along bumpy roads into the heart of the steppe -- was not without risks.

Despite monitoring by experts, one of the horses sat down in his container even before taking off, raising the risk of stopping the blood flow to his legs.

"The journey could have been dangerous so we decided to leave him alone," said Miroslav Bobek, the director of Prague Zoo.

First documented by Russian scientist Nikolai Przhevalsky in 1881, the species was nearly extinct in the 1960s and is still listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Prague Zoo, which has bred the horses since 1932 and keeps the world genealogy book for the species tracking all new births, launched a project to reintroduce them to Mongolia in 2011.

It transported 34 horses on Czech army planes there between 2011 and 2019, before the pandemic halted the project co-funded by zoos from across the globe.

There are now 2,000 Przewalski horses around the world, mainly in China and Mongolia but also in France, Russia and even living in the wild in the Chernobyl exclusion zone between Belarus and Ukraine.

Following the April 1986 Chernobyl disaster, 30 specimens were introduced there in 1998. The population has flourished and is now at 210.

In Kazakhstan, the Przewalski horse is not the only endangered species to have received special attention.

The round-snouted Saiga antelope, once on the brink of extinction, has also seen its population grow to about two million thanks to conservation policies by Kazakh authorities and non-governmental organisations.

str-bk/dt/cad/bp

Inside the global orange juice crisis
The Conversation
June 9, 2024 1:36PM ET

Photo by Hanna Balan on Unsplash

Oranges – and all the things we can make from them – are big business. But the industry is facing a severe crisis.

About 50 million tonnes of oranges are grown each year, 34% of them in Brazil. Brazil is also the world’s biggest exporter of orange juice by far, producing about 70% of global supply.

But Brazil’s orange-growing regions have recently endured extreme drought and heat stress in the crop’s flowering period, as well as alarming rates of citrus greening disease – an incurable bacterial infection.

As a result, Brazil’s orange production is now forecast to fall by more than 24% in the 2024–25 season, which would be the country’s smallest harvest since the late 1980s.

The situation in Brazil has been exacerbated by declining production in other major orange-growing regions such as Florida, Israel, Spain and Argentina.

Combined, these pressures saw the futures price of frozen concentrated orange juice – which represents a contract for future delivery – hit an all time high last week.

So how might these global pressures impact Australia – and the breakfast rituals of so many?

Where does Australia get its juice?

Australia certainly grows a lot of oranges itself, with major plantations in the Riverina, Murray Valley and Riverland. We’re the world’s 12th-biggest producer of the fruit.

Despite this, strong demand means we still rely heavily on imports of frozen orange juice concentrate for about half of what is consumed here. About 80% of these imports come from Brazil, followed by Israel at about 10%.

About Half of Australia’s orange juice consumption is met by imports, most of which come from Brazil.

Australian consumers have not yet been as severely affected as those in Europe and the US, as local orange growers have been able to somewhat fill the supply gap in the domestic market. However, it’s likely our over-reliance on orange concentrate from Brazil will eventually lead to a supply crunch here.

At this stage, it’s hard to know exactly what the full effect on consumers will be. Frozen concentrated orange juice is typically used for cheaper retail orange juice, but the shortage will put upward pressure on the price of orange juice more broadly.

Orange juice concentrate has also been used for a wide range of commercial uses, including cosmetics, cleaning products, vitamin supplements and beverage blends. Many of these products rely on orange concentrate as a key ingredient. Therefore, we could also see significant supply disruptions and price spikes across a range of other products.

The situation could prompt consumers and producers to choose alternatives. In the breakfast beverage market, products blending orange juice with apple, mango or pineapple may become increasingly attractive to consumers on cost alone.

Mandarins may be a particularly promising alternative given how closely their taste and nutritional value aligns with orange juice.

Will the crisis benefit Australia’s orange industry?

In theory, the global shortage could be a boon for Australia’s local industry, given our favourable climate and well-established orange production regions.

Increasing our domestic production of oranges would not only help meet domestic demand, but could also help capitalise on the current shortage by increasing exports.

Australian producers will probably enjoy higher prices for orange juice in the short term, but our local citrus industry isn’t in the best shape. Some orange growers have been leaving the business due to rising production costs, poor supermarket prices and competition from imported products.

Rising input costs and a stubborn shortage of farm workers have intensified financial pressures, making profits elusive. On top of this, the market dominance of Australia’s two major supermarket chains has limited growers’ bargaining power, leading to unfavourable contract terms for many producers.
How could our growers become more resilient?

There’s no quick fix for the current supply shortage of orange juice. But there are a number of steps that could at least make Australia’s citrus industry more resilient to this and any future supply shocks.

In Australia, labour accounts for a substantial amount of total production costs. More investment in automation could decrease the industry’s reliance on labour and ultimately push prices down.


Labour is one of the most significant costs for Australian citrus growers. 

Kevin Wells Photography/Shutterstock

Recognising these technologies may be out of reach for many small and medium-sized growers, governments may need to investigate subsidising them.

Growers could increase their bargaining power against the big supermarkets by further diversifying who they sell to. This could include through direct-to-consumer sales, increasing their presence at farmer markets and engaging in collaborative marketing.

Establishing more fruit-processing facilities and getting better access to the international markets should also be priorities.

And lastly, Australia is highly vulnerable to the severe disruption that climate change poses to the agri-food sector, including orange production. We should prepare for this by conducting more comprehensive research into climate-resilient varieties, renewable energy sources, and offering education programs to growers.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Deadly heat: Record scorching temperatures kill the vulnerable and worsen inequality

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
June 9, 2024 



Deadly heat. As we enter the month of June, scorching temperatures are already gripping parts of Arizona, California, Nevada, as well as countries around the world. In Arizona, extreme heat sent 11 people to the hospital as thousands waited to enter a campaign rally with Donald Trump. In India, 33 poll workers died from heatstroke on a single day last week during India’s national elections. In Mexico, it’s so hot, howler monkeys are falling dead from the trees. Data confirmed last month was the hottest May on record, putting the Earth on a 12-month streak of record-scorching and -breaking temperatures.


Meanwhile, a new report has found the rate Earth is warming hit an all-time high last year, with 92% of 2023 record heat caused by humans. On Wednesday, the World Meteorological Organization announced there’s an 80% chance the average global temperature will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels for at least one of the next five years.

On the same day that report was released, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres gave a major speech on the climate crisis right next to the dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History here in New York City. The U.N. secretary-general said the world can still meet the 1.5-degree target if governments drastically speed up the phaseout of fossil fuels.

SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: Today is World Environment Day. It is also the day that the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Change Service officially reports May 2024 as the hottest May in recorded history. This marks 12 straight months of the hottest months ever. For the past year, every turn of the calendar has turned up the heat. Our planet is trying to tell us something, but we don’t seem to be listening.
Dear friends, the American Museum of Natural History is the ideal place to make the point. This great museum tells the amazing story of our natural world, of the vast forces that have shaped life on Earth over billions of years. And humanity is just one small blip on the radar. But like the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, we are having an outsized impact. In the case of climate, we are not the dinosaurs. We are the meteor. We are not only in danger. We are the danger. But we are also the solution.
So, dear friends, we are at a moment of truth. The truth is, almost 10 years since the Paris Agreement was adopted, the target of limiting long-term global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is hanging by a thread. The truth is, the world is spewing emissions so fast that by 2030 a far higher temperature rise will be all but guaranteed.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres in a major address on the climate crisis Wednesday to mark World Environment Day. Again, he was speaking at the Museum of Natural History here in New York.

For more on deadly heat and the climate crisis, we’re joined by two guests. Dr. Ruth Cerezo-Mota is a researcher at the Institute of Engineering at UNAM, the National Autonomous University of Mexico. She is joining us from the city of Mérida in the Mexican state of Yucatán. And joining us from North Carolina, Jeff Goodell. He’s covered the climate crisis for over 20 years at Rolling Stone magazine, the author of The New York Times best-seller, The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet. He’s got a new op-ed in The New York Times, “The Heat Wave Scenario That Keeps Climate Scientists Up at Night.”

What is that scenario, Jeff?


JEFF GOODELL: Well, that scenario is a look at what would happen if there were a five-day blackout during an extreme heat wave, looking at the kind of cascading consequences of these two events together. It was based on a study done by some researchers at Georgia Tech and Arizona State University. And it looked at — you know, we think of air conditioning as this sort of technofix for extreme heat. You know, often people will say to me, “What’s the problem with the planet heating up? We’ve just got to get more people air conditioning.” And this study really looked at the sort of false illusion of security that air conditioning has kind of provided for us.

It showed that in this blackout scenario where you had a total blackout for two days and then three days of restoring power, which is not kind of beyond the pale of kind of reality at all — we had a five-day blackout similar to that in Texas a few years ago. In that kind of a scenario in a city like Phoenix, where there’s virtually 100% penetration of air conditioning, you would have 800,000 emergency room visits and more than 13,000 deaths within 48 hours, which is hugely shocking and sort of disturbing findings.

And what’s interesting about this is the way that it shows that some of these — that technofixes, like air-conditioning and things, which are certainly important tools for living in hot climates, but they also amplify our vulnerability in ways that we don’t really understand or are not aware of. And so, air conditioning is sort of like this sort of sword of Damocles hanging over a city like Phoenix or a city like Austin or Houston or places like that, that are completely dependent upon it. And it just shows this sort of — our understanding of our vulnerability to extreme heat is far more complicated than we understand at first glance.


AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it’s amazing, this report. In Phoenix, about 800,000 people, roughly half the population, would need emergency medical treatment for heatstroke and other illnesses. The flood of people seeking care would overwhelm the city’s hospitals. More than 13,000 people would die. That’s in Phoenix. And, of course, that’s a place that 99% of the buildings are air-conditioned. Then you go to a place like Detroit, that’s even older, much less AC, and the number of people that would be affected, especially older people. And, of course, AC causes more global warming. I was really struck in your piece by what you called not a Hurricane Katrina, but a “heat Katrina.”

JEFF GOODELL: Yeah, exactly. And in comparing — in this study, in comparing the three cities, the other — in Atlanta and Detroit and Phoenix, the emergency room visits and death rate as a consequence of this five-day blackout that I described are far lower in these other cities because of less dependence upon air conditioning. So, in some ways, one of our sort of favorite technofixes for a hotter world, air conditioning, is increasing our vulnerability to that extreme heat. We’re building buildings that don’t have natural ventilation, that you can’t open windows in. So, when the power goes out, they become like convection ovens, and people die.

And, you know, there are a lot of things that we can do to reduce this vulnerability, things like solar panels on rooftops, microgrids, battery backups, so we’re not so dependent upon the grid itself, and also building buildings that have passive cooling, that don’t require air conditioning, that have natural ventilations, that are built in ways that are suitable for the hotter world that we’re building for ourselves.


AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, most of the rest of the world doesn’t have that kind of access to air conditioning. I want to go down to the Yucatán, where our next guest is, Ruth Cerezo-Mota. We just read this report about howler monkeys falling dead out of trees. If you can go from monkeys to human beings and what it means for Mexico right now, which is also — and Yucatán experienced a major heat wave, and yet at the same time you’ve just elected your first woman president in Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, who is a climate scientist, like yourself. In Mexico, nearly 61 people died from a record heat wave that just ended. Can you talk about all of this?

RUTH CEREZO-MOTA: Yeah. Hi. Yeah, we are experiencing really extreme weather. And I just want to complement something that you were saying about the air conditioner. Yeah, we need to consider that we — it’s also an unfair situation, because there is many people that will not be able to afford an air conditioning, so it’s not really a solution, either. But in any case, yes, people is dying here because of the heat. Animals — there was this report of hundreds of monkeys falling just from trees. And before that, the week before that, there were parrots, as well. And, of course, here in Yucatán, most of the city has air conditioning, but not all the small towns. So, yeah, it’s a big problem.

And yeah, on a very hot Sunday, last Sunday, we had elections, and there was massive participation, and we got our first president. But I don’t think it means good news in terms of environment, at least not now. When she was a mayor in Mexico City, there was a couple of things that she did that clearly was against or was not eco-friendly, like, for example, she built a bridge for cars, and in order to do that, they destroyed part of a wetland that it was of the very last natural reserves in Mexico City, which — and it turns out, it didn’t solve the problems. It didn’t solve the traffic that was supposed to be the problem. And because it was done over the wetlands, when it’s the rainy season, it gets flooded. So, then, you have — now you have floodings. You destroyed part of the environment, of the reserve, and you didn’t solve the issue that was the traffic in that area.

Also, while she was in campaign, she promises to continue what López Obrador is doing. She’s talking about the Tren Maya, that we know it has several impacts on the environment. There has been deforestation of at least 10 million trees. They have polluted the water. They have injected concrete on waterholes. And we are here in the peninsula. We don’t have surface body — water surface bodies. We all depend on underground water. And now that water is polluted by concrete and metals that they have been injecting to build the railroad.

So, definitely, in terms of environment, at least now, it’s not a good news. So, maybe once that Claudia start her period, maybe she distance herself from López Obrador and all these programs that go against the environment.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go —

RUTH CEREZO-MOTA: But so far, it’s not a clear evidence of that.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go to a clip, the heat wave also killing those 150 howler monkeys found dead on the forest floor, according to Mexico’s Environment Ministry, due to heatstroke, dehydration, malnutrition or the spraying of crops with toxic agrochemicals. This is Mexican biologist Gilberto Pozo in the Mexican state of Tabasco.
GILBERTO POZO: [translated] We have registered 83 dead specimens. There are also orphaned calves, because many adults, adult females, have died. Some offspring have managed to survive. That is the problem with this species’ mortality in this very hot season in the state. The temperatures have reached 123 degrees Fahrenheit. And the wildlife is suffering because of the lack of water. There has been a lot of habitat degradation, so there is more light penetration, higher temperatures and water scarcity. Above all, there has been an increase in the number of fires, that damage the few habitats or refuges for these species.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Ruth Cerezo-Mota, would you like to elaborate on that, the flora, the fauna, and how all life is affected?

RUTH CEREZO-MOTA: Yeah, definitely, these extreme events that are becoming more frequent and more intense. And we knew that before. We knew that. We have already observations all around the world in different regions that these extreme events will become more often and more frequent and more intense when they happen, and not only the heat wave, but floodings and extreme precipitation. So, we knew all this, and we have been saying this for many, many years now.

So, it takes a toll on everything. So it affects health. It affects biodiversity. It affects — at the same time that we experience a heat wave, we also experience a very dry season. We are coming from last year, as well. It was very low levels of precipitation that we have here in the country, partially because of El Niño, but partially because of this climate change. So, there is no water. We have experienced, as well, not only Mexico, but in very — in other parts of the world, fires. We are getting these compound events in which you have all the perfect conditions for fires, for events that wouldn’t happen otherwise. So, we have a dry environment, windy and a lot of organic material, so then you have the perfect conditions to start the fires. And because it’s so hot and because there’s so little water, it’s very hard to control those fires, so there’s a massive devastation. Plus, the animals there are dying, because they are not able to adapt to this heat that we are experiencing. It’s not normal.

So, even though here, the peninsula of Yucatán, normally we experience a hot weather, what we are experiencing right now goes beyond of what is normal. So, we are — plus, it has lasted for more than one month, where we have had these conditions of 45 maximum degrees centigrade, and the minimums of 38, 35, so really not — that minimum is not healthy anymore, not for humans, not for environment. And it doesn’t seem to — that it’s going to end soon. So, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to end with Jeff Goodell. If you could comment on climate refugees, as President Biden tries to shut down the border, the U.S.-Mexico border, limit the number of people who can come, the reasons people leave their countries, and what they’re affected by, and also the laws that prevent people, like in Texas, the attempt to stop people from even getting — workers getting water breaks?

JEFF GOODELL: Yeah. Well, one of the, you know, kind of rules of life is that when conditions get too intolerable — too hot, in this case — living things move on to find more suitable climates. That’s what humans do. That’s what, you know, plants do. That’s what animals do. We all have to, in order to survive, find our kind of what I call in my book our Goldilocks zone, where it’s not too hot, not too cold.

And, you know, what happens when it gets too hot, crops fail, water resources fail, people move on. And that is what’s happening at the U.S. border. Migration is a very complex topic. There’s lots of reasons why people are on the move. But certainly, climate change and crop failure and water scarcity is a big part of that.

And so, we’re going to see a more chaotic planet as the climate heats up. In my book, I call heat the engine of planetary chaos. And that’s what we’re talking about here. So we’re going to see more people trying to move across boundaries. We’re going to see more politics driven by that kind of resistance to migration. We’re seeing it in the United States right now. We’re seeing it in Europe. We will see more and more of that.

And in states like Texas, where I live, we have a governor who’s a hard-right MAGA Republican, who has decided that — you know, he has passed legislation or signed legislation that prohibits any city or municipality in the state from passing any laws that require shade breaks or water breaks for workers during extreme heat conditions. The politics of this are perverse. They are brutal. They are barbaric. But that is the way our world is moving. You know, the idea that Governor Abbott has is a loss of productivity by giving people shade breaks, but it’s really going back to the old kind of coal mining days where, you know, productivity is elevated above human life.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we’re going to continue to talk about this, of course, as we move into these incredibly hot summer months. And even those who have access to shade are determined by their wealth, particularly thinking of the unhoused population. Jeff Goodell, we want to thank you so much for being with us, New York Timespiece, we’ll link to, that you just wrote, “The Heat Wave Scenario That Keeps Climate Scientists Up at Night,” author of The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet. And we want to thank Dr. Ruth Cerezo-Mota, climate scientist from the Institute of Engineering at National Autonomous University of Mexico, today speaking to us from Yucatán.

'He’s truly lost his mind': Lindsey Graham ripped after calling D-Day a 'failure' on CBS

HE HAS GONE FULL TRUMP KRAZY

Tom Boggioni
June 9, 2024


Lindsey Graham on CBS (CBS screenshot)

A nuanced attempt by Sen. Linsey Graham (R-SC) to assert that the U.S. should never have been in the position to have to launch the Normandy invasion 80 years ago fell with a thud on Sunday morning after he told a CBS host that D-Day was a "failure."

Discussing battling Russian President Vladimir Putin for invading Ukraine, Graham tried to compare that war with fighting Nazi Germany.
 

With members of the Allies having spent the past few days honoring the D-Day fallen, Graham's inartful comments with Margaret Brennan of CBS set off a wave of condemnation on social media, with attorney Bradley Moss writing about the posted clip, "Tell me that’s fake. Please tell me that’s fake."
— (@)

Stewcat2006 wrote, "Man, Graham is soooooo close to catching on how important it is to stop a facist wannabe dictator before he gains too much power…"

With another commenter suggesting, "He's truly lost his mind," SnarkyPanda added, "He's backing Hitler Jr while saying people should have stopped Hitler earlier."

"Politicians who make statements like this are beneath the dignity of this country. We will never be whole as long as traitors serve in the highest positions in government. Graham is disgraceful," Just A Guy accused.

Marc Goldstein contributed, "Because Fascists are running rampant again 80 years later? Don't blame the heroes of D-Day for that, Lindsey. Look for the reason in a mirror."

"What a vile little man," Covfefe added with Colette Flanigan writing, "You know what WAS a failure? You and Trump trying a coup against America on 1/6. You failed."

Joey Bonanno summed it up with a direct link to Graham, writing, "Your abhorrent statement about D -Day should get you removed from office, unfortunately the stupid voters in S Carolina clutch bibles and parks and guns on voting day, they don’t give a dam about Democracy, you sir, you’re a disgrace to the flag."

The Thai 'boys' love' TV dramas conquering Asia

Agence France-Presse
June 10, 2024 

The boys' love genre, which features same-sex male romances, began as a strand of Japanese manga comics in the 1960s but has become a booming cultural export for Thailand 

(Yuichi YAMAZAKI/AFP

At her lowest point, fighting burnout and depression in her Chinese hometown, Huang Bingbing says she found comfort in watching the escapist love story of two young men on a then-unknown Thai TV drama.

She came across "Love by Chance", a same-sex romance, scrolling through clips on social media five years ago and quickly became hooked on the "immature love" depicted in the show.

Inspired by her favorite idol from the series, Huang moved to Thailand a year later to start a new life, becoming part of a growing legion of fans of the "boys' love" romance genre taking Asia by storm.

The boys' love genre, which features same-sex male romances, began as a strand of Japanese manga comics in the 1960s known as "yaoi" but has become a booming cultural export for Thailand, where the LGBTQ community is generally more accepted than in many Asian countries.

"People here don't care about genders, and all the loves are equal, no matter if it's between men, women or a third gender," Huang, 36, told AFP.

Storylines featuring good-looking couples, romantic scenarios and themes of being true to oneself are particularly popular among straight female viewers.

Commonly known as BL, the genre has proved a hit in the region, with episodes racking up tens of millions of views online.

Girls' love, a genre featuring same-sex women couples, is also increasingly popular.

At promotional events, fans queue for hours to meet the stars of their favorite shows, sometimes going to lengths more often seen among K-pop devotees.


At an event this year, Huang represented a Chinese fan group for girls' love, which donated huge floral displays made of baht banknotes worth around $1,000.

- Thais do it best -

Thai BLs are also a runaway success in China, despite the government banning Chinese firms from producing or broadcasting such dramas.

"Because we like it, we will find ways to search for it," Huang said.

"Even if we can't find a way (ourselves), we will ask how other people watch them and follow (them)."

Thai BL series have also won the hearts of fans in Japan.

Kira Thu-Ha Trinh is a regular customer at a tiny Thai-themed cafe in Tokyo that has become a hotspot for BL fans, with its walls covered in celebrity photos.

The genre became "explosively popular" during the Covid pandemic when there was little to do but watch TV, she told AFP.

"You've exhausted what Japan offers. There is usually... only one BL drama in one season. If you wanted to immerse yourself more in that kind of thing, you get suggestions by the algorithm," she said.

And, Trinh said, "this sounds kind of rude, but Thailand just made it better."

BL production in Thailand has rocketed in recent years and production houses have organised fan events at home and across Asia.

The number of BL shows produced has jumped from 19 between 2014 and 2018, to 29 in 2021 and 75 in 2022, according to data collected by Poowin Bunyavejchewin, a senior researcher from Thammasat University's Institute of East Asian Studies.

Poowin said the genre has become popular even in more conservative societies, such as India, Indonesia and Malaysia, although fans in these countries are often more discreet.

"There are a big group of fans (in those countries), but they cannot identify themselves as a big fan of BL publicly due to the socio-cultural constraints, like religious matters," he told AFP.

- Actors for change -

Thailand is expected to legalize same-sex marriage later this year -- the first country in Southeast Asia to do so -- but LGBTQ campaigners say there is still work to be done to change attitudes.

And despite their popularity, BL series do not reflect the challenges faced by Thailand's LGBTQ community, Poowin said.

"Sometimes the life of gay men in Thailand is kind of tragic. They have family problems. But no one wants to consume tragedy," he said.

Some in the BL industry hope their work can help promote LGBTQ rights, such as gender and marriage equality, in popular culture.

Actor Suppapong Udomkaewkanjana, who got his big break in "Love by Chance" and founded his own TV production company in 2020, says he is aiming to go beyond romance stories.

At a shrine in Bangkok, the 26-year-old joined the cast and crew of his latest drama, a girls' love show, who gathered to pray for the success of their new series.

"I see opportunities with BL series, such as advocating gender and marriage equality," he told AFP.

Pioneering black conductor melds opera with S. African dance music

Agence France-Presse
June 10, 2024 7:

Ofentse Pitse, 31, is the first black South African woman to run an all-black orchestra 

(Phill Magakoe/AFP)


Ofentse Pitse embodies a fierce sense of fun as she waves her conducting baton passionately in a dimly lit auditorium in Johannesburg, ahead of a one-of-a-kind show.

The pioneering 31-year-old who hails from Mabopane, a township some 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of Pretoria, is the first South African woman to own and lead an all-black orchestra.

Now, she is producing a show that brings together classical music and popular South African genre, amapiano, which developed from a mix of kwaito, South Africa's take on house music, and the more international variety.

Pitse grew up with a family that was deeply involved in a Salvation Army church and recalls her pastor urging her to play an instrument.

At 12 years old, Pitse said she "got taught how to play C scale... and the evolution of that was my love for classical music, my love for choral and opera."

By the age of 25, she had started her own youth choir.

Some of the musicians who were part of this first choir joined Pitse on stage last week for an opera featuring various amapiano artists such as Kabza De Small, one of the pioneers of the genre.

Speaking to AFP at a rehearsal, Pitse said De Small's approach to music is similar to opera and that inspired the idea of creating "an amapiano opera" where she would reimagine his songs.

An elegant, unfamiliar version of "Nana Thula", a popular song by Kabza De Small and DJ Maphorisa, filled the room as a choir sang softly, backed by violins and a saxophone.

The duo, who go by the name Scorpion Kings, each enjoy fame and an international following, having produced some of the most notable amapiano tracks.

"I want to do African works... imagine the juxtaposition of these classically trained musicians and these musicians who just feel by spirit, and we combine that," an excited Pitse said of the show.

-'A gift'-


As the ensemble performed some of the biggest amapiano hits, Pitse became lost in the music, dancing slightly to the beat while maintaining her poise, often with a face full of emotion.

She told AFP she steered away from being stern in her conducting and prefers to lead "with passion... to add that motherly, sensitive, very genuine" vibe.

But a career in classical music was not always her dream, rather "a gift".

Last year, the qualified architect led a 74-piece female orchestra rendition of Alicia Keys' "If I Ain't Got You" alongside the Grammy award-winning artist for Netflix's "Queen Charlotte", a spinoff of the popular "Bridgerton" televised drama.

The performance was the "greatest accomplishment of my career", she said. "For me it was like 'wow, so women can really create at this level?'".

Pitse said her driving force was advancing youth opportunities and inspiring women of color.

- 'Meticulous detailing' -

But success and recognition has also brought pressure, she admitted.

Being young and black in a white male-dominated industry, she said there was often someone checking to see if she really knew what she was doing.

Sometimes observers "would want to put in a sly comment that does not have anything to do with music... so you have to be overly prepared".

Sporting flared black pants, a white jacket, and her signature braided updo, Pitse joked with the crew in between takes.

As a zealous Beyonce fan, her ultimate dream is working with the US singer whose work ethic she simulates.

"Beyonce will spend four months on dance rehearsal, another four months on band rehearsal for a two-hour show. That's meticulous detailing," she marveled, adding that she approaches her own shows the same way.

Pitse's next move, she hopes, will be her own body of work.

"I want people to transcend, and I make music for the academics of classical music" and "those who have never been to a theatre", she said.

Kenyan police to deploy to Haiti within weeks: Ruto

Agence France-Presse
June 9, 2024 

(AFP)

Kenyan police will deploy to quell gang violence in Haiti probably within weeks, the east African country’s President William Ruto said on Sunday, despite court challenges that delayed the mission.

Kenya is aiming to lead a UN-backed mission to secure the Caribbean nation, stricken by violence, poverty and political instability.

The east African nation is scheduled to send 1,000 officers for the mission alongside personnel from several other countries.

“The people of Haiti are maybe waiting, by the grace of God, that probably by next week or the other week, we shall send our police officers to restore peace,” Ruto said in an address during a visit to central Kenya on Sunday.

A UN Security Council resolution in October last year approved the mission but a Kenyan court in January delayed the deployment.

It said the government did not have the authority to send police officers abroad without a prior agreement.
The government secured that agreement on March 1 and Ruto told the BBC last month that he expected a Kenyan force to go to Haiti within weeks.

But a small opposition party in Kenya filed a fresh lawsuit to try to block it. Kenya’s High Court is due to consider that case on June 12.

Aside from Kenya, other countries that have expressed willingness to join the mission include Benin, the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados and Chad.

Global monitor Human Rights Watch has raised rights concerns about the mission and doubts over its funding.

Rights groups have accused Kenyan police of using excessive force and carrying out unlawful killings.

What a bath taken 1,000 years ago can tell us about a conflicted 11th century England

The Conversation
June 9, 2024 

Bathing in the Middle Ages. Codex Manesse, UBH Cod. Pal. germ. 848.







On June 8 1023, 1,001 years ago, King Cnut took a bath. In itself this was not particularly remarkable. Contrary to the image of a ubiquitously grubby middle ages that dominates film and television, there is evidence to suggest that among the upper classes, at least, bathing was a regular pleasure.




What is unusual is that Cnut’s bath seems to be the first in English history that a (fairly) reliable written source, Osbern of Canterbury, chooses to pin to a particular time and place. But why? What made this particular bath 1,000 years ago deserving of this honour? The answer lies in the complex world of 11th century national power politics.

First we need to go back to 1012 and the grisly fate of Ælfheah, archbishop of Canterbury. Captured the previous autumn by a band of Vikings, Ælfheah was considered a valuable prize. By the spring, the leader of the band, Thorkell the Tall, was trying to negotiate a ransom for him from the English, while holding him captive at an encampment in Greenwich.

Disappointingly for the Vikings, Ælfheah refused to be ransomed. This courageous move placed the archbishop in a distinctly perilous position. He was a rapidly depreciating asset in the hands of a bunch of rowdy and bloodthirsty men, who were happy to take their amusements where they found them.

At a feast on April 19 1012, his captors threw “bones and the heads of cattle” at him until eventually one of them, a Christian convert, took pity and despatched him with an axe-blow to the head. St Alfege’s church in Greenwich supposedly stands on the site of the martyrdom

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St Ælfheah, Archbishop of Canterbury is asked for advice (1400). Vincent of Beauvais, Le Miroir Historial (Vol. IV)

Ælfheah’s body was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral, where it lay for the next 11 years. In the meantime, the Danes completed their conquest of England.

The Dane Cnut, crowned king in 1016, set about the business of reconciling himself to his new English subjects. And as a dead man, Ælfheah gained more political power than he had had when alive. The corpse of the archbishop, casually slaughtered in a peculiarly gruesome way during a drunken binge, was a continuing reproach. It was a reminder of a version of the Danes that did not square with Cnut’s aspirations to godly English kingship – particularly while it remained uncomfortably close to where the deed itself had occurred.

Cnut decided to have Ælfheah reburied in Canterbury with full honours. The move would at once acknowledge the enormity of the crime and hail the sanctity of the archbishop (harnessing it to his own regime). He hoped it would neutralise Ælfheah’s power as a nexus of friction between his English and Danish subjects.

Putting his plan into effect, Cnut summoned Ælfheah’s successor as archbishop of Canterbury, a man named Æthelnoth, to London. He was to preside over proceedings so that they were seen to be carried out with the blessing of the church.

At this point we can return to Cnut’s bath. Barely had he entered it, Osbern tells us, when a messenger arrived to tell him of Æthelnoth’s arrival  

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A 14th-century portrait of King Cnut.

Der Spiegel Geschichte/Wiki Commons

Cnut – achieving the dubious honour of being the first person recorded in English history to have been disturbed by something frustratingly urgent just as he had stepped into a bath – immediately arose, dried himself and embarked for St Paul’s to take control.

The body of a martyr was a valuable spiritual, and perhaps also commercial, commodity. Cnut knew that any attempt to take it away from London would almost certainly be resisted.

Cnut ordered his men to create a distraction while the tomb was opened by a vigorous pair of monks named Godric and Ælfweard the Tall (who proved surprisingly adept at surreptitiously demolishing cathedral walls). The corpse of Ælfheah was retrieved and spirited away to a ship on the Thames (with Cnut himself at the helm) under the very noses of the citizenry of London.

Ælfheah was then taken on to Canterbury to be reburied, becoming the focus of a minor, but politically useful cult. Canonised in 1078, there are a scatter of churches dedicated to him (normally as St Alphege) in England. The document which tells us the story (Translatio Sancti Aelfegi, Translation of Saint Aelphegus), was produced at Canterbury by Osbern in the 1080s. He wrote it alongside a Life of Ælfheah as part of a campaign to ensure his recognition as a legitimate saint in the aftermath of the Norman conquest.

The Normans regarded most pre-conquest English saints with scepticism. So Osbern, wrote these tracts to bolster Ælfheah’s status and guarantee that the saint would continue to attract gifts, pilgrimages and benefactions to the diocese with which he was strongly associated. To the city of Canterbury, Ælfheah was a valuable piece of intellectual property and it was vital to protect it.

There is a great deal to unpack in this story, but the focus on Cnut’s interrupted bath in Osbern’s account is an especially fascinating nugget. Writing some 60 or so years after the events in question and using sources that are entirely unknown, why did Osbern feel that this element of the story deserved attention?

It certainly brings the story alive and gives it – at least to modern eyes – a vividness, immediacy and interest it might otherwise lack. But for the medieval audience, the story of Cnut’s immersion at this critical moment would have overtones of a spiritual rebirth akin to Christian baptism.

Osbern’s implication is that as a reward for removing Ælfheah’s remains to Canterbury and doing them proper honour, the saint will cleanse Cnut of his sins – and of any residual guilt for deaths during his conquest of England. This is represented in physical form by his immersion in water, awakening him through this baptism to a virtuous life in Christ as a godly English monarch.

Through the surprising medium of this first recorded English bath, the divided and conflicted English kingdom of a millennium ago opens up to us.

Simon Trafford, Lecturer in Medieval History, School of Advanced Study, University of London

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Fossil-hunting diver says he has found a large section of mastodon tusk off Florida’s coast



This April 2024 photo taken by Blair Morrow and provided by Alex Lundberg shows a large section of tusk from a long-extinct mastodon that Lundberg and his diver companion found on the sea floor off Florida’s Gulf coast. They first thought it was just a large piece of wood. (Blair Morrow via AP)


This April 2024 photo taken by Blair Morrow and provided by Alex Lundberg shows Lundberg with a large section of tusk from a long-extinct mastodon that he and his diver companion found on the sea floor off Florida’s Gulf coast. They first thought it was just a large piece of wood. (Blair Morrow via AP)


This April 2024 photo taken by Blair Morrow and provided by Alex Lundberg shows Lundberg holding a large section of tusk from a long-extinct mastodon that he and his diver companion found on the sea floor off Florida’s Gulf coast. They first thought it was just a large piece of wood. (Blair Morrow via AP)

BY CURT ANDERSON
une 6, 2024Share


ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — At first, fossil-hunting diver Alex Lundberg thought the lengthy object on the sea floor off Florida’s Gulf Coast was a piece of wood. It turned out to be something far rarer, Lundberg said: a large section of tusk from a long-extinct mastodon.

Lundberg and his diver companion had found fossils in the same place before, including mammoth teeth, bones of an ancient jaguar and parts of a dire wolf. They also have found small pieces of mastodon tusk, but nothing this big and intact.

“We kind of knew there could be one in the area,” Lundberg said in an interview, noting that as he kept fanning away sand from the tusk he found in April “it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I’m like, this is a big tusk.”

The tusk measures about 4 feet (1.2 meters) and weighs 70 pounds (31 kilograms), Lundberg said, and was found at a depth of about 25 feet (7.6 meters) near Venice, Florida. It’s currently sitting in a glass case in his living room, but the story may not end there.

Mastodons are related to mammoths and current-day elephants. Scientists say they lived mainly in what is now North America, appearing as far back as 23 million years ago. They became extinct about 10,000 years ago, along with dozens of other large mammals that disappeared when Earth’s climate was rapidly changing — and Stone Age humans were on the hunt.

Remains of mastodons are frequently found across the continent, with Indiana legislators voting a couple years ago to designate the mastodon as its official state fossil. Mastodons are on exhibit at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, one of the most significant locations in the world for fossils of the bygone era.


The age of the tusk Lundberg found has not yet been determined.

Under Florida law, fossils of vertebrates found on state lands, which include near-shore waters, belong to the state under authority of the Florida Museum of Natural History. Lundberg has a permit to collect such fossils and must report the tusk find to the museum when his permit is renewed in December. He’s had that permit since 2019, according to the museum.

“The museum will review the discoveries and localities to determine their significance and the permit holder can keep the fossils if the museum does not request them within 60 days of reporting,” said Rachel Narducci, collections manager at the museum’s Division of Vertebrate Paleontology. “This may be a significant find depending on exactly where it was collected.”

Lundberg, who has a marine biology degree from the University of South Florida and now works at a prominent Tampa cancer center, is optimistic he’ll be able to keep the tusk.

“You don’t know where it came from. It’s been rolling around in the ocean for millions of years. It’s more of a cool piece,” he said.

Anti-abortion activist convicted for blockading a reproductive health clinic, not for praying there


 Social media users are falsely claiming an anti-abortion activist was given prison time for praying outside a reproductive health clinic.

BY MELISSA GOLDIN
June 5, 2024Share

CLAIM: A 75-year-old woman named Paulette Harlow was sentenced to two years in prison for praying outside an abortion clinic in Washington.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Harlow was convicted in August 2023 of federal civil rights offenses for her role in the October 2020 invasion and blockade of the Washington Surgi-Clinic. Along with other anti-abortion activists, Harlow used force and physical obstruction to execute the blockade, according to the Department of Justice. She was sentenced to 24 months in prison on Friday.

THE FACTS: Social media users are misrepresenting Harlow’s crimes, alleging that she is being put behind bars because she chose to pray beside the clinic.

“A DC judge just sentenced 75-year-old Paulette Harlow, who is in poor health, to 2 years in prison for praying outside an abortion clinic,” reads one X post that had received approximately 15,000 likes and 9,800 shares as of Wednesday. “Her husband fears she might die there.”

An Instagram post that shared a screenshot of the X post states: “The justice system has been broken for a long time and needs a f---ing overhaul. It’s not going to happen overnight but it NEEDS to happen.”

The post, which received more than 3,800 likes, also referenced former President Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts last week. “Stop saying ‘if’ they can do it to Trump, they can do it to you,” it reads. “They already ARE doing it to you.”

But Harlow, who is named in court documents as Paula “Paulette” Harlow, isn’t getting prison time for praying outside the clinic.

The 75-year-old was sentenced to two years behind bars after being convicted on two charges for taking part in the blockade of the Washington Surgi-Clinic: felony conspiracy against civil rights and violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, more commonly known as the FACE Act.

Enacted in 1994, the federal FACE Act prohibits physically obstructing or using the threat of force to intimidate or interfere with a person seeking reproductive health services. The law also prohibits damaging property at abortion clinics and other reproductive health centers.

Harlow was charged alongside nine co-conspirators, including the blockade’s leaders, Lauren Handy and Jonathan Darnel. She was the last to be sentenced. All but one of the defendants were found guilty on the same charges as Harlow. The other pleaded guilty to violating the FACE Act. Handy and Darnel were sentenced to the most prison time, 57 months and 34 months, respectively. The rest received sentences ranging from 10 to 27 months.

“These 10 defendants have been held accountable for using force, threatening to use force and physically obstructing access to reproductive health care in the District of Columbia,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement.

Martin Cannon, one of the defendants’ attorneys, said in a statement responding to Handy’s sentencing on May 14 that she and her co-defendants were united in non-violence and that “they conspired to be peaceful.”
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This is part of the AP’s effort to address widely shared false and misleading information that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.