The 279 girls were abducted on Friday by armed men who raided their state-run school in Nigeria’s northwest Zamfara State, a high-ranking government official with knowledge of the incident told CNN.
Yusuf Idris, a spokesman for the regional governor, said Tuesday the girls had been safely returned and were all accounted for. He did not comment when asked whether a ransom was paid for their release.
The girls’ abduction is the latest in a string of similar kidnapping cases in Nigeria. At least 42 people were kidnapped from a state-run school last month and later released, and more than 300 schoolboys were taken and later freed in December.
These incidents have raised questions about the safety of schools in parts of northern Nigeria.
In a statement released on social media Friday, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said the girls’ abduction was “inhumane and totally unacceptable.”
“This administration will not succumb to blackmail by bandits who target innocent school students in the expectations of huge ransom payments,” Buhari said in the statement, which was posted by his official spokesperson.
High in the Himalayas, a four-to-five-day trek from the nearest village, sits an unassuming glacial lake called Roopkund. The spot is beautiful, a dollop of jewel-toned water amid rough gravel and scree, but hardly out of the ordinary for the rugged landscape — except for the hundreds of human bones scattered within and around the lake.
These bones, belonging to between 300 and 800 people, have been a mystery since a forest ranger first reported them to the broader world in 1942. Lately, though, the mystery has only deepened. In 2019, a new genetic analysis of the ancient DNA in the bones, detailed in the journal Nature Communications, found that at least 14 of the people who died at the lake probably weren’t from South Asia. Instead, their genes match those of modern-day people of the eastern Mediterranean.
Related: 11 famous places that are littered with dead bodies
What’s more, these bones were far newer than most of the others at the lake, which date to around 800; the people with apparent Mediterranean heritage seem to instead have died around 1800. So what on Earth was a group from the Mediterranean doing above 16,500 feet (5,029 meters) in a far-flung corner of the Himalayas? And how did they die?
Roopkund lake is a relatively small body of water, spanning about 130 feet (40 meters) across, but it has a big story attached to it. (Image credit: Awanish Tirkey/Shutterstock)
Deadly ridge
Those questions are at the heart of a new article in The New Yorker by Douglas Preston, as well as a subsequent webinar discussion led by Preston and Princeton University anthropologist Agustín Fuentes and hosted by the School for Advanced Research in New Mexico.
The story of Roopkund illustrates the need for multiple lines of evidence when investigating the past. The bones alone are mystifying: They belong to both men and women, mostly young adults, who seem to have died in several bouts, perhaps over dozens or hundreds of years.
Roopkund is a glacial lake, shown here frozen over. (Image credit: Shubham Magdum/Shutterstock)
Oral histories passed down by the villagers near Roopkund offer more illumination. The lake is on a pilgrimage trail for Nanda Devi, a manifestation of the Hindu goddess Parvati. According to local legend, a distant king once angered Nanda Devi, causing her to unleash drought upon his kingdom. To appease the goddess, the king set off on a pilgrimage that took him and his entourage past Roopkund. But the foolish king brought dancers and other luxuries on the trek, intensifying Nanda Devi’s rage. She conjured a terrible hailstorm and killed the entire party, the legend goes.
Related: 25 grisly archaeological discoveries
This tale may not be far from the truth. Some of the victims at Roopkund have skull fractures that look like the result of blunt-force trauma, research has found. The current best guess for what happened to most of the dead? They were caught on the ridge above the lake in horrendous storms, some of which may have included deadly hail. Most of the victims likely died of exposure and hypothermia; they ended up in and around the lake because their bodies either rolled downhill or their remains sloughed down the hillside in the frequent mini-avalanches common on the slope.
Ongoing mystery
Trekkers on their way to Roopkund lake, which lies on a pilgrimage trail for Nanda Devi, a manifestation of the Hindu goddess Parvati. (Image credit: Vishwas Krishnamurthy/Shutterstock)
There’s no consensus, however, on what a group of people of apparent Mediterranean heritage was doing in such a remote corner of the Himalayas around 1800; there’s no historical record of a long-range expedition to the region then, Preston said.
The finding hints at the limits of ancient DNA analysis, Fuentes said in the Feb. 3 webinar. The analysis compared the DNA of the skeletons at the lake with the DNA of modern-day populations. But people have moved around quite a lot in the intervening 200-plus years, making it a little difficult to say exactly where the dead at the lake came from. They may not have hailed directly from the eastern Mediterranean, Fuentes said; they could have been from closer to Roopkund but shared common ancestors with the people who ended up populating the eastern Mediterranean.
There is non-DNA evidence that the people in the mystery group weren’t like the others who died at the lakes, though. The 2019 analysis also found that this group had a different diet, with less millet, than the people whose genetics suggested a South Asian origin.
One theory is that the mysterious dead at Roopkund could have been from an isolated population of Central Asians who descended from Alexander the Great and his armies. The Kalash, an ethnic group in Pakistan, owe some of their ancestry to these conquerors, Harvard University geneticist David Reich and his colleagues wrote in their 2019 paper. But the mystery dead don’t have genetics like the Kalash, which mix eastern Mediterranean genetic markers with South Asian markers, and they don’t show any of the signs of inbreeding that would be evident if they didn’t mix with the wider South Asian population around them.
“Combining different lines of evidence, the data suggest instead that what we have sampled is a group of unrelated men and women who were born in the eastern Mediterranean during the period of Ottoman political control,” the researchers wrote. “As suggested by their consumption of a predominantly terrestrial, rather than marine-based, diet, they may have lived in an inland location, eventually traveling to and dying in the Himalayas. Whether they were participating in a pilgrimage, or were drawn to Roopkund Lake for other reasons, is a mystery.”
Part of the reason this mystery persists, Preston said, is that Roopkund has not actually been well studied. The lake is on a relatively popular trekking route, and hikers over the decades have moved bones, stacked them and even stolen them. Because of the tempestuous weather and high elevation, no systematic studies of the remains and their location have been done.
Some day, though, that might change. For his article in The New Yorker, Preston interviewed Veena Mushrif-Tripathy, a bioarchaeologist at Deccan College in India who hopes to investigate Roopkund scientifically. It’s likely that there are bodies within the lake that haven’t been disturbed, Mushrif-Tripathy told Preston. Soft tissue and artifacts might even be preserved in the cold water. If researchers can launch such an expedition, they might be able to illuminate the lives of some of those who died at the lake.
The Camogli cemetery, built more than 100 years ago, is situated along an area of rocky seaside cliffs. Francesco Olivari, the mayor of Camogli, called the collapse an “unimaginable catastrophe.”
It is estimated that 200 coffins had fallen, but only 10 have been recovered, according to Giacomo Giampedrone, regional assessor of civil protection. Recovering the rest of them “will depend on the sea in the coming days,” he added.
On Saturday, maintenance being performed along the area of fragile coastline was abruptly stopped when workers noticed cracks in the rock.
“We were doing work on a portion of the rocky coast — it was close to the area that fell today,”Olivari told CNN on Monday. “Some signs of fissures were seen. We decided to close the cemetery.”
He said that they called officials at the Office of Civil Protection in Liguria to intervene and evaluate the situation. A team of geologists with the department is using drones to get a better sense of the damage and determine if there is danger of another landslide.
“This type of collapse that happened today is very hard to detect or to predict,” Olivari said. “This area is subject to this type of collapse — it’s very fragile.”
Giampedrone said the port authority of Genoa blocked the coastal area below the cemetery Monday night to keep the coffins from floating out to sea.
On Tuesday after surveying the site, officials said they will continue work on recovering the coffins and corpses.
CNN’s Samantha Tapfumaneyi and Maria Fleet contributed to this report.
Apple subpoenaed Valve in November as part of its ongoing litigation with Fortnite developer Epic Games, and it’s demanding that Valve provide extensive sales data for more than 400 games, according to a new filing (via PC Gamer).
The move comes amid Apple’s ongoing fight over Epic’s efforts to avoid paying iOS App Store fees. Apple argues that Valve’s data is necessary to calculate the size of the market of Epic’s “available distribution channels,” as Epic could theoretically offer its games through Steam in addition to other digital marketplaces. But the data is also immensely valuable in assessing the marketplace for games and apps — a space in which Apple’s iOS App Store continues to compete with Valve’s Steam marketplace.
Valve contends that Apple’s demands are extraordinary and is contesting the order.
In one request, Apple calls on Valve to procure documents that show the company’s:
(a) total yearly sales of apps and in-app products; (b) annual advertising revenues from Steam; (c) annual sales of external products attributable to Steam; (d) annual revenues from Steam; and (e) annual earnings (whether gross or net) from Steam.
Apple argues that this data is “crucial” to help it determine “the total size of the market for Epic’s available digital distribution channels.” The courts have already asked Samsung to provide “almost identical” information, Apple said in the filing.
In addition, Apple also demands that Valve procure documents that show:
(a) the name of each App on Steam; (b) the date range when the App was available on Steam; and (c) the price of the App and any in-app product available on Steam
Valve argues that the requests are overly broad. According to Valve’s position statement in the filing, “Apple gave Valve a list of 436 video games it says are available on the Epic Game Store and Steam, and (a) demanded Valve identify, from 2015 to the present, every version and all digital content or items for each of these games on Steam, then (b) provide exhaustive information about all of them.”
The requested information includes dates on sale, price changes, gross revenues for “game version and item, broken down individually,” and Valve’s revenues “related to these versions, content and items.”
Valve argues these demands would “impose an extraordinary burden on Valve to query, process and combine a massive amount of to create the documents Apple seeks” and that it does not keep this data as part of the “ordinary course of business.” (The filing also notes that Apple had reduced its request for data from “all 30,000+ games on Steam over ten years” to “436 games over six years.”)
Valve also argues that “much of what Apple seeks is sales and pricing information for third party games,” but that the company is taking a “shortcut” by subpoenaing Valve instead of getting the information directly from third-party developers.
On Wednesday, Epic filed a formal antitrust complaint against Apple with the European Commission, arguing that Apple has “not just harmed but completely eliminated competition in app distribution and payment processes.”
At least 60 people have died and hundreds more are missing after an overloaded whaling boat sank on the Congo river at night, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s humanitarian affairs minister has said.
Minister Steve Mbikayi said more than 700 people had been aboard the vessel but that only 300 survivors had been found so far at the site of the disaster in Mai-Ndombe province in the west of the country.
The vessel was sailing through the night on Sunday from Kinshasa to Mbandaka when it ran into trouble near the village of Longola Ekoti in the province of Mai-Ndombe.
locator map
The minister told al-Jazeera the main cause of the sinking was too many passengers and cargo on the vessel, adding that “night navigation also played a role”.
Mbikayi offered condolences to the families affected and called for sanctions against those in the transport sector found to be involved.
STEVE MBIKAYI (@Cartesien243)
Une baleinière surchargée, naviguant la nuit avec plus de 700 passagers a fait naufrage à Maindombe ! 60 corps déjà retrouvés avec 300 rescapés! Ns compatissons avec les familles éprouvées et ns exigeons les sanctions contre tous les responsables fautifs du secteur de transports.
February 15, 2021
Deadly boat accidents are common in Congo, which has few tarred roads across its vast, forested interior and where vessels are frequently loaded well beyond their capacity.
For most people the Congo river and its tributaries are the only means of travelling long distances.
Hundreds of protesters marched in Switzerland on Saturday against coronavirus restrictions after the health minister said the current restrictions will stay in place through the end of February.
Approximately 500 protesters marched through the Swiss city of Zug to protest against what they see as unfair restrictions, Reuters reported.
Switzerland tightened its rules last month, closing nonessential stores, requiring masks in stores that remain open, having employees work from home if possible and limiting gatherings to five people.
Reuters reported that demonstrators protesting Swiss Health Minister Alain Berset’s extension of the restrictions wore protective suits and carried signs reading, “Wearing a mask is modern slavery.”
Most countries around the world impacted by the coronavirus require their citizens to wear masks, as health officials have said face coverings help curb the spread of the virus.
“I want to make a statement, that the citizens are the ones who are in control, and the state should be there to serve its citizens,” a person from the protest told Reuters.
“I’m a grandmother,” another person said. “I don’t want my grandchildren to grow up in a world where so much is forbidden.”
Switzerland does have lighter restrictions than some other countries, with their schools still allowed to be open. However, debate continues around the world over how far coronavirus restrictions should go.
No arrests were made at Saturday’s protest, as the police stayed out of the protesters’ way, Reuters reported.
Switzerland has seen almost 9,000 people dead and 530,000 people infected since the start of the pandemic, with new concerns surrounding a United Kingdom strand of the virus, which has been shown to be more contagious and possibly more deadly.
Hundreds — if not thousands — of people lined up in their cars outside Tumea & Sons Sunday afternoon for a pasta dinner and to support a Des Moines father of three in heart failure.Some said they waited an hour and a half in the line that stretch down Indianola Avenue. “A couple hours but it’s for a good cause, so it’s the least we can do,” said Brendin Himan, a friend of Bachman, as he sat in his parked car at the intersection of Indianola Avenue and Gray Street. “It almost feels like I’m already winning! I’m on like victory lane right now,” Bachman said, knowing the finish line is much further down the road.His doctors can only guarantee him 3 more weeks, and the earliest he can be put on a transplant list is May. But Bachman, along with everyone else in line, is more than determined to see him then.”Now I’m being told I have weeks left, and in my heart, as bad as it is, I feel like I’m going to be here,” he said.”Him knowing he has this big army of people behind him… that’s a big help! I think that gives everybody hope especially Dustin,” Bachman’s sister, Mandi Bidwell said. As his friends and family continued to serve out the delicious pasta dinners, they choose to see the good that can come out of a horrible situation.They choose to see hope — not just for Bachman — but for anyone going through a crisis who has the support of a community like Des Moines’ Southside.”I still feel like I’m the blessed one… I know that probably doesn’t make any sense but… this right here truly is a great day. It makes my heart complete.”For information about how to donate to Bachman’s family, click here.
DES MOINES, Iowa —
Hundreds — if not thousands — of people lined up in their cars outside Tumea & Sons Sunday afternoon for a pasta dinner and to support a Des Moines father of three in heart failure.
Some said they waited an hour and a half in the line that stretch down Indianola Avenue.
“A couple hours but it’s for a good cause, so it’s the least we can do,” said Brendin Himan, a friend of Bachman, as he sat in his parked car at the intersection of Indianola Avenue and Gray Street.
“It almost feels like I’m already winning! I’m on like victory lane right now,” Bachman said, knowing the finish line is much further down the road.
His doctors can only guarantee him 3 more weeks, and the earliest he can be put on a transplant list is May. But Bachman, along with everyone else in line, is more than determined to see him then.
“Now I’m being told I have weeks left, and in my heart, as bad as it is, I feel like I’m going to be here,” he said.
“Him knowing he has this big army of people behind him… that’s a big help! I think that gives everybody hope especially Dustin,” Bachman’s sister, Mandi Bidwell said.
As his friends and family continued to serve out the delicious pasta dinners, they choose to see the good that can come out of a horrible situation.
They choose to see hope — not just for Bachman — but for anyone going through a crisis who has the support of a community like Des Moines’ Southside.
“I still feel like I’m the blessed one… I know that probably doesn’t make any sense but… this right here truly is a great day. It makes my heart complete.”
For information about how to donate to Bachman’s family, click here.
MOSCOW — Police detained more than 200 people in Russia’s Far East and Siberia on Saturday as protesters defying bitter cold and a ban by authorities, staged nationwide rallies to demand the release of jailed Kremlin critic, Alexei Navalny.
Navalny called on his supporters to protest after being arrested last weekend when he returned to Moscow from Germany after being poisoned in August with a military-grade nerve agent.
Video footage from Vladivostok showed riot police chasing a group of protesters down the street, while demonstrators in Khabarovsk, braving temperatures of around -14 Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit), chanted “Shame!” and “Bandits!”
Police in the Siberian city of Yakutsk grabbed a protester by his arms and legs and dragged him into a van, video footage from the scene showed.
The OVD-Info monitoring group said that 238 people, including 56 in Novosibirsk, had been detained so far at the nationwide rallies.
In Moscow, police put up barricades around Pushkinskaya Square as workers were engaged in re-tiling it, an apparent attempt to thwart a demonstration that was scheduled to start at 1100 GMT.
Police also detained a few people gathered on the square before the rally, including a lone picketer.
Navalny, an ex-lawyer who has accused President Vladimir Putin of ordering his murder, could face years in jail over legal cases that he calls trumped up. Putin has denied involvement.
Navalny’s supporters are hoping they can produce a show of anti-Kremlin street support despite winter conditions and the coronavirus pandemic to pressure the authorities into freeing him.
The West has told Moscow to let him go, sparking new tensions in already strained Russia ties as U.S. President Joe Biden launches his administration.
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In a push to galvanize support ahead of the protests, Navalny’s team released a video about an opulent palace on the Black Sea they alleged belonged to Putin, something the Kremlin denied. As of Saturday, the clip had been viewed more than 65 million times.
Authorities had banned the protests in advance. Police have cracked down in the run-up to the rallies, rounding up several of Navalny’s allies they accused of calling for illegal protests and jailing at least two of them, including Navalny’s spokeswoman, for more than a week each.
Navalny’s allies hope to tap into what polls say are pent-up public frustrations over years of falling wages and economic fallout from the pandemic. But Putin’s grip on power looks unassailable and the 68-year-old president regularly records an approval rating of over 60 percent, many times higher than that of Navalny.
The U.S. Embassy published the locations and times of the protests, telling Americans to stay away. Russia’s foreign ministry called this a “gross interference” in the country’s domestic affairs.
Gov. Henry McMaster said his administration is doing what it can to urge hospitals to speed up statewide administration of their COVID-19 vaccine supply after a visit to Greenville Thursday morning. “They get a first dose shipment one week and that same week they get a second dose shipment,” McMaster said of South Carolina hospitals. “Use them all up. Don’t keep any on the shelf. Get the people in as quickly as we can.” His message came as hundreds of Greenville County residents received their first doses of the vaccine at Prisma Health’s vaccination facility in Greenville at the old Kmart Thursday. Some people there said they never saw the parking lot so crowded. Lines grew into the afternoon, stretching outside along the front of the building. Right now, vaccinations are open to people age 70 and older. Prisma Health encourages appointments through VAMS. Gloria Duckett and her husband, of Greenville, scheduled their appointment for Thursday. They were done by the early afternoon. “I just thank God that my husband and I were able to get in and do it,” she said. “It ran smoothly. We were in and out in about 45 (minutes) to an hour and that wasn’t bad with all the people that are here,” she said. Prisma Health said if you’re having trouble registering, you can walk in to receive the vaccine without a scheduled appointment. That’s what Walt and Jean Miller did. Walt already received his vaccination, but he and Jean went together so she could have hers. They waited in line for about an hour Thursday morning. “We got through it pretty fast,” Walt said. “It was good. Everybody was pretty well staying separated and everybody wore their mask.” “I was trying to get it sooner to be closer to him and I did, so we’re fine,” Jean said. Prisma Health said it is maintaining social distancing and mask wearing for people while inside. People who went inside the building said chairs are also available to sit in while waiting. But outside, some people had concerns. “What I’m observing is that people seem to have totally forgotten about the separation,” said Dennis Anderson, of Greenville. “I’m looking at the large lines of people right close to each other, plus the huge number of people in the building. “There have to be affected people in that group,” he said. McMaster urged patience for all South Carolinians who haven’t yet been vaccinated. “I think that you’re gonna see some more progress in South Carolina, but eventually we need more vaccine and I’m confident that that’s coming, but probably won’t be until March or so,” he said. When asked, McMaster also said he doesn’t see any immediate major changes to vaccine distribution or supply with President Joe Biden’s administration.
GREENVILLE, S.C. —
Gov. Henry McMaster said his administration is doing what it can to urge hospitals to speed up statewide administration of their COVID-19 vaccine supply after a visit to Greenville Thursday morning.
“They get a first dose shipment one week and that same week they get a second dose shipment,” McMaster said of South Carolina hospitals. “Use them all up. Don’t keep any on the shelf. Get the people in as quickly as we can.”
His message came as hundreds of Greenville County residents received their first doses of the vaccine at Prisma Health’s vaccination facility in Greenville at the old Kmart Thursday.
Some people there said they never saw the parking lot so crowded.
Lines grew into the afternoon, stretching outside along the front of the building.
Right now, vaccinations are open to people age 70 and older. Prisma Health encourages appointments through VAMS.
Gloria Duckett and her husband, of Greenville, scheduled their appointment for Thursday. They were done by the early afternoon.
“I just thank God that my husband and I were able to get in and do it,” she said.
“It ran smoothly. We were in and out in about 45 (minutes) to an hour and that wasn’t bad with all the people that are here,” she said.
Prisma Health said if you’re having trouble registering, you can walk in to receive the vaccine without a scheduled appointment.
That’s what Walt and Jean Miller did.
Walt already received his vaccination, but he and Jean went together so she could have hers.
They waited in line for about an hour Thursday morning.
“We got through it pretty fast,” Walt said.
“It was good. Everybody was pretty well staying separated and everybody wore their mask.”
“I was trying to get it sooner to be closer to him and I did, so we’re fine,” Jean said.
Prisma Health said it is maintaining social distancing and mask wearing for people while inside.
People who went inside the building said chairs are also available to sit in while waiting.
But outside, some people had concerns.
“What I’m observing is that people seem to have totally forgotten about the separation,” said Dennis Anderson, of Greenville. “I’m looking at the large lines of people right close to each other, plus the huge number of people in the building.
“There have to be affected people in that group,” he said.
McMaster urged patience for all South Carolinians who haven’t yet been vaccinated.
“I think that you’re gonna see some more progress in South Carolina, but eventually we need more vaccine and I’m confident that that’s coming, but probably won’t be until March or so,” he said.
When asked, McMaster also said he doesn’t see any immediate major changes to vaccine distribution or supply with President Joe Biden’s administration.
