Month: April 2021

DNA extracted from remains found in a Bulgarian cave of three people who lived roughly 45,000 years ago is revealing surprises about some of the first Homo sapiens populations to venture into Europe, including extensive interbreeding with Neanderthals and genetic links to present-day East Asians.Scientists said on Wednesday they sequenced the genomes of these three individuals, all males, using DNA obtained from a molar and bone fragments discovered in Bacho Kiro Cave near the town of Dryanovo, as well as one female who lived roughly 35,000 years ago at the same site.Homo sapiens first appeared in Africa approximately 300,000 years ago and later trekked to other parts of the world, sometimes encountering Neanderthals — close cousins to Homo sapiens — already inhabiting parts of Eurasia. The three Bacho Kiro Cave males represent the oldest securely dated Homo sapiens individuals from Europe.They had 3% to 3.8% Neanderthal DNA and had Neanderthal ancestors about five to seven generations back in their family histories, evidence of interbreeding, said geneticist Mateja Hajdinjak of the Francis Crick Institute in London, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.Interbreeding, known as admixture, between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals before the extinction of Neanderthals sometime after 40,000 years ago has been previously shown, with present-day human populations outside Africa bearing a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA.Bacho Kiro cave BulgariaThe prevalence of this interbreeding and the relationship and power dynamics between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals has been harder to understand, including any role Homo sapiens played in the demise of the Neanderthals. The new study suggests interbreeding was more common than previously known for the first Homo sapiens in Europe.It is an “amazing observation” that all three individuals had Neanderthal ancestors in their recent family history, said geneticist and study co-author Svante Pääbo, director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.”This makes it likely that the earliest modern humans frequently mixed with Neanderthals when they met. It may even be the case that part of the reason Neanderthals disappeared is that they were simply absorbed into larger modern human groups. It may be just part of the reason they disappeared, but the data supports such a scenario,” Pääbo said.The researchers detected a genetic contribution among present-day people from the group that included these three, but unexpectedly it was found particularly in East Asia, including China, rather than Europe. This suggested that some people from this group eventually headed east.”This study shifted our previous understanding of early human migrations into Europe in a way that it showed how even the earliest history of modern humans in Europe may have been tumultuous and involved population replacements,” Hajdinjak said.The notion of population replacement was illustrated by the fact that the 35,000-year-old individual from Bacho Kiro Cave belonged to a group genetically unrelated to the site’s earlier inhabitants.Another study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution shed more light on Europe’s early Homo sapiens populations.Scientists sequenced the genome of a Homo sapiens female using DNA extracted from a skull found at a site southwest of Prague in the Czech Republic. She is believed to have lived more than 45,000 years ago, though radiocarbon dating efforts to determine a firm date were unsuccessful.This woman carried 3% Neanderthal ancestry and bore genetic traits suggesting she had dark skin and dark eyes, said geneticist Kay Prüfer of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the study’s lead author.”Her skull shows evidence of gnawing by a predator, possibly a hyena,” Prüfer said.Her group, distinct from the one in Bulgaria, appears to have died out without leaving genetic ancestry among modern-day people.
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The number of violent attacks against Jews in the U.S. and Germany rose last year even while anti-Jewish violent incidents decreased elsewhere around the world amid the coronavirus pandemic, an Israeli academic research group reported on Wednesday.In its annual report, the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University identified 119 anti-Jewish violent incidents in the United States last year, up from 111 in 2019. The U.S., home to the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, has seen a steady rise in anti-Semitic violence in recent years.About 4.2 million American adults identify as Jewish “by religion,” representing 1.8% of the U.S. adult population, according to a 2013 Pew Research estimate. A more inclusive estimate by the American Jewish Year Book in 2019 put the number at 6.9 million.In Germany, with a Jewish population of more than 100,000 Jews, the Kantor Center received reports of 59 violent incidents targeting Jews last year, up from 41 in 2019. The total number of anti-Semitic incidents in German rose by 12% last year, according to the report.In both countries, vandalism accounted for most of the violent incidents, the report said.In most other countries, including Western nations with large Jewish populations such as Australia, Canada, France and Britain, the number of anti-Jewish attacks dropped. The Kantor Center said it received reports of a total of 371 such incidents around the world, down from 456 the previous year.QAnon, Dark NetDina Porat, head of the Kantor Center, said the overall decrease was due to reduced physical encounters during the pandemic. In Germany and the United States, however, stepped up activity by far-right groups such as the QAnon conspiracy movement led to a rise in anti-Semitic violence, she said.“The German extreme right follows the U.S. one in a number of ways, including followers of the QAnon movement, and the use of the Dark Net,” Porat said. “Such a strengthening of the far right was not registered in the U.K., Australia, and in France and Canada.”No one was killed for being Jewish last year, the Kantor Center report said, adding that the number of bodily injuries fell sharply to 107 in 2020 from 170 in 2019. Property damage also fell as many people stayed home during the pandemic, according to the report.This is the Kantor Center’s 27th annual report on anti-Semitism around the globe, according to Porat. It is based on thousands of testimonies submitted by rights organizations and academics in about 35 countries.While anti-Jewish violence declined overall, vandalism of Jewish synagogues, graveyards and Holocaust memorials increased by more than 20% last year, rising from 130 to 159 cases. These sacred places were “closed or unguarded due to the lockdown and therefore easy prey for anti-Semitic vandalism,” the report said.With most people staying home for long stretches during the pandemic, online expressions of anti-Jewish hatred and abuse surged, with Jews and Israelis often blamed for creating and spreading the “judeovirus” — an anti-Semitic wordplay on “coronavirus.”The role of ‘anti-vaxxers’Jews have long been blamed for all manner of evil in the world, said Porat, but the accusation that they created a deadly virus that originated in China for their own profit is graver than anything they’ve experienced before.“When you blame Jews, for instance, for an economic crisis or war or revolution, fine, this we know, but blaming them for this [virus that causes COVID-19], I think, is very serious,” Porat said.Much of the anti-Jewish venom during the pandemic came from opponents of vaccines, with “anti-vaxxers” comparing lockdowns to imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps and describing vaccines as “medical experiments” conducted by the Nazis.“In Germany, where opposition to the vaccines is particularly strong, demonstrators wore a yellow star on their clothes, with the word ‘unvaccinated,’ replacing the word ‘Jew,’ and called Chancellor [Angela] Merkel a Nazi,” the report said.But the accusation that Jews and Israelis created the virus was not limited to anti-vaxxers, white supremacists and Iran, Turkey and the Palestinian Authority, the report said.“It also spread to populations with no well-defined political or ideological identities,” it said.So-called “Zoom bombing” became a favorite tool of anti-Semites during the pandemic. Attackers disrupted Zoom conferences of Jewish synagogues, community centers and students with swastika displays and anti-Semitic presentations.In the U.S., 200 cases of Zoom bombing were recorded, the report said.
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As post-Brexit Britain casts about for new allies and trading partners, interest is growing in a little-noticed proposal for London to join forces with three former colonies in a new globe-spanning network.
 
The still notional alliance would be known by the acronym CANZUK – for its member countries Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom – and provide for visa-free travel and economic and defense cooperation among its four members.
 
The logic behind the idea is not immediately obvious. One American foreign policy analyst, when asked for comment, refused at first to believe that the proposed agreement was not a Wikipedia hoax.
 
But Canadian opposition leader Erin O’Toole has incorporated CANZUK into the official platform of his Conservative Party, and a poll this year found that 94% of British parliamentarians would support the free movement of goods among the four countries while 61% support the free movement of people.
 
The scheme is being promoted by an organization named CANZUK International, co-founded by James Skinner, a Welsh-born, American-educated political operative whose resume says he has worked with governments in Florida, Britain and Australia. He now lives in Toronto.
 
Its advisory board includes Sir Michael Craig-Cooper, a former vice lord lieutenant of Greater London; Dominic Johnson, a prominent financier and former vice chairman of Britain’s governing Conservative Party, and Dominic Johnson, a former senior adviser at the Bank of England. Johnson is currently Windsor herald at the College of Arms, the heraldic authority for most of the Commonwealth.
 
The group’s website identifies its goals as “facilitated migration, free trade and foreign policy coordination” among the four countries in order to forge “a cohesive alliance of nation-states with a truly global outlook.”
 
That leaves plenty of room for proponents of the idea to fill in the details.
 
Canadian member of Parliament Tracy Gray told VOA that CANZUK would “provide an opportunity to recognize each other’s professional and trades credentials, have more flexibility in movement of our citizens and to cooperate on the production of vaccines and PPE.”
 
“CANZUK is an initiative that Canada’s Conservatives are proposing to Canadians,” Gray said. “A Conservative government would establish a working group to facilitate discussions with our potential partners. CANZUK is an exciting proposal that has received support from stakeholders in all potential partner counties.”
 
Skinner said in an interview that the idea is “snowballing in that it’s gaining more and more support from the public. In the next couple of years or so we hope to see CANZUK come to fruition.”
 
He said the current focus of the campaign is on forming parliamentary groups in all four countries to advance the idea.  
 
John Blaxland, an Australian defense expert, sees some logic in closer defense cooperation among the CANZUK nations.
 
“There are already many connections between these four countries – formal, informal, familial, institutional – that make the idea popular for a post-Brexit Britain,” he said in an interview. “Much British training takes place in Canadian field training areas. The Australian connection is particularly helpful for Britain’s re-emergence ‘East of Suez’ and particularly in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.”
 
But he also sees obstacles. Not only are the countries separated by vast distances, but they also “are in different circumstances facing different challenges.” Even within his own Asia-Pacific region, he said, “New Zealanders tend to be much more focused on the Pacific than Australia, which for Australians is only one focus.”
 
Another common criticism of CANZUK, Blaxland said, is that all four nations were settled by people of European descent and remain with white majorities.  
 
“There may be an opportunity for an adversary to portray CANZUK as a neo-colonial initiative that’s racially based, and that is something most Australian politicians would be very wary of as that would be potentially politically toxic,” Blaxland said.
 
“The irony is the CANZUK countries are probably the most multicultural, most diverse, most inclusive countries on the planet, and arguably the most successful multicultural countries on the planet.”
 
University of Ottawa professor Srdjan Vucetic said the biggest problem facing the project right now is the lack of detail about potential areas of cooperation.  Beyond that, he said, “The idea that geographic distance no longer matters for trade or human mobility is fanciful. And no ‘pact’ of this kind is possible without bipartisan support.”
 
In Washington, Atlantic Council fellow Ben Judah dismissed any concerns that the proposed alliance would undermine other international alliances.
 
CANZUK “would explicitly reject closing off to the United States or the European Union to get closer to each other,” he said. It “does not come at the expense of other partnerships and trade deals.”
 
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NATO is marking the 72nd anniversary of its founding this week. Henry Ridgwell reports the military alliance faces new challenges – and enduring threats.Producer: Henry Hernandez
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Russia reaffirmed Wednesday it will enhance security cooperation with Pakistan by strengthening the South Asian nation’s “potential” to fight terrorism, which is to include supplying Islamabad with the “relevant military” hardware. “We believe this [cooperation] serves interests of all states of the region,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in the Pakistani capital before concluding his landmark two-day official visit.In his talks with Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Lavrov said the two countries agreed to increase the frequency of their joint military drills and maritime exercises to fight terrorism and piracy.Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, April 7, 2021.Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, April 7, 2021.The chief Russian diplomat last visited Pakistan in 2012, and the ensuing years saw a marked improvement in Moscow’s otherwise strained and mistrustful relations with Islamabad.The distrust stemmed from Islamabad’s decision to side with the U.S.-backed Afghan armed resistance of the 1980s that forced Moscow to withdraw Soviet occupation forces from Afghanistan. Afghan peace Lavrov said Wednesday that Russia and Pakistan are working closely to help in peace-building efforts in neighboring Afghanistan. He said both sides agreed to “further facilitate” a deal through an “inclusive political dialogue to put an end to the civil war” between Afghan’s warring parties in the conflict-torn country.”We are, just like our Pakistani partners, seriously worried about the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, and by the rise of terrorist activities and the march of ISIL (an acronym for Islamic State) in north and east of the country,” Lavrov said.Moscow maintains contacts with the Afghan government and the Taliban waging a deadly insurgency against the U.S.-backed Kabul administration.Russia has hosted several Afghan peace meetings in recent months, with envoys of Kabul and the Taliban among the attendees. FILE – Taliban political deputy Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, center, arrives with other members of the Taliban delegation for an Afghan peace conference in Moscow, Russia, March 18, 2021.The latest gathering happened last month in Moscow, where senior diplomats from the United States, China and Pakistan also were in attendance, together with representatives of the Afghan adversaries. Qureshi, while speaking alongside Lavrov, described the March 18 Moscow meeting as “successful” and said he discussed with his Russian counterpart the possibility of arranging another such conference to further the Afghan peace process.Islamabad traditionally also maintains close ties with the Taliban and has long been accused by Kabul of sheltering insurgent leaders on Pakistani soil.Pakistan rejects the charges and is credited with bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table for peace talks with Washington that culminated in a landmark agreement in February 2020. US-Taliban deal President Joe Biden’s new administration, however, has been reviewing the U.S.-Taliban deal, which requires all American and NATO-led foreign troops to leave Afghanistan by May 1. The reassessment stems from concerns the Taliban have not eased violence, and hostilities will intensify if international forces withdraw from the country in the absence of a political deal between warring Afghans. Biden said last month it will be tough for the U.S. to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan by May 1 for logistical reasons, prompting the Taliban to threaten they would resume attacks on foreign troops in the country if Washington fails to honor the deal. Gas pipeline Lavrov and Qureshi both reported Wednesday that construction by Russia of a 1,100-kilometer gas pipeline will begin soon in Pakistan. The pipeline, linking the southern port city of Karachi to the eastern city of Lahore, will cost an estimated $2 billion and is expected to transport up to 12.4 billion cubic meters of gas annually.”We are making necessary efforts to start the construction of the north-south gas pipeline — the flagship project in the energy sector,” the Russian foreign minister said. “We hope that all remaining technical issues will be agreed upon in the very near future.”The project, officials say, will open a fast-growing gas market for Russian energy companies.The steady growth in bilateral ties saw trade between Russia and Pakistan last year hitting an all-time high of $790 million, an increase of 46 percent, mainly due to large supplies of Russian wheat to help Islamabad bridge its domestic shortfalls.FILE – A shipment of Russia’s Sputnik COVID-19 vaccine arrives at Kosice Airport, Slovakia, March 1, 2021.Qureshi said Islamabad also intends to buy about 5 million doses of the Russian-developed Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine to boost Pakistan’s efforts with its recently launched program to inoculate its population against the pandemic. Lavrov said Russia also will look into a request put forward by Pakistan to help the country ultimately manufacture the vaccine. Before departing Pakistan, the Russian foreign minister also met with Prime Minister Imran Khan and the country’s military chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa.Khan reaffirmed Pakistan’s resolve to “expeditiously conclude the requisite legal process” for the gas pipeline project and begin work as quickly as possible, the prime minister’s office said in a statement.”Pakistan values its relations with Russia and reciprocates the desire for enhanced bilateral military cooperation,” a military statement quoted Bajwa as telling Lavrov.”We have no hostile designs toward any country and will keep on working toward a cooperative regional framework based on sovereign equality and mutual progress,” the Pakistani army chief asserted. 
 
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Talks to warm relations between the European Union and Turkey in the Turkish capital, Ankara, got off to an awkward start Tuesday when one of the EU leaders – the only woman in the room – was left without a chair.
 
In video of the meeting, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Europe Council President Charles Michel are seen being greeted warmly by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as they arrived for the talks.  
 
The two leaders were then led into an ornate meeting room, where the three stood side by side and posed for pictures. But when it came time to sit, there were only two chairs, in which the two men sat. On the video, von der Leyen can be heard saying “Hmm” or “Ehm,” and was offered a seat on a couch to the side of other two leaders.
 
A former German defense minister, von der Leyen leads the European Commission. Michel, a former Belgian prime minister, leads the bloc’s executive wing and represents the leaders of the 27 individual member nations of the EU in negotiations. They are equals in rank and status.
 
The incident did not go unnoticed. From his Twitter account, German European Parliament Member Sergey Lagodinsky referenced von der Leyen’s non-verbal reaction, writing “’Ehm’ is the new term for ‘that’s not how EU-Turkey relationship should be,’” followed by the hashtags “#GiveHerASeat #EU #Turkey #womensrights.”  
 
Lagodinsky is chairman of the legislature’s delegation to a joint EU-Turkish parliamentary committee.
 
Dutch EU parliament member Sophie in ‘t Veld on her Twitter account, posted a picture of previous EU meetings in which the leaders, all men, were seated next to one another, in equivalent chairs. She said, “And it wasn’t a coincidence. It was deliberate.” She also questions why Michel took his seat without a word or gesture to von der Leyen.
 
Von der Leyen herself did not directly reference the incident following the talks, only expressing concern about Turkey’s record on human rights, particularly women’s rights.   
 
But during an EU Commission briefing Wednesday in Brussels, spokesman Eric Mamer said the commission president was surprised. He said she should have been offered the same seating arrangement as the other two leaders. But he was quick to add that von der Leyen “chose to prioritize substance over questions of form or protocol.”
 
Tuesday’s talks were intended to improve relations between Turkey and the EU that have been strained since a coup attempt in 2016 prompted a crackdown on civil rights in the country.
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European Council President Charles Michel and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday for talks on a reset in relations. After meeting Erdogan in Ankara, Michel spoke to reporters about the EU’s deep concern over human rights in Turkey.“The rule of law and respect of fundamental rights are core values of the European Union, and we shared with President Erdogan our deep worries on the latest developments in Turkey in this respect, in particular on the freedom of speech and the targeting of political parties and media,” Michel said. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speaks during a joint news conference with EU Council President Charles Michel after talks with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Ankara, Turkey, April 6, 2021.State prosecutors last month opened a closure case against Turkey’s second-largest opposition party. While Ankara withdrew in April from the Istanbul Convention, a European treaty that legally protects women.  Emma Sinclair of the New York based Human Rights Watch has been calling for a tougher stance by the EU. “The EU has to start believing in its own capacity to speak out on what is going on and to look at the crisis to actually condemn what’s going on in much stronger terms,” Sinclair said. But Michel and von der Leyen did welcome Turkey’s talks with EU member Greece to resolve territorial disputes over the Mediterranean and Aegean seas, which are believed to have vast energy reserves. The EU officials said talks with Turkey would start on modernizing a customs union agreement, a key Ankara demand.  FILE – Turkish seismic research vessel Oruc Reis sails in the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey, Nov. 12, 2018.Sinan Ulgen of the Istanbul-based Edam research institute says the custom union talks will give the EU new leverage, which is important as Turkey’s EU membership bid is all but dead. “The accession track has remained stalled, dormant and dysfunctional in the last few years and the EU has very little leverage given that there are very few avenues of positive engagement,” Ulgen said. The EU officials also said they expect Turkey to fully honor its commitment to a migration deal, including accepting migrants and refugees back from Greece. Ankara is pressing for more EU funds to help accommodate nearly four million Syrian refugees, a demand that von der Leyen said the European Union was ready to consider. 
 
 
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