Excavations of an archaeological site in Panama have revealed the grave of a religious leader buried over 1,200 years ago alongside a cache of gold objects — and numerous other human remains.

Researchers found the ancient tomb in El Caño Archaeological Park, a site in Coclé province known as a hotbed for pre-Columbian discoveries, particularly lavish burial chambers. The newfound enclosure, built around 700, is the ninth tomb unearthed from the park since excavation of the site began in 2008, according to a March 1 news release from Panama’s Ministry of Culture.

The tombs, including the latest to be uncovered, are resting places for people who had a higher status within their societies, said Dr. Julia Mayo, the excavation’s leader and the director of the El Caño Foundation, a group that studies Panama’s cultural heritage through research on the archaeological site. The research team believe the person found lying at the center of the grave had higher status, indicated not only by his physical position but also gold and ceramic artifacts that surrounded the body.

The civilization of the region surrounding El Caño at the time treated the site as sacred and worshipped their “ancestors,” referring to those remembered for having done important things. “After the death of these people, (it was believed that) a constant communication was established between the ancestor and his descendants,” Mayo said. “Our study (of the tombs) highlights the practice of ritual death in funerary rituals linked to (a higher) status.”

The newly uncovered elite leader was likely a 30- or 40-year-old man, dubbed “Lord of the Flutes” by the archaeologists because he was entombed alongside a set of animal bone flutes that were likely used for religious ceremonies , she added.

And as researchers continued to explore the grave, they realized the Lord of the Flutes might have had quite a bit of company on his journey to the afterlife — potentially up to a few dozen companions whose remains were found buried beneath the offerings that surrounded him.

‘A representation of social order’

The researchers found similar patterns among the tomb and the eight previously studied tombs that suggested the other bodies belonged to people sacrificed to accompany the dead to the afterlife, Mayo said. It appears the newly discovered remains were all buried at the same time and also had signs of a ritual death, she added.

El Caño is divided into two sectors of burial chambers: a high-status sector that holds burial chambers with multiple bodies, and a low-status sector where graves include only one body per grave, Mayo said. Excavation is not complete, so it’s unclear how many bodies are within the newly discovered grave, but the other eight tombs have revealed anywhere from eight to 32 bodies.

While the other tombs held what researchers believe to be military leaders, the Lord of the Flutes was likely more of a religious leader, as the body was “buried with flutes and bells and not, as in the case of other lords found at the same site, with axes, spears and objects made with teeth of large predators. This calls attention to the importance of religion in this society,” Mayo said in an email.

The excavation of the ninth tomb is expected to be complete by this time next year.

Ancient burial practices

The archaeologists found the body of the supposed religious leader buried face down and on top of the body of a woman, the release stated. The relationship the man might have had with the woman is unknown, Mayo said.

“The face-down mode of burial was common at this time period in this region, but the positioning of the male over the female individual is not,” said Nicole Smith-Guzmán, the archaeology curator with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama City, via email.

However, she added other researchers reported the discovery of human remains dating back more than 1,000 years buried in similar positioning at a nearby site called Sitio Sierra, in the same province as El Caño. The researchers at the time speculated that the pair represented a husband and wife, but the theory remains unconfirmed.

“Nevertheless, it is likely that there was some sort of social relationship between the two individuals during life that was important to maintain in death,” said Smith-Guzmán, who was not a part of either discovery.

Gold adornments cemented powerful alliances

Among the artifacts found scattered on top of the burial chamber and surrounding the Lord of the Flutes were five pectorals — a form of breastplate jewelry for the deceased — two belts made of gold beads, several gold bracelets and necklaces, as well as two earrings in the form of human figures, and a few pieces of jewelry made from animal teeth, including earrings made from the teeth of a sperm whale, according to the release.

These “exotic” materials were usually interpreted as the leader’s strategies in life for getting more prestige within their territories, said Ana María Navas Méndez, an assistant professor of sociology and anthropology at Illinois State University, in an email. The ancient chiefs of Latin America would often establish political and economic relationships with leaders of nearby communities, allowing precious and artisan goods to be swapped with one another, she added.

Several of the artifacts found within the tomb were “stylistically similar to those produced in the Quimbaya region (of Colombia),” Mayo said, adding that this indicates there was a great deal of interaction and exchange of materials “between the populations that inhabited the central region of Panama and the north of South America.”

City of the dead

Experts believe El Caño functioned as a regional ceremonial center or necropolis (city of the dead) for elite members of society, Smith-Gúzman said.

There have been two attempts — the most recent in 2021 — to figure out whom the various tombs found at the El Caño site once belonged to, Mayo said. But each attempt failed to pick up any DNA from the human bones, most likely because the region’s hot and humid climate is not ideal for preservation, she added.

“(This discovery) offers new evidence to continue studying the chiefdoms in Panama that could be compared with previous findings,” Navas Méndez said. “With this new evidence, archaeologists could ask new questions about the interactions between chiefdoms, about the political economy of pre-Columbian societies, about religious aspects, about gender, and so on.”

After a meeting of regional Caribbean leaders on Monday, Henry agreed to leave power once a transitional council had been set up to lay the foundations for future elections, following weeks of violence in Haiti where social order has all but collapsed.

“We will not deliver the country to just a group of people without following the procedure. We are in crisis as a country, but we must stay inside of the law and set a good example,” he added.

Henry’s office said Article 149 of Haiti’s constitution states that once the president is not available, only the ministerial cabinet possesses powers to make decisions in his absence.

“The council will have to go through the same process he went through when Ariel Henry became PM,” the statement said.

The United Nations secretary-general’s spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Wednesday that the transitional council under the CARICOM agreement for Haiti is the path forward.

When asked if the announcement weakens Haiti’s political transition towards elections, Dujarric said, “It’s not for the secretary-general or for the UN to impose a solution on the people of Haiti. As we’ve seen that’s been tried many times without great success.”

Henry came to power unelected in 2021 following the assassination of Haiti’s then-President Jovenel Moïse. His premiership has been marred by months of spiraling gang violence, which grew more intense after he failed to hold elections last month, saying the country’s insecurity would compromise the vote.

His decision only further enraged protesters who had for months demanded he stand down as Haiti slid further into poverty and unchecked chaos.

When the worst of the violence erupted at the start of March, Henry was in Kenya to sign an agreement to send 1,000 Kenyan police officers to Haiti to restore the security situation. Their deployment was postponed Tuesday following Henry’s announcement of his resignation.

After Monday’s meeting of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), Henry agreed that a transitional council would be established and endowed with some powers of the presidency – including the ability to name a new interim prime minister. The resulting government would be expected to eventually hold elections in the country for a complete political reset, although it is unclear how long this would take.

Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, the leader of the alliance of gangs known as Viv Ansanm (“living together”), warned Monday that his group would not recognize any government resulting from the CARICOM agreement.

The agreement was struck while Henry was in the US territory of Puerto Rico, where he arrived last week. While Henry was out of the country, gangs laid siege to Haiti’s main airport to prevent his safe return.

Amid the chaos, the neighboring Dominican Republic has remained the only country to continue deporting people back into Haiti, according to new data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which tracks migration flows around the world.

In the month of March, the Dominican Republic – which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti – deported 4,151 people to its neighbor, per IOM figures. The majority of the people deported into Haiti were men, along with 716 women, 45 boys and 55 girls.

The IOM data shows no apparent reaction from Dominican authorities to worsening conditions on the ground, with 640 Haitians deported on March 4, the day after Haiti declared a state of emergency.

Asked to comment on the Dominican Republic’s recent deportations, Dujarric said the UN was against the “forced mass displacement of people back into a country that is clearly not safe.”

The UN’s office in Haiti said it is establishing an air bridge between Haiti and the Dominican Republic to facilitate the movement of UN staff and humanitarian assistance. The air bridge will facilitate the temporary relocation of some UN staff outside Haiti and will facilitate the arrival of crisis management personnel into the country, BINUH said.

Meanwhile, aid is tricking into the country. A major Haitian port terminal, which was breached by looters and protesters last week, came back under government control on Monday.

The World Food Program (WFP) said it carried out its first maritime aid operation since late February out of Port-au-Prince to the south of Haiti on Monday, according to a post on X on Tuesday by its Haiti director Jean-Martin Bauer. The WFP transferred eight trucks carrying medical items by ferry which will be distributed to 80 health facilities, according to Bauer.

Food and other aid previously couldn’t enter the Haitian capital by sea due to the interruption of maritime ports, Bauer explained.

“They called me from a hidden number yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon at around 16 minutes past 12, and demanded 1 billion naira ($621,848) as a ransom for the students. They said [the ultimatum] will only last for three weeks or 20 days from the date they kidnapped the children and if there’s no action from the government, they will kill all of them,” said Aminu Jibril, a resident of Kuriga village, in Kaduna state, where the school is located.

The children were kidnapped on March 7.

The member of the Kuriga community said he believed the kidnappers got his number from the head of the school’s junior secondary section, who was kidnapped alongside the students.

Some of the students were rescued but 287 of them remain with the kidnappers. About 100 of them are from the primary school and the rest from the secondary school.

The Kaduna Governor Uba Sani said in a statement Thursday that his government was “doing everything possible to ensure the safe return of the pupils and students.”

Sani also said a member of the community who confronted the abductors during the attack was killed.

Kaduna state, which borders the Nigerian capital Abuja to the southwest, has grappled with recurring incidents of kidnappings for ransom by bandits and has witnessed several mass abductions in recent years, including in the district where the LEA Primary and Secondary School is located.

In 2021, at least 140 students were kidnapped by armed men from a private secondary school.

The incident came just months after around 20 students from a private university in Chikun’s Kasarami village were abducted by gunmen.

Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced his resignation following a meeting of regional Caribbean leaders on Monday, bowing to the inevitable as law and order in the country collapsed and international pressure grew for him to step aside.

Henry has been in the US territory of Puerto Rico since last week, unable to return to Haiti from a visit to Kenya as violence swept the country in his absence.

In Henry’s place, a transitional council will be established and endowed with some powers of the presidency – including the ability to name a new interim prime minister. The resulting government would be expected to eventually hold elections in the country for a complete political reset.

According to a statement by the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), the council will include representatives of various political factions as well as non-voting observers from religious and civil organizations.

A senior US State Department official said Tuesday the seven political factions have 24 hours to let CARICOM know who their representative to the transitional council will be.

Will the deal restore order?

The big question is whether these changes can bring calm to Haiti, and put a stop to the terrible violence tearing apart Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince.

Haiti has been under a state of emergency since groups attacked the country’s largest prison in Port-au-Prince earlier this month, killing and injuring police and prison staff and allowing some 3,500 inmates to escape.

One gang leader, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, took credit for the attack and said the jailbreak was an attempt to overthrow Henry’s government.

Gangs now control 80% of Haiti’s capital, according to United Nations estimates, and continue to fight for the rest. While Henry was out of the country, gangs laid siege to the country’s main airport to prevent his safe return.

The chaos has forced tens of thousands to flee their homes, adding to the more than 300,000 already displaced by gang violence.

The country’s gangs have historic links in politics and business, so a transitional period of jockeying for power could potentially mean even more turbulence in the streets.

Will the gangs be part of the government?

According to the CARICOM statement, the transitional council will include representatives of the Montana Group, Fanmi Lavalas, Collectif, Petit Dessalinnes, EDE and December 21 factions. It will also include two non-voting observers from the religious sector and civil society.

The statement also specifies that no one who has been charged or convicted in any jurisdiction can serve on the council – a condition that would exclude many prominent figures, including gang leader Jimmy Cherizier, also known as Barbeque, who has been long seen as having political aspirations and has taken credit for the latest wave of gang attacks in Port-au-Prince.

The announcement has been hailed as step forward by the US and other regional actors. But key voices in the latest unrest have not taken it as well, despite Henry’s resignation.

In a warning late Monday night, Cherizier announced that the alliance of gangs known as Viv Ansanm would not recognize any government resulting from the CARICOM agreement.

“’Viv Ansanm’ will not recognize any government resulting from these meetings,” Cherizier said in a video Monday night after the CARICOM agreement was announced. “It is up to the Haitian people to designate the personalities who will lead the country.”

And an adviser to Guy Philippe, the former rebel leader who recently returned to Haiti and called for “revolution” against Henry last month, warned that any new government that does not include Philippe would result in his supporters “setting the city on fire.”

The CARICOM statement also imposed significant limitations on participation in Haiti’s new government, which could inflame anger or spark accusations of meddling in a country with a long and tortured history of foreign interference.

The joint Caricom statement specifies that no one who opposes the United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing a foreign military mission to Haiti can sit on the council.

This comes after Kenya, which has been tasked with leading the operation, said its own troops were now in “pre-deployment” mode.

The senior State Department official said Tuesday, “we’re going to take this one step at a time.”

“Only one half of this equation is democracy and governance and the other half is security and that’s why we’re going to continue to push on the (multinational security support mission),” they added.

But despite the Kenyan official’s comment, the US believes the Kenyan peacekeeping mission to Haiti will move forward “without delay.”

“What the Kenyan government said in its statement is that they have to have a government with which to collaborate,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a press briefing. He said the appointment of a transition council and a new government would happen “in the very near future,” clearing the way for Kenya to deploy its forces.

How did the deal come about?

Henry made an initial decision on Friday that he planned to step down, according to a senior US administration official. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken held talks with Henry and the president of Kenya, William Ruto. Talks with regional leaders continued, leading into the emergency CARICOM meeting on Monday.

That meeting on Monday took more than seven hours and involved engagement with “nearly 40 Haitian stakeholders” and the CARICOM heads, according to a US State Department official.

“The conversations with stakeholders were intense,” the US senior administration official said, noting that there were “multiple configurations discussed” for the transitional council.

The senior State Department official said Tuesday that most of Monday’s meeting was focused on the composition of the transitional presidential council.

“There was a moment in the high-level meeting in which the Secretary and other interlocutors from countries were huddled in a corner literally going over the make-up of this council on a on a scratch piece of paper, and what the sort of representation, the various factions would look like,” the official said.

The senior administration official said there were conversations with Henry during the course of the day on Monday “about his plans and the announcement that he had told CARICOM leaders and us that he would make – to step down and hand power to a new transitional entity, presidential college, as they were referring to it in Haiti.”

Blinken was among the officials who spoke with Henry on Monday.

According to the senior administration official, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley called Henry, “they talked for a while and then she asked the Secretary to talk to him.”

“Their conversation was basically the secretary asking him what were his plans? They talked about the way forward in terms of a transitional government, and the decision that he had previously communicated to the Secretary about his plans to step down, and he said that he was consulting his cabinet,” the official described.

Henry met with his cabinet at 8:30p ET Monday to discuss his decision, this official said.

Will Ariel Henry return to Haiti?

Henry has been in Puerto Rico since last Monday, and the US official said they expected that Henry would want to return home at some point. From the US perspective, “he’s free to stay where he is. He’s free to travel.”

But at the moment, it’s clear that it’s too dangerous for Henry to travel – gangs who oppose Henry’s rule are rampant in Port-au-Prince, and Henry was still in Puerto Rico on Monday night.

“There was a lot of discussion among Haitians stakeholders of the importance of there not being reprisals against Prime Minister Henry or his allies,” the official said.

The United States will contribute $300 million to the Kenyan-led multinational security mission, Blinken said after attending the CARICOM meeting on Monday. He also announced an additional $33 million in “humanitarian assistance for the people of Haiti.”

The US funds for the multinational security support mission “allow us to advance preparations for the logistics, the equipment and procurement for the Kenyan-led MSS to deploy,” the official said.

Who will be on the transitional council?

The Transitional Presidential Council, which will aim to lay the foundations for future elections in Haiti, will comprise seven voting members and two non-voting observers.

One representative from each of the following groups will make up the seven voting members: Collectif, December 21, EDE, Lavalas, Montana, Pitit Desalin, and the private sector.

One of the non-voting observers will be from civil society and one from the InterFaith community, according to the CARICOM agreement.

The individuals representing each group have yet to be announced.

Two groups with voting seats on the council, December 21 and Montana, were part of previous unsuccessful attempts to create a transitional government, known as the December 21 Accord and the Montana Accord.

The December 21 Accord was signed by a coalition of business, civil society and political actors, and current Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry in 2022. The accord hoped to have an elected government in office by February 7, 2024. However, Henry did not give any official power to the three-person council.

The Montana group is led by Haitian economist Fritz Jean and made up of a coalition of Haitian leaders who came together after the 2021 assassination of former Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. The coalition was named after the Montana Hotel in Port-au-Prince where the group used to hold meetings.

Fanmi Lavalas (FL), or Lavalas Family, is the political party of former Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide. The party identifies itself as a social-democratic political party. Lavalas, meaning “flood,” is the term used to describe the popular movement that first brought Aristide into power in 1990. Haitian politician Maryse Narcisse has been one of the main faces of the political party since Aristide returned to Haiti from exile in 2011.

Pitit Dessalines is a Haitian political party led by Jean-Charles Moïse, who ran for president in 2015 and 2016. The political party was named after Haitian revolutionary leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines.

Les Engagés pour le Développement (EDE) is a Haitian political party created by  former Haitian prime minister Claude Joseph. EDE was founded in 2021.

The Collectif is a coalition of political parties who oppose Ariel Henry and has been advocating for a transitional government since the assassination of former President Jovenel Moise in 2021. The coalition has yet to put forth a group leader.

The embattled prime minister of Haiti, Ariel Henry, has said he will resign after weeks of mounting chaos in the Caribbean nation, where gangs have been attacking government structures and social order is on the brink of collapse.

Henry said in a video address late Monday that his government would leave power after the establishment of a transitional council, adding, “Haiti needs peace. Haiti needs stability.”

“My government will leave immediately after the inauguration of the council. We will be a caretaker government until they name a prime minister and a new cabinet,” Henry said.

The Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), meeting in Jamaica on Monday said it had agreed to set up a transitional council to lay the foundations for elections in Haiti.

“We are pleased to announce the commitment to transitional governance arrangement which paves the way for a peaceful transition of power, continuity of governance and action plan for near-term security and the road to free and fair elections. It further seeks to assure that Haiti will be governed by the rule of law,” said Guyana leader and CARICOM Chairman Irfaan Ali in a news conference, flanked by other Caribbean leaders.

When the worst of the violence erupted last week, Henry was in Kenya to sign an agreement to send 1,000 Kenyan police officers to the Caribbean nation to restore the security situation of which his government has lost control.

He was unable to return to Haiti as the security situation deteriorated around the airport in the capital, Port-au-Prince. A plan to travel via the neighboring Dominican Republic was abandoned after the government there refused permission for his plane to land. He has been in the US territory of Puerto Rico since last week.

The United States will contribute $300 million to the Kenyan-led multinational security mission, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said after attending the CARICOM meeting on Monday. He also announced an additional $33 million in “humanitarian assistance for the people of Haiti.”

“Without a political administration in Haiti, there is no anchor on which a police deployment can rest, hence the government will await the installation of a new constitutional authority in Haiti,” Kenya’s principal secretary for foreign affars, Koror Sing’Oei, said.

But despite the Kenyan official’s comment, the US believes the Kenyan peacekeeping mission to Haiti will move forward “without delay.”

“What the Kenyan government said in its statement is that they have to have a government with which to collaborate,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a press briefing. He said the appointment of a transitional council and a new government would happen “in the very near future,” clearing the way for Kenya to deploy its forces.

Henry was under pressure from the United States to secure a political settlement, but it is far from clear who will step in. One name touted is Guy Philippe, a rebel leader recently deported from the US to Haiti after serving a prison sentence for money laundering.

Henry, who came to power unelected in 2021 following the assassination of Haiti’s then-president, failed to hold elections last year, saying the country’s insecurity would compromise the vote. But his decision only further enraged protesters who had for months demanded he stand down as Haiti slid further into poverty and rampant gang violence.

Since Henry’s trip to Kenya, Port-au-Prince has been gripped by a wave of highly coordinated gang attacks on law enforcement and state institutions, which has forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.

Chaos in the capital

Haiti’s government has been under a state of emergency since groups attacked the country’s largest prison in Port-au-Prince earlier this month, killing and injuring police and prison staff and allowing some 3,500 inmates to escape.

One gang leader, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, took credit for the attack and said the jailbreak was an attempt to overthrow Henry’s government.

“If Ariel Henry doesn’t step down, if the international community continues to support Ariel Henry, they will lead us directly into a civil war that will end in genocide,” Cherizier told Reuters in Port-au-Prince last week.

Gangs now control 80% of Haiti’s capital, according to United Nations estimates, and continue to fight for the rest. While Henry was out of the country, gangs laid siege to the country’s main airport to prevent his safe return. Looters and protesters also breached the key Caribbean Port Services terminal in Port-au-Prince, though it has since come back under the control of Haitian security forces, according to the National Port Authority CEO Jocelin Villier.

The chaos has forced tens of thousands to flee their homes, adding to the more than 300,000 already displaced by gang violence.

While security has deteriorated in recent months, Haiti has for years suffered chronic violence, political crises and drought, leaving some 5.5 million Haitians – about half the population – in need of humanitarian assistance.

The UN estimates about 1 million Haitian children are out of school, making those who live in gang-controlled areas prey to being recruited. The country has also been wracked by a cholera epidemic that broke out in 2022.

The UN’s human rights chief Volker Türk described the situation in Haiti as “untenable” and called for a multinational security mission to be deployed to assist the Haitian police. “There is no realistic alternative available to protect lives,” he said.

“I want to change my way of life,” he said, holding back tears.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

A city in Japan is on high alert for a cat that fell into a tank of hazardous chemicals before disappearing into the night.

Officials in Fukuyama, Hiroshima prefecture, said they have stepped up patrols and warned residents not to approach the animal, which was last seen in security footage leaving a plating factory on Sunday.

A trail of pawprints discovered by a worker on Monday led to a 3-meter-deep vat of hexavalent chromium, a cancer-causing chemical that can induce rashes and inflammation if touched or inhaled, officials said.

Neighborhood searches had yet to find the cat, and it remains unclear whether the animal is alive, a Fukuyama City Hall official said.

Akihiro Kobayashi, manager of the Nomura Mekki Fukuyama factory, said a sheet covering the chemical vat was found partially torn when employees returned to work after the weekend.

Workers have since been on the lookout for the cat, he said.

Factory employees typically wear protective clothing and no health issues have been reported among the staff, Kobayashi added.

Hexavalent chromium, or Chromium-6, is perhaps best known as the carcinogenic chemical featured in the 2000 movie “Erin Brockovich,” starring Julia Roberts.

The dramatization, based on a real-life legal case, focuses on the titular activist’s fight against a utility company accused of polluting the water in a rural California community, causing increased cancer levels and death among its residents.

The substance “is harmful to the eyes, skin, and respiratory system,” according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“Workers may be harmed from exposure to hexavalent chromium,” the CDC says on its website. “The level of exposure depends upon the dose, duration, and work being done.”

Experts cast doubt on whether the cat could survive for long after coming into contact with the substance.

“Even if the fur would protect the skin from immediately getting large burns, cats clean their fur by licking it, moving the corrosive solution into the mouth,” said Linda Schenk, a researcher specializing in chemical risk assessment at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.

“My guess is that the cat unfortunately is dead or will be dying shortly, from the chemical burns.”

A ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza has departed the port city of Larnaca in Cyprus, according to World Central Kitchen, a non-profit which said it is the first maritime shipment of aid to the war-torn strip.

“After weeks of preparation, our team in Cyprus loaded almost 200 tons of food onto the Open Arms boat that will deliver the desperately-needed aid,” WCK said in a statement on Tuesday.

WCK is working with thousands of contractors and volunteers locally to organize and distribute the aid, the spokesperson added. It has partnered with the United Arab Emirates, Cyprus and the Spanish charity Open Arms to coordinate the dispatch.

The aid dispatch comes as Cyprus, the European Commission, the United States, the UAE and the United Kingdom are working to establish a maritime corridor to deliver aid assistance directly to Gaza.

The ship was originally expected to depart Sunday from Larnaca, Cyprus, but had been delayed due to “practical issues,” the Cypriot government spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis said in a briefing Monday.

The ship is normally a search and rescue vessel used by the NGO Open Arms. To transport the pallets from the barge and the ship to land, a temporary jetty will be built in an undisclosed location in Gaza, though the precise details of the effort are unclear.

On Sunday, WCK Founder Jose Andres said the jetty would be built with material and infrastructure in Gaza with help from barges and amphibious vehicles. He said on X that the pier would be built “With @openarms_fund serving as our logistics and command in the water…carrying the initial barge near the beach….plus a big cargo boat for reloading.”

The ship will be towing a large barge packed with pallets of food aid, including rice, flour, beans, lentils, and canned meats.

WCK says it has served more than 35 million meals in Gaza since October, and is working with almost 400 locally-hired staff.

‘Not enough’

“Roads have been the traditional method we have used in the past, and we have three roads that enter Gaza, north to south,” he said, adding that with only one road currently operational, relief is slowed.

Delivering aid by ship also comes with its own complications.

“One of the problems and complications, I think, will be the logistics of offloading boats onto a beach, and then onloading onto trucks,” McGoldrick said, adding that this will have to be done in an area which is “prone to insecurity.”

WCK said it is working with partners in Gaza to construct a jetty, that will then be used to offload aid before loading it onto trucks.

“The ground aid arriving in the northern Gaza Strip is very, very small…not enough for anyone,” Gaza Ministry of Health spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra said Tuesday.

As Israel continues to restrict the entry of aid via land crossings, countries are now trying to get aid into the besieged enclave via air and sea routes. The US, Jordan and the UAE and several others have carried out airdrops into Gaza in recent days despite warnings from aid organizations that they are a dangerous and inefficient way of transporting aid.

Once aid arrives in Gaza, it is transported via two routes: Salah Eddine street and Al-Bahr street, Al-Qidra said. Hungry civilians then “crowd” along two roundabouts along the routes, hoping to get a morsel of food, Al-Qidra said in a statement.

Brink of famine

The ongoing delivery comes as northern Gaza is on the brink of famine as aid deliveries fall short, according to the head of the UN World Food Programme. The number of children dying of malnutrition and dehydration in the area is rising, including two newborn girls on Monday, a pediatrician at the Kamal Adwan Hospital said.

Israel’s siege on Gaza has drastically diminished essential supplies entering the strip, where Palestinians are facing starvation, dehydration and hunger.

Israeli authorities insist there is “no limit” on the amount of relief that can enter Gaza, but humanitarian groups have repeatedly warned Israel’s restrictions on land crossings into the strip has throttled aid distribution efforts.

Humanitarian workers and government officials working to deliver urgently needed aid for Gaza say a clear pattern has emerged of Israeli obstruction.

At the port of Igarapé da Fortaleza, in the far north of Brazil, dock workers unload large orange-red sacks from small wooden boats. Small dark berries scatter around the dock, staining everything purple and making the pavement slippery. After being washed, processed, and blended, each sack will make about five gallons of açaí pulp that will go into bowls, smoothies, and freeze-dried supplements.

In Spring, when most fruit is not yet ripe, each 130-pound sack is being sold to wholesalers for about $80, more than double the price it sells for when it is in season. Buyers may or may not know that the superfood they are purchasing to sell to multinationals may have been picked by children — no one is checking.

Eighty dollars would be a fortune for harvesters to take home, but they still need to pay the “crossers,” who provide boat transportation from nearby villages to the jungle and back, and the landowners whose trees they harvested. It has not always been this way. Growing demand has transformed what was once a mostly local industry into an international operation that puts pressure on communities that have, for decades, depended on the fruit for economic survival and their own subsistence.

In 2012, the state of Pará, which produces more than 90% of Brazil’s açaí, exported 39 tons of the fruit; in 2022, 8,158 tons were exported generating over $26 million in revenue, according to industry data. As a result, children are being sent on dangerous journeys to harvest the fruit, climbing trees as tall as 70 feet without harnesses, and exposing themselves to the perils of the swamps of the rainforest, including venomous snakes, scorpions, and jaguars.

Picking berries to help feed his family

Lucas walked through the jungle using a machete as big as his arm to slice large leaves and branches. As he cleared the path, he looked up as much as he looked ahead, scanning each palm tree in the canopy. “Here, this one’s got some,” Lucas said, dropping his tarp bag.

He tucked his machete into the waist of his shorts, and with a single jump wrapped his skinny legs around the trunk of a palm tree. He pulled himself up, scaling 20 feet up the palm before disappearing into the canopy. After some rustling, Lucas yelled, “It’s ripe!” The rustling increased, and leaves, sticks and tiny, rock-hard purple-black berries began to fall. Wengleston was pleased. “You got two!” Lucas slid down with two bunches of açaí, weighing about 10 pounds each. Lucas will do this dozens of times on a single day.

Wengleston, now 20 years old, dropped out of school when he was Lucas’ age to work full time. In these seven years, he’s developed serious back pain from carrying up to 200 pounds of açaí on his back daily. “One day I was lifting a sack and I felt that my back just ripped open,” Wengleston said. “Some days I can’t work because of all the pain, so I have to stay home.” He said he is afraid of losing more mobility soon, or ending up like other açaí harvesters who have developed back issues so severe they can no longer walk.

Policing hard-to-reach locations

Across the country, 1.9 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 were engaged in child labor in 2022, according to a December report from Brazil’s statistics bureau. Of those, at least 756,000 worked in what the International Labor Organization calls the worst forms of child labor, which includes “dangerous” conditions.

One of the biggest challenges when it comes to tackling this problem is that regions where child labor is most pervasive are the hardest ones to police, authorities say. “That’s why they’re called hard-to-reach locations, where you can only reach and get there with a lot of effort and overcoming all these obstacles,” said Allan Bruno, a prosecutor with Brazil’s Public Ministry of Labor.

Bruno said they have a special focus on the Marajó archipelago and the coastline of Amapá, where rural work is characterized mostly by buffalo breeding and açaí harvesting, and they investigate the use and recruitment of children for this type of work.

Bruno is part of a special joint task force of prosecutors, investigators, and federal police that investigates situations akin to slavery and raids properties to rescue workers and children.

Usually, Bruno said, the people being rescued are not aware that their rights are being infringed upon. “These are people who are inserted at the bottom of society, who did not have the right to education, did not have the right to health, and did not have the right to basic rights that could enable them to develop minimum employability. So, these are pockets of poverty that are the focus of recruitment by recruiters who seek cheap labor to exploit,” Bruno said.

He adds that the system is too slow, understaffed, and lacking the resources to inspect such a big swath of the country — and one that only now is starting to fix itself after years of not being a priority for the federal government: There are currently 900 openings waiting to be filled for labor inspectors.

For now, Lucas will continue to scale these towering trees, but authorities’ focus on his region offers hope for a future where children aren’t forced to risk their lives in dangerous labor to feed themselves and their families

Moscow is ready to use nuclear weapons if there is a threat to the existence of the Russian state but “there has never been such a need,” President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with state media published Wednesday.

The Russian leader made the comments to Rossiya 1 and RIA Novosti ahead of presidential elections on March 15, in which he is widely expected to sail through to a fifth term in office, and as his full-scale war in Ukraine grinds into a third year.

Putin said that from a military and technical standpoint, Russia is ready for a nuclear war, though he didn’t say one was imminent.

He warned that if US troops were deployed to Ukraine, Russia would treat them as interventionists.

“Apart from (US President Joe) Biden, there are enough other experts in the sphere of Russian-American relations and strategic restraint. So I don’t think that everything is going to go head-on here, but we are ready for it,” Putin said.

Putin said the United States is also developing nuclear forces but that doesn’t mean they are ready to “launch a nuclear war tomorrow.”

“They are now setting tasks to increase this modernity, innovation, they have a corresponding plan. We know about it too. They are developing all their components. So are we,” Putin said.

“Weapons exist in order to use them. We have our own principles.”

The Biden administration was specifically concerned Russia might use a tactical or battlefield nuclear weapon, the officials said.

Last year, Putin deployed tactical nuclear weapons to neighboring ally Belarus, and former Russian President and deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said strategic nuclear weapons could be used to defend territories incorporated into Russia from Ukraine.

Speaking to Russian state media, Putin said Western countries thought they could “do away” with Russia at the start of the Ukraine invasion, but instead, he claimed Moscow’s financial and economic systems are stable, and the capabilities of its armed forces are only growing.

NATO intelligence estimates of Russian defense production suggest that Russia appears on track to produce nearly three times more artillery munitions than the US and Europe, a key advantage ahead of what is expected to be another Russian offensive in Ukraine later this year. It’s also running artillery factories “24/7” on rotating 12-hour shifts, a NATO official said.

However, Russia’s ramp-up is still not enough to meet its needs, US and Western officials say, and Western intelligence officials do not expect Russia to make major gains on the battlefield in the short term.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is in desperate need of US aid for arms and armaments, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky saying “millions” could die without it.

The Biden administration announced another package of military aid to Ukraine worth up to $300 million on Tuesday but Biden said it was “not nearly enough,” and Congress needs to pass additional funding.

In his interview with state media, Putin said Russia would be willing to negotiate on Ukraine, but only if based on reality.

“Are we ready for negotiations? Yes, we are ready, but only ready for negotiations, not based on some desires after the use of psychotropic drugs, but based on the realities that have developed, as they say in such cases, on the ground,” Putin said.

Asked if there could be a “fair agreement” with the West, he said, “I don’t believe anyone, but we need guarantees.”

Zelensky has previously rejected suggestions it was time to negotiate peace with the Kremlin and has repeatedly said he would not give up Ukrainian territory.

Also during the interview with Rossiya 1 aired Wednesday, Putin said Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod and Kursk are happening amid Kyiv’s “failures” on the battlefield. The goal of Ukraine’s attacks, he added, is to interfere with Russia’s upcoming election.

The three Russian oil refineries targeted are in the cities of Ryazan, about 130 miles southeast of Moscow; Kstovo, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, nearly 300 miles east of the capital; and Kirishi in Russia’s northwest. The trio of facilities are among Russia’s largest refineries, the source said.

It marked the second consecutive day of Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy sites, and the locations targeted represent a spate of attacks well within Russia’s territory.

They came after a chaotic day on the Russian side of the Ukrainian border, during which pro-Ukrainian groups of Russian fighters said they launched cross-border attacks and claimed to have gained control of the village of Tyotkino in Russia’s Kursk region.

Russia’s defense ministry said Wednesday its air defenses destroyed 58 Ukrainian drones overnight, including some that traveled as far as the Leningrad region, which borders Finland, supporting Kyiv’s claims.

The regional governor in Ryazan, Pavel Malkov, said a fire broke out at the facility there but has since been extinguished. He said two people were injured.

Social media video from the refinery complex, one of Russia’s largest, showed a large plume of smoke billowing from a building in the distance.

A day earlier, Russian authorities reported at least 25 drone attacks, with local officials in the Oryol and Nizhny Novgorod regions reporting hits to fuel and energy facilities.

No casualties have been reported from either Tuesday or Wednesday’s attacks.

But an apparent cross-border incursion on Tuesday saw attacks launched in the village of Odnorobovka in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, and in the nearby Russian villages of Nekhoteevka and Spodariushino in Belgorod, according to Russian authorities.

Russia’s Belgorod Region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said 10 civilians were injured and six were hospitalized in the region on Tuesday.

As well as targeting Russia’s deep oil reserves, Kyiv’s latest strikes may be partially intended to bring home to Russians the impact of the war just as the country prepares for a presidential election.

The vote is essentially certain to hand Putin a fifth term, extending his rule into the 2030s. Voting will take place over three days from Friday, with the president sailing towards another spell in power in a ballot that is not considered free or fair and in which he faces no genuine competition.

During a lengthy interview on state television channel Rossiya 1 on Wednesday, Putin said Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod and Kursk are happening amid Kyiv’s “failures” on the battlefield.

“All this is happening against the backdrop of failures on the line of contact, on the front line. They did not achieve any of the goals they set for themselves last year,” Putin said. “Against the backdrop of those failures, they need to show at least something, and, mainly, attention should be focused on the information side of the matter.”