It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, December 29, 2020
Keeping the Curtains Drawn on Canada's Secretive Factory Farm Industry
Unlike Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, Canada's laws governing animal welfare have barely evolved over the last century.
As renowned anthropologist Jane Goodall notes: “Farm animals feel pleasure and sadness, excitement and resentment, depression, fear and pain.”
Many people—meat-eaters included—object to the factory farm practice of confining pigs for virtually their entire lives to metal cages so small they can't even turn around.
"Factory farms exist in a realm largely beyond public scrutiny or control, with almost nothing to protect the animals from miserable conditions imposed by an industry extracting maximum profit from the animals it harvests."
That's why the Canadian pork industry, sensitive about its public image, decided to eliminate the practice—a move hailed by Canada's Humane Society as "a watershed moment for farm animals in Canada."
This led to a rare round of positive coverage for the beleaguered industry, with the media reporting that the move would please Canadian consumers and bring Canadian animal welfare practices in line with more advanced European standards.
All that happened back in 2014. Yet, six years later, millions of pigs in Canada continue to spend their lives locked in these narrow cages—because the ban doesn't actually come into effect until 2024.
In fact, that leisurely 10-year phase-in period seems about to get longer. The pork industry has decided it needs more time and has indicated its desire to grant itself a further five-year extension.
This is possible because the industry is allowed to make its own rules governing its animals. But it means sows in Canada will continue their lifelong captivity until 2029—a full 15 years after it was announced the practice was to be ended, due to concerns about animal welfare.
Factory farms exist in a realm largely beyond public scrutiny or control, with almost nothing to protect the animals from miserable conditions imposed by an industry extracting maximum profit from the animals it harvests.
And Doug Ford's government just made it easier for the industry to shield its operations from public view, passing legislation last month aimed at cracking down on trespassing activists and journalists who often work undercover on industrial farms in order to take photos and videos.
Such videos, which abound on social media, have helped generate public alarm about the plight of farm animals. One undercover video, aired last month on CTV's national investigative program W5, included graphic footage of adult pigs being hit with heavy objects and baby pigs squealing and squirming in pain as workers cut off their tails and castrate them.
Unlike Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, Canada's laws governing animal welfare have barely evolved over the last century, even though the open pastures of traditional family farms have largely been replaced by the confining cages of today's industrial farms.
Instead of updating our animal welfare laws, Ottawa has allowed the industry to draw up its own "codes of practice," which are effectively guidelines with no clear penalties for lack of compliance.
The writing of the codes is overseen by the National Farm Animal Care Council—a private body, funded by government, but dominated by the meat industry and other "stakeholders" in the food supply chain.
The council allows only minimal input from animal welfare groups. Indeed, any group that opposes eating animals is automatically excluded from sitting on its committees.
Once the committees have drawn up their codes, they invite public feedback. But, as University of Alberta law professor Peter Sankoff observes, there’s no evidence the public feedback has any impact, beyond providing the whole process with “a veneer of public legitimacy.”
Of course, one set of "stakeholders" left entirely out of the process are the animals themselves. And while they can't talk, they do feel.
As renowned anthropologist Jane Goodall notes: "Farm animals feel pleasure and sadness, excitement, and resentment, depression, fear and pain."
The intensity of animal emotions has been captured on videos of rescued farm animals experiencing their first taste of freedom. They run, romp and play—even enormous adult pigs—and certainly appear to be experiencing something akin to joy.
Of course, any dog owner can confirm that animals feel emotions. And any dog owner would gasp at the thought of their dog trapped in a confining cage, 24 hours a day, unable to even turn around.
But the factory farm industry is counting on us not making the connection. And the best way to ensure that, as Doug Ford knows, is to prevent us from seeing photos of locked-up pigs looking every bit as sad and scared as our own dogs would be in those cages.
Advocates Call for Medical Parole to Avoid 'Unintentional Death Sentences' as Covid-19 Ravages US Prisons
"The bottom line is, there are still thousands of people who are at very high risk of death trapped in a prison system where there's no way that they can avoid the virus."
by Brett Wilkins, staff writer Published on Tuesday, December 29, 2020 Common Dream Participants behind a banner reading "COVID BEHIND BARS = DEATH" attend a rally at Rikers Island in New York. Rights advocates have urged state, local, and federal officials to release vulnerable inmates during the coronavirus pandemic and ensure that prisons and jails are equipped with safety measures to prevent outbreaks. (Photo: Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)
As the Covid-19 pandemic ravages prisoners worse than nearly every other U.S. population cohort, prison reform advocates and public health experts are renewing calls for the medical parole of inmates—especially those at risk for death or serious complications due to pre-existing health conditions.
"They've got us bunched up together. There's no social distancing at all. We share day rooms, we share showers. We share practically everything." —Mario Smith, inmate
According to a recent study by the National Commission on Covid-19 and Criminal Justice, U.S. prisoners are three times more likely to be infected with coronavirus than the general population. The situation is even worse in federal prisons, where one in every five inmates is infected, compared with about one in 20 people on the outside.
At least 275,000 inmates in U.S. prisons and jails have tested positive for coronavirus, and at least 1,700 have died—although some correctional authorities say the actual number of both infections and deaths is much higher.
California, which is currently suffering its worst period of the pandemic, is also experiencing an acute Covid-19 crisis in state prisons. The Guardian reports that nearly 9,500 incarcerated people are currently infected, with all 35 of California's state prisons now experiencing outbreaks—most with more than 100 cases.
Social distancing is impossible behind bars. As cases of COVID-19 rise in California prisons, it's critical that incarcerated people are promptly vaccinated as a priority group in California's vaccination plan. https://t.co/EmAkcNJ7Wt
Over one-third of California's more than 38,000 total coronavirus infections have occurred in the past two months, a stunning escalation that has sparked renewed calls for the early release of vulnerable inmates, as well as court rulings ordering such paroles.
"I don't think there's another reason to not release them besides political backlash," Donald Specter, an attorney who is suing for the release of California inmates, told The Guardian. "Some are sex offenders, some are lifers who were convicted of murder, and there's general reluctance of politicians to release these people."
"The bottom line is, there are still thousands of people who are at very high risk of death trapped in a prison system where there's no way that they can avoid the virus," he added.
Jennifer Soble, head of the Illinois Prison Project, recently told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that "there is no question that [Covid-19] was going to make it into the prisons."
"The tragedy is the number of people who have become sick and died," added Soble. "That tragedy was preventable.”
In Pennsylvania, the editorial board of the Philadelphia Inquirer earlier this month wrote that "prison should not carry the risk of an unintentional death sentence."
"A bill to create medical parole for the release of the sick and elderly was introduced before the pandemic and never received a committee vote" in the state legislature, the editors wrote. "For a state with an ill and aging prison population, having no medical parole makes no sense—in financial or humanitarian terms."
This pandemic has been uniquely horrible for people in prisons and jails — including staff who work at these facilities. Releasing people is a matter of life, death, and flattening the curve in our communities. https://t.co/ADWuapzCWY — ACLU of Northern CA (@ACLU_NorCal) December 29, 2020
Accusing California prison officials of "deliberate indifference" to inmate health, a state appeals court in October ordered San Quentin State Prison—where thousands of prisoners have been infected—to release or transfer roughly half its population.
"By all accounts, the Covid-19 outbreak at San Quentin has been the worst epidemiological disaster in California correctional history," Presiding Judge Anthony Kline wrote in his decision. "And there is no assurance San Quentin will not experience a second or even third spike."
"By all accounts, the Covid-19 outbreak at San Quentin has been the worst epidemiological disaster in California correctional history." —Judge Anthony Kline
However, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra—who earlier this month was nominated by President-elect Joe Biden for health and human services secretary—appealed the ruling to the state Supreme Court, which will decide by January 25 whether to review the case.
More than 400 elderly and medically vulnerable San Quentin inmates recently petitioned a state Superior Court for release, and KQED reported last week that a Marin County judge may soon order their release or transfer.
However, prisoner advocates strongly oppose the transfer option.
"My clients are terrified of transferring," Christine O'Hanlon, the deputy public defender of Marin County, where San Quentin is located, told KQED. "They know the transfer process involves being confined in small spaces with several people for several hours and then getting to a new place where they don't know what's there."
"You can't just pack them in like sardines somewhere else," added O'Hanlon. "You have to put them in a place where they can be safely housed, practice social distancing, and avoid dorm settings."
Mario Smith, a prisoner at the Gus Harrison Correctional Facility in Adrian, Michigan who suffers from asthma, high blood pressure, and obesity, told TIME that he "feared for [his] life" after he fell ill with Covid-19 last month, one of more than 1,400 inmates at the facility to contract the virus.
"They've got us bunched up together," said Smith. "There's no social distancing at all. We share day rooms, we share showers. We share practically everything."
Trump Executive Order on Private School Vouchers Denounced as 'Last-Ditch Effort to Claim Victory' in War on Public Education
"Trump fought against funding for public education for months, then does this as he begrudgingly signs [the] Covid relief bill."
Students line up in a hallway during the first day back to school on December 7, 2020 at Yung Wing Elementary P.S. 124 in New York City. (Photo: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
Public education champions are denouncing President Donald Trump's new executive order that enables states to use funds from a federal block grant program to provide vouchers to qualifying households to offset some of the costs of private school tuition, homeschooling, or other educational expenses during the coronavirus pandemic, even as critics say the move is more of a symbolic endorsement of school privatization than a serious attempt to subsidize in-person learning.
Trump's executive order, which he signed on Monday, empowers the secretary of health and human services to "allow funds available through the Community Services Block Grant program to be used by grantees and eligible entities to provide emergency learning scholarships to disadvantaged families for use by any child without access to in-person learning."
As Politico reported Monday night, Trump's move comes after school choice provisions sought by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Republican lawmakers were excluded from the coronavirus relief bill the president signed on Sunday.
The White House spun the executive order as an attempt to provide more flexibility to parents amid what Trump called "the public education system's failure to provide in-person learning options." Trump neglected to mention, however, that his administration has failed to create the conditions for a safe reopening of public schools.
Rather than attacking public schools while pushing for privatized alternatives—as critics say the Trump administration has done—President-elect Joe Biden "has vowed to reopen most schools in the first 100 days of his administration by providing more funding for school districts to implement coronavirus safety measures, such as better ventilation and more socially distanced classrooms," Politico reported. "His team is also weighing a multibillion dollar plan to test students, teachers, and staff at least once a week."
In a blog post Tuesday, education scholar and public schools advocate Diane Ravitch cautioned that Trump's executive order reeks of elites using a crisis to advance an unpopular right-wing agenda, a phenomenon that journalist Naomi Klein has dubbed "disaster capitalism."
Trump's executive order declares that "the emergency conditions created by Covid-19 make it vital to use federal funds for vouchers," Ravitch wrote, adding that DeVos "will use her last days in office to throw money out the door to fund vouchers for private and religious schools."
Education Week reporter Andrew Ujifusa, however, said Monday that he would "pump the brakes before assuming this executive order delivers a major (or any) K-12 choice boost." As Ujifusa put it, "The Trump administration tried but failed to get a school choice expansion into the Covid relief package."
Noting that he is unsure whether "Trump can do this through an executive order" because the Community Services Block Grant program "doesn't provide direct grants to individuals," Ujifusa called the president's move a "last-ditch gesture."
Ujifusa's assessment of Trump's executive order, which the reporter considers largely toothless, was shared by Derek Black, an education and constitutional law professor at the University of South Carolina.
Black, who specializes in educational equity and school funding for disadvantaged students, said Monday that Trump's effort to divert "block grant money for private school vouchers" is an "apparent last-ditch effort to claim victory in DeVos' war on public education."
Another critic of Trump's executive order was Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), who observed Monday that the measure is "only for private schools." Pointing out that "90% of parents send their kids to public schools," Weingarten posed a series of critical questions: "Why does the Republican Party only want to help parents who send kids to private schools? Why not help with this kind of community grant for all parents? Why not open up more funding for them?"
Weingarten noted that when federal funds in the Community Services Block Grant program, which has an annual budget of roughly $700 million, were aimed at combating poverty, Trump was opposed to assisting low-income Americans, opting instead for massive cuts to discretionary spending.
Now, less than a month before leaving office, the president wants to use public money "to help kids get to private school," Weingarten said. "Why not just help any poor kids use [subsidies] for connectivity [and] for tutoring?" she asked, suggesting that federal block grants could be used to supplement the funding allocated to public schools in the coronavirus aid package.
"Trump fought against funding for public education for months, then does this as he begrudgingly signs [the] Covid relief bill," Weingarten concluded.
Calling Trump's move the "last gasp [of the] privatization agenda" pushed by the president and DeVos, Leonie Haimson—executive director of Class Size Matters and board member of the Network for Public Education—said Tuesday that the executive order "could be immediately reversed" next month by Biden.
THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN
The idea of Lemurians has a complex pedigree—rooted in science, pseudoscience, science fiction and various esoteric beliefs.
In the 18th century, a palaeontologist named J. Sclater came up with Lemuria—a theoretical land bridge—to explain how Lemurs got from Asia to Madagascar. Plate tectonics pretty much ended the vogue for lost continents in science, but Lemuria was co-opted into a popular theory of a lost, pre-Atlantean continent called Mu that explains common mythology and symbology between disparate cultures. The concept evolved in different directions, but in certain circles of thought Lemuria-Mu morphed to incorporate much of the Pacific, and eventually, California and the entire West Coast of the U.S. A great flood, or thermonuclear war, depending on who is doing the telling, caused the Lemurians to take refuge in Mount Shasta.
Their descendants still live there, although according to Lemuria believers, they are not inside the mountain on earth’s physical space: they exist in a fifth dimension, but they can travel freely back and forth between that dimension and ours.
Theosophist Willam Scott-Elliot’s map of Lemuria superimposed over the modern continents from his book, The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria. He envisioned Lemuria as a large continent that sank, leaving only small islands. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
The Theosophists took up Lemuria in the 1880s. In her writings, Theosophical Society founder Madame Blavatsky furnished the Lemurians with the metaphysical properties they still have today. To her, they were not just ancient refugees; they were a spiritually advanced civilization. Blavatsky’s writings were influential, an appealing mix of ancient religious ideas and new concepts borrowed from Darwin and modern science, but Lemuria was not linked to Mount Shasta until the publication of Frederick Spencer Oliver’s A Dweller on Two Planets in 1904. Oliver—who grew up in the gold rush town of Yreka not far from Mount Shasta—claimed his writing was channelled through visions and “mental dictation” from Phylos the Tibetan, of the Great White Brotherhood, who once lived on the ancient continent of Lemuria but now lived in the depths of Mount Shasta. The book incorporates many Theosophical ideas.
But the most decisive chapter for Lemurians came in 1931 when Harvey Spencer Lewis, a founder of the San-Jose-based Order of the Rosicrucians, published under the pseudonym Wishar Cerve, Lemuria: The Lost Continent of the Pacific. It tied various strands of Lemurian lore together by rehashing other books and articles, cementing the link between Lemuria’s ancient civilization and archaeological ruins in the western United States, and trying to support his claim that Lemurians were a common ancestor to all mankind. The book draws heavily on Dweller on Two Planets and Blavatsky’s writings, with some added shopkeeper testimony about tall, slender men in robes who paid in gold nuggets. But it goes a step further in asserting that Lemuria and Mu are the same thing.
What truly ensured its impact was the claim that the descendants of the Lemurian Garden of Eden were to be found in California, not Asia or Africa; and, just as curiously, that California was the oldest territory on earth. The notion that California was the true cradle of mankind was impossible for Golden Staters (narcissists even then!) to resist. California was already a haven for new religions and thought; this new belief in Californian Lemurians just added to the mosaic.
Lemurian swag at Mount Shasta City’s Visitor Center. Photo by: Alexa van Sickle
In the 1930s, the spiritual influx began in earnest—thanks both to Cerve’s book and the I AM movement, which was founded in the wake of a 1934 book, Unveiled Mysteries, which was written by a Midwestern mining engineer named Guy Ballard.
Ballard was a fan of Theosophist ideas, and he claimed in his book that while on a hike on Shasta in 1930, he met Saint Germain, a common figure in New Age beliefs who is alleged to be an 18th century alchemist, referred to by followers as “the Wonderman of Europe” and “the man who knows everything and never dies”. St. Germain called himself an Ascended Master and began training Ballard to be a “messenger”. Based on these teachings, Ballard and his wife founded the St. Germain Foundation— a group (classified as a cult by J. Gordon Melton in his Encyclopaedic Handbook of Cults in America) that is still active today. It remains guided by “I AM” activity—the acronym comes from Ascended Masters and the religion includes a series of affirmations such as “I AM the spirit”. (The I AM concept had already appeared in A Dweller on Two Planets). The idea of Ascended Masters (St. Germain is one, Jesus is another) like the Theosophy that influences it, blends Christianity, Buddhism, and other spiritual threads. It is essentially a guide to life based on Ascension–achieving an individual higher spiritual consciousness.
The I AM Reading Room—the St Germain Foundation’s education center and book store. Photo by: Alexa van Sickle
Ballard also described the visions of his and St. Germain’s past lives in Atlantis and Lemuria when he was at Mount Shasta—and soon, the mountain was besieged by Lemuria seekers—many of whom were I AM followers.
The St. Germain Foundation bought a lot of land around Mount Shasta. Not everyone was thrilled with the area’s spiritual makeover. When the foundation bought the historic Shasta Springs Resort in the 1950s, in Dunsmuir, it made what had been beloved public land, including two waterfalls, off-limits to the locals.
Frank Barr was seven years old when he came to Dunsmuir in 1949, when his father got work at a lumber mill. Sipping on barley wine at Dunsmuir Brew House in a pair of denim Dickies overalls, he had plenty of complaints: “They took away our free country! Bought up the retreat, painted it white, and put up No Trespassing signs. They don’t contribute anything to the community.”
PEOPLE SAID YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO TO INDIA, JUST GO TO MOUNT SHASTA
Today, many I AM adherents live at the Dunsmuir complex. There is an I AM Reading Room and a temple in Mount Shasta—and a yearly ‘I AM COME’ pageant. I AM adherents revere the color purple; the Violet Ray is divine love. (Before I visited the Reading Room, Barr told me not to wear red or black.).
Another influx—not just of I AM followers—began in the 1960s, with the cultural appetite for spiritual alternatives and expanding consciousness: “A lot of people were travelling to India,” says a spiritual guide and coach named Andrew Oser. “But people said you don’t have to go to India, just go to Mount Shasta.”
A view from Mount Shasta. Photo by: Alexa van Sickle
Aurelia-Louie Jones was a public face for Lemuria-Telos, and gave it a global footprint; her books were translated into 17 languages and there is a worldwide Telos network that is still active. Jones died of cancer in 2009.
But Jones was not the first to channel from Telos: that was Diane Robbins, a schoolteacher from Rochester, NY.
Robbins lives in a dark-wood house at the base of Mount Shasta; one more left turn, and you are on the road that takes you up and into the mountain’s dense forest.
In 1990, Adama, the High Priest of Telos, contacted Robbins telepathically and began to dictate. “I didn’t even question why—I just did it. I took messages for 2 or 3 years, word for word.”
When finally, sitting in her kitchen in Rochester, she asked Adama what to do next, he told her to bind and market the book, which she did. Telos: Original Transmissions from the Subterranean City beneath Mount Shasta was published in 1992. The current edition features a blurb by Shirley MacLaine: “I read this book and found it to be fascinating.”
Telos, she explains to me, means “communicating with the spirit”.The book’s purpose was for others to make their own connections with Adama and to attain higher consciousness. In this iteration, Adama is an Ascended Master in the tradition of the I AM movement. The book reveals details of Telos’ advanced society, such as the Telosian Justice System; it also says Lemuria ended not in a flood, but thermonuclear war.
In Robbins’ reading, Telos is one of 100 subterranean cities inside the earth called the Agarthan Network – the book also contains a diagram of the Hollow Earth. The Hollow Earth theory has waxed and waned for centuries, but is present in many ‘alternative history’ beliefs and conspiracy theories, including the Illuminati. It appeared in in two of Blavatsky’s books, and she may have cribbed it from the holy city underground found in some Buddhist ideas.
Diane Robbins on Mount Shasta. Photo courtesy of Diane Robbins.
Robbins insists that she does not read about other people’s experiences with Lemuria or Telos. “I could never read them; I don’t want to hear about them, otherwise I don’t know what’s coming from me, or from the Ascended Masters. I never even watch movies, because I have to be clear. I can’t do what I do if I fill my mind with other people’s information.”
Robbins says she had however, listened to the revelations of Sharula Dux – a supposed Princess of Telos inside Mount Shasta, born in 1725, who said she came to the surface through Mount Shasta’s tunnel systems in 1988. Sharula Dux spoke at conferences and gave a few interviews, revealing that Atlantis and Lemuria were two great continents that fought a war; that Telos is an underground city in the Agarthan Network governed by 12 Ascended Masters, with Adama its high priest. These revelations are the root of the modern channelers, it seems.
It appears that Dux, also known as Bonnie Condey, ended up in Santa Fe with her husband. (Santa Fe is also a St. Germain hub—and was also, in some books, the location of Telos.) According to an investigative journalist in Austin, TX, Sharula/Bonnie was born in Utah in 1952 and worked as a stripper in Hollywood under the name Atlantis. The name Sharula had also appeared in a 1978 Romance novel.
The Mount Shasta Gateway Peace Garden was set up by a local family in their private garden but is open to all, and has shrines of several religions and a labyrinth. Photo by: Alexa van Sickle
A few months after Robbins’ book came out, Aurelia Louise Jones contacted Robbins and offered to help publish and promote a second edition. Jones then moved to Mount Shasta in 1997, and started channelling for her own messages from Adama and Telos.
Robbins and Jones worked together for a time: Jones was in the dedications in Robbins’ second and third editions. But they differed in their approaches, particularly on the correct way to channel Adama: “I wrote down word-for-word what Adama said to me, and Aurelia wanted me to edit my sentences, so we would argue.”
Robbins explains that Jones performed what she called a “co-creative process” in her books by editing Adama’s channelings, which Robbins believes diluted and disrupted Adama’s true “vibration”.
Even a spiritual mecca is not immune to small-town politics.
At Adama’s insistence, Robbins moved to Mount Shasta in 2007, expecting to join a welcoming community, but found that fellow Lemuria/Telos believers in Jones’ circle would have nothing to do with her.
“Aurelia [Jones] really did not want me to move here. She sent me emails telling me not to move here. She didn’t want anyone to know,” says Robbins. “And when I came here, nobody talked to me. I can only imagine what she told people about me. Her ego got in the way. And those people are not following the teachings of Telos. It’s really sad.”
Robbins is not sure what to make of the alleged encounters around the mountain; “People tell me all the time they’ve seen Lemurians… but Adama made it clear that they weren’t showing themselves right now.”
For her part, Jones claimed to have encountered Telosians only once; two tall gentlemen showed up at her door and bought $400 worth of her health products. She had complained to Adama about cash flow problems. She suspected the men were from Telos, not Tahoe as they said, but one of the rules is that Telosians, while they surface from time to time, cannot reveal they are from there. Although Adama did confirm to her afterwards that he had sent them.
Mount Shasta from the lake, hiding behind clouds. Photo by: Alexa van Sickle
Ashalyn, who runs Shasta Vortex Adventures, says she is not an adherent of any of the movements in Mount Shasta. When I ask he if she has had a Lemurian encounter, she responds, “I don’t see Lemurians, I channel them.” She is currently working on her own book with Adama. Her previous book was written with Thoth the Atlantean, another Mount Shasta inhabitant.
There are other spiritual vortex locations, such as Arizona’s Sedona Valley, and other New Age centers like Santa Fe. But the mountain makes it easier for people to tune in to whatever they’re trying to hear.
So what are people seeing when they have encounters with odd people? Some tell me it’s more about the feeling, not seeing; many of the strangest stories contained in books from the last century seem to have been taken as second-hand gospel by others.
Saranam (birth name: Mark Greenberg), who works at Mount Shasta’s Crystal Room, has another theory: people who have meditated a lot and have themselves tapped in to a higher consciousness might seem otherworldly to others who hike on the mountain. “People might just go there and meet people there that have a presence – and think they’ve had an encounter with a mystical being.”
Shasta Vortex Adventures – one of many businesses servicing spiritual pilgrims. Photo by: Alexa van Sickle
Amid outcry, Bangladesh readies to move 1,800 more Rohingya to island A Rohingya boy carries his brother toward shore of the Naf River as people arrive by boats in Teknaf, Bangladesh. File Photo by Abir Abdullah/EPA-EFE
Dec. 28 (UPI) -- The government of Bangladesh says it will move a second group of 1,800 Rohingya refugees to an island in the Bay of Bengal, despite strong opposition from human rights groups.
Bangladesh sent more than 1,600 of the minority Muslim refugees to the remote island of Bhashan Char earlier this month. Officials said the Rohingya voluntarily departed overcrowded refugee camps, and the government said no one is being forced to go to the flood-prone island.
"Today, we have mobilized 1,772 Rohingyas from 427 families for Chittagong," a government official said Monday. "This time, the figure is 130 more than the first batch [of 1,642]."
Mamun Chowdhury, director of the Bhashan Char Project, said the island is prepared to accommodate the refugees.
"We are expecting more than 1,000 people [Tuesday]," Chowdhury said. "Our preparations to make their stay comfortable have been completed."
Local and global humanitarian groups have said the low-lying island, which has been above sea level for only 20 years and has never been inhabited, is an unsuitable location for the refugees, who fled to Bangladesh to escape violence in Myanmar.
Bangladesh has struggled to come up with a solution to the growing number of refugees, many of whom are still living in crowded conditions in camps at Cox's Bazar.
Bangladeshi foreign minister Abdul Momen said Bhashan Char is "100 times better" than the overpopulated camps, where health experts fear a dangerous spread of COVID-19.
Rohingya refugee crisis remains unresolved 3 years after violence
Rohingya refugees remain in camp settlements in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on the three-year anniversary of the outbreak of violence in Myanmar. File Photo by Abir Abdullah/EPA-EFE
Aug. 25 (UPI) -- More than a million Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh remain in limbo three years after hundreds of thousands fled Myanmar amid targeted persecution.
Bangladesh opened its borders to more than 700,000 people fleeing violence in Myanmar, but tensions have been rising between the Bangladeshi government and the refugees.
The novel coronavirus has also arrived at the run-down camps in the Cox's Bazar district of Bangladesh, giving rise to new anxieties among the Rohingya struggling to make ends meet, Japanese news agency Kyodo News reported Monday.
Frustration is also mounting in Dhaka as the Bangladeshi government could be seeking the repatriation of the Rohingya but Myanmar remains less than cooperative about the plans.
"Myanmar is delaying to take back the Rohingyas citing the coronavirus pandemic and an election in that country in October as reasons," Bangladesh's Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen told Kyodo.
According to Momen, Bangladesh has sent Myanmar a list of 600,000 refugees for the repatriation, but Myanmar agreed to accept only 30,000 people on the list, the report says.
Myanmar continues to deny accusations of genocide amid rising concerns about a second wave of COVID-19.
Myanmar State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi suggested in a speech Tuesday the country needs to pull together to combat the virus without discrimination based on religion or ethnicity.
"Please take it as a chance to repair our international image. We need [an attitude of] strong determination, like 'We can make it'," the politician said, according to local news service The Irrawady, which also described the 2017 mass killings as "security clearance operations" of the military.
Human Rights Watch condemned Myanmar on Tuesday for the ongoing refugee crisis and for failing to guarantee a safe haven for the Rohingya.
"The Myanmar government has failed to ensure that nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees can safely return home three years since fleeing the Myanmar military's crimes against humanity and possible genocide," the group said in statement.
In 2018, Amnesty International stripped Suu Kyi of a human rights award in the wake of the violence.
On Aug. 25, 2017, the Myanmar military began to target Rohingya Muslims with violence that included rape and arson. The attack was a response to an initial assault from a group called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.
GLOBAL Report:
Extreme weather cost billions in damages in 2020
Wildfires in the Western United States incurred more than $20 billion in damages and claimed the lives of more than 40 people. Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI | License Photo
Dec. 28 (UPI) -- A new report released Monday on the cost of climate change-driven extreme weather said 10 of 2020's most expensive events caused more than $140 billion in damages.
The report, Counting the Cost of 2020: A Year of Climate Breakdown, by charity organization Christian Aid identified the 10 events, each of which inflicted damages of at least $1.5 billion, with all but one costing more than $5 billion.
The report said the figures were based on insured losses, meaning the actual financial costs are expected to be higher.
The number of lives lost to the same 10 events was at least 3,470, it said.
Six of the 10 events, it said, occurred in Asia with five associated with an unusually wet monsoon season.
The costliest nature disaster of 2020 was, however, the hurricanes that ripped through the United States and Central America, claiming more than 400 lives and causing some $41 billion in damages.
The record-setting Atlantic hurricane season from June to the end of November saw 30 named storms, 12 of which made landfall in the continental United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Category 4 Hurricane Laura, which made landfall in Louisiana in August, killed 77 people and had an estimated cost of more than $16 billion, and was followed two weeks later by Hurricane Sally that caused eight deaths and more than $6.25 billion in damages.
Though the highest number of lives lost at 153 was to Hurricane Eta that slammed Central America.
China suffered the second costliest event of 2020 with floods that began in June but continued through October, incurring some $32 billion in damages and nearly 300 lives, followed by wildfires that scorched millions of acres of land across the Western United States at a cost of $20 billion.
However, the report noted that wealthy nations incurred higher monetary loses compared to poorer countries due to being home to more valuable and insured real estate but extreme events were more likely to hit low-income countries.
"Whether it be floods in Asia, locusts in Africa or storms in Europe and the Americas, climate change has continued to rage in 2020," Kat Kramer, the report's author and Christian Aid's climate policy lead, said in a statement.
The fourth costliest event was Cyclone Amphan in India's Bay of Bengal, which hit fast in May, causing $13 billion in damages in a few days.
Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, said this year was "exceptionally warm" and saw record temperatures in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal.
"These high temperatures had the characteristics of marine heat waves that might have led to the rapid intensification of the pre-monsoon cyclones Amphan and Nisarga," Koll said.
Flooding in India was the fifth costliest event at some $10 billion but it killed more than 2,000 people.
Christian Aid said the report highlights the need for urgent action to curb climate change, calling on countries to commit to new targets to ensure they hit their obligations under the Paris Agreement, which set the goal of keeping global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius but preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels.
Kramer said next year poses significant opportunity to "turn this tide" with President-elect Joe Biden to be in the White House, social movements calling for action on climate change and coronavirus policies shifting toward green recovery plans.
"There is a major opportunity for countries to put us on a path to a safe future," Kramer said.
Unusual carnivorous dinosaurs called noasaurids lived in Australia
Most noasaurids stretched no longer than seven feet and weighed less than 50 pounds. Photo by Tom Brougham
Jan. 30 (UPI) -- New fossil evidence suggests an unusual group of predatory dinosaurs called noasaurids lived in Australia during the middle to late Cretaceous Period.
Noasaurids were small-bodied carnivores that walked on two legs and were characterized by a variety of unique facial features. The largest of the diminutive meat eaters stretched no more than seven feet in length. Most weighed less than 50 pounds.
Noasaurid fossils had previously been recovered from all of the landmasses that made up the southern supercontinent of Gondwana, except Australia. Now scientists can be sure the rare group of theropod dinosaurs lived Down Under too.
After identifying a single neck bone, recovered from an opal mine in New South Wales, as belonging to a noasaurid dinosaur, paleontologists reexamined a fossil unearthed along the south coast of Victoria. It too belonged to a noasaurid.
"It was assumed that noasaurids must have lived in Australia because their fossils have been found on other southern continents that, like Australia, were once part of the Gondwanan supercontinent," lead researcher, Tom Brougham of the Palaeoscience Research Center, said in a press release. "These recent fossil finds demonstrate for the first time that noasaurids once roamed across Australia. Discoveries of theropods are rare in Australia, so every little find we make reveals important details about our unique dinosaur fauna."
After acquiring the neck bone recovered from the mine, near the outback town of Lightning Ridge, scientists compared it to the neck bones of a range of carnivorous dinosaurs known to have inhabited Australia. It didn't look like any other of the others. Instead, researchers found it most closely matched the neck bones of noasaurids.
"This prompted us to re-examine an ankle bone of a dinosaur that was discovered in Victoria in 2012, about 20 million years older than the Lightning Ridge bone, and using the same methods we concluded that this also belonged to a noasaurid," Brougham said. "In addition, this ankle bone is approximately the same age, or perhaps even older, than the oldest known noasaurids, which come from South America."
Noasaurids were similar in size -- and likely in hunting style -- to dromaeosaurids, or raptors. But whereas paleontologists have unearthed raptors on nearly every major landmass on Earth, noasaurids had, until now, been found only in South America, Africa, Madagascar and India.
Now, scientists know the unusual predators lived in Australia, too, suggesting they had spread across the entirety of Gondwana before it began to break apart at the end of the Cretaceous.
Ancient plant foods found in northern Australia
The Anbangbang rock shelter is the oldest in Australia. It is found at the base of the Arnhem Land escarpment in northern Australia. Photo by Warren Poole/Wikimedia Commons
Feb. 17 (UPI) -- Archaeologists have found ancient plant foods eaten some 65,000 years ago by early human populations in northern Australia.
The bits of plant food, preserved as charcoal in ancient cooking hearths, have offered scientists new insights into the diets of the indigenous Australians.
The charcoal bits were recovered from archaeological dig sites in Arnhem Land, a historical region of northern Australia occupied by indigenous groups for thousands of years. Within the charred morsels, scientists identified the remnants of 10 different plant foods, including several types of fruits and nuts, as well as roots, tubers and palm stem.
"Many of these plant foods required processing to make them edible and this evidence was complemented by grinding stone technology also used during early occupation at the site," University of Queensland archaeobotanist Anna Florin said in a news release.
The latest findings, published Monday in the journal Nature Communications, suggest the earliest indigenous Australians possess extensive botanical knowledge, which helped them adapt to a variety of harsh terrains across the continent.
"They were able to guarantee access to carbohydrates, fat and even protein by applying this knowledge, as well as technological innovation and labor, to the gathering and processing of Australian plant foods," Florin said.
The ancient hearths were found at Madjedbebe, a sandstone rock shelter and Australia's oldest indigenous site.
"Madjedbebe continues to provide startling insights into the complex and dynamic lifestyle of the earliest Australian Aboriginal people," said Queensland University professor Chris Clarkson, who served as lead excavator on the most recent digs.
Scientists have previously discovered the world's oldest stone axes at Madjedbebe, 35,000 years old. Even older spearheads have been recovered, the oldest evidence of stone grinding technology outside Africa. Researchers have also previously found evidence of the use of ochre, as well as the earliest known use of reflective pigments.
"The site is an important cultural place to Mirarr people today who strive to protect their heritage from numerous threats, including mining," Florin said.
SPIRIT ANIMAL DEPARTS SO SAD Rare New Zealand white kiwi dies after surgery to remove lodged egg
Manukura, a rare white kiwi, was hospitalized when caretakers noticed that she wasn't eating and had lost weight. Photo courtesy Environmental Conservation Organization/Facebook
Dec. 28 (UPI) -- A rare 9-year-old white kiwi living at a wildlife center in New Zealand has died after it had surgery to remove an infertile egg that became stuck inside.
The North Island kiwi, named Manukura, became part of the Pukaha Wildlife Center family and gained worldwide attention in 2011 when she was the first white kiwi ever hatched in captivity.
"It is with great sadness we announce the loss of our dear friend Manukura," said a message Sunday on a memorial Facebook page for Manukura.
"For now we will all grieve but in the coming days our minds will turn to how we honor Manukura, and what those options may be."
Pukaha officials took the white kiwi to Massey University's Wildbase Hospital after noticing that Manukura was not eating and losing weight. Pukaha General Manager Emily Court said veterinarians performed additional surgery once they removed the egg.
"More surgery was then required to remove her oviduct and most of her left ovary," Court said.
"The surgeries went well but were not enough to save the ailing kiwi, whose health continued to deteriorate in the weeks following the operation."
The rare white kiwi inherited her white feathers from a rare genetic trait from her parents, both North Island brown kiwi (Apteryx mantelli) from Little Barrier Island.
"Manukura is very much a part of the Pukaha family and we have always felt so blessed to have Manukura to help us to tell the Aotearoa's conservation story," Court added.
"The incredible team at Wildbase did everything in their power to save her but it was her time to go."
The kiwi was the first of three white kiwi hatched at the center nearly a decade ago. Manukura had surgery to remove stones in 2011 when she was just a few months old, and UPI reported in 2012 that she'd been paired with a male mate for breeding.
Kiwi, flightless birds that are the smallest members of the ratite bird group, are native to New Zealand and the North Island kiwi's eggs are the largest of any bird species in the world -- often comprising up to 20% of the mother's weight.
Kiwi can live for between 25 and 50 years.
Johnny Mullagh becomes 1st Aboriginal member of Australia Cricket HOF
A bust of 19th century Australian cricketer Johnny Mullagh is seen at a park in Cootamundra, Australia. File Photo by Doug Butler/Wikimedia Commons
Dec. 28 (UPI) -- Johnny Mullagh, a star for Australia's pioneering 1868 all-Aboriginal cricket team, was selected Monday as the first Aboriginal member of the country's Cricket Hall of Fame.
Born Unaarrimin, Mullagh is hailed as one of the top cricketers of the Victorian Era and the best player on a groundbreaking all-Aboriginal cricket tour of Britain -- the first Australian squad of any sport to tour internationally, noted Australian Cricket Hall of Fame Chairman Peter King.
"Johnny Mullagh and the 1868 Aboriginal team paved the way for so many future Australians to showcase their skill and talent on the world stage," King said.
"To consider the team's feats were in an era dictated by inequality, makes their story even more remarkable and worthy of recognition."
Mullagh played in 45 of the team's 47 matches during the inaugural tour, taking 245 wickets at 10 and scoring 1698 runs at 23.65.
Before the British tour, Mullagh played in the third match ever scheduled at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, held on Boxing Day in 1866 between his team, called the Aboriginal and T. W. Wills Eleven, and the Melbourne Cricket Club.
In the historic contest, he was the team's highest runs scorer in both innings, with scores of 14 and 33.
"His story is an important one for all Australians because it tells of the huge contribution Johnny made to Australian sport in a time of grave inequality and discrimination," said Australian Cricketers' Association Interim CEO Joe Connellan.
"Hopefully this honour serves to tell Johnny's Mullagh's largely untold story."
Mullagh will be officially honored at the Cricket Australia awards night in February.
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