After large earthquakes, there is an expectation that aftershocks could occur in the hours and days that follow, but aftershocks from some of the strongest earthquakes in recorded United States history may still be happening — nearly 200 years later, new research has found.

Frequent aftershock activities stemming from a trio of quakes that occurred near the Missouri-Kentucky border between 1811 and 1812, and a separate earthquake in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1886, are likely continuing today, according to a study published recently in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth.

One of the regions researchers focused on, called the New Madrid seismic zone, encompasses present-day Memphis and the surrounding Mid-Mississippi River Valley area, and the other includes Charleston and the surrounding coastal plain. Seismic activity in these relatively stable regions of North America is not well understood, and its nature is debated among scientists, the study authors wrote.

“You use the time, distance and the magnitude of event pairs, and try to find the link between two events — that’s the idea,” said lead study author Yuxuan Chen, geoscientist at Wuhan University in China, in a news release. “If the distance between a pair of earthquakes is closer than expected from background events, then one earthquake is likely the aftershock of the other.”

Background events, also known as background seismicity, basically refers to the current rate of seismic activity that’s considered normal for a specific region.

The researchers found that approximately 30% of all earthquakes from 1980 to 2016 near the Missouri-Kentucky border, all magnitude 2.5 or greater, were likely aftershocks from the three major earthquakes that struck the area in 1811 and 1812, which registered between magnitudes 7.3 and 7.5. In the Charleston area, the findings showed that roughly 16% of the region’s modern-day quakes were likely aftershocks from the magnitude 7.0 earthquake of 1886.

Identifying whether modern earthquakes are in fact aftershocks of previous large quakes, or are new, unrelated quakes is important for understanding these regions’ future disaster risk — even if the newer seismic activity causes little to no damage, the researchers said.

Earthquakes vs. aftershocks

The modern seismic activity the researchers studied is likely a mixture of aftershocks from the big quakes from the 1800s and background seismicity, Chen said.

“In some respects, the earthquakes look like aftershocks if you look at the spatial distribution, but earthquakes could be tightly clustered for a couple of reasons,” said Susan Hough, a geophysicist with the US Geological Survey who was not involved in the study. “One is that they’re aftershocks, but also you could have a process of creep going on that’s not part of an aftershock process. Exactly what their results mean is still open to question.”

Another thing to consider when trying to determine whether a quake is an aftershock is how seismically active (or inactive) the region is normally, Hough said.

“In an area where small earthquakes are common, it doesn’t take as long for aftershock rates to drop below the normal seismic rate,” Hough said. “Aftershock sequences in relatively quiet areas could appear to last longer simply because there’s less background seismic activity.”

Debate on long-lived aftershocks

Hough coauthored a similar 2014 study using extensive computer modeling to understand activity in the New Madrid seismic zone, and it came to a different conclusion.

“Are small earthquakes in the New Madrid seismic zone aftershocks of 1811-1812 or not?” Hough said in an email. “We’ve looked into it, and it doesn’t look consistent with a long-lived aftershock sequence.”

She and coauthor Morgan Page, a geophysicist with the USGS Earthquake Science Center, came to the conclusion that the recent tremors were instead new, unrelated earthquakes caused by strain buildup along the New Madrid zone.

Because there were no seismographs in this area in the early 1800s, there is no official data recorded from these quakes. The magnitude and impact data that exists was estimated through newspaper reports and personal journals. Using those reports, the USGS has a pretty good record of where the quakes were centered and how widespread the impacts were felt.

If the 1811 to 1812 sequence was in fact still causing aftershocks, the area would have seen a certain number of small and moderate quakes during the 19th and 20th centuries, Hough explained.

“The new study considers the question from a different angle, considering how tightly clustered earthquakes are, and concluding that some of the events are ongoing aftershocks,” Hough said. “The question remains: if New Madrid earthquakes are aftershocks, why don’t they follow the rules that aftershocks are known to follow?”

The big difficulty with confirming or denying the results of these studies or the long-lived aftershock more broadly is that among seismologists there is no universally agreed-upon definition on what an aftershock of an earthquake is, said John Ebel, a professor of geophysics at Boston College who was not involved in the latest study.

“Every seismologist who studies such phenomena has no choice but to make assumptions about how to define foreshocks, mainshocks and aftershocks,” said Ebel, who is also a senior research scientist at Boston College’s Weston Observatory, in an email. “Thus, different seismologists will define foreshocks, mainshocks and aftershocks in somewhat different ways, and that makes comparing studies by different investigators subject to uncertainty and disagreement.”

For Hough’s 2014 study, the researchers considered an aftershock sequence to be over when the rate of earthquakes fell below the rate before the main shock. Aftershocks might still be continuing, but once the normal seismic rate for the area returns, she said, you can no longer identify them as aftershocks.

Defining an aftershock

In areas of frequent seismic activity such as California, the aftershocks of a large earthquake last less than a decade, Ebel said. He added this is particularly the case for earthquakes of magnitude 6.5 or greater that have occurred in the past 50 years or so.

However, locations away from plate boundaries, such as in Central or Eastern North America, the rate of background earthquakes is very low. Other studies have also speculated that aftershocks in areas away from plate boundaries could last many centuries. The new study just applies another statistical method to reach a similar conclusion, according to Ebel.

“Because all such studies rely on statistical analyses, which inherently have some variability in them, these studies cannot answer the questions that they address with complete certainty,” Ebel said.

It would be easier to distinguish this, he explained, if we had thousands of years of earthquake data for both California and Eastern North America.

“For this reason, we seismologists sometimes disagree about which earthquakes are foreshocks or aftershocks,” Ebel said, “and I think those disagreements are inherently unresolvable.”

Police carried out raids on gay venues in Russia late Friday, two online Russian news outlets reported, one day after the country’s top court ruled to ban the “international LGBTQ movement” and labelled it an extremist organization.

Thursday’s landmark ruling by the Supreme Court sent a fresh shiver of fear through Russia’s LGBTQ community, who have already faced an intensifying crackdown in recent years, as President Vladimir Putin seeks to shore up his image as defender of traditional moral values against the liberal West.

The raids took place in at least three entertainment venues in the capital Moscow, according to the two independent Russian Telegram news outlets, Ostorozhno Novosti and Sota.

Police said they were conducting routine drug raids, the outlets added.

Ostorozhno Moskva also reported that police photographed the passports of partygoers.

“Eyewitnesses said that security forces entered the premises under the pretext of an anti-drug check and photographed visitors’ passports,” it said. “In the middle of the party, they stopped the music and (the police) started entering the halls.”

The outlet also posted video of an eyewitness describing a fearful scene: “I was there. I honestly sh** myself when the music stopped and they said there was a police raid. I thought that was it, I would be imprisoned for 12 years. On the way out they took a photo of my passport (ID). So you understand, 300 of us stood naked, in only underwear, and waited for somebody to bring us clothes, and no one understood what was happening.”

Independent Telegram news channel Sota, citing an employee of the gay club Central Station in Moscow, reported the raids happened at the Secret Club and the Mono Bar in Moscow, as well as at the popular pop-up Hunters Party.

Sota also reported that the Central Station Club in St. Petersburg announced its closure on Friday, saying the club’s management said that they were denied further rental of the site due to the “new law.”

Video posted by the two news outlets show a police van parked outside what appears to be one of the venues with flashing lights but no sirens. At least two people who appear to be police officers can be seen at the entrance of the venue.

Well-known Russian transgender blogger and LGBTQ activist Milana Petrova – who is no longer living in the country – posted about the raids on her Telegram channel.

She said the raids were on private LGBTQ parties, not nightclubs.

“There were NO raids there yesterday. There were raids on individual LGBT parties for adults. There, people’s passports were photographed without their will, apparently for further repression,” Petrova posted on Sunday.

“Let me remind you that the law came out the day before yesterday,” Petrova said. “Never in the history of the country have there been such cruel laws,” she added.

The manager of the popular Mono gay club, who goes by the name Alexey Khoroshy, denied reports his club was raided. Khoroshy said only the pop-up party in Moscow was raided.

“Yesterday was the only drug raid at Hunters Party. So, everything is calm as before – we are working! And remember that drugs are evil!” Khoroshy said.

However, people chatting on an online group linked to the Hunters Party expressed their fear.

“No one will be at peace anymore, we are now balancing between propaganda and extremism,” posted one person directly linked to the Hunters Party on the group chat.

Another person responded: “It is dangerous, I won’t go anymore.”

Russian officials have not commented on the raids. There was no mention of routine drug or any other type of raids on state-run media.

Russia’s LGBTQ community have already faced a host of new laws that specifically target them.

Late last year Putin signed into law a bill that expands a ban on so-called LGBTQ “propaganda” in Russia, making it illegal for anyone to promote same-sex relationships or suggest that non-heterosexual orientations are “normal.”

The ban was rubber-stamped by Putin just days after a harsh new “foreign agents” law came into effect, as the Kremlin cracks down on free speech and human rights as its military operation in Ukraine falters.

The new laws significantly broaden the scope of a 2013 law which banned the dissemination of LGBTQ-related information to minors. The new iteration extends the ban on promoting such information to adults as well.

It is now illegal in Russia to promote or “praise” LGBTQ relationships, publicly express non-heterosexual orientations or suggest that they are “normal.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of the Russian Telegram channel Ostorozhno Moskva and misidentified venue locations. The raids were only in Moscow.

Ukrainian prosecutors are investigating whether Russian troops killed two Ukrainian service members after the pair had surrendered.

The probe, which is being overseen by the Ukraine prosecutor general’s office, was announced a day after video of the incident was shared by Ukrainian government on social media. The incident took place near an observation post outside the village of Stepove near Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, the office said in a statement.

“The killing of prisoners of war is a gross violation of the Geneva Conventions and is classified as a serious international crime,” the statement read.

Russia has been accused of carrying out a litany of crimes since it invaded Ukraine, though the Kremlin has denied wrongdoing. Earlier this year, The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for his alleged role in a scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia

Ukrainian officials are investigating a substantial number of criminal cases and war crimes, including 3,000 involving children.

Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, on Saturday wrote on Telegram that the killing of the unarmed soldiers was “not an isolated case.”

A video that surfaced in March appeared to show Russian troops executing a captured Ukrainian soldier, and two videos that emerged the following month on pro-Russian social media seemed to capture on camera Russian troops beheading Ukrainian service members.

Lubinets said that he believed Ukrainian officials would be able to identify the Russian troops responsible.

“I believe that our law enforcement and intelligence agencies will be able to identify the Russian servicemen who committed this crime,” Lubintes added.

One of the most prominent faces of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement revealed Sunday that she is living in Canada and will not return to meet bail conditions as police investigate allegations she endangered national security.

Agnes Chow, a former student activist and politician, broke more than two years of public silence in a social media post on her 27th birthday, announcing she had left Hong Kong for studies in Canada in September – and that she will not return to Hong Kong later this month to report to police as required.

“Probably I won’t return for the rest of my life,” she said in a post on Instagram.

Chow, who was sentenced to 10 months in prison in 2020 for taking part in Hong Kong’s mass anti-government protests the previous year, was bailed by police in a separate case upon her release in 2021 on suspicion of “colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security.”

She had her passport confiscated, was ordered to regularly report to police and had kept a low profile since.

In her Instagram post, Chow said she decided to flee after “considering the situation in Hong Kong, my personal safety, my physical and mental health,” adding that she had faced sustained pressure from authorities.

She said her passport was only returned to her after she agreed to travel in August on a police-organized trip to mainland China to learn about the country’s development.

Chow said she received permission from Hong Kong authorities to pursue her master’s degree in Canada, on the condition that she returned to Hong Kong to report to police during school breaks.

In a statement Monday, Hong Kong police condemned Chow’s plans to skip bail as “irresponsible behaviors that blatantly challenge law and order.”

“Police urge the relevant individual to step back from the brink, refrain from choosing the path of no return and carrying the label of ‘fugitive’ for the rest of her life,” the police statement said.

Escorted mainland China trip

Chow cofounded the pro-democracy Hong Kong political party Demosisto in 2016 with fellow activists Joshua Wong and Nathan Law when they were students. Demosisto was disbanded on June 30, 2020, the same day Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on the semi-autonomous city.

Chow was among the first pro-democracy leaders to be detained under the law in Hong Kong. Wong is currently behind bars, while Law is in self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom.

Critics say the law has wiped out opposition to the government and curtailed political freedoms in the once outspoken city. The Hong Kong government has repeatedly denied the legislation is suppressing freedoms and insisted the law has “restored stability” to the city following the 2019 protests.

In her Instagram post, Chow said she was admitted by a university in Toronto earlier this year. But as a condition to get her passport back from police, she had to travel in August with authorities to the mainland Chinese city of Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong.

Under the escort of five national security police officers, Chow said she was taken to an exhibition highlighting China’s achievements since its reform and opening in the late 1970s, and the headquarters of tech giant Tencent to understand “the motherland’s technological development” – where she was required to pose for photos, according to her post.

“I felt as if I was under surveillance the whole time,” she wrote, citing whispers between police officers and staff members behind her back and requests for her to pose for photos.

She also said she was required to write an appreciation letter to “thank the police” for organizing the trip and allowing her to “understand the great development of the motherland.”

“To be honest, I have never denied China’s economic development. But such a powerful country is sending people who fight for democracy to prison, restricting their freedom of entering and leaving the country, and imposing visits to mainland China for patriotic exhibitions as an exchange for getting their passports back – isn’t this a show of vulnerability?” she wrote.

The Hong Kong police statement on Chow confirmed they had returned her passport to allow her to study overseas and prolonged her bail. It did not address Chow’s account of the trip to Shenzhen.

Living in fear

Chow also recounted the mental toll that strict bail conditions had taken on her over more than two years.

Every three months, Chow had to sign a notice extending the confiscation of her passport. She was also ordered to report regularly to police about her income, work, family and personal relationships, Chow wrote on Instagram.

“It was as if someone wanted to remind me every once in a while: you have not regained your freedom, you’re still under surveillance, don’t try to do anything,” she wrote.

Chow said every time she reported to the police, she was fearful of being rearrested.

She had been diagnosed with depression, anxiety disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, she said, adding her mental and physical state reached a low point this year, prompting her to apply for graduate school in Canada.

Chow said she gained permission to leave after providing the national security police details of her program and writing a requested “letter of repentance.” In the letter, she stated regretted her past political activities and pledged that she will never participate in politics or meet her fellow activists again.

“Over the past few years, I have experienced first-hand how precious freedom from fear is,” Chow wrote. “Freedom is hard to come by. In my daily life of fear, I cherish all the people who have not forgotten me, who care about me and love me even more. Hope we can reunite in the near future and give each other a good embrace.”

Venezuelans voted by a wide margin Sunday to approve the takeover of an oil-rich region in neighboring Guyana – the latest escalation in a long-running territorial dispute between the two countries, fueled by the recent discovery of vast offshore energy resources.

The area in question, the densely forested Essequibo region, amounts to about two-thirds of Guyana’s national territory and is roughly the size of Florida.

Sunday’s largely symbolic referendum asked voters if they agreed with creating a Venezuelan state in the Essequibo region, providing its population with Venezuelan citizenship and “incorporating that state into the map of Venezuelan territory.”

In a news conference announcing preliminary results from the first tranche of counted votes, the Venezuelan National Electoral Council said voters chose “yes” more than 95% of the time on each of five questions on the ballot.

It is unclear what steps Venezuela’s government would take to enforce its claim, however.

Venezuela has long claimed the land, which it argues was within its borders during the Spanish colonial period. It dismisses an 1899 ruling by international arbitrators that set the current boundaries when Guyana was still a British colony, and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has cast the referendum in anti-imperialist sentiment on social media.

Guyana has called the move a step towards annexation and an “existential threat.”

Last week, Guyanese President Irfaan Ali visited troops in Essequibo and dramatically hoisted a Guyanese flag on a mountain overlooking the border with Venezuela.

The International Court of Justice, based in The Hague, ruled before the vote that “Venezuela shall refrain from taking any action which would modify the situation that currently prevails in the territory in dispute.” It plans to hold a trial in the spring on the issue, following years of review and decades of failed negotiations. Venezuela does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction on the issue, however.

What happens next

The vote’s result was widely expected within Venezuela, although its practical implications are likely to be minimal, analysts say, with the creation of a Venezuelan state within the Essequibo a remote possibility.

It’s unclear what steps the Venezuelan government would take to follow through on the result, and any attempt to assert a claim would certainly be met with international resistance.

Still, the escalating rhetoric has prompted troop movements in the region and saber-rattling in both countries, drawing comparisons from Guyanese leaders to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Many residents in the predominantly indigenous region are reportedly on edge.

“The longstanding row over the border between Guyana and Venezuela has risen to a level of unprecedented tension in the relations between our countries,” Guyanese Foreign Minister Robert Persaud wrote Wednesday in Americas Quarterly.

Even without implementing the referendum, which would require further constitutional steps and the likely use of force, Maduro may stand to gain politically from the vote amid a challenging re-election campaign.

In October, the Venezuelan opposition showed rare momentum after rallying around Maria Corina Machado, a center-right former legislator who has attacked Maduro for overseeing soaring inflation and food shortages, in the country’s first primary in 11 years.

“An authoritarian government facing a difficult political situation is always tempted to look around for a patriotic issue so it can wrap itself in the flag and rally support, and I think that’s a large part of what Maduro is doing,” said Phil Gunson, a Caracas-based analyst with the International Crisis Group.

Language experts choosing the Oxford word of the year 2023 were dazzled by a bright young thing, selecting a relative newcomer, “rizz,” for the top spot.

Derived from the word “charisma,” “rizz” refers to a person’s ability to attract a romantic partner through “style, charm or attractiveness,” dictionary publisher Oxford University Press (OUP) said in its announcement Monday. The word received more than 32,000 votes from the public, OUP added.

“Rizz” soared in popularity earlier this year, after Spider-Man actor Tom Holland was asked by Buzzfeed what the secret to his rizz was. His answer? “I have no rizz whatsoever. I have limited rizz.”

The publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary added that the word can also be used as a verb, in the phrase “rizz up,” meaning to attract or chat up a person.

While word of the year contenders do not need to be new words, they must have a significance to the year in question. OUP said its 2023 shortlist was chosen to “reflect the mood, ethos, or preoccupations of the year.”

So, how did “rizz” fight off its rivals?

OUP’s experts shortlisted eight words, which were put into competing pairs for the public to vote on. From the resulting four finalists, the experts did one last analysis, before picking “rizz” as the winner.

The other finalists were “prompt,” the instruction given to an artificial intelligence program that influences the content it creates; “situationship,” which means a romantic partnership that is not considered to be formal or established; and lastly, “Swiftie” – the name given to an avid fan of singer Taylor Swift.

In 2022, Oxford’s word of the year was “goblin mode,” a colloquial term for behavior that is unapologetically lazy in a way that rejects social norms.

French police this week arrested yoga guru Gregorian Bivolaru and 41 others on accusations of kidnap, rape and human trafficking.

Alleged victims were drawn in with promises of a spiritual awakening, only to be indoctrinated and mentally manipulated into sexual relations with 71-year-old Bivolaru, a judicial source said.

Bivolaru – who was already subject to an Interpol warrant – and the others were arrested during raids in Paris and other areas of France on Tuesday.

Twenty-six alleged victims were found living in “deplorable” conditions, the source said.

Bivolaru founded a network called the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute (MISA) in Romania in 1990 before it became known internationally as Atman – the International Federation of Yoga and Meditation, according to French prosecutors and a website for Bivolaru.

A press release, attributed to the board of Atman Federation, and posted on Atman’s website, called the arrests “a slanderous witch-hunt against genuine spirituality.”

“Atman Federation is not responsible and not accountable for the private life of students and teachers of the member schools,” the release stated.

A press release attributed to the MISA Yoga School and also posted on Atman’s website describes the French school at the heart of the raids as part of the Atman network but an “independent entity, with its own management and organization.”

Year-long investigation

A French non-governmental organization (NGO) – Human Rights League – handed over reports from former members of the organization to a government agency that monitors and analyzes cult movements in France in July 2022.

The following month, the Paris public prosecutor’s office referred the case to the Central Office for Repression of Violence Against People (OCRVP) – a French government agency responsible for investigating alleged sects to see if any crimes have been committed, the judicial source said.

A judicial source said “numerous women of different nationalities claimed to have been victims of the activities of the MISA organization and its leader Gregorian B.”

The judicial source added that the school would lure victims in under the guise of tantra yoga, a branch of yoga based on Hindu traditions which centers around the awakening of spirituality via sexuality.

Then, the alleged victims said they would be mentally manipulated into accepting “sexual relations designed to suppress any notion of consent regarding sexual relations,” the judicial source said.

The judicial source said the alleged victims were told that consent was a reflection of the ego preventing them from reaching a state of spiritual awakening.

Victims claimed they were encouraged to “accept sexual relations with the group’s leader, and/or to subscribe to pornographic practices for a fee in France and abroad,” the judicial source said.

A judicial investigation was established in July 2023 into allegations of abuse of vulnerable persons by a member of a sect, kidnapping, rape and human trafficking.

It culminated in the large-scale operation launched on Tuesday involving a total of 175 French police officers across Paris and several other regions, which saw Bivolaru and others arrested.

Twenty-six alleged victims were found living in cramped and unhygienic conditions, the judicial source said.

‘Spiritual mentor’

Founded in his home country of Romania in 1990, Bivolaru’s network of schools later expanded internationally to countries in Europe, North America, South America and Asia.

On MISA’s website, it describes itself as “the largest yoga school in Europe.” It says Bivolaru is equipped with “encyclopaedic knowledge” and “huge practical experience.” MISA refers to Bivolaru as the school’s “spiritual mentor.”

“Since 1990, MISA Yoga School has opened yoga courses in more than 250 towns in Romania and 33 other countries,” the website states, adding that the total number of people who have practiced at the school sits at around 35,000.

“The yoga instructors are selected through theoretical and practical exams, and undergo a special training,” it adds.

The allegations are just the latest in a string of serious charges against Bivolaru.

He was convicted of raping a minor in Romania in 2013 and sentenced to six years in prison in absentia. He was extradited from France three years later in 2016.

However, he only served a year and three months of his sentence before fleeing Romania in 2017 while on conditional release, and resuming his practices as a yoga guru.

He is also on Interpol’s ‘wanted’ list for criminal charges of aggravated trafficking in human beings in Finland, a crime punishable by 10 years in prison.

Maya Szaniecki reported from Paris and Sophie Tanno reported from and wrote in London.

Mirna El Helbawi sits on a Cairo rooftop, her face illuminated by the moonlight and a phone in her hands, as she texts a terrified father whose wife and children are trapped in Gaza.

“I don’t want a single thing from this world right now,” he writes to her in Arabic, “except to be able to talk to them, even if it’s for the last time, let me tell them goodbye.”

El Helbawi, more than 200 miles away, can’t shield his family from the Israeli missiles raining down. But she can provide them with the chance to say one more “I love you.”

The Egyptian writer and activist is the founder of Connecting Gaza, a grassroots initiative that uses eSIMs – or virtual SIM cards – to help Palestinians skirt telecommunication blackouts amid Israeli airstrikes across the territory.

El Helbawi, along with a small group of volunteers and a legion of international donors, says they’ve restored telephone and internet connection to more than 200,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and will continue the effort until the devastating war between Israel and Hamas is over.

“After all this pain, they can’t even share their grief with the world or scream for people to demand a ceasefire. They have to endure bombardment and attacks in absolute silence,” El Helbawi said.

“It’s like being murdered while someone is putting a hand over your mouth, so you can’t even scream for help.”

Gaza falls silent

El Helbawi, like millions of others, has been anxiously watching the war unfold since October 7, when Hamas launched a brazen attack in Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 240 others hostage.

Israel responded by imposing a siege and launching deadly airstrikes across Gaza, destroying homes, schools and hospitals in the densely populated territory. An estimated 15,200 Palestinians, 70% of whom are women and children, have so far been killed in the attacks, and 40,000 others wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, which draws its figures from sources in Hamas-run Gaza.

Almost immediately, telecommunication services experienced disruptions. Israel cut electricity to the territory and service providers said the bombardment destroyed vital network infrastructure. Some Palestinians were still able to make telephone calls and access the internet, but connection was spotty.

For weeks, El Helbawi followed the news closely. Images and videos posted on social media broke her heart – entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble; doctors struggling to treat patients without medicine; parents mourning the deaths of their children.

Then on October 27, as Israel prepared to expand its ground operations, Gaza fell silent.

“We regret to announce a complete disruption of all communication and internet services with the Gaza Strip in light of the ongoing aggression,” Paltel, the leading telecommunication company in the Palestinian territories, said in a statement. It was the first of several blackouts to strike Gaza.

Fearful that a blackout could provide cover for “war crimes,” El Helbawi became consumed with finding a solution.

At first, she joined others on social media platform X, calling for Elon Musk to deliver his Starlink satellite internet service to Gaza – and was excited when Musk said he would. But when talks on those plans stalled, El Helbawi decided to try something else.

At the suggestion of a social media follower, she purchased an eSIM with roaming service and had a friend try to connect to a foreign network. To her surprise, it worked.

“I felt it in my whole body the moment we realized there was hope – even if it was very small hope – that we found a solution,” El Helbawi said. “It was the light at the end of a very dark tunnel.”

Within 24 hours, she posted on X and Instagram asking followers who wanted to help restore telephone and internet for Palestinians to donate eSIMs by purchasing them online and sending her the QR codes. El Helbawi felt confident she could find people in Gaza with service to distribute the eSIMs throughout the territory.

Giving voice to victims

As El Helbawi began executing her plan, Ahmed Elmadhoun was in Gaza struggling with how to report on the war without telephone or internet service.

As one of the few journalists on the ground, Elmadhoun felt obligated to keep the world informed of the latest news, sharing photos and videos of the aftermath on social media.

He also worried about his family, who were displaced throughout Gaza and could not be reached. More than 40 of his relatives were killed in airstrikes, Elmadhoun says.

“Gaza was incredibly isolated, with only fear present. We were alone, very alone,” he said. “We couldn’t reach our families or inquire about them, and the airstrikes were incredibly intense. Even the ambulance and emergency teams couldn’t determine the locations of the bombings or reach the injured.”

Amid his fears, Elmadhoun managed to access the internet using an Israeli SIM card before it was blocked. In that time, he posted on X asking: “Someone told me about an eSIM – who?”

Minutes later, El Helbawi saw his question and responded: “Me! Me! Me! Send me a message urgently.”

El Helbawi quickly gave Elmadhoun an eSIM QR code and helped reconnect him to the internet, making him the first person in Gaza to get one.

At that moment, Connecting Gaza was born.

The solution goes viral

News of the initiative quickly spread on social media, with concerned people from all over the world buying and donating eSIMs.

Donors have sent QR codes from as far as the United States, Switzerland, Pakistan and the Netherlands, El Helbawi says. Most buy them on mobile apps like Simly and Airalo, which allow donors to see when the eSIMs are activated and top them off when funds run low.

Graeme Bradley, a donor from Scotland, says he was drawn to the initiative because it’s an easy way to have a big impact on a conflict where so many lives are at stake.

By helping Palestinians tell their stories, he hopes they’ll be able to “turn public opinion and pressure world leaders to call for a ceasefire.”

But not everyone who gets an eSIM lives long enough to tell their story.

Noha Elkomi, a 25-year-old donor from Egypt, says she excitedly watched on her app as a Palestinian activated the eSIM she donated. But when it fell inactive, her heart sank.

She shared her concerns with El Helbawi, who told her, “You never know what happens,” Elkomi recalled.

“I understood what she said. Maybe the first one who took it is gone. Maybe they got killed. This is the reality of it, as sad as it is. Every minute counts and you don’t know how long they are staying,” Elkomi said.

An eSIM can only be activated once, and it can go inactive depending on where in Gaza the person is trying to connect. If they move to an area with weaker signal, the eSIM might not work.

“This gave me a little bit of hope but at the same time it made me start imagining, what would the person be going through? Where are they now?” Elkomi said. “… I started feeling as if I know them personally.”

The first eSIM she donated eventually lost signal altogether, Elkomi says, but she won’t stop giving more. Days later, tears streamed from Elkomi’s eyes as she saw her second eSIM go online and connect another person in Gaza.

“I will say that regardless of what stops in front of them, they (Palestinians) find a way to go around it or climb on top of it or to break through it and continue thriving and this is what they want to show the world,” Elkomi said. “The blackout was, yes, some darkness, but there’s always going to be light shining through the darkness.”

‘This is humanity’

El Helbawi admits she’s obsessed with Connecting Gaza. It’s the first thing she thinks about in the morning and the last thing at night.

“We barely sleep, connecting eSIMs is our first priority in life,” she said. “Even though I feel like I’m doing something big for Gaza, I can never stop feeling that still we are not doing enough.”

To date, an estimated $1.3 million worth of eSIMs have been donated to Connecting Gaza for distribution, according to El Helbawi. The initiative, which partnered with Simly for a time, connects more than 1,000 Palestinians daily, and each person can turn a phone into a hotspot for five others, she says.

Connecting Gaza has been so successful that El Helbawi recently leveraged her growing social media following into a nonprofit organization called Connecting Humanity, through which she hopes to reconnect vulnerable people in other conflict zones.

“The eSIMs are not cheap. To know that so many people are spending their time and money to help says so much about the solidarity the world has with Palestine,” El Helbawi said. “Some people donate eSIMs and then wait for their next paychecks to send another. They do this to save someone’s life. This is humanity.”

The war has significantly changed since the first blackout. There was a short-lived truce, some hostages released, and more aid allowed to enter Gaza. But the violence has resumed and more than a million Palestinians remain displaced, their homes destroyed, little access to health care, food, clean water or electricity – and no means of escape.

The grief and isolation Palestinians feel is compounded by the frequent blackouts, Elmadhoun says: “What’s happening in Gaza is a massacre. There’s no safe place…and we feel like we are alone.”

But El Helbawi, along with thousands of donors across the world, says she refuses to let Palestinians suffer in silence.

“We are sending a message to Palestinians,” she said. “We do not stand for this. We will not let you lose your connection with the world.”

A nighttime transit through the Taiwan Strait is a test of nerves, seamanship and political awareness in an environment where a slight miscalculation could potentially lead to an international conflict.

It’s the first night in November. It’s dark – ink black before the moonrise – and Royal Canadian Navy Cmdr. Sam Patchell is taking that test.

His 4,800-ton warship, the frigate HMCS Ottawa, weaves and dodges between dozens of commercial fishing boats and merchant vessels at speeds of up to 24 mph, all the while tasked with staying outside boundaries dictated by international law, including the recognized territorial waters of China.

The Ottawa’s radar tracks Chinese warships, which, as they try to keep up with the Canadian frigate, are also weaving in and around the red and green lights of the commercial vessels plying their trade in one of the world’s most crowded waterways.

As the captain of a Royal Canadian Navy frigate, Patchell keeps a lawyer and a public affairs officer by his side, because, for Canada – and other Western allies of the United States – this is all about upholding the “rules-based international order,” and if the Canadian ship violates the law of the sea by intruding in territorial waters, or gives adversaries a chance to spin Ottawa’s course as “provocative,” Patchell’s 12-hour cruise would swiftly become an international incident.

And he’s not just acting for himself. A mile behind the Ottawa, a US Navy destroyer follows Patchell’s lead. That oncoming fishing boat might miss Ottawa, but if he leaves too little space for it to maneuver then it will be the US destroyer that could run into trouble.

There are live-fire exercises, with the guns of three navies trying to blast a speedboat drone to smithereens.

There are nail-biting refuelings at sea, during which the 440-foot-long Ottawa slices through the waves less than 200 feet away for supply ships as big as 680-feet long (that’s longer than two football fields).

And there are Chinese warships, almost always on the horizon, looking shadowy as they move in and out of the rain showers that so frequently occur across the warm waters of the South China Sea.

Other times, the Chinese presence is in the air, and it can be threatening as the crew of the Ottawa’s helicopter discovered when it was twice intercepted by Chinese fighter jets over international waters. The Chinese jets executed maneuvers that “put the safety of all personnel involved at unnecessary risk,” Canada’s Defense Ministry said.

But it isn’t all tension. There are also barbecues, burgers and beers, a Halloween movie night, and an outrageous crossing-the-equator ceremony, complete with a homemade wooden dunking tub and sentences handed down by King Neptune.

A dangerous place

The Taiwan Strait, the 110-mile wide waterway separating mainland China from the democratically-ruled island of Taiwan, is considered one of the most potentially volatile portions of sea in the world.

While conflict rages in Gaza and Ukraine, many analysts fear that these waters could be the next arena for war.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has vowed to take control of Taiwan, which the Chinese Communist Party considers part of its territory – despite never having ruled it – and by force if necessary.

But the United States is committed to providing the island the means to defend itself, and Washington has been regularly sending warships through the strait to demonstrate that ships have the right of free passage through it under the international law of the sea.

The November 1 transit of USS Rafael Peralta is the sixth this year by US Navy or Coast Guard ships, according to a database kept by Collin Koh, research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

Beijing calls these sailings a provocation and a violation of Chinese territory.
The Royal Canadian Navy has joined the US Navy on some of sailings, including one last June during which a Chinese warship came dangerously close to the American vessel USS Chung-hoon – so close that the US captain had to take action to avoid a collision.

Chess on the water

That incident is on the mind of the commander of HMCS Ottawa as his ship enters the strait from the south in the early evening of November 1 with the Rafael Peralta close behind.

“We just want to get through here safely,” Patchell, the Ottawa’s captain, says.

“The Chung-hoon incident is something I’m thinking about.”

Patchell explains his plan for the 12-hour strait crossing. He’ll stick as close as possible to a line that keeps his ship at least 24 nautical miles from the coasts of both mainland China and Taiwan.

Although the internationally recognized limit for territorial waters is 12 nautical miles, there’s another 12 outside of that called the “contiguous zone.” It’s a “buffer zone” to allow mainland China or Taiwan, in this case, to warn ships away from their territorial waters, he says, but passing ships have every right to be in it.

Still, the Ottawa’s course prompts a warning from Taiwan’s military, which has ships in the strait monitoring the progress of the Ottawa and Rafael Peralta. A voice over the radio advises Patchell to alter course to avoid Taiwan’s zone.

But he says his bigger concern are the  green-and-red-lit commercial fishing boats that keep popping up in front of the Ottawa. Avoiding a collision with them is Patchell’s most immediate priority.

He instructs the crew on minor course changes to weave Ottawa’s way between the lights. And as if he were playing chess, he tries to think several moves ahead.

“You have to be careful not to solve one navigation problem and then create three more,” he says.

Throughout the night, as the Ottawa weaves, Patchell does all he can to prevent his ship’s bow from pointing in the direction of China. That can send the wrong message, he says.

And as day breaks, and the Ottawa heads into the East China Sea at the north end of the strait, Patchell’s navigation plan has worked. Chinese warships have stayed well away – and haven’t even hailed the Ottawa by radio.

There is no Chung-hoon repeat on this November night.

This is China’s lake

Though the People’s Liberation Army Navy doesn’t hail HMCS Ottawa this time, they are always watching, visible on radar if unseen by the naked eye in the dark of night.

In fact, the PLA Navy seems to have at least one shadow on the Ottawa almost constantly after the fourth day of the cruise, after the Canadian ship approaches the Spratly Islands, a chain in the southern portion of the South China Sea where Beijing has built military installations on manmade islands in contested territories – despite Xi’s pledge not to do so and disregarding the ruling of a United Nations tribunal that some of these territories don’t even belong to China.

China claims almost all of the 1.3 million-square-mile South China Sea as its sovereign territory. But portions of it are also claimed by governments in Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

None of those governments make claims as sweeping as Beijing’s.

And Beijing has no shortage of ships to assert its claims. Xi has overseen a naval construction boom that has seen China’s navy surpass the US as the world’s largest.

The crew of Ottawa is kept keenly aware of the Chinese presence. Each morning at 7 a.m., a wakeup/breakfast call over the ship’s loudspeakers is followed by a report on the ship’s situation.

The type and hull number of the Chinese warships tracking Ottawa are part of that situation report.

There are other reminders, too. For much of the trip, especially in the vicinity of Chinese-held islands, cell phones are not allowed on the ship’s open decks, in case they become hacking targets. A paper sign on hatches leading to the outside reminds crew members not to take their devices outside.

In daylight hours in the South China Sea, from Ottawa’s flight deck or outdoor bridge wings, Chinese warships are often visible to the naked eye. At dusk, their silhouettes sometimes give them away against the setting sun.

On October 29, things take a potentially dangerous turn, one that could have cost lives and ratcheted up tensions in the South China Sea to new levels.

While searching for a previously noted submarine contact east of the Chinese-claimed Paracel Islands, the Ottawa’s helicopter, with its crew of four, reports two close encounters with Chinese fighter jets, the latter coming within 100 feet of the Canadian helicopter and, on the second occasion, releasing flares in front of it that could have caused it to crash, Canadian officials said.

“The risk to a helicopter in that instance is the flares moving into the rotor blades or the engines, so this was categorized as both unsafe and non-standard, unprofessional,” says Maj. Rob Millen, air officer aboard the Ottawa.

The incident is far from rare. US defense officials said in October they’d seen almost 200 “coercive and risky” examples of Chinese flying in the previous two years over the South and East China seas.

The Canadians see it also. Just two weeks earlier, a Royal Canadian Air Force patrol plane reported an unsafe intercept by a Chinese jet.

Beijing has pushed back, accusing Canada of “smearing China” in the chopper episode and lecturing Washington on the location of such close encounters.

“(They) were in the waters and airspace around China, not in the Gulf of Mexico or off the US West Coast.” said a Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman on October 26. “How can the Chinese military intercept the US aircraft and warships if they don’t come?”

Two radar operators in the cabin of the copter look for warship contacts on their instruments while in the cockpit two pilots search for the long wakes that are an indication of ships moving at high speeds.

“That looks warshippy,” they say when spotting something suspicious.

Live-fire drills

Day four of the 12-day journey sees Ottawa in the southern portion of the South China Sea, in a warship troika with USS Rafael Peralta and the Australian destroyer HMAS Brisbane.

The three surface combatants line up with Peralta leading and Ottawa trailing for a chance to test their big guns, five-inch weapons on the bigger Peralta and Brisbane and a 57mm-gun on Ottawa.

But Ottawa has the star player of the exercise, the Hammerhead target drone, otherwise known as an unmanned surface vehicle – target (USV-T).

It’s essentially a 16-foot remote controlled speedboat capable of speeds up to 40 mph.

“The Hammerhead USV-T replicates high-speed naval tactics and a variety of operational guidance plans including straight-on high-speed attacks, crossing patterns, zig zag patterns, and other evasive maneuvers,” the UK-based manufacturer Qinetiq says on its website.

Radio operators aboard Ottawa announce over international frequencies that the drill is about to start, and they repeat the warning at 15-minute intervals as it takes place.

They identify themselves as “coalition warship 341” – that’s Ottawa’s hull number as seen just behind its bow – and remark how strange it is not to call themselves “Canadian warship 341” as would be standard practice.

But it’s a reflection of the cooperation being fostered in the region by Washington and its allies and partners.

The live-fire drill is part of exercise “Noble Caribou,” which involves ships and aircraft from five countries – the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and New Zealand.

Units from each of the five move in and out of the exercises depending upon daily priorities. Only Canada, the US and Australia are participating in the live-fire drill.

As Peralta, then Brisbane and finally Ottawa test their big guns with smoke bursts out over the open water of the South China Sea, the Hammerhead gets ready to make simulated attack runs at them.

Peralta fires first at the speeding boat, shooting off rounds to test the destroyer’s aim but not necessarily sink or disable the Hammerhead. After a few shots, the US ship’s gun misfires.

Controllers on the Ottawa start the Hammerhead on a run at Brisbane and the Australian destroyer’s gunners are honed in. An explosive shell disables the remote-controlled speedboat in a puff of black smoke and large splashes of shrapnel.

But the Hammerhead isn’t sunk and for safety’s sake – it could be a navigational hazard to other ships if left on the surface – it must be sent to the bottom.

That’s Ottawa’s job, but the commanding officer, Cmdr. Patchell, doesn’t want to use shells from the ship’s main gun, which cost more than $7,000 each, to do the job. Ammo from the .50-caliber machine gun on the ship’s bridge wing should be able to sink the Hammerhead much more cheaply.

After a few bursts, flames pour from the 16-foot drone, quickly consuming it as leaking fuel burns on top of the water.  Hammerhead’s bow rises up and it slips beneath the surface, leaving fuel and oil burning for a minute or two.

Lt. Sean Milley, operations officer on the Ottawa, says the live-fire drill was a success.

The Americans don’t have drones like the Hammerhead, he says, so US gunners love the chance to be tested by the Canadian drone in exercises like these.

Refueling at sea

Ottawa has a range of almost 11,000 miles (17,600 kilometers). That is more than enough to cover the distance it will travel during the voyage from Singapore to Okinawa on this trip.

But the ship must constantly be ready for all eventualities, says Lt. Cmdr. Christine Hurov, the Ottawa’s public affairs officer.

So, it keeps fuel tanks for its two gas-turbine and single diesel engines topped up through replenishments at sea, known as RAS to the crew.

Ottawa takes on average about 40,000 gallons (150,000 liters) of fuel in an RAS event. That’s about a quarter of the capacity of its fuel tanks. It does four refuelings during the trip from Singapore to Okinawa, one from a New Zealand supply vessel, two from an American one, and onee from an Australian one.

The refuelings are tests of nerves, seamanship, communications and coordination for the crews of both the supply ships and the frigate.

During the first RAS, with the New Zealand Navy’s largest ship ever, HMNZS Aotearoa, Cmdr. Patchell cautiously moves his ship alongside HMNZS Aotearoa, which at 24,000 tons is about five times Ottawa’s size.

The Ottawa’s crew crouches for cover behind anything solid as the supply ship fires lines across that will carry fuel hoses and distance markers.

Once the fuel hose is locked into the receptacle for Ottawa’s tanks, Patchell and his crew try to maintain a constant 16 mph speed with the supply ship and hold the distance at between 160 feet to 200 feet.

Patchell and his ship drivers are also fighting physics. The rushing, turbulent seas between the two ships are real-life applications of what is known as Bernouli’s principle – pressure changes due to the speed of the waters could pull Ottawa into the much larger tanker.

Patchell issues course corrections of one or two degrees to keep Ottawa lined up and the fuel hoses connected.

The refueling takes about 90 minutes, and when the fuel lines have been drained and the connection is broken, it’s celebrated, as all RAS are aboard Ottawa, with blaring music, on this occasion from Canadian artist the Weeknd, with “Blinding Lights.”

A later RAS, on a Saturday with the American ship USNS Wally Schirra, is appropriately ended with Loverboy’s “Working for the Weekend.”

But the crew of Australia’s HMAS Stalwart probably get the award for music during the Ottawa’s 11-day cruise.

Midway through a nighttime refueling in the East China Sea, the Australian vessel began blaring “Oh Canada” (not the Canadian national anthem) from rapper Classified across the waves as the opener of a set of tunes. Coupled with the glow sticks that help illuminate the work areas on Ottawa, it makes the ocean seem more like a dance party than a military maneuver.

The lighter side of the South China Sea

Like the Australians, the Canadians try to make sure there’s a balance to what they do in these contested waters.

So there is a beer, burger and hotdog barbecue on the rear flight deck. For Halloween there are decorations, costumes and a movie night featuring a scary flick on a big screen watched from personal lawn chairs under an almost full moon (and the watchful eyes of a Chinese warship).

But the highlight of this voyage for many aboard the Canadian frigate is a “crossing the line” ceremony, an event that marks the first time a sailor crosses the equator.

Dozens aboard Ottawa earned their spot in the ceremony when the frigate dipped into the Southern Hemisphere to the south of Malaysia and Singapore earlier in its Pacific deployment.

The ritual involves soakings, eating unappetizing food, a court presided over by King Neptune, god of the sea, and eventually a dunking in a specially constructed “hot tub” on the rear flight deck of Ottawa.

At the end, first-time crossers are issued cards to prove their status that they will treasure for the rest of their sea-going days, lest they be sentenced by Neptune’s court again.

One enlisted crewman describes getting the card as Christmas come early with the best present ever.

It’s the kind of thing Patchell wants to hear from his crew.

He doesn’t want his crew wound too tight, and he also wants to show that what Ottawa is doing is routine, moving through international waters in ways allowed by international laws and norms.

“We don’t have what’s called freedom of navigation operations,” he says.

He goes over Ottawa’s planned route.

“It’s international waters, and we want to go in that direction. We’ll go in that direction, as we’re allowed to do,” he says.

“We don’t make it a thing.”

The president of the COP28 climate summit, Sultan Al Jaber, recently claimed there is “no science” that says phasing out fossil fuels is necessary to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, in comments that have alarmed climate scientists and advocates.

The future role of fossil fuels is one of the most controversial issues countries are grappling with at the COP28 climate summit. While some are pushing for a “phase-out,” others are calling for the weaker language of a “phase-down.” Scientific reports have shown that fossil fuels must be rapidly slashed to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees — the goal of the Paris climate agreement, and a threshold above which scientists warn it will be more difficult for humans and ecosystems to adapt.

In his response, Al Jaber told Robinson, “there is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5.” He said he had expected to come to the She Changes Climate meeting to have a “sober and mature conversation” and was not “signing up to any discussion that is alarmist.”

He continued that the 1.5-degree goal was his “north star,” and a phase-down and phase-out of fossil fuel was “inevitable” but “we need to be real, serious and pragmatic about it.”

In an increasingly fractious series of responses to Robinson pushing him on the point, Al Jaber asked her “please, help me, show me a roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuels that will allow for sustainable socio-economic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.”

Al Jaber’s presidency of the COP28 summit has been controversial. The Emirati businessman is the UAE’s climate envoy and chairs the board of directors of its renewables company, but he also heads the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC).

“The COP President is clear that phasing down and out of fossil fuels is inevitable and that we must keep 1.5C within reach,” adding, “we are excited with the progress we have made so far and for the delivery of an ambitious (global stocktake) decision. Attempts to undermine this will not soften our resolve.”

Fossil fuels are the main driver of the climate crisis and as the world continues to burn oil, coal and gas, global temperatures are soaring to unprecedented levels. This year has seen record global heat, which has driven deadly extreme weather events.

Fossil fuel production in 2030 is expected to be more than double what would be necessary to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees, a recent report from several scientific institutions, including the UN Environment Programme, found. That report used scenarios laid out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) to reach its conclusion.

Carbon capture refers to a set of techniques that aim to remove carbon pollution from the the air and to capture what’s being produced from power plants and other polluting facilities. While some argue carbon capture will be an important tool for reducing planet-heating pollution, others argue these technologies are expensive, unproven at scale and a distraction from policies to cut fossil fuel use.

Scientists and climate groups heavily criticized Al Jaber’s comments.

Romain Ioualalen, global policy lead at non-profit Oil Change International, said in a statement Al Jaber’s statements during the panel discussion were “alarming,” “science-denying” and “raise deep concerns about the Presidency’s capacity to lead the UN climate talks.”

Joeri Rogelj, a climate professor at Imperial College London, said he strongly recommended Al Jaber revisit the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“That report, approved unanimously by 195 countries including the UAE, shows a variety of ways to limit warming to 1.5°C — all of which indicate a de facto phase out of fossil fuels in the first half of the century. Will that take the world back to the caves? Absolutely not,” he said in a statement.

Mohamed Adow, director of climate think tank Power Shift Africa, said Al Jaber’s remarks were a “wake up call” to the world and COP28 negotiators. “They are not going to get any help from the COP Presidency in delivering a strong outcome on a fossil fuel phase out,” he said in a statement.

This COP summit will conclude the first global stocktake, where countries will assess their progress on climate action progress and work out how to get the world on track to limiting catastrophic global warming.