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.

As global leaders and delegates gather in Dubai for the annual UN climate summit, a new analysis shows how the host cities of previous summits could be inundated — if not entirely submerged — by rising ocean waters.

The relentless rise of planet-warming pollution has already resulted in severe droughts, deadly floods and rapid melting of glaciers and ice around the world. And scientists say the steady climb of global sea level will continue for many decades as temperatures crank higher.

The analysis from Climate Central, a nonprofit climate research group, illustrates the risk if countries fail to halt the planet’s precipitous warming trend. A recent UN report showed the world is currently on track to warm up to 2.9 degrees.

Using peer-reviewed sea level rise projections and local elevation from Climate Central’s models, the findings show compelling visuals that paint a stark contrast between the world as we know it and our high-tide future, if the planet warms to 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

“Decisions made at COP28 will shape the long-term future of Earth’s coast cities, including Dubai,” said Benjamin Strauss, chief scientist and CEO of Climate Central.

Climate scientists have reported the world is around 1.2 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels, and it’s on track to breach 1.5 degrees of warming in the coming years — a critical threshold beyond which scientists say humans and ecosystems will struggle to adapt.

In 2015, at COP21 in Paris, more than 190 countries approved the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, but preferably to 1.5 degrees.

The world’s current trajectory of up to 2.9 degrees could be unlivable for coastal communities, low-lying countries and small island states around the world.

“The survival of these places and their heritage will depend on whether the government and industry leaders can agree to cut carbon pollution sharply enough and fast enough to limit global warming to 1.5 Celsius degrees,” Strauss said.

2023 is already set to be the hottest year on record, according to a report released Thursday by the World Meteorological Organization. Each month from June through October set new global monthly temperatures records by wide margins, while ocean temperatures also hit record highs.

These blistering global temperatures are causing glaciers and ice sheets to melt at alarming rates, which adds a significant amount of water to Earth’s oceans. Even Antarctica, the most isolated continent on the planet, is seeing unprecedented melting events. The melting of some large glaciers is now potentially unavoidable and could pose devastating implications for sea level rise globally.

Roughly 385 million people currently live in areas that will be eventually inundated by ocean water at high tide, even if planet-warming pollution is drastically reduced, according to Climate Central.

If we limit warming to 1.5 degrees, sea level rise would still affect land inhabited by 510 million people today. But if the planet breaches 3 degrees, the high-tide line could encroach above land where more than 800 million people live, a recent study found.

But while these scenarios could be centuries away, scientists say with every fraction of a degree of warming, the consequences of climate change worsen.

At COP28, global leaders will discuss how to ramp down planet-warming fossil fuels to prevent the increasing likelihood of an underwater future. This year’s climate talks will also be the first time countries will be negotiating with a new scorecard showing how seriously off-track they are on their climate targets — and how the window to slash climate pollution is “rapidly narrowing.”

At least four people have been killed and dozens wounded by an explosion at a Sunday mass service being held in a university gymnasium in the Philippines.

Photos of the scene showed soldiers and emergency workers standing among debris in the gymnasium. A section of the seating area was blown up, chairs strewn across the floor.

Governor of the Lanao del Sur province, Mamintal Adiong Jr., said there had been a “violent bombing” of a gymnasium at the Mindanao State University during a Sunday mass congregation.

Speaking to reporters at the Amai Pakpak Medical Center, a government hospital in Marawi, Adiong Jr. said more than 40 people were being treated at the center, while a number of others with minor injuries were treated at the university’s infirmary.

In a tweet on Sunday, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. condemned the attack, describing it as “senseless and most heinous, perpetrated by foreign terrorists.” He did not name any specific groups or elaborate further.

He added: “Extremists who wield violence against the innocent will always be regarded as enemies to our society.”

Additional security personnel have been deployed to assist in the response, the president said.

Mindanao, a province in the far south of the Philippines, sits at the borders of Malaysia and Indonesia and is home to several Islamist insurgent groups including Abu Sayyaf.

The island, the second largest in the Philippines, has long been a hotbed of insurgency against the Philippine government.

While the Philippines is mostly Catholic, Mindanao is home to a sizable Muslim population.

In 2017, ISIS-affiliated militants laid siege to Marawi for five months. The violence forced more than 350,000 residents to flee the city and the surrounding areas before the government liberated the city.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

French police have arrested a man suspected of killing one person and injuring two others in a knife and hammer attack in central Paris.

The attack took place at Bir Hakeim, near the Eiffel Tower, France’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told reporters at the scene on Saturday night.

He said that the man arrested was a French citizen previously known to intelligence services.

One man – a German tourist born in the Philippines – was killed in the attack and two others sustained non-life threatening injuries, he added. One of those wounded was a British national, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said Sunday.

One of the police officers responding to the scene used a taser to neutralize the attacker, Darmanin said. The suspect’s life is not at risk, he added.

“After his arrest, he said he could no longer bear to see Muslims dying in both Afghanistan and Palestine,” Darmanin said.

Suspect was known to intelligence services

Addressing reporters, Darmanin said that the suspect was born in France in 1997 and had been sentenced to four years in prison back in 2016 for planning “violent action.”

The suspect was known to intelligence services for having “serious psychiatric disorders,” Darmanin added.

The minister said he had been told by police that the attacker had reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” during the assault.

French President Emmanuel Macron called the incident a terror attack and said France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office would investigate.

“I send all my condolences to the family and loved ones of the German national who died this evening,” Macron wrote in a post on X in the early hours of Sunday.

He also thanked the French emergency services.

“The national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office now will be responsible for shedding light on this matter so that justice can be done in the name of the French people,” Macron wrote.

Videos taken at the scene showed police cars, ambulances and the Paris Fire Brigade arriving, with heavy traffic being diverted away. Numerous cordons were also set up.

Members of the public have been advised to avoid the area.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Some 220 flamingos have been found dead in the province of Catamarca in northwestern Argentina due to an outbreak of avian influenza, otherwise known as bird flu, an official told local media.

Bird flu is a highly contagious and deadly viral disease that naturally spreads through wild aquatic birds, such as ducks, geese and swans, but can also infect other bird species, such as domestic poultry, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The H5N1 strain of avian influenza has spread in more than 80 countries since 2022, according to the World Health Organization, and experts have concerns amid its ongoing impact across continents. H5N1 is the predominant version causing problems in the Americas and Europe, and there are several subtypes of the virus reported as the disease continuously mutates, according to WHO.

Around the globe, there have been reports of bird flu outbreaks flaring in various mammals such as seals and farmed mink, detection of H5N1 viruses in domestic cats and dogs, as well as a few cases reported in humans.

Currently, there is no effective treatment for the virus, according to the New York State Wildlife Health Program.

Risk of spread through bird migration

The infected species — known as James’ flamingo (Phoenicoparrus jamesi), or the puna flamingo — is one of three types of flamingos found in northwestern Argentina. The birds pose a risk of spreading the disease to new areas during migration.

Originally, the H5N1 strain spread from North America to South America through migratory birds in a span of three months, according to Dr. Johanna Harvey, a postdoctoral researcher of environmental science and technology at the University of Maryland who has studied the strain.

It only takes one infected bird to pass on the virus to a whole flock in a matter of days, Harvey said, adding that flamingos are known to be highly gregarious, social animals that live in large flocks.

The H5N1 strain poses a low risk to humans — since December 2021, 11 cases of the strain have been reported in humans globally, according to the CDC. But experts are closely monitoring the lethal pathogen’s spread to other mammals, such as when more than 50 sea lions were found dead in August in Argentina due to infection of the virus.

“My concerns are that it’s in a lot of birds, birds are clearly continuing to move it, and it’s not going away … and as these mortalities pile up, the impact on populations, and potentially even (entire) species, is really great,” Harvey said. “The true magnitude of loss here, I do not believe is well understood and has not been documented, because it’s a really hard thing to do.”

In this latest outbreak, the provincial director of biodiversity for Catamarca, Anabella Ahumada, confirmed the cause of death of hundreds of flamingos to local media, following positive test results for H5N1 in 3 out of 6 samples taken from the dead birds by SENASA, Argentina’s National Food Safety and Quality Service.

Park rangers detected the high rates of mortality in the birds near the bodies of water Laguna Grande and Laguna Diamante, Ahumada told local media outlet Catamarca 12. The province has been under epidemiological surveillance since the start of November, Catamarca 12 reported.

The Argentine government has recommended that people do not come into contact with sick or deceased birds without adequate protection.

More on the bird flu

Across the United States, zoos have been moving their captive birds indoors as the rate of infection continues to rise. In 2022, the Pittsburgh Zoo, the Denver Zoo, the Maryland Zoo and other facilities moved their bird species indoors away from people and other wildlife. Last month, the Dallas Zoo moved its flamingos indoors, NBC 5 in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area reported.

The virus has spread through saliva, mucus and feces from infected birds, according to the CDC. In mammals, some scavenging species have come in contact with the virus by eating infected bird carcasses, Harvey said.

“As far as people interacting with wild birds, there doesn’t seem to be a huge risk to them, because the number of human cases have remained low globally, so we’re not too worried about that,” said Dr. Krysten Schuler, an assistant research professor in the department of public and ecosystem health at Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine in Ithaca, New York. “But the mutation potential and the wide distribution of this virus are the major risk factors.”

James’ flamingo is listed as “near threatened” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species, Schuler noted. The main threats to the bird include habitat loss caused by mining, as well as human disturbances due to recreational activities, according to IUCN. When the virus affects birds that are already struggling population-wise, it can have the potential to eliminate species, Schuler said.

There is not much that can be done to stop the spread of the virus, but Schuler recommends that people report any unusual animal deaths without an obvious cause to their state wildlife agencies, so they can be notified of what areas the disease is spreading.

“If there is any potential to do something about it, our best option is right at the beginning,” Schuler said.

More than half of the world’s population live in urban areas where nature can feel like a distant concern.

Thriving ecosystems do, however, exist within our cities — even beneath our feet — and embracing urban nature can be a powerful force for change.

For example, West London has its first beaver dam in 400 years after the reintroduction of a family of five in October to a wetland on the city’s outskirts. The industrious beavers could help to prevent flooding after heavy rainfall.

Once upon a planet

Interactions between urban dwellers and wildlife don’t always run smoothly.

Cape Town’s baboons can often be found rummaging through garbage cans and around backyards, putting them at greater risk of conflict with humans.

For the primates, the raiding behavior makes some sense — the suburbs encroach on their feeding grounds. Easy access to food from Cape Town’s trash means baboons spend less time and energy foraging, and more on socializing with potential mates and the rest of their group.

However, there are consequences for the baboons. Their health and welfare can suffer as the primates come into contact with dogs, cars and electric power lines. Some baboons have even been shot.

The city has begun taking proactive measures to keep them away from Cape Town’s outskirts and in their natural hillside habitat.

Fantastic creatures

Much nature photography focuses on the wild wonders of Earth and its majestic biodiversity.

Photographer Corey Arnold discovered a bear denning in a California home’s crawl space, while in the lush hillsides of Hong Kong’s New Territories, Lawrence Hylton recorded a collared scops owl, a white-lipped pit viper and an Atlas moth during his nocturnal safaris through Shing Mun Country Park.

The stunning, and sometimes amusing, images show how smart some animals are at adapting to a human-dominated landscape.

Look up

The sun is entering a period of heightened activity, making it easier to witness dazzling natural displays like the northern lights or their counterpart in the Southern Hemisphere.

There have also been sightings of an even rarer night-sky phenomenon that occasionally accompanies auroras. Known as Steve, it appears closer to the equator than polar auroras and is characterized by a purple-pink arch and green vertical stripes.

The mysterious light show was formally identified less than a decade ago, and explanations of what causes it are still taking shape.

The phenomenon’s name also has an unusual origin story involving a 2006 DreamWorks movie.

Across the universe

Astronomers have discovered six planets around a nearby sunlike star with orbits that haven’t changed for more than 1 billion years.

Larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, the exoplanets are in a little-understood class called sub-Neptunes commonly found in the Milky Way.

As the planets revolve around their host star, which is about 100 light-years away from Earth, they display a pattern known as orbital resonance. This is when the planets complete their orbits and exert gravitational forces on one another, creating a harmonic rhythm, with all six planets aligning every few orbits.

Scientists believe the discovery could help unravel mysteries of planet formation.

Trailblazers

Scientists have created tiny living robots from human cells that can move around in a lab dish and may one day be able to help heal wounds or damaged tissue, according to a new study.

A team at Tufts University and Harvard University’s Wyss Institute have dubbed their creations anthrobots.

The research builds on the first living robots, or xenobots, which were made from stem cells sourced from the embryos of African clawed frogs.

However, the human cell-based bots differ in several ways from their froggy forerunners, and they displayed a behavior that surprised scientists.

Explorations

Check out these remarkable stories:

— Celebrate the trailblazing achievements of NASA astronaut Dr. Mary Cleave, who died November 27. She was the first woman to fly on the space shuttle after the Challenger disaster.

— Oceanographers have mapped an underwater mountain off the coast of Guatemala that is nearly twice the height of the world’s tallest building.

— A 19th century Tasmanian colonist came to be known as an accomplished scientist, but letters have now revealed the gruesome cost.

— Fossilized footprints suggest mystery animals once walked around on birdlike feet, long before the earliest known avian species appeared, paleontologists say.

Ukrainian soldier Serhii sits on his hospital bed in a public clinic in central Ukraine. There are small pieces of shrapnel embedded in his legs that the doctors can’t retrieve. Despite the pain, he says he is feeling good.

“I can’t believe that now I’m in the hospital, not in the trench. I did not think I would survive,” says the 36-year-old.

Serhii is an infantryman in the 80th Air Assault Galician Brigade. He joined the army soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, leaving Finland where he had been living and working as a handyman for the previous 10 years to enlist. In a nod to his past, he was given the call sign “Fin.”

A month ago, on October 27, he and his unit were assigned a mission – to hold the trenches on the eastern front line on the outskirts of Bakhmut. That mission was supposed to last three days but stretched into two weeks after the unit became pinned down by enemy fire. For some of the men it would be the last mission they ever saw.

The unit had been under constant shelling for several days when a mortar exploded near to the dugout containing Serhii and two other men, cutting the group off just as they were about to move position.

“We were all wounded. I was wounded in both legs and immediately touched them to check whether they were still there,” Serhii recalled.

The other two soldiers had broken legs and jaws. One of them was so shocked that he asked to kill himself, so the others took his weapon away. When the evacuation team arrived, Serhii insisted they take the other men first and that he would wait for the next opportunity.

But that opportunity never came. Whenever other units arrived, constant Russian bombardment kept them pinned down and unable to reach Serhii.

Multiple evacuation teams would try to reach Serhii over the next two weeks, but none could get through and some died trying.

“We were under constant enemy fire. The enemy seemed to be looking for our weaknesses or testing our endurance,” he recalled.

With Serhii confined to his trench, his commander used a drone to drop off essentials to him such as water, painkillers, chocolate bars, and even cigarettes.

“The water was a big problem because, first, the drone could not pick up big bottles of water. So the drone dropped small bottles wrapped in paper and tape, but not every bottle could survive (the fall) and they often broke. Water was leaking out. I appreciated every sip of water,” Serhii said.

At the same time, Russian drones were targeting the dugout with more sinister payloads, one of them dropping a grenade right next to Serhii, who by this point had been joined by another Ukrainian soldier who had become cut off.

“It exploded near the other soldier’s back and half a meter from me, near my feet. We were wounded but lucky to survive. It was possible to evacuate only one critically injured soldier. So at that moment I realized I was alone.”

Surrounded

For the next three days Serhii hid in his dugout surrounded by the enemy. Each hour Russian troops came closer and closer to his position. He could hear their voices and knew their plan.

Believing that he would not survive, Serhii contacted his commander on the radio and whispered to him the coordinates of the enemy – essentially calling in artillery strikes on his very own position.

Thanks to Serhii, Ukrainian artillery conducted several accurate strikes, but more Russian soldiers continued to take up positions around him.

“I was surrounded by enemies,” Serhii explained. “When they couldn’t hear me, I whispered the coordinates again on the radio and our artillery fired at them.”

At one point, Serhii thought his time was up when a Russian soldier climbed into his dugout. The soldier asked Serhii where he was from and the Ukrainian replied in Russian that he had a concussion and asked for water. The Russian soldier did not give him water but crawled out of the trench, apparently still unaware Serhii was Ukrainian.

“I still can’t understand how he didn’t realize I was from the Ukrainian armed forces. I was wearing a Ukrainian uniform. My pants were in pixels. Yes, they were dirty. But it was obvious that the boots were Ukrainian,” Serhii recalled.

With all efforts to evacuate Serhii exhausted, his commander eventually told him the only way out was to crawl and pray.

“I had to crawl through the dugout where Russians were. Holding the radio in my left hand on my knees, I started crawling. I came across a tripwire with a grenade on it. I could hear the commander on the radio correcting me, but I could not contact him myself. The battery was almost dead. The commander shouted at me that I should move. So, finally I got to the Ukrainian positions, ‘Fin, keep moving,’ they kept telling me.”

Serhii has now been recovering for more than two weeks. Sitting in the warm hospital ward, he remembers how he licked rainwater from his trench and would dream about every sip.

“You should see what our guys are doing on the front line. How they fight, evacuate, and rescue their dudes. Our guys are paying a very high price. They pay with their blood. All I want is to do is go fishing with my dudes, drink some beers and sit in silence”.

Taras Ratushnyy remembers receiving a phone call from his son Roman during Ukraine’s deadly 2013 Maidan Revolution.

“I’m okay, we are coming back home with my friends from (Kyiv’s Maidan Square). Don’t worry and good night,” Roman said over the phone – even while Taras heard that same voice blaring from his television as his 16-year-old son declared the protesters’ plans to storm a building. 

The protests, which spread across Ukraine and came to symbolize its existential tug-of-war between Europe and Russia, set into motion a young generation determined to shape the nation’s future – and at the fore was Roman.

In some ways, his political convictions began long before Maidan. Both his parents were previously activists and journalists; his mother Svitlana Povalyaeva, also a writer and poet, took part in the Maidan Revolution alongside her two sons.

But that path became clear as Roman came of age against the backdrop of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, and violence between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in the eastern regions.

By 2022, he had become a well-known environmental and anti-corruption activist, with a following of supporters and admirers.

Then, Russia invaded Ukraine.

Roman immediately enlisted with the military, as did his brother and father. Nine years after the Maidan Revolution lit a spark, he was again fighting on the front lines for the future of his country, and for the democratic hopes shared by many of his generation.

But he knew he might not survive this fight. By May that year, Ukraine was losing up to 100 soldiers a day, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.

That month, Roman – who “had a plan for everything he did,” Taras said – wrote his last will and testament on a single sheet of A4 paper, using both sides.

He laid out requests for his funeral – the ceremony, the music, the Cossack cross monument. He quoted one of his mother’s poems. And he dedicated his love to the city where he was born, as were his parents, and grandparents: “Kyiv, I died far from you, but I died for you.”

Two weeks later, on June 8, 2022, Roman was killed in action near Izium, in eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast. He was 24 years old.

Fighting for a European future

The Maidan protests were sparked by Ukraine’s then-President Viktor Yanukovych abruptly scrapping a trade deal with the European Union. Supporters of the deal had hoped it would bring Ukraine closer to the West, generate economic growth, and open borders to trade.

Instead, Yanukovych – a pro-Russia leader – turned toward Moscow, striking new deals with Vladimir Putin, and dashing the opposition’s hopes of stronger ties with Europe.

Furious, thousands of demonstrators occupied Kyiv’s Maidan, or Independence Square. Over the months, the protests swelled to represent broader outrage over Yanukovych’s policies, widespread government corruption, and police brutality — as well as the movement’s pro-democracy, Europe-leaning dreams.

In the midst of all this was Roman. At the time, the best way to find the 16-year-old was to “go to the hottest point (of the clashes),” said Taras. “Ninety-nine percent (of the time) he was there, and one percent he was sleeping somewhere because he was out of batteries.”

In her book about the revolution, history professor Marci Shore recalled asking Roman whether his mother was upset about his participation in the protests. The teenager replied: “My mother was making Molotov cocktails on Hrushevskogo Street.”

The ensuing crackdown came to a head on February 20, 2014, when police and government forces opened fire on protesters. About 100 people are believed to have died during the revolution, which ultimately saw Yanukovych ousted and exiled from Ukraine.

The movement triggered a chain of events that would roil Ukraine for years, including the annexation of Crimea and the simmering conflict in the east near Russia’s border. But it also brought a spate of government reforms – and hope to a generation of young Ukrainians hungry for change.

“Just like (how) you can’t see the forest for the trees, we, as participants of the Maidan, may not be able to see now what impact this event had on the whole history of Ukraine, but I hope it had a serious impact,” said Roman said in a YouTube video uploaded in 2014, near the anniversary of the protests.

“For me, all that was not in vain,” he added. “I see a huge number of positive changes in this country. And they happened only thanks to Maidan.”

‘My youth, my life, and my fight’

When the war broke out in 2022, Roman – who had become known for fighting to protect a green space in Kyiv from real estate development – joined the Battle of Kyiv to push Russian forces from the capital.

He then joined the 93rd separate mechanized brigade, helping to liberate a town from Russian occupation and fighting in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy Oblast.

Through it all, he posted occasional Instagram photos of himself and fellow soldiers – at one point posting a poem by the executed Ukrainian intellectual Mykhail Semenko.

“When I die, I will die not of death / but of life,” reads one translation of the poem by Ukrainian-American writer Boris Dralyuk. “When all nature grows calm, I’ll depart, / ahead of the last stormy night – / in a flash, when death seizes my heart, / my youth, my life, and my fight.”

His father, meanwhile, tried not to think about the danger Roman was in.

“All I can do is ask, how are you? How can I help you? But (those were) kind of stupid questions from a father who is very far and cannot make any impact on his condition,” Taras said during his visit to the cemetery in November.

After Roman was killed in June 2022, his body was brought back to Kyiv, with the funeral and memorial service attended by hundreds of mourners including the city mayor. Large crowds gathered in Independence Square to pay tribute – the very place he had fought as a young protester in 2013, when his future stretched long and bright before him.

Now, more than a year later, the memory of Roman’s legacy – and that of the Maidan Revolution – continues to resonate with Ukrainians as the war grinds on into its second winter, and as Ukraine pushes hard to join the European Union.

This longtime ambition took a step forward in November, when the bloc’s executive body said detailed negotiations for membership should begin next year.

“I wish him to be proud of us. I see that it’s one year and more (since his death), but almost every day something is going on connected with Roman,” Taras said, visibly emotional. “Thousands of Ukrainians are stepping into the battle in his name trying to continue what he did. I see that Roman is still in action.”

Scientists have used the remains of some 500 people to create a series of “bone biographies” that provide a glimpse inside the ordinary lives of plague survivors of the English city of Cambridge.

The skeletons, which came from a series of archaeological digs that began in the 1970s, date back to between 1000 and 1500.

During that medieval era, Cambridge was home to a few thousand people. The bubonic plague — known as the Black Death — came to the city between 1348 and 1349, killing 40% to 60% of its population, according to the study.

Archaeologists used radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis to study the bones of townsfolk, scholars, friars and merchants, eventually focusing on 16 people by examining their DNA, bodily trauma, activities and diets to paint a fuller picture of their existence, called osteobiographies. The findings appear in a study published Thursday in the journal Antiquity.

“An osteobiography uses all available evidence to reconstruct an ancient person’s life,” said lead study author John Robb, a professor at Cambridge University, in a statement. “Our team used techniques familiar from studies such as Richard III’s skeleton, but this time to reveal details of unknown lives — people we would never learn about in any other way.”

The bone biographies are available on Cambridge University’s After the Plague project website.

“The importance of using osteobiography on ordinary folk rather than elites, who are documented in historical sources, is that they represent the majority of the population but are those that we know least about,” said study coauthor Dr. Sarah Inskip, researcher and osteoarchaeologist at the University of Leicester, in a statement.

Extracting stories from bones

The five-year After the Plague project, which began in 2016, focused on investigating burials from Cambridge’s Hospital of St. John the Evangelist, the medieval parish church of All Saints by the Castle, and the Augustinian Friary. Together, the bones tell a collective story about a cross section of people living in medieval Cambridge and the hardships they faced.

The researchers gave their subjects pseudonyms based on records from the time.

“Death and time ensure anonymity for our sources, but we wanted to them to feel relatable,” Robb said.

The osteobiographies provide windows into the lives of people such as Anne, a woman with repeated injuries that caused her to hobble on a shortened right leg, and Eudes, a friar with a square jaw who enjoyed a rich diet and suffered from gout.

The bones also tell surprising stories, such as that of Edmund, who suffered from leprosy but may not have been diagnosed and wasn’t ostracized. He lived among the general population before being buried in a rare wooden coffin, rather than a simple burial shroud. And then there was Wat, who survived the plague and died as an older man with cancer.

Wat was a resident of the charitable Hospital of St. John, which was founded to house the poor and infirm as a type of medieval benefits system.

“Like all medieval towns, Cambridge was a sea of need,” Robb said. “A few of the luckier poor people got bed and board in the hospital for life. Selection criteria would have been a mix of material want, local politics, and spiritual merit.”

A dozen or so people could stay at the hospital at a time and sometimes lived there for years. The hospital was founded in 1195 and lasted for hundreds of years before St. John’s College replaced it in 1511. It was founded to help the poor, rather than provide medical care, and statutes prevented the limited staff from taking in those who could not care for themselves.

“We know that lepers, pregnant women and the insane were prohibited, while piety was a must,” Robb said. The hospital residents were required to pray for the souls of the hospital benefactors, Robb said. “A hospital was a prayer factory.”

While many of the skeletons belonged to locals who lived in Cambridge or surrounding villages, three people buried at the hospital’s cemetery appeared to have traveled great distances to reach the city. One of them was a woman named Christiana.

An analysis of her bone chemistry suggests she came from as far as Norway. The researchers aren’t sure what brought her to Cambridge as a young adult, but it was likely for a short-term trip involving trade, traveling with merchant family members, or attending the annual Stourbridge Fair, one of the largest fairs in England held on the outskirts of the city.

Sometime during her visit, Christiana died. Her bones don’t reveal injury or severe chronic disease, but a rapid infection may have killed her.

While the hospital didn’t take in short-term residents for medical care, Christiana was laid to rest in the cemetery’s consecrated ground as a form of charity, according to the project.

Life in medieval times

Analyzing each skeleton gave the researchers insights into the diets of Cambridge’s residents, the physical toll of their daily lives, and any illnesses or injuries they endured. The bones revealed how tough life could be.

For example, half of those buried in the All Saints cemetery did not survive childhood. And children buried in the hospital cemetery were small for their age, showing signs of anemia, injury and illness such as tuberculosis.

The hospital residents bore traces of harsh childhoods shaped by famine and widespread diseases. But things often changed once they came to stay at the hospital, showing they were served a balanced and nutritious diet that allowed many to improve in their final years.

Because it can take years for dietary changes to be reflected in bones, the analysis showed that some residents, such as Maria, may have lived there for five to 10 years. Maria experienced illness from the time she was young, and likely died of tuberculosis between the ages of 18 and 25.

Things were different for the men at the Augustinian Friary, who were on average an inch taller than the townspeople and enjoyed a diet filled with meat and fish.

Studying arm bones also revealed a population of early university scholars buried in the hospital cemetery. The townsmen all had strongly developed right arms, reflecting the manual or craft labor of their trade, but 10 male skeletons stood out.

“These men did not habitually do manual labour or craft, and they lived in good health with decent nutrition, normally to an older age. It seems likely they were early scholars of the University of Cambridge,” Robb said. “University clerics did not have the novice-to-grave support of clergy in religious orders. Most scholars were supported by family money, earnings from teaching, or charitable patronage. Less well-off scholars risked poverty once illness or infirmity took hold. As the university grew, more scholars would have ended up in hospital cemeteries.”

Some skeletons belonged to those who did not survive the plague, such as Dickon, who died between 45 and 60 years old. After becoming ill, he likely lived only for two to three days, sheltering at home before succumbing to the Black Death. But those who cared for him made sure he was buried properly in the local church cemetery, according to the project.

While the Black Death was responsible for claiming thousands of lives, it wasn’t the greatest threat, the study authors said. Chronic infectious diseases such as tuberculosis affected populations across Europe.

“Everyday diseases, such as measles, whooping cough and gastrointestinal infections, ultimately took a far greater toll on medieval populations,” Robb said.