radioku: Amerika serikat

Showing posts with label Amerika serikat. Show all posts

Monday, 11 December 2017

Tasmanian tigers were in poor genetic health, study finds

Tasmanian tigers in captivity — Image captionThe last Tasmanian tiger died in a zoo in 1936

Tasmanian tigers suffered from limited genetic diversity long before they were hunted to extinction, a study of DNA has found.

Australian scientists sequenced the genome of the native marsupial, also known as the thylacine.

It showed the species, alive until 1936, would have struggled to survive even without human contact.

The research also provides further insights into the marsupial's unique appearance.

"Even if we hadn't hunted it to extinction, our analysis showed that the thylacine was in very poor [genetic] health," said lead researcher Dr Andrew Pask, from the University of Melbourne.

"The population today would be very susceptible to diseases, and would not be very healthy."

Tasmanian tiger: The enduring belief in an extinct animal

He said problems with genetic diversity could be traced back as far as 70,000 years ago, when the population is thought to have suffered due to a climatic event.

The researchers sequenced the genome from a 106-year-old specimen held by Museums Victoria.

They said their study, published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, is one of the most complete genetic blueprints of an extinct species.

A Tasmanian tiger figurine in a museum — Image captionThe research provides insights into the thylacine's appearance

Tasmanian tigers numbers declined when humans arrived in Australia tens of thousands of years ago, and again when dingoes appeared.

In the end they were pushed to the island of Tasmania, and hunted to extinction in the 19th and 20th centuries. Being isolated from the mainland was a key factor in having a limited gene pool, researchers said.

Species similarities

The study also offered further clues into the appearance of the species, which was the largest apex predator marsupial to survive into the 20th Century.

Tasmanian tigers had pouches like kangaroos where they carried their young, but the species was closer in resemblance to dogs.

The scientists found that thylacine skulls bore similarities to the grey wolf and red fox, despite the animals not sharing a common ancestor since the Jurassic period.

"Given the two species are so distantly related, the fact they have skulls almost indistinguishable from one another is incredibly amazing," Dr Pask said.

He called it an exceptional example of convergent evolution - where species which are not closely related evolve to look similar.

new rules, new movies, new york, new nepali movie, new music, new rules remix, new hindi movies, new order, new hindi song, new punjabi song, new songs, new album, new amazon echo, new audi a7, new anime, new action movies, new americana, new audi a8, new age, new amharic music, new animation movies, a new hope, a new world, a new england, a new beginning, a new commandment, a new dawn, a new girlfriend, a new hope ending, a new hope trailer, a new brain, new bollywood movies, new bollywood songs, new bangla song, new bangla natok, new bangla movie, new bae, new boyz, new balance, new bhojpuri song, new baby, bbc news, b news nation, bbc news intro, b news bijapur, bbc news theme, b news kolhapur, b new movie, b new song 2017, b news now open, b news live, new car, new cartoon, new comedy, new call of duty, new comedy movies, new cod, new choppa, new channel, new cartoon movies, new classic, c news, c news marathi, c new boston, c news foot, c news today news, c news khammam, c news tv, c newton, c news marathi sangamner, c news france, new dust 2, new day, new dance, new drug in brazil, new driving test, new dog, new drama, new dj song, new delhi, new dust 2 smokes, d news, d news sleep, d news antimatter, d news weed, d news samastipur, d news god, d news planet 9, d news death, d news drugs, d news stem cells, new english songs, new english movie, new eminem, new england, new eritrean music, new episode, new ethiopian movie, new ethiopian music, new ed sheeran, e news, e news kenya, e news jim carrey, e news the rundown, e news kylie pregnant, e news charles melton, e news harvey weinstein, e news reporter, e news odia, e news kuwtk, new films, new found glory, new flame, new face, new film trailers, new films 2017, new films 2018, new full movies, new freezer, new funny video, f new rules, f new song, f news live, f new movie, f new york, f new account, big f new episode, n m f news, big f new season, w w f new, new girl, new games, new grime, new game trailers, new gen, new gta, new generation, new giggs, new ghost adventures, new gadgets, g news, g news live, g newz, g new song, g news comedy, g news india, g news punjabi, g news sea1997, g news live tv, g news india live, new hindi movie 2017, new hindi song 2017, new hope club, new hairstyle, new hindi movie trailer, new hindi dubbed movies, new house, new hollywood movies, h newton, h new song 2017, h new song, h new tv, h news hindi, h new songs 2016, h new movie, h newman marsh trail, h new movie 2016, triple h new haircut, new indian movies, new indian songs, new iphone, new it movie, new intro, new iphone x, new islamabad airport, new indian bangla movie, new inventions, new indian movies 2017, i news, i need, i newspaper, i new rules, i need your love, i news live, i new movies, i new song, i news tv, i knew you were trouble, new jack city, new jersey, new jack swing, new justice league trailer, new jam, new job, new jerusalem, new jason, new jordans, new japan, j new song, j newsom, j newton, j newman, j news live, j newton howard, j new song 2017, j news telugu, j newz

Trump sex harassment accusers demand congressional inquiry

Media captionJessica Leeds is calling on Congress to open an inquiry into President Trump

Three women who accused President Donald Trump of sexual misconduct have demanded a congressional inquiry.

At a New York City news conference, the trio accused Mr Trump of groping, fondling, forcibly kissing, humiliating or harassing them.

Three of them - Jessica Leeds, Samantha Holvey, and Rachel Crooks - detailed their allegations shortly beforehand live on television.

The White House said the women were making "false claims".

Trump obscene remarks were real - TV host

Monday morning's press conference was organised by Brave New Films, which last month released a documentary, 16 Women and Donald Trump, about the claims made by multiple women.

Image caption(L-R) Jessica Leeds, Samantha Holvey, and Rachel Crook

Ms Leeds, Ms Holvey and Ms Crooks originally went public separately with their allegations a month before last year's US presidential election.

The claims have been given a new lease of life by the harassment scandals that have engulfed high-profile public figures since October's fall of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

On NBC News on Monday, Ms Holvey said Mr Trump had ogled her and other competitors in 2006 at the Miss USA beauty pageant, which he owned.

The former Miss North Carolina, who was 20-years-old at the time, said "he lined all of us up" and was "just looking me over like I was just a piece of meat".

"It left me feeling very gross," Ms Holvey told NBC host Megyn Kelly.

She later told the reporters: "They've investigated other Congress members, so I think it only stands fair that he [Mr Trump] is investigated as well

"This isn't a partisan issue, this is, how women are treated every day."

Ms Leeds, now in her 70s, says that when she was 38 she sat next to Mr Trump in the first-class cabin of a flight to New York and he sexually assaulted her.

Ms Leeds said: "He jumped all over me."

She said she came forward because: "I wanted people to know what kind of person Trump really is, and what a pervert he is."

Media captionSpeaking in 2016, Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos accuses Donald Trump of 'thrusting his genitals' at her

Ms Crooks said she was kissed on the lips by Mr Trump outside a lift in Trump Tower when she was a 22-year-old receptionist at a real estate company there.

"I was shocked," she said. "Devastated."

The White House said on Monday: "These false claims, totally disputed in most cases by eyewitness accounts, were addressed at length during last year's campaign, and the American people voiced their judgment by delivering a decisive victory.

"The timing and absurdity of these false claims speaks volumes and the publicity tour that has begun only further confirms the political motives behind them."

The president rejected such allegations last year and vowed to sue the accusers, though no lawsuit has yet been filed.

But over the weekend Mr Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said his accusers "should be heard".

Speaking to CBS News, Mrs Haley said she was "incredibly proud of the women who have come forward".

Meanwhile, there Democratic senators - Cory Booker of New Jersey, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York - called on Mr Trump to resign over the allegations.

During his successful run for the presidency last year, Mr Trump was heard boasting of grabbing women's vaginas in a leaked videotape.

Inside China's 'virtue schools' for women By Beijing bureau

Screenshot of a Pear Video piece on Chinese virtue schools — Image captionA recent video exposing a "virtue school" in China showed women forced to clean floors while on their hands and knees

Centres training women to be "virtuous" have sprung up across China in recent years, telling women that career and femininity do not mix and forcing them to do menial work. But what are these institutes really about?

When news broke that "female virtues" were being taught to women in a traditional cultural institute in Fushun city in northern China, the whole country was enraged.

Some of the core messages delivered to women who attended the school went like this:

"Career women don't end well."
"Women should just stay at the bottom level of society and shouldn't attempt to go up."
"Women must always obey the orders of their fathers, husbands and sons."
"Never fight back when your husband is beating you, and never argue when your husband is scolding you."
"If a woman has sex with more than three men, she could catch disease and die."

The Fushun local government was quick to react. "The institute's teachings went against social morality," said Fushun's education bureau in an official statement.

Pressured by mounting criticism in Chinese press and social media, city authorities immediately ordered the closure of the six-year-old institute.

Seventeen-year-old Jing, who once attended the Fushun centre, told the BBC that she was very happy to see the result.

When Jing was just 13, she was told she was "naughty" and sent to the institute by her mother, who hoped that some cultural education would instil discipline.

Like many parents who forced their children to attend such training, Jing's mother grew up in the countryside and received little education.

Jing could still remember the ordeal. "As part of the training, I was forced to clean the toilets using my bare hands." she recalled. "How disgusting!"

They taught her that was what women were supposed to do, and that women were born to serve the men. Jing still doesn't understand why she wasn't given gloves to clean toilets, nor why the process had to involve such unnecessary hardship.

Screenshot of a Pear Video showing a female lecturer standing in front of the class. — Image captionOne lecturer advises that whatever a husband asks, the reply should be "Yes, no problem, right away"

Reality Check: Are women welcome in Chinese politics?
Ikea apologises for 'sexist' China advert
Women 'won't have equality' for 100 years

Another important teaching method was to have students confess wrongdoings to their parents and ancestors.

Jing said the class's curriculum ranged from reciting ancient doctrines and hands-on training for domestic chores, to psychotherapy-style group sharing sessions.

What disgusted Jing the most, she said, was when the class showed video interviews of "cured women".

"They claimed they had sex with more than one man and because of that they had festering sores all over their body," Jing recalled. "But they were all miraculously cured after they learned 'traditional virtues' and became good women."

"The seven-day training camp was no place for a normal person. I couldn't stand its brainwashing any longer. So on the fourth night, I climbed over the iron fence and ran away."

Many educated white-collar people in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai might find the existence of such classes shocking and absurd.

But in reality, these outdated values have always lingered in smaller Chinese cities, especially in rural areas.

Screenshot of a Pear Video showing students in class — Image captionDuring China's feudal era such "female virtues" had been widely accepted

In May, university students in central China's Jiujiang city were lectured on the importance of female virginity and told that dressing in a revealing way was verging on vulgar behaviour; while in 2014, a cultural centre in Dongguan city taught members that a career woman might as well cut off her uterus and breasts.

In one infamous case in 2005, a young female migrant worker jumped out of a seventh-floor window to escape prostitution in the southern city of Shenzhen. Her choice of virginity over her life was considered courageous and her action was praised throughout the country.

For thousands of years during China's feudal era such "female virtues" had been widely accepted as a code of conduct for women.

These included obeying one's father, husband and son; valuing and guarding one's virginity; and understanding that a woman without talent was virtuous.

These rules were taught at homes and schools, and used as tools to enslave and suppress women in ancient China.

It was not until Chairman Mao made his famous assertion that "women hold up half of the sky", after the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, that Chinese women started to rise in social status.

The possibility that feudal ideas may be making a comeback, in the name of traditional culture, is a real concern to many.

Making money

But ideology may not be the sole motivating force behind these institutes.

Take the Fushun cultural centre. It was approved by Fushun's civil affair bureau as a "public welfare mass organisation", and was never given accreditation to run schools.

But that didn't stop its founders from opening schools and training camps in various cities across China. It had more than 10,000 students before it shut down, according to media reports.

The enterprise was funded entirely by donations from students, said the institute's headmaster Kang Jinsheng in a promotional video. It also ran a side business making traditional Chinese costumes and selling them online or supplying them for cultural events.

The centre targeted families who had troubled teenagers and promised to change them through its version of traditional culture. It also advertised to companies and said its teachings could help a more harmonious office environment.

Another similar centre in Dongguan was registered as an events and performance company, yet it was recruiting students and collecting tuition fees. It was shut down by the local government in 2014 on charges of profit-making in the name of charity.

Such centres are suspected of making money under the pretext of promoting traditional Chinese culture. Many have been shut down because of their questionable legal status or uncertified teaching content.

But there are plenty that are still operating. Even though Fushun's main centre has been shut down, its other branches are still up and running.

Support group

So can such ideas really have a market in China?

Most students have tended to be rural women with little education, some in unhappy marriages where they were mistreated by their husbands.

They found comfort in meeting other women with similar problems, and the lessons taught in these centres - that women were of a lower status than men - seemed to have provided an explanation and solution to their problems.

In one leaked video, a female student said she attended the classes because her husband hoped she could regain a woman's "soft" and "obedient" nature.

By gathering regularly and sharing each other's stories, these women formed a support group. Many ended up working as volunteers for the institute and helped to teach new students.

"The fundamental help needs to come from policymakers," said Xie Lihua, editor of Rural Women magazine and an expert on women issues in China.

"Lack of education, social support and legal protection for women's rights in rural areas have provided grounds for such ideology."

She pointed out that without such protection, more serious issues facing rural women, such as the sexual assault of young girls and non-entitlement to land, would not get resolved either.

As for these "female virtue classes", Ms Xie said they should not be treated seriously.

"The tide of history can't be overturned. Chinese society has moved on towards gender equality. The right thing to do is to give it a laugh and forget it."

EU governments complicit in migrant torture in Libya, says Amnesty

A picture taken on June 27, 2017 shows Libyan coast guardsmen standing in a dinghy carrying illegal immigrants during a rescue operation of 147 people who were attempting to reach Europe — Image captionMigrant boats are regularly intercepted by the Libyan coastguard

European governments are knowingly complicit in the torture and abuse of refugees and migrants in Libya, Amnesty International has alleged.

In an effort to stem migration, the EU is actively supporting a "system of abuse and exploitation" on Libyan shores, the group said in a report.

EU funds are going to authorities working with militias and people smugglers, the report says.

The EU has provided ships, training and funding to the Libyan coastguard.

Libya is the main thoroughfare for migrants trying to reach Europe. Arrivals in Italy - the main destination for boat crossings - fell sharply following the provision of EU funds to the Libyan coastguard.

Libyan migrant detention centre: 'It's like hell'

But Amnesty says the coastguard is working with criminal gangs and people smugglers who are guilty of a range of abuses, with the knowledge of EU officials.

It alleges that the drive to stem migration has resulted in "mass, arbitrary and indefinite detention" of refugees and migrants.

Media captionDetainee Hennessy: "I feel like a dead person"

Refugees and migrants intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard are sent to detention centres run by Libya's general directorate for combating illegal migration (DCIM).

Amnesty said about 20,000 people were currently detained at these centres, and it had testimony showing detainees were subject to "torture, forced labour, extortion, and unlawful killings" at the hands of authorities, traffickers, and militias.

Map showing Central Mediterranean migrant routes

"Tens of thousands are kept indefinitely in overcrowded detention centres where they are subjected to systematic abuse," said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty's Europe Director.

"European governments have not just been fully aware of these abuses; by actively supporting the Libyan authorities in stopping sea crossings and containing people in Libya, they are complicit in these abuses."

Media captionMany trying to reach Europe have ended up inside Libyan detention centres

When a BBC correspondent visited a detention centre earlier this year, detainees described violence and abuse and conditions "like hell" and "even worse than jail".

Speaking to Amnesty, one man from the Gambia who was detained for three months said he was starved and beaten.

"They beat me with a rubber hose, because they want money to release me. They call the family while beating [you] so the family send money," he said.

The human rights group said it believed it had enough evidence to take EU governments to court.

Libya has spiraled into lawlessness since Nato-backed forces overthrew long-serving ruler Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in October 2011, with a myriad armed militias vying for control