China has announced it is lifting punishing tariffs on Australian wines more than three years after imposing penalties that devastated the industry and were a major point of friction between the trading partners.

China’s Ministry of Commerce on Thursday said that “in view of the changes in the wine market conditions in China,” it was “no longer necessary to impose anti-dumping duties and countervailing duties on imported wines originating from Australia.”

The measure would come into effect on Friday, two days before the end of a five-month review period agreed on by Canberra and Beijing that saw Australia suspend a dispute on the issue at the World Trade Organization for that period.

The decision scraps duties as high as 218% on Australian wine exports to China, its largest overseas market once worth more than 1 billion Australian dollars ($653 million).

The Australian government said it welcomed Beijing’s decision “which comes at a critical time for the Australian wine industry.”

“Since 2020, China’s duties on Australian wine effectively made it unviable for Australian producers to export bottled wine to that market,” the statement read. “We acknowledge and thank Australian grape growers and wine producers for their fortitude and support during a challenging period.”

The wine tariffs were part of a raft of trade curbs Beijing slapped on key Australian exports starting in 2020 as punishment for political grievances.

Their removal comes amid a thaw in China-Australia relations that’s seen Chinese authorities steadily roll back a number of those barriers including on barley, timber, and coal.

Winemakers toast decision

Beijing’s move was embraced by the country’s hard-hit winemakers, who have been grappling with oversupply amid flagging broader global demand on top of years of major revenue losses from China.

“The loss of China over these last three years has caused a fair bit of damage to the industry and brought uncertainty. We don’t know what the Chinese market looks like after (the Covid-19 pandemic), but having access to it is a lot better than not,” he said.

Tariffs of up to 212% were originally introduced by China’s Ministry of Commerce in November 2020. A final ruling the following March set between 116% to 218% antidumping and countervailing duties for a five-year period.

The wine duties were a sharp hit for the key Australian industry, with sales to China down 97% in 2021 from the previous year at a loss of nearly $1 billion in value and 90 million liters in volume, according to national industry group Wine Australia.

Global exports also dropped by 30% in value during that period.

Annual wine production hit its lowest point in more than 15 years during 2022-2023, Wine Australia said. The same year, the United Kingdom and the US became the country’s most valuable export markets.

Lee McLean, head of national association of grape and wine producers Australian Grape & Wine, said industry groups were working with the Australian government to “ensure a coordinated re-entry” into the market.

“We look forward to seeing Australian wines back on Chinese dining tables and rejuvenating our relationship with customers and business partners in that market,” McLean said.

“We will also, however, be maintaining our focus on diversifying our export footprint and growing demand here in Australia as well,” he added.

Diplomatic thaw

China imposed the wine tariffs and other trade controls amid a souring of relations between the two countries over issues of national security and foreign investment, which deteriorated further in 2020 following Canberra’s call for an international inquiry into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic in China.

China’s Foreign Ministry had blamed Australia for the trade issues, in 2020 accusing it of “violating the basic norms governing international relations,” though its commerce ministry has cited anti-dumping and other reasons for the raft of curbs.

Relations began to improve after the election of Anthony Albanese’s Labor government in May 2022 allowed for a reset of relations, but the wine tariffs had remained a sore point.

On Thursday, China’s Foreign Ministry said the two countries “for some time” had “properly addressed each other’s concerns through dialogue and negotiations, and jointly pushed for the momentum for improvement in bilateral relations.”

Beijing’s decision comes as the country is facing a number of steep economic challenges and has sought to stabilize its relationships with key trade partners from Australia to Europe.

It also follows concerted diplomatic efforts between the two sides to repair ties, which culminated with a trip to China from Albanese last November, the first visit by an Australian leader in seven years.

Earlier this month, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made the first trip by China’s top diplomat to the Australia in the same period.

During that visit, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong raised ongoing points of stress between the two, including China’s sentencing to death last month of imprisoned writer and democracy activist Yang Hengjun, an Australian citizen detained in China since 2019.

Wong also said she stressed Canberra’s desire for the removal of remaining curbs on beef and lobster.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told a group of US members of Congress that “victory” in Gaza and “getting” Hamas’ senior leadership in the enclave are just “a few weeks away.”

Speaking to a bipartisan group from Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu said: “We’ve killed many senior leaders [of Hamas], including number four in Hamas, number three in Hamas. We’ll get number two and number one. That’s victory. Victory is within reach. It’s a few weeks away.”

Hosting the congressional delegation, which the Prime Minister’s Office said was organized by the pro-Israel lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said it was “very important to maintain bipartisan support” but “especially in these trying times.”

Netanyahu said that Israel “had no choice” but to move into Rafah as the country’s “very existence is on the line.”

The prime minister said that since the October 7 Hamas attack, Israel had enjoyed a “remarkable alignment” with the Biden administration but had fundamentally different views on an Israeli move into Rafah.

Israel has faced criticism internationally ahead of its planned offensive on the southern Gaza city, in which more than one million people are currently sheltering.

Netanyahu had earlier told the delegation that displaced Palestinians in Gaza could “just move” out of Rafah and “move with their tents.”

“There’s all of the Gaza Strip north of Rafah,” Netanyahu said. “People move down, they can move up,” the prime minister added.

Disagreements over the impending invasion of Rafah and the worsening humanitarian disaster in Gaza have driven relations between Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden to a low.

Earlier this week, Netanyahu cancelled a planned government delegation to Washington in protest of a US abstention from a UN Security Council vote, which had allowed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza to pass.

The resolution, proposed by the 10 non-permanent members of the Security Council, demanded an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan, the immediate and unconditional release of hostages and “the urgent need to expand the flow” of aid into Gaza.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken all told Gallant that Israel needs to find an “alternative” option to a major assault on Rafah, which would endanger civilians and exacerbate the suffering there.

The White House said Wednesday that Netanyahu had agreed to reschedule the planned visit by the Israeli delegation to Washington to discuss the possible Rafah operation.

There are “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel is “committing the crime of genocide against the Palestinians as a group in Gaza,” the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories has said.

Francesca Albanese made the remarks Wednesday following the submission of her latest report called “Anatomy of a Genocide” to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.

Speaking at a press conference, Albanese said: “Israel has committed three acts of genocide with a requisite intent: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

Israel said it “utterly rejects” the report, which it said “brings shame” on the Human Rights Council.

It is “no surprise, that the premise of this report is that the creation of the Jewish State in 1948 was an act of ‘settler colonialism,’ and genocide is an ‘inherent part’ of that act,” the Permanent Mission of Israel to the United Nations in Geneva said in a statement on X on Monday.

The statement also blamed the UN expert for “delegitimising the very creation and existence of the State of Israel.”

Albanese said there had been “flagrant and systematic slaughter of Palestinian civilians,” as well as “the deployment of unlawful weaponry, the utter obliteration of vital civilian infrastructure including the deliberate targeting of all Gaza’s hospitals, and the man-made starvation of the Palestinian people.”

“The monstrosity unfolding is accompanied by a pervasive anti-Palestinian narrative and dehumanization emanating from the uppermost tiers of Israeli society, including high-ranking officials with command authority and frequently reflected in soldiers’ actions on the ground,” Albanese told the press conference, before adding that this reflected intent “to destroy in whole or in part, which is what distinguishes genocide from other atrocity crimes.”

The UN special rapporteur concluded the “only reasonable inference that can be drawn” is an “Israeli state policy of genocidal violence toward the Palestinian people in Gaza.”

She said one of the report’s “key findings” was that “Israel’s executive and military leadership and soldiers have intentionally distorted ‘jus in bello’ principles, subverting their protective functions, in an attempt to legitimize genocidal violence against the Palestinian people.”

“Jus in bello” (justice in war) is the Latin term that refers to international laws that govern the way warfare is conducted.

Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva in its response also said, “the very attempt to level the charge of genocide against Israel is an outrageous distortion of the Genocide Convention.”

“Israel’s war is against Hamas, not against Palestinian civilians,” it added.

Germany’s beloved sausage dog, the dachshund, could be under threat in the country, its national kennel club said Wednesday, citing a new draft law that looks to prohibit the breeding of dogs with “skeletal anomalies.”

The draft bill, published in February and currently being considered by the authorities, was introduced as part of the Animal Protection Act, which seeks to strengthen existing laws on so-called “torture breeding,” the German government said.

The document said it could ban the reproduction of breeds prone to particular problems, such as the frequent spinal issues seen in dogs with short legs and a long back.

According to the German Kennel Club (VDH), other national favorites like the German shepherd and schnauzer, and even Snoopy himself, the beagle, could also be affected.

History has seen many famous lovers of the low-slung but feisty dachshund, or “dackel” as it’s known in German.

Napoleon Bonaparte owned several dachshunds, and Germany’s last emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, had a headstone erected for his dackel, “Erdmann.”

The painter Pablo Picasso was photographed with his dachshund, Lump, who inspired the artist’s famous line drawing “Le Chien.”

A dachshund even became the first official mascot for the Olympic Games – in Germany, of course – when organizers unveiled Waldi the Dachshund for the 1972 Summer Olympics.

Michelet added that she believes “the new draft law is exaggerated… and is aimed against breeding as a whole.”

The VDH has launched a petition to save “our favorite dogs,” arguing the reform would leave too much room for interpretation in determining what constitutes a genetic defect.

As of Wednesday, the petition had attracted more than 15,000 signatures.

On its website, the VDH said that “many of the proposed changes, such as regulating the online trade in animals or taking action against illegal puppy trade, make sense.”

“However, the animal protection law contains requirements that could mean the end of many healthy dog breeds in Germany,” it added.

Germany’s agriculture ministry denied that the new draft bill would amount to a ban on particular breeds, including the sausage dog.

The ministry said the new regulation seeks to prohibit breeding practices that inflict long–term suffering on the animals.

“We want to consistently protect animals from pain, suffering and damage,” the ministry said, adding that details of how the new regulations would work are still under discussion.

She argued that the kennel club she belongs to has adhered to the same breeding standards since 1888. “For 136 years we have not changed our standard breeding practices.”

“If the breeding ban happens it would have a significant impact” on dog breeders like her, she said, adding: “I hope it won’t come to that.”

The final death toll from the Moscow concert hall attack last week could be higher than the 143 confirmed dead, as Russian investigators said they have received more than 100 reports of missing people.

Russia’s Investigative Committee on Wednesday published a list of names identifying the 143 people confirmed dead so far.

Russia was rocked last week by the deadliest terror attack on its soil in two decades, when gunmen stormed Crocus City Hall on the outskirts of Moscow, shooting civilians at point blank with assault weapons before setting the building on fire, causing the roof to collapse while concert-goers were still inside.

Thousands of people had traveled to the venue to watch the Soviet-era rock group Picnic. Russian social media channels have since been filled with appeals from friends and relatives to help find the victims still missing.

“Friends are looking for relatives, but still cannot find them. They are looking for their mother and brother. Please help!” read one message on the “Crocus Help Center” Telegram channel.

Many of the victims are thought to have been killed by inhaling smoke from the fire. While the roof was still burning, ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack and shared a video by the men as they stormed the building, where thousands of Russians had arrived to watch the rock group.

Despite ISIS sharing video evidence, Russian President Vladimir Putin has baselessly claimed that Ukraine was in some way responsible for the attack.

In his first national address after the attack – 19 hours after it began – Putin on Saturday claimed, without evidence, that a “window” had been prepared for the attackers to escape to Ukraine. Senior Kremlin figures, including the head of Russia’s security services, the FSB, have doubled down on the accusation.

Ukraine has vehemently denied the “absurd” claims. President Volodymyr Zelensky accused “miserable Putin” of waiting a whole day to address the public only to “try to turn such a situation to his personal advantage again.”

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, one of Putin’s most loyal allies, contradicted Putin’s claim that the attackers had bolted for Ukraine. He said the gunmen tried initially to flee to Belarus, and only headed for Ukraine after realizing that Belarus had tightened its security – which Lukashenko said was done at the Kremlin’s request.

In trying to promote Belarus’ standing as a reliable partner of Russia, Lukashenko may have inadvertently weakened Putin’s allegations.

Russia has so far arrested 11 men in connection with the attack. Four of the suspects – all citizens of the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan – appeared battered and bruised in a Moscow court on Sunday, with one in a wheelchair appearing unresponsive. They were charged with terrorism and face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Videos shared widely on Russian social media appeared to show some of the men being violently interrogated. One video appeared to show the use of electrocution. Another showed a suspect having his ear cut off and stuffed in his mouth.

A Nigerian woman who wrote an online review of a can of tomato puree is facing imprisonment after its manufacturer accused her of making a “malicious allegation” that damaged its business.

Chioma Okoli, a 39-year-old entrepreneur from Lagos, is being prosecuted and sued in civil court for allegedly breaching the country’s cybercrime laws, in a case that has gripped the West African nation and sparked protests by locals who believe she is being persecuted for exercising her right to free speech.

What did she say?

Her post, accompanied by a photo of an opened can of Nagiko Tomato Mix, produced by local company Erisco Foods Limited, sparked varied reactions from commenters, one of whom replied: “Stop spoiling my brother’s product. If (you) don’t like it, use another one than bring it to social media or call the customer service.”

Okoli responded: “Help me advise your brother to stop ki***ing people with his product, yesterday was my first time of using and it’s pure sugar.”

A week later, on September 24, she was arrested.

According to the police, Okoli was charged with “instigating Erisco Foods Limited, knowing the said information to be false under Section 24 (1) (B) of Nigeria’s Cyber Crime Prohibition Act.”

If found guilty, she could face up to three years in jail or a fine of 7 million naira (around $5,000), or both.

Okoli was separately charged with conspiring with two other individuals “with the intention of instigating people against Erisco Foods Limited,” which the charge sheet noted was punishable under Section 27(1)(B) of the same act. She risks a seven-year sentence if convicted of this charge.

Okoli is also being sued in a separate civil case brought by Erisco, which said in a statement issued on January 19 that it was defending its reputation after her comments “resulted in several suppliers deciding to disassociate themselves from us.”

Public apology required

“I was put in the cell around 6 p.m. (on September 24). There were no seats, so I stood all through till the next day. My legs were inside the water (that came in from the leaking roof). Sometimes, I squatted to reduce the pressure on my legs. I was thinking about my children who were at home. I was talking to myself. I would think, I would pray, I was messed up,” she said.

The following day, Okoli was flown to the Nigerian capital, Abuja, and held at a police station until her release on administrative bail was finalized a day later, she said.

The police filed their case against Okoli in an Abuja court on October 5.

The first court hearing took place on December 7. She was represented by her lawyer but did not attend in person.

“They stayed in my building from 6:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. My children couldn’t go to school that day and we couldn’t go out to get food because the cooking gas was finished,” she said. Eventually, she said, the police left.

“We will comment on the case when the court decides,” Adejobi said.

Countersuit against police and food company

“In this case, we believe that David is right, and Goliath is wrong,” Effiong said.

In October, he filed a 500 million naira ($361,171) countersuit on behalf of Okoli against both Erisco and the police at a Lagos court, challenging her arrest and detention, which he said violated her constitutional rights to personal liberty and freedom of movement.

In court papers relating to the countersuit, Effiong argued that his client’s arrest was also a breach of her constitutional right to freedom of expression. He said that he would also ask the Abuja court where she is being tried for cybercrime violations to transfer the case to Lagos, where she lives, at the next hearing, set for April 18.

Hard to prove

“No law guarantees absolute freedom,” he said. “While we have our freedom of expression, there are limitations. You can’t defame or malign someone.”

However, he added that “cybercrime is difficult to prove in court. You have to prove actual harm when the post was made. Erisco must prove that the Facebook post (by Okoli) affected its business as at the point it was made.” He noted that in Okoli’s post, she used a word with three asterisks, which could be open to interpretation.

“Harassment and intimidation of Chioma Okoli must end now,” Amnesty International Nigeria said earlier this month, as Nigerians began crowdfunding online to support her legal fees.

Okoli’s case has sparked protests at Erisco’s Lagos facility as many on social media called for a boycott of its products. The company’s founder, Eric Umeofia, refused to budge, however, saying in a recent documentary on the local Arise Television channel that he won’t drop the lawsuit against Okoli and that he would “rather die than allow someone to tarnish my image I worked 40 years to grow.”

Argentina on Tuesday accused Venezuela of cutting the electricity supply to its embassy in Caracas after the diplomatic mission hosted a meeting with the country’s opposition leaders, the latest sign of souring relations between the two South American nations’ ideologically opposed governments.

In a statement, the Office of Argentine President Javier Milei claimed the embassy’s power was turned off Monday in a “deliberate action that endangers the safety of Argentine diplomatic personnel and Venezuelan citizens under protection.”

Argentine diplomats had invited the Venezuelan opposition leaders, who were not named in the statement, to the mission out of concern stemming from “the deterioration of the institutional situation and the acts of harassment and persecution directed against political figures in Venezuela,” it added.

Venezuela’s opposition has accused Maduro’s government of repressing its leaders and stifling any free and fair campaigning ahead of the country’s presidential elections on July 28.

Maduro, who has ruled Venezuela since the death of his mentor President Hugo Chavez in 2013, announced on March 17 that he’s running for re-election for another six-year term. It is unclear whether he will face any real challenge, as his main rival, María Corina Machado, has been barred from standing over corruption allegations, which she denies.

Under Maduro’s rule, Venezuela has suffered hyperinflation and an unprecedented economic collapse, deepened by sanctions imposed by the United States in 2017 against its vital oil and gas sector.

The US partially rolled back punitive measures on Caracas in late 2023 but in January reinstated economic sanctions against a Venezuelan state-owned mining company following the barring of Machado from the election.

Colombia and Brazil issued statements Tuesday expressing concern over the opposition’s ability to fairly compete in the upcoming presidential contest.

Maduro on Tuesday criticized foreign governments which he claimed, “seek to intervene in the internal affairs of Venezuela.”

“Peggy and Molly” were a match made for the internet.

Peggy is a stout and muscular Staffordshire bull terrier, and Molly is a magpie, an Australian bird best known for swooping on humans during breeding season, not for befriending dogs.

In the four years since their unlikely bond was posted online, the odd couple has attracted almost two million followers on Instagram and Facebook.

But in an emotional video posted online Tuesday, Peggy’s owners, Juliette Wells and Reece Mortensen, announced that the animals had been separated.

“It breaks our heart to make this announcement today,” said Wells. “We had to surrender Molly to the DES – Department of Science and Innovation – as we had a small group of people constantly complaining to them.”

Fans online were quick to demand justice.

“This is a classic example of bureaucracy over common sense and humanity,” one user wrote on Instagram. “Our tax-payer funded departments should be using their resources to help out the community and save mis-treated wildlife, not harm them!!” said the comment, which attracted more than 1,000 likes.

However, a spokesman for the Department of Science and Innovation (DESI) said in a statement the bird had been “illegally” taken from the wild and been kept with “no permit, licence or authority.”

“Animals in rehabilitation must not associate with domestic animals due to the potential for them to be subjected to stress and the risks of behavioural imprinting and transmission of diseases,” the statement added. “Animals from the wild, must stay wild.”

An abandoned baby bird

Wells found Molly in a local park, apparently abandoned as a chick, according to a long post on Facebook.

“We were very concerned because the park was an off-leash dog park in the afternoons and up to 30 dogs of all breeds run around crazily we knew this little bird would not stand a chance. So, we did what any animal lovers would do and made the decision to bring him home and care for him,” the post said.

“Over the next few months we nurtured this magpie, taught him how to feed, fly and put him outside as much as possible because our goal was to get him back out into the wild.”

But Molly didn’t leave, and bonded with their dog Peggy.

During the pandemic, Wells posted images of the animals together to social media with motivational slogans – “Days spent with you are my favourite days” and “You are my Happy Place.”

The animals attracted a huge online following.

T-shirts were printed, calendars sold, then a deal was signed with one of the country’s biggest publishers.

The resulting book, “Peggy and Molly,” was marketed as “heart-warming photos and simple life lessons about what it means to be a true friend and how we can all learn to be kind, humble and happy.”

But not everyone was happy about the development.

Wildlife officials worried that others would follow their lead of domesticating wild animals in the hope of profiting online.

Online campaign

Wells and Mortensen are now mobilizing an internet campaign to pressure authorities to give back the bird, a protected species in Australia.

Followers are being urged to write to their local member of parliament and the director general of the department.

“We are asking why a wild Magpie can’t decide for himself where he wants to live and who he wants to spend his time with,” the couple said in their online post.

In its statement, the DESI said there was no option to release the bird to the wild as it had become “highly habituated to human contact.”

It would be placed in a facility, the statement said, which could be a long stay – magpies are known to live up to 30 years.

Jones, from Griffith University, who has written a book about his own experience raising a magpie, said taking the chick home was “the worst possible thing that [the couple] could have done.”

He said feeding birds is not uncommon in Australia – “every second person you meet is feeding a magpie somewhere” – but there was a difference between allowing them to roam in your garden and taking them into your home.

“It’s not a good thing to take animals from the wild and turn them into pets. It’s not something to be recommended, and that’s why there are strong rules about that sort of thing,” Jones said.

But now that Molly has become a family pet, the best thing would be for the DESI to return it, he said.

“The authorities could say on reflection, with the welfare of the individual magpie in mind, we have decided that the best thing to do for that magpie is to return it to the family,” he said.

Bernard Ashcroft, CEO of Wildlife Rescue Australia, said the law prohibits people from taking wild animals as pets, for good reason.

“It’s not appropriate that people have a magpie simply because it appeals to them. If they don’t know what they’re doing they can cause a bit of harm,” he said.

“Different birds have different nutritional needs.”

Late Wednesday, the department released a statement that suggested the campaign to reunite Peggy and Molly may be gaining some traction.

“The department shares the community’s desire to ensure Molly is cared for in the most appropriate way going forward,” the statement said, without providing further detail.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko appears to have cast doubt on Russia’s claims that Ukraine was involved in the brutal attack at a Moscow concert hall last week.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the massacre, which killed at least 139 people, and released graphic footage of the incident, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly suggested, without evidence, that Ukraine had helped orchestrate it.

Putin on Saturday claimed that a “window” had been prepared for the attackers to escape to Ukraine, which Kyiv has denied.

But Lukashenko, one of Putin’s most loyal allies, on Tuesday appeared to contradict the Kremlin’s claims, saying that the attackers initially intended to enter Belarus rather than Ukraine.

“They could not enter Belarus. Their handlers… knew that it would be a very bad idea to try to enter Belarus, because Belarus immediately reinforced security measures,” Lukashenko said, according to Belarusian news agency Belta.

Lukashenko said he received reports from Russian authorities “minutes” after the attack began and put Belarusian units on combat alert, setting up checkpoints on roads to prevent the attackers entering the country.

“That’s why there was no chance they could enter Belarus. They realized it. So they took a turn and headed to the Ukraine-Russia border,” he said.

The attackers stormed Crocus City Hall in a Moscow suburb on Friday, shooting civilians at point blank before setting the building on fire, causing the roof to collapse while concert-goers were still inside.

Four suspects, who are from the Central Asian republic of Tajikistan but worked in Russia on temporary or expired visas, were detained later Friday night in Russia’s Bryansk region, near the border with Ukraine and Belarus.

In his first national address after the attack, Putin on Saturday alleged that the men “tried to hide and move towards Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the border.”

Putin on Monday conceded the attack had been carried out by “radical Islamists,” but still tried to pin ultimate responsibility on Ukraine.

Other Kremlin officials have doubled down on the claims. Alexander Bortnikov, director of Russia’s Federal Security Services (FSB), alleged on Tuesday that Ukraine was involved in the “training of militants in the Middle East.”

Ukraine has vehemently denied involvement in the attack and called the Kremlin’s claims “absurd.” Others have speculated why the attackers would try to flee through a heavily militarized section of the border, with a large Russian troop presence.

And Lukashenko, in attempting to promote Belarus’ standing as a reliable ally of Russia, may have inadvertently further weakened Putin’s allegations.

Belta reported that Lukashenko agreed to “seal off its section of the road that could be used by the criminals” when he received intelligence from Russian officials, including Bortnikov, that the attackers were “moving in the direction of Bryansk.”

Lukashenko said he and Putin exchanged phone calls, claiming he accepted Putin’s request to help seal off the roads into Belarus. “Absolutely. We are doing everything,” Lukashenko replied.

He said he shared the information because he was aware that Putin had been reproached for his response to the tragedy. Putin had been criticized for not addressing the nation until more than 19 hours after the attack began.

Instead, Lukashenko said, he and Putin “did not sleep for 24 hours,” as they worked to address the threat.

A total of 11 people have been arrested in connection with the attack on the concert hall, Russian officials said. Four appeared in a Moscow court on Sunday and three on Monday. It’s not clear if the remaining four are still in detention or have appeared before a judge.

Three of the Tajik suspects were bent double as they were marched into a Moscow courtroom on Sunday, while the fourth was in a wheelchair and appeared unresponsive. They were charged with terrorism and face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The men looked battered and bruised as they were brought into the courtroom. Videos circulated widely on Russian social media appeared to show some of them being violently interrogated, including one that appeared to show the use of electrocution. In another video, a suspect had part of his ear cut off and stuffed in his mouth.

Around 16 million years ago, a dolphin giant cruised the depths of its watery domain. But unlike most modern dolphins, its home wasn’t an ocean; it lived in a freshwater lake in the Peruvian Amazon. And though there are Amazonian freshwater dolphin species alive today, they aren’t close kin to that ancient cetacean. Its closest living relatives are river dolphins living more than 6,000 miles (10,000 kilometers) away in South Asia, according to researchers who recently described the previously unknown extinct mammal.

Analysis of the newly identified ancient dolphin’s skull told paleontologists that its body would have measured at least 11 feet (3.5 meters) long — making it about 20% to 25% bigger than modern river dolphins and the biggest known freshwater dolphin.

But the skull, which measured about 27 inches (70 centimeters) long, was incomplete, so the ancient dolphin may have been even larger than that, the scientists reported March 20 in the journal Science Advances, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

What makes the find even more exceptional the insight it offers into the evolutionary history freshwater dolphins, as these creatures are extremely rare in the fossil record, the study authors wrote. This is because there tend to be fewer individual dolphins in freshwater ecosystems, and strong water currents typically prevent fossils from preserving well.

They called the newfound species Pebanista yacuruna; the genus references Peru’s Pebas Formation, where the fossil was found, and “yacuruna” is a term for mythical aquatic people of local legend, in the Indigenous Kichua language.

“I think this is a remarkable discovery, particularly given that South America has one species of river dolphin that belongs to a completely different group of odontocetes (toothed whales),” said Jorge Velez-Juarbe, an associate curator of marine mammals at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, in an email.

‘Everybody freaked out’: Fossil features reveal rare find

Modern freshwater dolphins are known for their highly elongated noses, compared with marine dolphins’ stubbier snouts. There’s the South Asian river dolphin (Platanista genus) and the Amazon river dolphin (Inia genus), also known as the pink river dolphin, and the two groups include several species and subspecies.

China’s Yangtze river dolphin (Lipotes vexillifer) represents a third genus, but the species hasn’t been seen in the wild in 40 years and may be extinct, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). In fact, all extant river dolphin species are endangered or critically endangered, the IUCN says.

“I said: ‘Hey, John, does this connect to this piece that I have in my hand?’” Benites-Palomino recalled. What he held turned out to be a rostrum — the rounded tip of a nose — from the embedded skull. As they cleaned it up enough to see the shapes of tooth sockets, Benites-Palomino realized that they were looking at something unusual.

“We started screaming: ‘It’s a dolphin! It’s a dolphin!’” Benites-Palomino said.

At first, they thought it would turn out to be an ancient relative of modern Amazonian river dolphins. But further cleaning revealed that the size and shape of the eye socket resembled that of South Asian river dolphins, which have much smaller eyes than their South American cousins.

“That was a moment where everybody freaked out, because it wasn’t an Amazonian river dolphin,” Benites-Palomino said. This told the scientists that two types of dolphins had independently and at different times moved inland in the region.

Digging up dolphin diversity

Platanistoids — the group that includes P. yacuruna and South Asia’s modern river dolphins — were widespread about 20 million years ago. The ancestors of modern Amazonian river dolphins were common in oceans about 10 million to 6 million years ago, Benites-Palomino said.

Because both groups of cetaceans were so diverse, some species likely ventured into river and lake ecosystems, seeking less competition for food. This Amazonian freshwater environment was nutrient-rich and teeming with life, home to crocodilians, turtles and fish, as well as mammals such as sloths, rodents, ungulates and primates.

“Overall, in these ecosystems ‘river dolphins’ can be considered as apex predators,” Velez-Juarbe said.

P. yacuruna was among the first wave of dolphins to test the waters in Amazonian rivers and lakes; a lack of predators in its new home could explain how the species evolved to become so large, according to the study. But environmental changes like drought may have later doomed P. yacuruna and driven it to extinction, opening the freshwater habitat to the ancestors of extant pink river dolphins.

“We now know that this species was living there in the past, but also the Amazonia is important for our extant Inia geoffrensis,” Benites-Palomino said. “[The discovery] highlights that this is a tremendously important environment for the evolution of freshwater cetaceans.”

P. yacuruna’s disappearance is a grim reminder that this important environment is all too easily disrupted. Today, modern Amazonian river dolphins face an uncertain future, mostly due to mercury pollution from gold mining invading the food chain, according to the World Wildlife Fund. The newfound fossil hints at the fragility of freshwater ecosystems and the vulnerability of their inhabitants — past and present — to environmental changes, whether such changes are natural or human-made, Velez-Juarbe added.

“Pebanista adds another layer to the intricate evolutionary history of cetaceans and particularly ‘river dolphins,’ the few species that survive to present day are but the last remnants of groups that were once more diverse.”

Mindy Weisberger is a science writer and media producer whose work has appeared in Live Science, Scientific American and How It Works magazine.