China has accused Canada of carrying out “malicious and provocative” actions in the South China Sea, after the Canadian Navy said Chinese fighter jets endangered a helicopter in two close intercepts above international waters.

Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair briefed reporters on the incidents later Friday, saying the Chinese jets’ actions were deemed to be “significantly unsafe” and put “the safety of all personnel involved in unnecessary risk.”

Canada said both incidents took place in international waters within the South China Sea.

China’s Defense Ministry hit back on Saturday, accusing Canada of violating Chinese and international laws, jeopardizing China’s sovereignty and security, and conducting “malicious and provocative act with ulterior motives.”

Zhang Xiaogang, a spokesperson for the Chinese Defense Ministry, said Canada’s HMCS Ottawa frigate flew two helicopter sorties with “unknown intentions” toward China’s airspace around the Xisha Islands – a disputed archipelago claimed by China, Vietnam and Taiwan and also known as the Paracel Islands.

“China’s People’s Liberation Army organized naval and air forces to conduct identification, verification in accordance with the law and issued multiple warnings. However, the Canadian helicopter not only refused to respond, but also took provocative actions such as flying at ultra-low altitudes,” Zhang said in a statement posted on the ministry’s website.

“We urge the Canadian side not to ignore the facts, stop exaggerating and hyping up (the incident), and to strictly restrict the actions of its frontline naval and air forces to prevent accidents at sea and in the air,” he added.

He said he had to descend to 200 feet – an area where the helicopter can operate but is “very uncomfortable for fast air fighter jets” – to end the “unsafe” encounter with Chinese jets.

The Chinese fighters flew in circles so close that his helicopter experienced turbulence coming off the jets, which posed a danger to the copter, Millen said.

China claims historic jurisdiction over almost the entirety of the vast South China Sea, which is a resource rich and vital international shipping route. Since 2014 Beijing has built up tiny reefs and sandbars into artificial islands heavily fortified with missiles, runways and weapons systems – sparking outcry from the other claimants.

In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague concluded that China has no legal basis to claim historic rights to the bulk of the South China Sea. China has ignored the ruling and Western powers routinely conduct naval passages through the sea to uphold the claim that it is an international waterway.

The latest incidents are the second risky midair intercept Canada has accused China of conducting last month.

In mid-October, a Chinese fighter jet came within 5 meters (16 feet) of a Canadian CP-140 reconnaissance and surveillance plane over the East China Sea.

That incident was recorded by news crews aboard the Canadian aircraft and witnessed by Maj. Gen. Iain Huddleston, the commander of Canada’s 1st Air Division, who was also on the plane.

Huddleston called the intercept “unprofessional” and “very aggressive” in a report from Radio Canada, which was on the plane.

“The Canadian aircraft was subject to multiple close-proximity maneuvers by a PLAAF aircraft that put the safety of all personnel at risk,” Canada’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.

China’s Foreign Ministry said the Canadian plane illegally entered Chinese airspace and accused the Canadian military of sending “warplanes halfway around the world to stir up trouble and make provocations at China’s doorsteps.”

Blazing fires, biblical floods and catastrophic storms are becoming increasingly common but they could be just a taste of things to come. Scientists say our planet is teetering towards a number of climate “tipping points” which could cause irreversible changes to the place we all call home.

From the Antarctic ice sheet to the Amazon rainforest, the consequences of climate change can be seen right now – but it’s not the only threat to the natural world. In a series of graphics, we take a look at some of the biggest environmental challenges facing our planet.

Dwindling biodiversity

Human activities including logging, pollution, overfishing and urban development are driving a staggering loss of biodiversity. Global wildlife populations plummeted by 69% on average between 1970 and 2018, according to WWF’s Living Planet Report 2022.

It notes that land-use change – which includes clearing land for agriculture or urban development – is the biggest current threat to nature, but adds that climate change is “likely to become the dominant cause of biodiversity loss in the coming decades.”

The UN’s landmark 2019 biodiversity report said that one million of all the planet’s eight million species are threatened with extinction. It reported that the global rate of extinction “is already tens to hundreds of times higher than it has been, on average, over the last 10 million years.”

Our fading forests

Trees soak up planet-heating carbon dioxide and forests can lock away carbon for centuries, but they’re disappearing at an alarming rate due to a combination of human activities.

Southeast Asia’s peat swamp forests are home to varied wildlife and hold large below-ground carbon stocks but many of these forests have been drained and degraded to make room for farmland. Drained peatland can dry up and turn into a tinderbox, and if it catches fire, it can release up to 10 times more carbon than forest fires.

Elsewhere, researchers have found that some tropical forests – including the southeastern part of the Amazon rainforest – are shifting from a carbon sink to a carbon source, adding more carbon into the atmosphere.

Problem plastic

It can take anywhere from 20 to 500 years for plastics to decompose and they can be found pretty much anywhere, from city streets to Antarctic sea ice and even drinking water. Not even the planet’s tallest peak or the world’s deepest ocean trench can escape plastic pollution.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a 620,000-square-mile swirl of trash, floats on the ocean surface between California and Hawaii, threatening aquatic life with entanglement and chemical contamination.

Plastics pose a significant threat to wildlife from seals to seabirds, and have been found in the guts of many aquatic organisms, including every marine turtle species. Microplastics, plastics that have been broken down into tiny pieces, can be found in our drinking water systems and even floating in the air.

Pollinators on the brink

Pollinators include bumblebees, wasps, moths and butterflies, as well as birds and small mammals, like bats. But many are facing threats from pesticides and crop monocultures, as well as the destruction of their habitats.

A 2023 study from the University of Sheffield found that night-time moths account for a third of pollinator visits to crops, flowers and trees in all urban areas, but their global abundance has declined by 33% in the last 50 years.

If pollinators continue to decline in numbers, this could have serious repercussions for food production. One study estimated that the loss of pollinators globally is causing a decline in the supply of healthy foods that’s resulting in about 430,000 early deaths a year.

Bird populations under threat

Global bird populations face pressure from habitat destruction due to agriculture, development and logging, while seabirds are being impacted by overfishing.

In 50 years, nearly 3 billion birds have disappeared from North America’s skies and the UK has 73 million fewer birds than it had in 1970, according to research from the British Trust for Ornithology.

In Hawaii, 33 bird species have gone extinct since 1825 due to habitat loss and the introduction of mammals and disease, while in India, 178 species of wild bird are of high conservation priority.

Despite the scale of the challenges, there are countless groups and individuals committed to protecting our planet. For Call to Earth Day 2023, we’re celebrating the initiatives that strive to protect nature and our connected ecosystems across the world. Find out how you can get involved.

A hostage situation that halted all flights to and from Hamburg Airport is now over, according to police in the northern German city.

A 35-year-old male suspect has now left his car with his 4-year-old daughter, Hamburg police said on X, formerly Twitter. He did not resist arrest and the girl is seemingly not injured, officers said.

The man had smashed through security with his vehicle at the airport Saturday and then parked underneath an airplane, a police spokesperson said earlier. As of midnight Sunday, the driver was still in his car with his daughter, the spokesperson added.

A “substantial amount of special forces” were on the ground trying to resolve the situation, the spokesperson said. The man’s wife had previously warned Hamburg-Stade police that her child was missing.

After parking his car on the tarmac, acoustic shocks were heard, which could have been shots, the spokesperson said. Passengers of the aircraft were able to leave the plane unharmed via a gangway.

The airport’s official website announced Saturday evening that it had grounded all take-offs and landings due to the police operation.

All flights remained halted as of Sunday morning local time, as the police attempted to “relieve” the hostage situation at the center of a “family drama,” according to a spokesperson.

Hamburg Police said in a post on social media on Sunday at 8.35 a.m. local time (2.35 a.m. ET) that officers police were continuing negotiations with the suspect.

Police also said they assumed the suspect was armed and “possibly” also had “explosive devices of an unknown type.”

The top priority was the child that is with the suspect, police said Sunday, adding they believed the child is physically well.

Apparent divisions between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his military command are becoming increasingly public, after a bitter back-and-forth over the state of play in the war with Russia.

Igor Zhovka, the deputy head of Zelensky’s office, on Saturday condemned an assessment by Ukraine’s military chief that the war with Russia is at a “stalemate,” deepening a feud in Kyiv which has heightened nerves about Western support for the conflict.

He was responding to an interview with military chief Valery Zaluzhny, who told The Economist on Wednesday that “we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate” and “there will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough” in the war.

Zhovka told Ukrainian television that Zaluzhny’s interview will have been “carefully read, noted down and conclusions drawn” by the Russians. He said he had received calls from counterparts in partner countries “in a panic” asking if the war really is at a stalemate, as described by Zaluzhny.

“Is this the effect we wanted to achieve with this article?” Zhovka said.

“Perhaps this is a very deep strategic plan, and we will achieve some success in this way. But to be honest, I am very surprised,” Zhovka added.

The tensions come at a pivotal moment in the war, with Kyiv’s slow-moving counter-offensive and the outbreak of violence in the Middle East sparking fears that Western financial and military aid could begin to flag.

Zelensky also disagreed with Zaluzhnyi’s assessment during a press conference with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Saturday, but admitted that people are “tired” after 18 months of war in the country.

“People are tired. Everyone is tired. There are different opinions […] Everyone is human, regardless of status… But this is not a stalemate. I emphasize this once again. We have already talked about this. This is not some kind of news,” Zelensky said.

“We all need to get together and resolve the issues, work more with our partners on air defense, unblock the skies, and enable our guys to take offensive actions. This is what we need to think about. Only about this. Not about where we will be tomorrow. But now,” Zelensky said.

Zaluzhny also laid out in his interview his vision for what Ukraine needs to do and the kind of support needed from partners to break the deadlock.

But his overall characterization of the conflict raised eyebrows in Ukraine and made international headlines. It came as a separate interview, given by Zelensky to TIME, painted the Ukrainian president as an increasingly isolated figure.

“Nobody believes in our victory like I do. Nobody,” Zelensky told TIME, adding that instilling those beliefs in Ukraine’s allies “takes all your power, your energy.”

“Exhaustion with the war rolls along like a wave. You see it in the United States, in Europe,” Zelensky was quoted as saying.

He admitted that the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas has diverted attention from Ukraine’s fight against Russia, complicating efforts to maintain international enthusiasm for his country’s fight.

“Of course we lose out from the events in the Middle East. People are dying, and the world’s help is needed there to save lives,” Zelensky said.

He added to those comments during von der Leyen’s Saturday trip to Kyiv.

“It is obvious the war in the Middle East, this conflict takes away the focus. I think it is one of the goals of the Russian Federation… It’s a fact. We see the outcomes,” Zelensky said.

The Ukrainian leader had previously expressed solidarity with Israel in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks, recommending that world leaders “go to Israel” and offer support to the “people who have been under terrorist attacks.”

Ukraine is meanwhile continuing with a difficult counter-offensive against Russian forces in the south and east.

Kyiv has been able to land more successful blows through the air, and said its air force carried out successful airstrikes on a shipyard in the eastern port city of Kerch in the Russian occupied Crimean peninsula on Saturday.

The Crimean Bridge, also known as the Kerch Bridge, was temporarily shut down for traffic for two hours on Saturday. Russian authorities did not provide a reason for the road closure on the vital artery that connects mainland Russia to the occupied peninsula.

When an elderly couple held a garage sale after selling their second home in the south of France, little did they know they would become embroiled in a legal battle with millions of euros at stake

The grandfather, René-Victor Edward Maurice Fournier, had served as a colonial governor in Central Africa during the early 20th century, when significant parts of the continent were under French colonial rule.

The Fourniers sold their mask in September of 2021 to a second-hand dealer for 150 euros, court documents show. According to their lawyer, Frédéric Mansat Jaffré, the two were unaware of the mask’s market value and believed the dealer was offering a fair price.

A few months later, their lawyer said they learned through a newspaper article that their old mask was being auctioned off, and that it was worth substantially more than what the dealer paid.

The Fourniers launched a civil case against the dealer which they lost in the fall of 2022 and were ordered to pay court costs.

Now they are appealing the earlier court decision, claiming the dealer failed “in his obligation to provide pre-contractual information” and committed “a breach of consent.”

The couple seeks to annul the sale of the mask and want the auction’s proceeds to be given to them.

An extremely rare artifact

As the appeal commenced at the Alès Tribunal in southern France on Tuesday, the Gabonese government waded in and formally requested a suspension of the proceedings..

The dealer’s defense, according to court documents, maintains that he was unaware of the value of the mask when he purchased it from the couple and only discovered it once he went to the auction house to have it appraised.

Court documents show that his lawyers argued that “the sellers have no grounds for claiming error. They themselves offered the item for sale at 150 euros. They made an inaccurate economic assessment of the value presented by the mask.”

If the court accepts its petition to suspend the current legal proceedings on the sale of the Ngil mask, the country will be able to pursue their separate case for the handling of stolen goods and fight for the mask to be returned to its country of origin.

The court is expected to make its decision known on December 19.

Dating from the 19th century, it belonged to the powerful Ngil society, a secret group tasked with administering justice within the Fang communities of Gabon, according to Betoe Bi Evie.

“For Westerners, the mask is an art object,” Betoe Bi Evie said, “but for Africans, for the Gabonese… it’s a ritual object used to ensure peace in society. It’s very important.”

According to a Sotheby’s listing for a similar Ngil mask, these artifacts “are among the rarest and most highly celebrated of all African artworks,” making them “keenly sought after as indispensable keystones of the best collections of African art.”

A fraught legal battle

The couple’s lawyer argued in court that the dealer deliberately withheld information about the origins of the mask from them and planned to split the money with their gardener, who had provided him with information about the Fourniers’ ties to the former colonial governor.

The dealer and the gardener allegedly visited the auction house together, presenting themselves as co-owners of the mask, the sellers assert in court documents.

The couple say the dealer did not inform them of his relationship with their gardener, nor that he had any intention of auctioning off their mask, according to their lawyer.

After the Fourniers discovered the mask was being auctioned off, they contacted the dealer, who offered 300,000 euros in compensation, equivalent to the auction house’s estimate of the mask’s worth, Mansat Jaffré said.

The couple’s children advised their parents to refuse the sum and file a lawsuit.

For the moment, 3.2 million euros, the amount the dealer earned from the sale of the mask after tax deductions and commission fees, have been frozen in his bank account by the courts, Mansat Jaffré said.

The trial has attracted attention among France’s large African diaspora and among those at the court were several Gabonese protesters demanding that the mask be returned to their country.

Some were also present at the auction house when the mask was sold, back in March 2022, according to Solange Bizeau, president of the Collectif Gabon Occitanie, the organization behind the protests.

“The two lawyers told the court that we, the Gabonese people and the Gabonese State, have no legitimate claim to (the mask),” said Bizou. “I was shocked to see that they (those participating in the trial) weren’t interested in the mask, they didn’t care what it meant for us, all they wanted was money.”

Today, only a dozen Ngil masks remain in the world, according to court documents.

Calls for restitution

French President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly called for the restitution of colonial artifacts from French collections to their original owners. After his election in 2017, he expressed his desire for “the conditions to be in place within five years for temporary or permanent restitutions of African heritage to Africa.”

According to a report submitted to Macron in 2018, there are at least 80,000 objects from Sub-Saharan Africa held in French public collections. Until now, only a handful have been returned to their countries of origin.

Some artifacts have been returned indefinitely, like the 26 looted royal objects that comprise the Treasure of Behanzin, restituted to Benin in 2020.

Others were returned to their birthplaces on long-term loans, like a sword and scabbard of West African leader Omar Tall, currently exhibited in Senegal’s Museum of Black Civilizations.

In addition to Benin and Senegal, five other African countries – Chad, Madagascar, the Ivory Coast, Ethiopia and Mali – have made official requests for restitutions from the French government.

However, as the Ngil mask at the center of the ongoing trial wasn’t held in a public collection, Gabon cannot demand its restitution from France.

Countries have moved a step closer to getting a fund off the ground to help poor states damaged by climate disasters, despite reservations from developing nations and the United States.

The deal to create a “loss and damage” fund was hailed as a breakthrough for developing country negotiators at United Nations climate talks in Egypt last year, overcoming years of resistance from wealthy nations.

But in the past 11 months, governments have struggled to reach consensus on the details of the fund, such as who will pay and where the fund will be located.

A special UN committee tasked with implementing the fund met for a fifth time in Abu Dhabi this week — following a deadlock in Egypt last month — to finalize recommendations that will be put to governments when they meet for the annual climate summit COP28 in Dubai in less than four weeks’ time. The goal is to get the fund up and running by 2024.

The committee, representing a geographically diverse group of countries, on Saturday resolved to recommend the World Bank serve as trustee and host of the fund — a tension point that has fueled divisions between developed and developing nations.

Housing a fund at the World Bank, whose presidents are appointed by the US, would give donor countries outsized influence over the fund and result in high fees for recipient countries, developing countries have argued.

To get all countries on board, it was agreed the World Bank would serve as interim trustee and host of the fund for a four-year period.

Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s special climate envoy, said in a post on X that Berlin “stands ready to fulfill its responsibility — we’re actively working towards contributing to the new fund and assessing options for more structural sources of financing.”

Others were less optimistic.

“It is a somber day for climate justice, as rich countries turn their backs on vulnerable communities,” said Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy at nonprofit Climate Action Network International.

“Rich countries … have not only coerced developing nations into accepting the World Bank as the host of the Loss and Damage Fund but have also evaded their duty to lead in providing financial assistance to those communities and countries.”

The committee also recommended that developed countries be urged to continue to provide support to the fund, but failed to resolve whether wealthy nations would be under strict financial obligation to chip in.

“We regret that the text does not reflect consensus concerning the need for clarity on the voluntary nature of contributions,” a US State Department official told Reuters.

The US attempted to include a footnote clarifying that any contributions to the fund would be voluntary, but the committee chair did not allow it. The US objected to that denial.

Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, who will preside over the COP28 talks, said he welcomed the committee’s recommendations and that they would pave the way for an agreement at COP28.

Later Sunday, the hospital’s director, Dr Eyad Abu Zaher, said 52 people had been killed, differing from the health ministry’s figure.

“One of the houses in the camp was struck. This house was crowded with residents. Its residents were bombed while they were safe in their homes,” added head of nursing Dr. Khalil Al-Daqran.

The Israeli military did not have an immediate comment as to whether it was targeting the area. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says it is looking into the circumstances around the explosion.

Video taken at the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Hospital showed multiple bodies laid out under white tarpaulins, including small figures believed to be children, and more bodies were still coming in from the Al-Maghazi refugee camp, said Dr. Al-Daqran.

He said the hospital was not equipped to accept the high number of patients, and the shortage of fuel and supplies made it impossible to adequately treat the wounded.

The IDF has been pounding Gaza for four weeks with the stated aim of annihilating Hamas, whose fighters breached the Israeli border October 7, killing 1,400 people and taking more than 200 hostage.

Israel has repeatedly urged civilians to move south of Wadi Gaza as it has intensified its air and ground assaults across the strip.

At least 9,472 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, according to figures released Sunday by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah that are drawn from sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave.

‘The whole building fell on us’

Alaloul, a freelance photojournalist with the Turkish news agency Anadolu, said his home was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted the Al-Maghazi refugee camp.

Hospital officials in Gaza have also attributed the explosion to an Israeli airstrike.

“I saw my son Kenan, my daughter Rahaf, I saw Ahmad my son … and Qais, my son. I saw my three siblings martyred; I saw friends who were at my house martyred,” Alaloul said.

On returning to where his home once stood, Alaloul recounted: “My house was completely destroyed. … It was full of children, and now, there are still people trapped in the debris in the area that we can’t reach.”

He said his wife, mother, father and another child were injured. His wife was critically wounded and was admitted to the intensive care unit.

The Al-Maghazi refugee camp is located in the central part of the coastal enclave south of Wadi Gaza, the waterway that divides north from south Gaza.

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the camp is filled with narrow alleys, where 33,000 people lived before the conflict, in a relatively densely packed area no more than 0.6 square kilometers.

Jamal Al Aloul, a resident of Al-Maghazi, said he was sleeping soundly when suddenly “the whole building fell on us.”

He said his two children were killed in the collapse but he did not know who else had been killed because so many people lived in the building.

“I saw a red light, then we were shaking on the sofa, I saw all my sisters screaming. … When I found myself alive, I looked to see who is still alive,” she said.

She said moments later she found her father dead.

Her mother, Sundos Shaqura, said the whole house collapsed suddenly on them, as they shared some tea after their evening prayer.

The unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza has prompted global criticism of Israel, with even some of its closest allies calling for a break in the fighting – either a humanitarian pause or ceasefire – to allow aid to reach civilians.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with key Middle Eastern leaders at a summit in Jordan on Saturday, when he again rejected calls for a ceasefire and reiterated US support for “humanitarian pauses.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government opposes any temporary ceasefire in Gaza unless Hamas frees all the hostages it took during the militant group’s rampage October 7. Netanyahu said Israel would continue to block fuel from entering the enclave.

Despite Israel’s opposition, Blinken reiterated his calls during an unannounced visit to Iraq on Sunday, saying he had “no doubt” that “everyone would welcome humanitarian pauses” in Gaza.

Speaking to the media after his meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani in Baghdad, Blinken said negotiations on a pause are a “process,” but that US and Israeli teams were meeting Sunday to “work through the specifics, the practicalities of these pauses.”

“Israel has raised important questions about how humanitarian pauses would work. We’ve got to answer those questions. We’re working on exactly that,” he said.

The murder of five women within 10 days in Australia, allegedly by men they knew, has left Manuela Whitford feeling “numb.”

“We’ve become so conditioned … you hear it all the time, I’ve just become so numb,” she said. “But on the other scale, I go, ‘Oh, my God,’ I’m doing a good thing for the people that I can help.”

Whitford is the founder of Friends with Dignity, a Brisbane-based charity that gives families fleeing domestic violence everything they need to feel at home in emergency accommodation.

They’re mostly mothers with children, who leave with few possessions but carry the weight of fear and worry about where they’re going and how they’re going to cope.

“They are so isolated. This is years of conditioning people that you’re not good enough, you’re not worth it, you’ve got no value,” Whitford said from the charity’s warehouse south of Brisbane.

Tucked at the back of an industrial park, the warehouse shelves are piled high with household goods, boxes of toys, and mattresses washed, stacked and ready for delivery to apartments secured by welfare agencies.

It’s hoped the donations will help save lives, but it’s the women who were unable to escape allegedly violent men that made headlines in Australia in recent weeks.

The five women killed in 10 days include a 21-year-old water polo coach who had reportedly recently split up with her suspected killer, and a 65-year-old woman whose elderly husband has been accused of murder.

They’re now numbers on a national count that’s at 43 so far this year, according to Counting Dead Women, a research project started by feminist group Destroy the Joint, which takes its name from an insult hurled in 2012 by an Australian shock jock who accused women leaders of “destroying the joint.”

5 dead women

The most recent alleged murder was discovered on Monday, when security staff at the Crown Towers hotel in Perth, Western Australia, received a phone call from worried family members of Alice McShera, a 34-year-old lawyer.

They checked a room and found McShera’s body, WA Police Inspector Geoff DeSanges told reporters on Tuesday. A 42-year-old man found in the same room with suspected self-inflicted injuries was later charged with murder.

Last Sunday, 46-year-old Analyn Osias, known as Logee, suffered fatal injuries in a house in Kangaroo Flats, according to Victoria Police. A 44-year-old man has been charged with murder.

Days earlier, Lilie James, a 21-year-old water polo coach, was found dead with head injuries in the gym toilet of a private school in Sydney, according to New South Wales Police. The body of her 24-year-old former partner was later discovered at the bottom of a cliff after his suspected suicide.

The same week, 65-year-old Thi Thuy Huong Nguyen was found with multiple stab wounds in her kitchen in Canberra, ACT Policing said. Police arrested her 70-year-old husband, who also had injuries. He fronted court from his hospital bed to face a murder charge.

Two days earlier, the body of 38-year-old Krystal Marshall was recovered from the charred remains of her home after a house fire in South Australia, according to SA Police. A 48-year-old man was later charged with murder.

The number of women killed by violence in Australia has ranged between 43 and 84 each years since Counting Dead Women began tallying deaths in 2012.

Whitford started Friends with Dignity in her garage in the same year.  Since then, she said she’s noticed a change in the way people, including the police, respond to domestic violence.

“It’s believing, it’s listening to the victim,” she said.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), the proportion of Australian women reporting domestic violence by a partner in the previous 12 months fell between 2016 and 2021-22, from 1.7% to 0.9%.

However, the most recent National Community Attitudes towards Violence against Women Survey (NCAS) in 2021 showed 23% believe domestic violence is a normal reaction to day-to-day stress.

And 91% believed violence against women was a problem in Australia.

A national plan

Repeated cries for help have been made to the government, which last year launched its National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022-2032.

The First Action Plan 2023-2027 was released in August, and top of the 10-point list is advancing gender equality.

Australia may be a modern, wealthy nation, but sexist attitudes persist in a culture where women do more unpaid domestic work and earn less over their lifetime than men, according to the United Nations.

Boardrooms and many positions of power are still dominated by men, as is Parliament – the country has only ever had one female prime minister, Julia Gillard, who famously delivered a searing speech on misogyny that’s since racked up millions of views on social media.

A 2022 survey by the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, which Gillard now chairs, found Australian men consider misogynistic comments more acceptable online than the global average.

The First Action Plan includes 3.5 million Australian dollars in funding ($2.24 million) for a three-year trial of the healthy masculinities project to find what works to counter harmful messaging targeting men and boys on social media.

His name is not mentioned in the government press release, but experts cite the example of Andrew Tate, the self-described misogynistic internet influencer soon to face trial in Romania on charges of human trafficking and rape.

For more than 20 years, Andrew Lines has been working to counter Tate’s style of dangerous, misogynistic messaging through “The Rite Journey,” a program that works with schools in Australia, New Zealand and further afield to teach students how to find positive role models.

He says it’s getting tougher to cut through the negative messaging that children are seeing on their cellphones – from abusive, disrespectful comments to easily accessible hardcore porn.

“The hateful rhetoric that they are reading, I would have never been exposed to as a kid,” said Lines. “It doesn’t even have to be an inflammatory post. You can go and read comments in a whole lot of threads and there is hateful, judgmental stuff.”

Lines says many men are taking a more active role in fatherhood than previous generations, but family dynamics have also changed, meaning parents are spending less time with their children.

On the flipside, overparenting – taking too much of an active role – can create problems of its own, he said.

“If kids haven’t learned to deal with failure and rejection in the small stakes experiences through childhood, and it gets to the biggest stakes experiences, I think there’s an issue,” he said.

But until those lessons are learned, state authorities are strengthening their responses to domestic violence.

In July, NSW Police launched the country’s first Domestic and Family Violence Registry to record repeat offenders, and last week the WA government said it wanted more perpetrators to be fitted with electronic tags.

Until there’s significant change, people like Whitford from Friends with Dignity will be doing what they can to support those affected.

Every Tuesday, volunteers gather at the charity’s warehouse to assemble personal care kits and fill orders from agencies for people in need. Businesses are also getting involved by sending staff on away days as part of their social responsibility programs.

A housing shortage means fewer apartments are available for the charity to furnish, so they’re supplying more essential items to women who can’t leave abusive households.

Whitford says it takes the community to come together to prevent more women becoming victims of domestic violence.

“A lot of people don’t ask you if you’re okay, because they don’t know what to do with the answer,” she said. “So, get educated, find out what resources are in your area.”

The first branch of the Taurid meteor showers is set to peak this weekend, presenting an enticing opportunity for patient sky-gazers.

Southern Taurid meteors have been blazing bright across the night sky since late September, but around the peak — expected at 8:47 p.m. ET Sunday — is when people will have the best chance to catch a glimpse, according to the American Meteor Society.

While the Southern Taurids typically have a frequency of only five meteors per hour, the shower is known for being rich in fireballs, which is a term for a meteor that appears to be brighter than Venus, according to NASA. Venus is the second brightest celestial object in the night sky after the moon.

“Meteors are a part of the night sky that just are out of the norm for people,” said Bill Cooke, lead of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office. “You go outside, you see the stars, you see the moon, you see the planets — those are always there … but you don’t always see the meteors. Meteors are a transitory part of the night sky, and people get fascinated by that.”

Local weather conditions allowing, the best time to go outside to glimpse a meteor will be after midnight in any time zone — but be prepared to stay for a while if you are determined to see one, Cooke said. So far, NASA’s meteor cameras have been capturing only about one or two Taurids a night, he said.

Around the shower’s peak, the moon will be nearly half full at 44%, according to the American Meteor Society. That level of moonshine can cause a disturbance when viewing fainter meteors, but since the Taurids tend to be so bright, the moon will likely not interfere, Cooke said.

“You should look away from the moon but there’s no preferred direction — just try to take in as much sky as you can,” Cooke advised. “And use your eyes. You don’t want to use a telescope to observe a meteor shower — too small (of a) field of view.”

The traits of the Taurids

Most meteor showers feature meteoroids that are only millimeters in length, Cooke said, but the Taurids can have meteoroids up to an impressive 1 meter (3 feet) long, making them appear very bright when they burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

Even with their larger size, most of the space rocks will not make it down to Earth, but if they do, the resulting meteorites — the term for a meteoroid that makes it to the ground — will have broken down into smaller pieces and will not be large enough to cause any damage, Cooke said.

The Southern Taurids originate from Comet Encke, which zips around the sun with the shortest orbit of all known comets in the solar system, according to NASA. Encke’s orbital period takes about 3.3 years, and the comet’s last sighting from Earth was on October 22, when it was at its perihelion, or closest point to the sun.

During its journey, the comet leaves a trail of debris behind that appears as the Southern Taurid meteor shower when Earth’s orbit intersects with its path. Even though the Southern Taurid’s parent comet was recently nearby, the shower is expected to produce low rates this year.

Both Taurid showers saw higher than usual rates in 2022. The phenomenon, known as the Taurid swarm, was caused by Jupiter’s gravity concentrating the debris in front of Earth’s path. Scientists predict the next swarm event will occur in 2025, Cooke said.

Even though the rates are low this year, there is always the chance for a surprise.

“I never say never, because it’s always possible that the unexpected can happen,” Cooke said. “Last year was a good year for the Taurids, 2023 and 2024, not so much.”

Meteors from the Southern Taurids are expected to be seen blazing in the sky until the shower’s finality on December 8, according to the American Meteor Society. Currently, the meteor shower is overlapping with the Northern Taurids, which has been active since mid-October but will not peak until next week on Sunday, November 12.

Remaining meteor shower peaks in 2023

If observing the Taurids’ peak activity has you eager to see more, several other meteor showers still peak this year. Here are the remaining meteor events that peak in 2023:

● Leonids: November 17-18

● Geminids: December 13-14

● Ursids: December 21-22

Full moons

There are two full moons remaining in 2023, according to the Farmers’ Almanac:

● November 27: Beaver moon

● December 26: Cold moon

But the police did come for her.

Abu Sneineh, 22, said she was told she was being arrested and asked to hand in her phone. “When I asked why, (the police officer) started pushing me and snatched my phone out of my hand,” she said.

The officer checked Abu Sneineh’s phone for TikTok or Facebook – she doesn’t have either — then checked her Snapchat account, the only social media she uses.

“[The officer] noticed that I hadn’t posted anything. Then she went to my WhatsApp… I had posted a verse from the Quran, and that turned out to be what they were after. They said I was inciting terrorism. I couldn’t believe it,” Abu Sneineh said.

The verse in question, Abu Sneineh said, was: “God is not unaware of what the oppressors do.”

Abu Sneineh is one of dozens of Palestinian residents and citizens of Israel to have been arrested in Israel for expressing solidarity with Gaza and its civilian population, sharing Quran phrases or showing any support for the Palestinian people since the latest war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas began last month.

Gaza has been under intense bombardment by Israeli forces after Hamas carried out gruesome terror attacks against Israel on October 7, killing 1,400 people and taking more than 240 hostages, according to Israeli officials.

More than 9,000 people, including thousands of children, have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since then, according to figures released Friday by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, drawn from sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave.

The huge death toll from the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) bombing and the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza have prompted global criticism of Israel, with even some of its closest allies calling for a humanitarian “pause” or ceasefire.

But Palestinians expressing solidarity with Gaza are facing serious consequences in Israel.

The Israel Police said that as of October 25, it had arrested 110 people since the start of the war for allegedly inciting violence and terrorism, mostly on social media. Of these arrests, only 17 resulted in indictments. Most people were released without further charges, usually after a few days.

Baker said the low number of indictments suggested that people were being arrested for making statements that are not illegal.

‘Not talking about the law’

The Israel Police says it is acting under Israel’s Counter Terrorism Law. Article 24 of this legislation states that anyone who does anything to “empathize with a terror group” whether that’s by “publishing praises, support or encouraging, waving a flag, showing or publishing a symbol” can be arrested and jailed for up to three years.

However, Adalah, a non-governmental organization (NGO) that advocates for Arab rights in Israel said in a statement that these arrests are arbitrary and target Palestinians only. It said that many are carried out with brutal force in the middle of the night, and without proper legal justification.

“The criteria is not whether it’s legal or not, the criteria is whether it makes people angry or whether it’s something that is against the mainstream, we are not talking about the law. We are talking about atmosphere,” Baker said, adding that discussing the context of the October 7 attacks is “forbidden.”

“You cannot ask what can drive people to commit such horrible crimes. Can you ask who failed here? Why has Hamas succeeded? No,” Baker said, pointing to numerous articles written in Israeli media that pose the same questions. “They can do it. But if you’re Palestinian, you cannot do this,” the lawyer said.

One of the people Baker represents is Dalal Abu Amneh, a well-known Palestinian singer and neuroscientist who found herself arrested after turning to the police for help on October 16.

She was receiving a large number of serious threats over a post on her Facebook and Instagram pages that included the Quranic phrase “There is No victor but God” and a Palestinian flag emoji.

The police said the statement, was inciting terrorism and violence. Her lawyer said the statement was posted on Abu Amneh’s Facebook and Instagram pages by her PR team and has since been deleted. Baker said the post, published late on October 7, after the Hamas terror attack and the first IDF strikes against Gaza, was meant as a “reaction to the war on both sides.”

Abu Amneh has spent the past two weeks holed up in her parent’s house, even though her house arrest has ended. “She is very afraid, she is scared of going back to her house,” Baker said. “People have put up Israeli flags around her house and made threats against her and shared where she lives on social media.”

‘Zero tolerance’

He said that ever since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Israeli authorities have made a “concerted effort” to silence Palestinians in the West Bank by imprisoning them.

Boulos said that despite the odds being stacked against his clients in a court system “not built to establish justice for the Palestinians,” some prisoners were freed in the past. That, he said, is no longer an option.

The Israeli State Attorney’s Office said in a statement that “there should be zero tolerance for those who publish – explicitly and even implicitly – expressions of support for the enemy and his criminal acts against the citizens of the country.”

The State Attorney’s Office has also made it easier for the police to open investigations into alleged instances of these acts, according to the statement.

The crackdown is creating an atmosphere of fear among Palestinians.

“If I were to write about how airstrikes on Tel Aviv are bad, they probably wouldn’t mind. But if I said airstrikes on Gaza are also bad, they will arrest me for it,” he said.

Adli said he was feeling ashamed and embarrassed for not being able to express support for Palestinians in Gaza or denounce Israeli airstrikes. The risk of doing that was too high, he said.

But the consequences of expressing sympathy with Gaza could soon become even more serious.

Under current Israeli law, the Ministry of Interior has the authority to revoke the citizenship or residency of anyone who is convicted of taking part in “terror activity,” as defined by the Counter Terrorism Law.

However, Israel’s Minister of Justice Yariv Levin said last week that he and Minister of the Interior Moshe Arbel were looking into the possibility of widening the scope of the law to include the authority to revoke the citizenship of people who publicly support, incite or praise terror.

At the same time, Israel’s far-right minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has made it one of his priorities to combat what he calls incitement of terrorism online. He has established a taskforce focused specifically on incitement on social media and has led calls for a stricter approach to the issue. Ben-Gvir has been convicted in the past for inciting anti-Arab racism and supporting terrorism.

Baker, the lawyer, said that some of the arrests, and Ben-Gvir’s rhetoric, were an extreme reaction to the brutal Hamas attack.

“Israel is going through a trauma, a terrible trauma. But the law did not change even if we are in a tragic situation. The criteria of what is illegal is the same criteria. The reaction is extreme,” Baker said.

“She has been sick every day since she came home, she hasn’t been able to eat,” her mother added.

The family said that after Dua was arrested, the police searched the house, turning it upside down. When Dua’s 27-year-old brother Ibrahim got home, he too was arrested and remains in jail.

“He has done nothing wrong. They say he has incited and supported terrorism, but he hasn’t posted anything on social media. And even if he did, he would never incite violence or say something wrong,” Fatina said, explaining that her older son Aboud has been in jail for eight months for protesting around al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

“He (Aboud) also did nothing wrong, but because he’s in jail, Ibrahim would not risk getting into trouble,” she said.