ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 484

Pakistani transgender activist who was shot, then taunted at hospital, dies of injuries

By Zulfiqar Ali and Shashank Bengali

A 23-year-old transgender activist died at a northern Pakistani hospital Wednesday after a shooting and delays in medical care that her friends blamed on discrimination in the South Asian country.

Shot seven times in an altercation Sunday, the activist — who went by one name, Alisha — was brought to Lady Reading Hospital, one of the largest medical facilities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where staff dithered over whether to place her in the ward for male patients or female patients.

A friend and fellow activist, Farzana Jan, said men at the hospital taunted them outside the emergency room.

One asked whether Alisha’s blood was HIV-positive, while another asked for Farzana’s phone number and invited her to dance at a party.

Alisha underwent medical procedures Monday and Tuesday to stanch heavy internal bleeding but died Wednesday morning, according to hospital spokesman Zulfiqar Babakhel.

At least five transgender activists have been attacked in recent months in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a socially conservative province next to the country’s northern tribal areas.

All the victims, including Alisha, were members of Trans Action, an advocacy group that has been increasingly vocal in seeking equal rights for transgender people in the province.

The group estimates there are at least 45,000 transgender people in the province, and at least half a million nationwide. Although most live in the shadows, some are hired to dance at weddings and parties, where they are viewed as novelty acts and harbingers of good luck.

Others have little way to make a living, except through begging or sex work.

Qamar Naseem, a member of Trans Action, said that about 45 transgender people had been killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the last two years.

Though Pakistan’s Supreme Court has enshrined equal rights for transgender people, they say that local governments deny them access to education and healthcare.

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Muslim mob in Egypt strips 70-year-old Christian woman

By Associated Press in Cairo

A Muslim mob stripped a 70-year-old Christian woman and paraded her naked on the streets in an attack last week in which seven Christian homes were ransacked and torched in a province south of the Egyptian capital.

According to the local Orthodox Coptic church and security officials, the assault in the Minya province village of Karama on Friday began after rumours spread that the woman’s son had had an affair with a Muslim woman – a taboo in conservative Egypt.

Police have arrested six men suspected of taking part in the violence and are looking for 12 more, the security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Anba Makarios, Minya’s top Christian cleric, told a talkshow host on the private Dream TV network that the woman was dragged out of her home by the mob, who beat and insulted her before stripping off her clothes and forcing her to walk through the streets as they chanted Allahu Akbar, or “God is greatest”.

The woman reported the incident to the police five days later, said Makarios, adding that she had found it difficult to “swallow the humiliation” she suffered.

The incident, intensely publicised since Wednesday night, has unleashed a flurry of condemnations on social media networks where users accused ultra-conservative Salafi Muslims of being behind the violence. The hashtag “Egypt stripped naked” on Twitter gained traction shortly after it was introduced.

Extramarital affairs or sex between unmarried couples are taboo among both Muslims and Christians in Egypt. Such incidents often attract violent reactions in rural areas, where questions of honour can lead to deadly family feuds that endure for years or result in ostracising of the perpetrators.

Christian men cannot marry Muslim women in Egypt unless they convert to Islam first, but Muslim men can marry Christian women. An affair between a Christian man and a Muslim woman is almost certain to cause a great deal of trouble if the couple are found out, particularly in rural areas.

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This Week in Science (May 22 – 29) – 1st Anniversary!

You want to have a reference point of where to find the best recent scientific and technological breakthroughs? Here they are, in the weekly science compilations. Share them with friends and family, online or in real life. Enjoy: http://bit.ly/ThisWeekinScience

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Christian Rock Singer Stops Believing after Reading Richard Dawkins’ Book

By Nathan Glover

After reading biologist Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion, Shannon Low decided that he must shed his belief “like a cocoon,” reports the Christian Post. Low is the long-time front man for the Missouri-based band, The Order of Elijah.

Low’s path to religion is not an unusual one. He spent his 20s living a life of sex, drugs and rock and roll. This ended when he joined the Ignite church in Joplin, Missouri and became friendly with the pastor there. He subsequently played guitar for the church and lead its youth group.

Shortly thereafter, The Order of Elijah came together, and Low felt like he was following a strong calling: a ministry in support of Jesus.

But he fell back into drinking after he and his wife divorced, just a year after his daughter was born. Once he returned to the church after this absence, Low began to think about the Old Testament, especially atrocities supported by the church such as sacrificing a virgin child for the sake of winning a battle, or maiming children who insulted prophets like Elisha.

But Low didn’t give up on Christianity just yet. He assumed Jesus would see the injustice that he did, and work to clear it up. But he found out that Jesus often quoted the Old Testament, and condoned the actions of the church during that time.

Confused by the apparent contradictions, and tired of negative reactions from Christian friends as he wondered about his faith, Low picked up Dawkins’ book.

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Genetic engineering of humans has great potential, says Nobel winner

By Ian Sample

The genetic engineering of humans has great potential to help those destined to inherit serious, incurable diseases, according to one of Britain’s most prominent scientists, who says the risks and benefits should be debated by society.

The invention of powerful new genome editing tools means researchers can now make precise changes to genetic material, and so consider correcting faulty DNA in human sperm, eggs and embryos.

While the procedure may prevent children from being born with serious disorders, the practice – known as “germline therapy” – is banned in Britain and many other countries, because the genetic changes would be passed down to future generations and the risks are largely unknown.

“There is great potential in germline therapy. There are clearly diseases that you could help by editing the germline,” said Sir Venki Ramakrishnan, who won the Nobel prize in chemistry in 2009 and became president of the Royal Society in December. “This is a case of a new technology where there are significant potential benefits, but also significant ethical implications.”

In a wide-ranging interview with the Guardian, Ramakrishnan, said the risks and benefits of the procedure, which would create the first genetically modified humans if given the green light, should be thrashed out in discussions that involve people from all walks of life.

“It’s definitely a major step, there’s no getting around that. That’s why it’s important to really slow down and not rush any decisions,” he said. “What we need is a diverse and transparent group of people to really come together and get to grips with how do we go about using this tool and are there red lines. They may well decide there are red lines we shouldn’t cross.

“The concern I have is the same as with any other technology, which is that once a technology is feasible, we may well regulate it, but someone somewhere may start using it in ways we consider unethical,” he added.

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States Sue Administration Over Transgender Bathroom Policy

By David Montgomery and Alan Blinder

The Obama administration on Wednesday faced its first major challenge to its directive this month about the civil rights of transgender students in public schools, as officials in 11 states filed a lawsuit that tested the federal government’s interpretation of the statute forbidding sexual discrimination.

The states, including Alabama, Georgia, Texas and Wisconsin, brought the case in a Federal District Court in North Texas and said that the Obama administration had “conspired to turn workplaces and educational settings across the country into laboratories for a massive social experiment, flouting the democratic process and running roughshod over common sense policies protecting children and basic privacy rights.”

The challenge by the states, most of which are led by Republican governors, came 12 days after civil rights lawyers from the Department of Education and the Justice Department issued what they described as “significant guidance” about how schools should accommodate transgender students to remain in compliance with federal law. A school, the Obama administration lawyers wrote, “must not treat a transgender student differently from the way it treats other students of the same gender identity.”

The government said that a school had an obligation “to provide transgender students equal access to educational programs and activities even in circumstances in which other students, parents or community members raise objections or concerns.” The officials added that “the desire to accommodate others’ discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of students.”

The guidance provoked an uproar among conservatives, who said that the Obama administration had gone beyond settled law about discrimination in the United States, and it fed into the rapidly escalating national battle about transgender rights.

Wednesday’s litigation opened yet another front in the nation’s courtrooms. This month, the Justice Department and the State of North Carolina sued each other about a state law that curbed public restroom access for transgender people.

The guidance at issue in the Texas litigation become public soon after, and the state officials said Wednesday that the federal government had gone “so far beyond any reasonable reading of the relevant congressional text such that the new rules, regulations, guidance and interpretations functionally exercise lawmaking power reserved only to Congress.”

“This represents just the latest example of the current administration’s attempts to accomplish by executive fiat what they couldn’t accomplish through the democratic process in Congress,” Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas said in a statement. “By forcing through his policies by executive action, President Obama excluded the voice of the people. We stand today to ensure those voices are heard.”

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include nine states — Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin — as well as the governor of Maine, Paul R. LePage; the Arizona Department of Education; and school districts in Arizona and Texas.

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Who Is the New Taliban Leader?

By Krishnadev Calamur

The Taliban’s new leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, is being described as a “hardline religious scholar” who issues most of the group’s fatwas, as well as “well-educated and respected,” with at least one regional expert saying his appointment “will not fully appease all factions within the Taliban.”

The Taliban announced Tuesday that Akhundzada was replacing Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who was killed Saturday in a U.S. drone strike inside Pakistan. It is the first time the Taliban has acknowledged Mansour’s death. The organization also announced that  Sirajuddin Haqqani and Muhammad Yaqoub would serve as Akhundzada’s deputies. Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani network, is viewed as a hard-line member of the group who is opposed to peace talks with the Afghan government. Yaqoub is the son of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the late Taliban leader who Mansour officially replaced last year. Both were tipped to replace Mansour.

Sayed Mohammad Akbar Agha, a former Taliban commander, tells CNN Akhundzada is from Panjwai district in Kandahar province, the heartland of the Taliban.

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South Carolina’s New Abortion Law

By Matt Vasilogambros

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley signed a bill on Wednesday that bans abortions 20 weeks after conception. The law does not have exceptions for rape or incest.

The new law will allow doctors to perform abortions after 20 weeks if the mother’s life is threatened or if the fetus has “an anomaly” and will die. The bill was passed by the state’s General Assembly last week. Current state law requires women to receive state-directed counseling aimed at discouraging abortions. Women seeking abortions must then wait an additional 24 hours to have the procedure.

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A Shocking Find In a Neanderthal Cave In France

By Ed Yong

In February 1990, thanks to a 15-year-old boy named Bruno Kowalsczewski, footsteps echoed through the chambers of Bruniquel Cave for the first time in tens of thousands of years.

The cave sits in France’s scenic Aveyron Valley, but its entrance had long been sealed by an ancient rockslide. Kowalsczewski’s father had detected faint wisps of air emerging from the scree, and the boy spent three years clearing away the rubble. He eventually dug out a tight, thirty-meter-long passage that the thinnest members of the local caving club could squeeze through. They found themselves in a large, roomy corridor. There were animal bones and signs of bear activity, but nothing recent. The floor was pockmarked with pools of water. The walls were punctuated by stalactites (the ones that hang down) and stalagmites (the ones that stick up).

Some 336 meters into the cave, the caver stumbled across something extraordinary—a vast chamber where several stalagmites had been deliberately broken. Most of the 400 pieces had been arranged into two rings—a large one between 4 and 7 metres across, and a smaller one just 2 metres wide. Others had been propped up against these donuts. Yet others had been stacked into four piles. Traces of fire were everywhere, and there was a mass of burnt bones.

These weren’t natural formations, and they weren’t the work of bears. They were built by people.

Recognizing the site’s value, the caver brought in archaeologist Francois Rouzaud. Using carbon-dating, Rouzaud estimated that a burnt bear bone found within the chamber was 47,600 years old, which meant that the stalagmite rings were older than any known cave painting. It also meant that they couldn’t have been the work of Homo sapiens. Their builders must have been the only early humans in the south of France at the time: Neanderthals.

The discovery suggested that Neanderthals were more sophisticated than anyone had given them credit for. They wielded fire, ventured deep underground, and shaped the subterranean rock into complex constructions. Perhaps they even carried out rituals; after all, there was no evidence that anyone actually lived in the cave, so what else were the rings and mounds for?

Rouzaud would never know. In April 1999, while guiding colleagues through a different cave, he suffered a fatal heart attack. With his death, work on the Bruniquel Cave ceased, and its incredible contents were neglected. They’ve only now re-entered the limelight because Sophie Verheyden went on holiday.

A life-long caver, Verheyden works at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, where she specializes in stalagmites. She treats them as time capsules, using the chemicals within them to reconstruct the climate of past millennia. So when she learned about Bruniquel Cave, while visiting the region on holiday and seeing a display at a nearby castle, she had only one thought: Why hadn’t anyone dated the broken stalagmites themselves?”

She knew that Rouzaud’s date of 47,600 years was impressive but suspect. Carbon-dating is only accurate for samples younger than 50,000 years, so the Bruniquel material was hitting the technique’s limits. They could well have been much older. To get a better estimate, Verheyden assembled a team including archaeologist Jacques Jaubert and fellow stalagmite expert Dominique Genty. In 2013, they got permission to study the site and crawled into it themselves. “I’m not very big, and I had to put one arm before me and one behind to get through,” says Verheyden. “It’s kind of magical, even without the structures.”

After drilling into the stalagmites and pulling out cylinders of rock, the team could see an obvious transition between two layers. On one side were old minerals that were part of the original stalagmites; on the other were newer layers that had been laid down after the fragments were broken off by the cave’s former users. By measuring uranium levels on either side of the divide, the team could accurately tell when each stalagmite had been snapped off for construction.

Their date? 176,500 years ago, give or take a few millennia.

“When I announced the age to Jacques, he asked me to repeat it because it was so incredible,” says Verheyden. Outside Bruniquel Cave, the earliest, unambiguous human constructions are  just 20,000 years old. Most of these are ruins—collapsed collections of mammoth bones and deer antlers. By comparison, the Bruniquel stalagmite rings are well-preserved and far more ancient.

And if Rouzaud’s work made it unlikely that modern humans built the rings, Verheyden’s study grinds that possibility into the dust. Neanderthals must have been responsible. There simply wasn’t any other hominin in that region at that time.

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The Madness of Turkey’s ‘Sultan’ Erdogan

By Maajid Nawaz

Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to power in 2002, a year after the formation of his AK party. But spending 11 years as prime minister wasn’t enough. In 2011, Erdogan changed the system, clearing the way for him to become  the country’s first directly elected president in 2013.

True to all incremental power grabs, he initially sold this move to Turks as merely “ceremonial.”

 That facade has now ended.

After this month no one was left in any doubt as to Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman delusions of grandeur, as he pushed out Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu while maneuvering to replace him with a long-time crony.  At one point his own son in law seemed a likely appointee.

To use the cliché “palace coup” would not even be metaphoric on my part. Perched atop a hill on the outskirts of Ankara sits Erdogan’s specially commissioned 1,000-room White Palace, or AK Saray. Bigger than the White House and the Kremlin, this Sultan-like extravagance cost even more than the budgeted $615m. And as Erdogan’s sultanate grows, so too does Erdogan’s sultan-like caprice.

Freedom House reports that Erdogan has been eroding freedom of the press in Turkey at an alarming rate over recent years. This unhinged crackdown on journalists culminated last month in the seizure and state takeover of opposition newspaper Zaman, which is now embarrassingly owned and operated by the Turkish state. Such has been Erdogan’s assault on journalists that even President Barack Obama felt the need to warn the authoritarian Erdogan to back off.

But this is all run-of-the-mill for tinpot strongmen, who so often mistake their ability to retain office as a demonstration of popularity and power. The truth is, it’s also a weakness. Power is a weapon. And like a domestic firearm, it is a weapon that is likely at least as dangerous to you as to others.

Nothing highlights this weakness, this manic insecurity, and this puerile obsession with control in a more darkly comical way than the stunt Erdogan just pulled in Germany.

The president of Turkey, this once great leader of that proud and historic nation, filed a criminal complaint against Jan Boehmermann, a German satirist for… writing this poem  about him.

The origins of the truly serious offence that was taken are found in the peculiar incident of Germany’s ambassador to Turkey, Martin Erdmann, being summoned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry over an ‘Extra 3’ satirical video about Erdogan. There, Erdmann was asked to explain—yes, explain— the video, and to ensure that it was taken off air. It was this incident that inspired Boehmermann’s poem.

You see, the Great Leader was butt-hurt.

But he won. Due to Germany’s archaic laws against offending organs of “foreign states,” one of Germany’s most intelligent satirists has been ordered by a Hamburg court to censor his song about Erdogan’s brutal assault on Turkey’s press.

Boehmermann responded on Twitter  by linking to the iconic Beastie Boys song, “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!).”

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