One Single Primitive Turtle Resisted Mass Extinction In The Northern Hemisphere

Sixty-six million years ago, in the emerged lands of Laurasia -now the northern hemisphere- a primitive land tortoise, measuring about 60 cm, managed to survive the event that killed the dinosaurs. It was the only one to do so in this area of the world, according to a Spanish palaeontologist who has analysed its peculiar fossils, found in France.

A reconstruction of Laurasichersis relicta which lived in the northen hemisphere 66 millons years ago
[Credit: José Antonio Peñas (SINC)]
All turtle species we know of today are descendants of two lineages that separated during the Jurassic, more than 160 million years ago. But their members were not the only ones that existed. There had been many groups of primitive tortoises before them, in an earlier evolutionary position.

Some of these ancient reptiles managed to survive at a time when dinosaurs dominated the Earth. However, virtually all of the early groups of turtles disappeared after an asteroid impact that took place 66 million years and wiped out 70% of life on the planet.

Only the so-called "horned turtles" or meiolaniids managed to hold out, more specifically in Gondwana, the current southern hemisphere, according to fossils found in Oceania and South America. Their last representatives managed to co-exist relatively recently with humans, who hunted them to extinction. No other primitive turtle had appeared in the records of the last 66 million years.

After 10 years of study, the palaeontologist Adán Pérez García, from the Evolutionary Biology Group of the National University of Distance Education (UNED, Spain), now confirms that, in the northern hemisphere, on the ancient continent called Laurasia, a primitive land turtle also survived the mass extinction of the late Cretaceous period.

This was Laurasichersis relicta, an extinct turtle genus and species that corresponds to a new form, with very peculiar anatomical characteristics, and whose lineage evolved independently from that of the Gondwana tortoises, from which it separated 100 million years earlier.

"The reason why Laurasichersis survived the great extinction, while none of the other primitive North American, European or Asian land turtles managed to do so, remains a mystery," Pérez García, the sole author of the paper published in Scientific Reports, has confided to Sinc.

The impact of the asteroid plunged the Earth into a spiral of gas emissions, molten material and acid rain that caused a sudden warming of the climate and transformed the landscapes in which the turtles lived.


Laurasichersis relicta, an extinct turtle genus and species that corresponds to a new form
[Credit: José Antonio Peñas (SINC)]
"The fauna of European turtles underwent a radical change: most of the forms that inhabited this continent before the extinction disappeared, and their role in many ecosystems was left vacant until the relatively rapid arrival of new groups from various places in North America, Africa and Asia," the palaeontologist points out.

All of them, identified in these new ecosystems, seemed to belong to the two lineages that have persisted to this day, but the new study allows us to recognize that they were not alone. The appearance in a site in northeastern France of fossils of the shell, limbs and skull of Laurasichersis relicta shows that this primitive species also survived the mass extinction event in Laurasia.

However, its origin stems from another continent: "It is the last representative of a group previously identified in China and Mongolia, where it was known since the Jurassic, more than 100 million years before the new European Laurasichersis turtle existed. This group arrived on this continent very shortly after the end of the Mesozoic, 66 million years ago," says the researcher.

The shell of the newly discovered turtle was just over 60 cm long during adulthood and, like other primitive reptiles, it could not retract its neck into its shell to conceal its head from predators. This physical limitation allowed it to develop other protective mechanisms such as an armor with large, mutually linked spikes, which were hard structures located on the neck, legs and tail.

Its peculiar shell is one of the most remarkable features of this reptile and one of the characteristics that make it unique. This complex structure was made up of numerous plates. "Although the number of plates is usually the same in most turtles, the ventral shell region of the new species was provided with a greater number of these elements than those known in any other turtle," Pérez García stresses.

After the 10-km-diameter meteorite hit the Earth, the large dinosaurs ceased to be part of the landscape, but the turtle, which lived in humid environments with forest areas, coexisted with new predators. The latter quickly dominated the positions of the food chain that had remained available when most animals disappeared.

Author: Adeline Marcos | Source: Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) [February 03, 2020]

'Oldest Bamboo' Fossil From Eocene Patagonia Turns Out To Be A Conifer

A fossilised leafy branch from the early Eocene in Patagonia described in 1941 is still often cited as the oldest bamboo fossil and the main fossil evidence for a Gondwanan origin of bamboos. However, a recent examination by Dr. Peter Wilf from Pennsylvania State University revealed the real nature of Chusquea oxyphylla. The recent findings, published in the paper in the open-access journal Phytokeys, show that it is actually a conifer.

The holotype of the species Retrophyllum oxyphyllum (comb. nov.),
previously thought to be the oldest known bamboo
[Credit: Peter Wilf]
The corrected identification is significant because the fossil in question was the only bamboo macrofossil still considered from the ancient southern supercontinent of Gondwana. The oldest microfossil evidence for bamboo in the Northern Hemisphere belongs to the Middle Eocene, while other South American fossils are not older than Pliocene.

Over the last decades, some authors have doubted whether the Patagonian fossil was really a bamboo or even a grass species at all. But despite its general significance, modern-day re-examinations of the original specimen were never published. Most scientists referring to it had a chance to study only a photograph found in the original publication from 1941 by the famous Argentine botanists Joaquin Frenguelli and Lorenzo Parodi.

In his recent study of the holotype specimen at Museo de La Plata, Argentina, Dr. Peter Wilf revealed that the fossil does not resemble members of the Chusquea genus or any other bamboo.

"There is no evidence of bamboo-type nodes, sheaths or ligules. Areas that may resemble any bamboo features consist only of the broken departure points of leaf bases diverging from the twig. The decurrent, extensively clasping leaves are quite unlike the characteristically pseudopetiolate leaves of bamboos, and the heterofacially twisted free-leaf bases do not occur in any bamboo or grass," wrote Dr. Wilf.

Instead, Wilf linked the holotype to the recently described fossils of the conifer genus Retrophyllum from the same fossil site, the prolific Laguna del Hunco fossil lake-beds in Chubut Province, Argentina. It matches precisely the distichous fossil foliage form of Retrophyllum spiralifolium, which was described based on a large set of data - a suite of 82 specimens collected from both Laguna del Hunco and the early middle Eocene Rio Pichileufu site in Rio Negro Province.

Retrophyllum is a genus of six living species of rainforest conifers. Its habitat lies in both the Neotropics and the tropical West Pacific.

The gathered evidence firmly confirms that Chusquea oxyphylla has nothing in common with bamboos. Thus, it requires renaming. Preserving the priority of the older name, Wilf combined Chusquea oxyphylla and Retrophyllum spiralifolium into Retrophyllum oxyphyllum.

The exclusion of a living New World bamboo genus from the overall floral list for Eocene Patagonia weakens the New World biogeographic signal of the late-Gondwanan vegetation of South America, which already showed much stronger links to living floras of the tropical West Pacific.

The strongest New World signal remaining in Eocene Patagonia based on well-described macrofossils comes from fossil fruits of Physalis (a genus of flowering plants including tomatillos and ground cherries), which is an entirely American genus, concludes Dr. Wilf.

Source: Pensoft Publishers [February 04, 2020]

Detectorists Unearth 69,347 Iron Age Coins In Jersey, Channel Isles

Treasure hunters have set a record for the largest coin hoard discovered in the British Isles after unearthing 69,347 Roman and Celtic coins that were buried three feet beneath a hedge in Jersey, Channel Isles.

Britain's largest coin hoard of gold and silver pieces was found under a hedge on Jersey
in the Channel Islands [Credit: David Ferguson]
Metal detectorists Reg Mead and Richard Miles spent 30 years searching the field for the £10million treasure after a woman described seeing what looked like silver buttons in the area.
Their find - made in 2012 - trumps the previous record holding discovery of 54,951 Iron Age coins unearthed in Wiltshire in 1978.


The coins were found by metal detectorists encased in clay. It is believed that
they were hidden in the field around 50BC [Credit: Jersey Heritage]
Some of the silver and gold relics from the Guinness Record setting discovery, dated to around 50BC, will go on display at La Hougue Bie Museum on the island.

'We are not surprised at this achievement and are delighted that such an impressive archaeological item was discovered, examined and displayed in Jersey,' said curator of archaeology at Jersey Heritage Olga Finch.



The coins were carefully extracted after they were detected three feet
beneath a hedge [Credit: Jersey Heritage]

'Once again, it puts our Island in the spotlight of international research of Iron Age coinage and demonstrates the world class heritage that Jersey has to offer.'

Mr Miles said he and Mr Mead had been involved in the process the whole way through and described receiving the Guinness World Record certificates as 'lovely'.


Conservator for the Jersey Heritage Museum Neil Mahrer begins to carefully dig
the silver and gold treasures out of the clay [Credit: Jersey Heritage]
The coins were found to have been entombed in a mound of clay weighing three quarters of a ton and measuring 55 x 31 x 8 inches.

They were declared a 'treasure' under the Treasure Act 1996, which means they officially belong to the Queen, although the finders are entitled to a reward.

Detectorists Reg Mead and Richard Miles found the coins sealed
inside a slab of clay in 2012 [Credit: SWNS.com]
Mr Mead has said that the least valuable coins in the hoard are likely to be worth £100 each, suggesting a valuation of several million pounds, without taking into account the precious jewellery also found in it.



However, there has been discussion over whether the price would come down because so many coins had been found, reducing their rarity.



Some of the coins after cleaning [Credit: Jersey Heritage]
The previous largest coin hoard from Wiltshire was discovered in 1978 at the former Roman town of Cunetio near to Mildenhall.

The largest hoard of coins ever found in the world was in Brussels in 1908 with 150,000 silver medieval pennies from the 13th Century uncovered.

Author: Luke Andrews | Source: Daily Mail [February 02, 2020]

NOT WHAT YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU HEAR SYRIA

Syria: Assad's forces 'seize' crossroad town as Turkey sends convoy into Idlib

Syrian forces claim to have seized the highway junction town of Saraqeb near Idlib, capital of the last major rebel enclave in Syria. Since Friday, neighboring Turkey has dispatched 430 military vehicles into the region.


The Syrian army said on Saturday that it had taken control of the strategic northwestern town of Saraqeb as it continues an offensive in the Idlib region, the country's last major rebel stronghold.

News of the seizure was announced by Syrian state television broadcasting live from Saraqeb, located at the junction of the M4 highway, which stretches east from the Mediterranean, and the M5, which brings traffic 300 kilometers (186 miles) north from the capital, Damascus, toward Aleppo.

The junction town's capture capped a weekslong offensive by President Bashar Assad's forces. According to the UN, the operation has forced 580,000 people to flee, many of whom were already displaced, and left 300 civilians dead.

Read more: Idlib — the Syrian region abandoned by the world

Saraqeb, which months ago had had 110,000 residents, has been in large part leveled by bombardment, with many of its inhabitants fleeing the town, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"Our aim is to clear the highway," a Syrian commander told state television, referring to the M5, which leads on to Aleppo, whose rebel-held eastern section was captured by Assad's forces back in 2016.

The Observatory said Assad's forces still did not have access to 30 remaining kilometers (18 miles) of Syria's northwestern highway network.

Turkish-manned observation posts

News of Saraqueb's capture comes after a convoy of 430 Turkish military vehicles crossed into Idlib, the province named like its densely packed regional capital, from Friday night, said the Observatory.

That brought Turkey's vehicle count since last weekend to over 1,000, it said.

Turkey has 12 observation posts inside Idlib province, set up under a 2018 truce, in a shrinking rebel area occupied by some 3 million people near Turkey's border.

Some 50,000 rebel fighters, a mixture of jihadis and opponents to Assad's regime, are still in the area, according to Observatory estimates.


Rebels inside Idlib are continuing to fight government forces

Turkey's Anadolu news agency, citing a Turkish security source, said the sole mission of the convoy, which was accompanied by commandos, was to reinforce three outposts surrounded by Syria's army.

The Observatory said the Turkish vehicles were on a front line north of Saraqeb.

"In the event of a new attack, a proper response will be given in the strongest manner, based on the right of self-defence," the Turkish Defense Ministry said in a tweet.

Russia-Turkey frictions

On Saturday, a Russian delegation met with Turkish officials in Ankara. Turkey has long urged Moscow to convince Assad to end the offensive.

Last Monday, Turkish soldiers were caught in an exchange of shelling with Russian-backed Syrian troops, leaving more than 20 reported dead on both sides.

Fahrettin Altun, top press aide to Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Saturday warned that Ankara would not tolerate the situation unfolding in Idlib.

"Bashar al-Assad's place in the future ... is not the presidential palace but the International Court of Justice at The Hague," said Altun.

The United Nations and aid groups warn that further Syrian encroachment into Idlib risks creating one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of Syria's nine-year war.

ipj/jlw (AFP, Reuters, AP)

Syrian government set to retake key M5 highway: monitor

Issued on: 09/02/2020

Beirut (AFP)

Syrian regime forces Sunday were set to retake a key motorway connecting the capital Damascus to second city Aleppo following weeks of battles in the rebel-held Idlib region, a monitor said.

The M5 has been long in the sights of the Syrian government as it seeks to revive a moribund economy after nearly nine years of war.

It connects Aleppo, once Syria's economic hub, to Damascus and continues south to the Jordanian border and recapturing it would allow traffic to resume between economically-vital parts of war-torn Syria.

After weeks of steady regime advances in Syria's northwest, only a two-kilometre section of the M5 remains outside government control, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.

Pro-government forces on Sunday were closing in on the last sliver in the southwest of the Aleppo province neighbouring the Idlib region where they have been battling rebels and jihadists, the monitor said.

"Regime forces have gained new ground and now control several villages near the motorway," Observatory head Rami Abdul Rahman told AFP.

Since December, Russian-backed government forces have pressed a blistering assault against Idlib, Syria's last major opposition bastion, retaking town after town from their opponents in the region.

The violence has killed more than 300 civilians and sent some 586,000 fleeing towards relative safety nearer the Turkish border.

On Saturday, the Syrian army captured the Idlib town of Saraqeb, located on a junction of the M5 highway, state media said.

Troops then pressed north along the motorway past Idlib's provincial borders and linked up with a unit of Syrian soldiers in Aleppo province, according to the Observatory and state agency SANA.

It was the first time in weeks the two units joined up after waging separate offensives against rebels and jihadists in Idlib and Aleppo.

A little more than half of Idlib province remains in rebel hands, along with slivers of neighbouring Aleppo and Latakia provinces.

The region is home to three million civilians, half of whom have already been displaced from other parts of the country.

Some 50,000 fighters are also in the shrinking pocket, many of them jihadists but the majority allied rebels, according to the Observatory.

The United Nations and aid groups have appealed for an end to hostilities in the Idlib region, warning that the exodus risks creating one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of the nearly nine-year war.

© 2020 AFP

Modi defeat in New Delhi state elections: exit polls

Millions in the Indian capital New Delhi have voted in a key regional election. Exit polls show a big defeat for Prime Minister Modi's Hindu nationalist party. Their policies of Hindu exceptionalism have caused protests.



Voting in a crucial state election took place Saturday in India's capital where Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist party, emboldened by national victories, is hoping to retake power after 22 years on the side line.

Exit polls suggest a big defeat for Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The PM's policies of Hindu exceptionalism have caused widespread protests across India in the last few months.

An average of nine exit polls showed New Delhi's chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), or "common man's party," to win 52 out of 70 seats.

Long queues of voters waiting to cast their ballots could be seen across New Delhi neighborhoods on Saturday. Around 14.6 million people are registered to participate in the election, whose results will be declared on Tuesday.

What did Modi's party stand for?

Modi's BJP faced Kejriwal's party as their main opponent. Over the last five years in power, Kejriwal's party has focused on helping the state's poor by refurbishing public schools and providing bus fares for women and electric and healthcare subsidies.


Kejriwal's party was likely to win 52 out of 70 seats

The BJP's Federal Home Minister Amit Shah called a meeting for party members late on Saturday. He had campaigned vigorously for BJP, highlighting their tough stance on national security.

The BJP's campaign has aggravated Hindu-Muslim relations and positioned the election as a referendum on nearly two months of protests over a controversial new law that excludes Muslims from a fast-track to citizenship. The night before elections began, the BJP sent messages to constituents urging them to vote for the party if they want the rallies to end.

Will Modi mobilize Hindu supporters?

The party also hopes that Modi's decision last summer to strip Muslim-majority Kashmir of its semi-autonomous status will gain Hindu votes.

While these moves have proven favorable among BJP supporters, they have yet to make a difference at the polls. The party lost two state elections last year. Surveys by news networks predict another victory for the Aam Aadmi Party in the 70-seat state assembly.

A distant third party, the Indian National Congress, is not expected to perform well.

Were Modi's party to win, it could further bolster the BJP's pro-Hindu agenda, while defeat would be another blow to his policies.

The BJP hasn't been in power in New Delhi since 1998, when the Congress Party came to power. The Aam Aadmi Party has governed the state since a landslide victory in 2015, where it captured 67 out of 70 seats, just a year after the BJP won national elections.

---30---

Can coffee growing in Mozambique save a rainforest and keep the peace?

Conflict and logging have decimated Mozambique's central rainforest. One coffee project is trying to restore lost trees. Some hope it will also help keep fighting at bay.

Mozambique: Protection from cyclones

Project aim: Protecting the rainforest on Mount Gorongosa

Project implementation: 300,000 coffee plants and 50,000 native trees have been planted on a 145 hectare (358 acre) area. The Gorongosa project is planning to plant another 150 hectares in 2020

Project scope: 400 farmers are involved in the project of around 1000 people living on the mountain.

In March 2019, cyclone Idai swept through Africa, bringing with it the worst floods in 20 years. Mozambique was particularly badly hit. Idai destroyed houses, inundated farms and left many dead.

It's a devastating picture, but scientists say it could have been much worse were it not for a rainforest in Gorongosa National Park in central Mozambique. When the cyclone struck that area, the intact wetland ecosystem was able to absorb much of the torrential rainfall.

But the green paradise — home to diverse plants and animals — is under threat from logging and intermittent conflict. A sustainable coffee project, set up by Mozambique's government and US nonprofit, the Carr Foundation, aims to protect the ecosystem and, some hope, to keep the peace too.

A film by Stefan Möhl

Rainforest Coffee

Our coffee is now for sale! Click here to get it shipped to you. 

OVERVIEW

Gorongosa Coffee is a large-scale agroforestry initiative with enduring socio-economic and environmental benefits. This Mozambican based project is being implemented on Mount Gorongosa, designated as part of Gorongosa National Park due to the rich endemism and critical hydrologic function for the Greater Gorongosa Landscape. The mountain is covered in a tropical rainforest; a rainforest that once extended across the continent, supporting an explosion of wildlife. Gorongosa Coffee is currently working with a thousand families living on the Mountain with plans to reach three times that number living on the mountain; all endorsing a common vision of the integrated relationship between sustainable land use, community development, and biodiversity.

 

RESILIENCE 


After three years spent establishing a pilot project, Gorongosa Coffee reached a milestone in 2016 by harvesting the first high quality Arabica coffee beans ever grown by small-scale producers in Mozambique. Collaborating with key stakeholders from the community, the government, and the private sector has led to innovated and integrated solutions illustrated by livelihood improvements of participating families and the proliferation and conservation of indigenous trees in the project area. Unlike similar projects in the region, Gorongosa Coffee is the first to use a fully integrated approach: bringing together a network of human development interventions in health and education with a targeted effort of creating jobs and establishing alternative livelihoods for families on the mountain.

 

·       Created as a community-based project, Gorongosa Coffee’s development has been community driven including: integrating local leaders in the planning process and day-to- day operations of the project;

 

·       Hiring key members of the community with an affinity for conservation and consensus building;

 

·       Coordinating with community organizations in natural resources management, education and health.

 

As a result, the project has proven resilient against the periodic onset of regional instability and extreme climatic events.

 

APPROACH

Gorongosa Coffee also offers small producers the option for expansion over time, focusing on developing emerging farmers through an array of agroforestry alternatives such as honey production and most importantly upskilling farmers with training that they can apply in any aspect of their livelihoods. This critical flexibility has promoted ownership of the project and adoption of conservation principals by the community. 

 

Through the implementation of more sustainable agricultural practices, smallholder farmers are learning inter-row cropping and crop rotation methods, between each line of coffee trees. Inter-row cropping reduces the risk for farmers who have chosen to dedicate some of their land area to coffee cultivation. Improved crop rotation methods, cycling between maize and legumes, help to return nitrogen back into the soil after each season; reducing the need to find new lands to cultivate and curbing the use of slash and burn agricultural practices in the rainforest. 

 

VISION

Gorongosa Coffee is based on the idea of an alliance between Gorongosa Project and the local community where 1,000 hectares would be developed under high quality shade grown Arabica coffee; which will translate into over 5,000 hectares of protected and restored rainforest and sustainable livelihoods for over 2,500 families; securing the 40,000 hectare portion of the national park. 

 

Mozambicans flee in fear of beheadings in extremist north

A militia affiliated with the "Islamic State" militant group has reportedly targeted homes, schools and health clinics, the UN said. The region is home to billion-dollar liquified natural gas projects.


A surge of extremism has torn through northern Mozambique, forcing residents to flee, the UN said on Friday. Officials confirmed that attacks by an Islamic insurgency have increased, with eyewitnesses saying that mass kidnappings have taken place and villages have been burned to the ground.

Seven people are said to have been beheaded earlier this week, AP reported. Homes, schools and health clinics have all been targeted by the rebels, who have been operating in the Cabo Delgado province.

More than 156,000 people are said to have been affected by the insurgency, Cabo Delgado's provincial government said this week.

Read more: Growing domestic instablity or risk of terrorism in Mozambique?

The Islamic extremists call themselves Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jama and began operating in northern Mozambique since 2017.

Since then, some 500 people have been killed, many of them beheaded. Last year, the group pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, which routinely assumes responsibility for the attacks in Mozambique.

The UN refugee agency's spokesman Andrej Mahecic said in Geneva that the displaced villagers have recounted the horrors of what they have experienced.

"They speak of men in particular being targeted and beheaded, and many, many reports of women and children ... being kidnapped or simply disappearing," Mahecic said.

"In total, at least 28 attacks were carried out in the province since the beginning of the year," he added.

Read more: Can coffee growing in Mozambique save a rainforest and keep the peace?

Mahecic said the UN would step in to take over coordinating "all protection activities in partnership with the government,'' and would deploy ''additional aid and staff to meet the need, initially for 15,000 internally displaced people and host communities in the coming weeks.''

Northern Mozambique is home to one of the largest natural gas reserves in the world, where multibillion-dollar projects are underway.

France's Total and the US firm ExxonMobil, which operate the two onshore gas liquefaction projects, have asked the Mozambique government to send more troops to protect their installations, according to local media.

jcg/sms (AP, Reuters)

Next East Africa locust swarms airborne in 3 to 4 weeks, UN warns

Baby desert locusts in Somalia will become East Africa's next plague wave, UN agronomy experts have warned. Climate change-driven rain has triggered "unprecedented" breeding, says UN chief Antonio Guterres.


The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned Sunday that nymph (baby) desert locusts maturing in Somalia's rebel-held backcountry, where aerial spraying is next to unrealizable, will develop wings in the "next three or four weeks" and threaten millions of people already short of food.

Once in flight and hungry, the swarm could be the "most devastating plague of locusts in any of our living memories if we don't reduce the problem faster than we are doing at the moment," said UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock.

Read more: Why are locusts so destructive?

The locusts were now "very hungry teenagers," but once mature, their progeny would hatch, generating "about a 20-fold increase" in numbers, warned Keith Cressman, FAO locust forecasting officer.

"Mother Nature" alone would not solve the crisis, said Dominique Burgeon, resilience director of the FAO, which has urged international donors to give $76 million (€69.4 million) immediately.

Swarms, which left damage across parts of Ethiopia and Kenya in December, could also put Uganda, South Sudan, Eritrea and Djibouti at risk, making it the worst such situation in 25 years, the FAO said.

East Africa already has 19 million people facing acute food insecurity, according to the regional inter-agency Food Security and Nutrition Working Group (FSNWG).

Read more: Pakistan declares national emergency over locust swarms

East Africa struggles against locust swarms

'Huge' consumption of foodstuffs and fodder

Somalia last week declared a locust emergency, with its agriculture minister, Said Hussein Iid, warning that "food sources for people and their livestock are at risk."

Desert locusts, normally solitary but triggered to swarm by certain conditions, could consume "huge amounts of crops and forage" when present in large numbers, said Iid.

Experts say aerial pesticide spraying is the only effective control, but that the current hotspot for maturing locusts is in an inaccessible swathe of Somalia held by or under threat by the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremist group.

"This is where it begins," FAO spokesman Alberto Trillo Barca said at a police-guarded press briefing in northern Somalia attended by The Associated Press news agency.

"In the next three or four weeks, these nymphs, as we call them, will develop wings," Barca said on Thursday.

Read more: Locust swarms plague East Africa as wildfires burn Australia


These officials in Puntland, Somalia, are spraying by hand, but only aerial spraying is really effective, say experts

'Unprecedented locust crisis'

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, speaking in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, as an African Union (AU) summit kicked off, said Saturday: "There is a link between climate change and the unprecedented locust crisis plaguing Ethiopia and East Africa."

"Warmer seas mean more cyclones generating the perfect breeding ground for locusts. This is getting worse by the day," said Guterres.

Climate experts point to a rain-bearing cyclone that reached Somalian waters in December. Its winds had carried locusts from the Arabian Peninsula. Last week, the FAO said swarms had also been sighted in Oman and Yemen.

The locust density in East Africa was so high that even normal drier weather would still fail to inhibit another breeding generation, said Burgeon.


A locust swarm in Jijiga in Ethiopia in January decimated crops

Replacement crop unrealistic

A farmer in Kenya's eastern Kitui County, Esther Kithuka, told the Reuters news agency last Monday that she was worried about crop destruction. Another growing season due to start in April would be too short for any meaningful production.

Since last century, six desert locust plagues or what experts called region-wide "upsurges" have occurred. One of the worst occurred in 2003-2005 in North and West Africa.


SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=BIBLICAL
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=PLAGUE
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=LOCUSTS
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=AFRICA
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=KENYA
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=SOMALIA
SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=PAKISTAN

Africa holds 'silence the guns' summit

Africa remains beset by conflict and terrorism, the continent's leading diplomat has told an African Union summit headlined "Silencing the Guns." Moussa Faki Mahamat warned that some member states even faced "collapse."


African Union Commission chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat told leaders of the 55-member bloc, which held its annual summit in Addis Ababa, that new crises in Cameroon and Mozambique had joined lingering conflicts in Libya and South Sudan.

The continent was hampered, said Mahamat, "by "terrorism, intercommunal conflict and pre- and post-election crises."

Read more: UN's Guterres warns of global 'wind of madness'

He noted, however, progress in Central African Republic and Sudan, after its civic uprising and reiterated the AU's intention to find "African solutions to African problems."

Ramaphosa takes over AU chair

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa — taking over the AU chair from Egyptian ruler Abdel Fattah el-Sissi — said he planned two summits in May focused on conflict resolution and the other on African continent free trade.

Mahamat, originally from Chad, said that root causes of African conflicts were poverty and social exclusion.

Full UN support for AU initiative

Visiting the summit, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said silencing the guns was about human rights and sustainable development, and the AU's initiative had the UN's full support.

Reacting to AU complaints about being sidelined on Libya, Guterres spoke of a "new framework of cooperation" to overcome AU vagaries over how to fund its inclusion in peace keeping missions.

On Friday, the International Crisis Group think-tank had urged the AU to finalize an agreement that would see the UN financing 75% of peacekeeping missions, when endorsed by the UN Security Council.

Guterres said African peacekeeping contributions must be adequately and predictably financed.

Merkel visited Ramaphosa

Last Thursday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, visiting Ramaphosa in Pretoria, said African nations must be involved in shaping a solution in Libya.

Libya, a migration conduit, has been in turmoil since the 2011 overthrow of dictator Muamar Gadhafi and is now a battle zone for proxy forces, pitting General Khalifa Haftar against the UN-backed government of Fayez al-Serraj in Tripoli.

Ramaphosa had told Merkel he expected a "much clearer African position" on Libya to emerge after the Addis Ababa summit.

Mediation bid for South Sudan

In a bid to jumpstart fresh mediation efforts on South Sudan, Ramaphosa on the summit's eve Saturday met separately with President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar.

The rival leaders face an extended February 22 deadline to form a power-sharing government after two previous failed attempts.

South Sudan's civil war, which began in 2013, has left 380,000 people dead and millions of people in dire poverty.

Also on Sunday, the AU announced that the Democratic Republic of Congo would assume the bloc's rotating chair in 2021, after South Africa.

In mid-January, France President Emmanuel Macron hosted West African heads of state from the sprawling Sahel region, including Chad and Mali, where extremist fighters move with little challenge.


February 9, 2020: photo line-up at AU summit focused on 'Silencing the Guns'

ipj/shs (AFP, dpa)

Brazil police kill suspect in Rio councilwoman's murder
AIN'T THAT CONVENIENT A PATSY SCAPEGOAT SACRIFICIAL LAMB TO COVER UP FOR THE DEATH SQUADS 

09/02/2020

Rio de Janeiro (AFP)

A suspect in the 2018 assassination of an outspoken Afro-Brazilian member of Rio de Janeiro's city council was shot to death Sunday after he fired on police sent to arrest him, Brazilian authorities said.

Adriano Magalhaes da Nobrega, who had been on the run for more than a year, was located by police in a rural area of the city of Esplanada, 170 kilometers (105 miles) north of Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia.

"At the moment of his arrest, he fired on officials and was wounded in the shootout," the state's security agency said in a statement. "He was taken to a hospital but died as a result of his wounds."

Magalhaes, a decorated former captain in an elite Rio military police battalion, was suspected of organizing the March 14, 2018 murder of Marielle Franco, a ground-breaking feminist on the Rio city council known for her denunciations of police brutality and extra-judicial executions.
She and her driver were shot multiple times by occupants of another vehicle as they pursued her car in Rio de Janeiro.

Two former police officers -- Ronnie Lessa, 48, and Elcio de Queiroz, 46, -- were arrested for the crime.

Suspicion on who ordered it fell on a powerful paramilitary group known as the "Office of Crime," which Magalhaes is believed to have led.

Franco's Socialism and Liberty Party issued a statement Sunday demanding that the circumstances around Magalhaes's death be clarified.

"The militia he belonged to was suspected of being implicated in the assassination (of Franco) and he was a key figure for shedding light on a series of crimes," it said.

According to the daily Estado de Sao Paulo, Magalhaes had told his lawyers he feared being killed "to make evidence disappear."

Magalhaes in 2005 received the Tiradentes medal, the state of Rio de Janeiro's highest, at the initiative of then deputy and current senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

Often formed by former police officers, the militias began appearing for the first time in Rio about two decades ago, supposedly to fight drug traffickers in the city's slums but often unleashing violence in poor communities.

© 2020 AFP