#Discover Uganda

[gorillawalkingsafaris]

Mountain Gorillas in Uganda - Following & Trekking The Great Apes In Virunga Massif Of Mgahinga National Park

Mountain Gorillas call this smallest national park in Uganda home but is also paradise to many enthusiastic travelers. Mgahinga National Park is a game on its own with a natural and wide biodiversity. Located at the extreme south border of Uganda, Rwanda and DR Congo. The 3 countries share the Virunga massif which is divided into 3 National parks, Mgahinga national Park shared by Uganda and…

[womensmusiccanon]

From Qaraami to Dance-Pop - Women of East Africa

Starting our journey off in... Eastern Africa! Yeah, alright, maybe spoiled slightly in the title of the post.

I've had so much fun with this over the last few weeks, and the result of that is brought to you here through some of my top picks. A moment of silence for the albums I wanted to include but didn't due to not being easily accessible </3

The list is not ordered or ranked in any way, though I will admit I've a certain fondness for Saba and Khadja Nin in particular <3.

For ease of access, here's a playlist of some top tracks from each album (ca. and hour and a half), here's an extended version with additional tracks from some artists not featured on this list (ca. two and a half hours), and here's a playlist of the full albums (ca. seven hours), for all your shuffling needs.

Saba - Jidka (2007) Spotify Youtube - A fun and playful somali italian-influenced pop record with some elements R&B, uplifting and a joy to listen to. As a side node, Saba's life story is definitely a google worth, imo.

Mim Suleiman - Umbeya (2012) Bandcamp Spotify Youtube - An obvious inclusion in my book, just a great beat / electro album with some elements of soul. You really fall into the world of this album.

Aster Aweke - Aster (1989) Spotify Youtube A lovely Tizita album, a gem of ms. Aweke's sizeable discography (which you are definitely encouraged to dig into <3). I am so in love with the horns and little flourishes, and the rhythm is just... mwah. Aweke ties it all together really well.

Khadja Nin - Ya Pili (1994) Spotify Youtube - A already mentioned my fondness for Ms. Nin, but damn if it doesn't bear repeating... By all accounts an incredible record that really should be on your list.

Faytinga - Numey (2006) Spotify Youtube - The steady rhythms and Faytinga's distinctive vocals makes for a great experience certain to draw you in. Impresseive record from an equally impressive person.

Muthoni Drummer Queen - She (2018) Bandcamp Spotify Youtube - A bubbling hip hop album with some flavors of R&B and dancehall. The production on this is great and Muthoni is an incredibly engaged performer. It's just overflowing with life and so, so definitely worth a listen.

Sophie Nzayisenga - Queen of Inanga (2021) Bandcamp Spotify Youtube - The album title says it all, really. Even as someone who's not traditionally drawn to the acoustic for the most part, I really enjoyed this album.

Maryam Mursal - The Journey (1998) Bandcamp Spotify Youtube - An unavoidable inclusion on a list like this, and for good reason. A poppy qaraami record with some jazzy notes that deserves all of the acclaim it's gathered over the years - Mursal clearly knows what she's doing and she does it well.

MC Yallah - Yallah Beibe (2023) Bandcamp Spotify Youtube - Ending here with a very recent release, MC Yallah's latest is just such a solid hip hop record. It flows really well, and the industrial undertones really worked for me, which is rare. Definitely someone to keep a look on, imo.

... and that's the list!

Do you have any favorites not on here? Please (please <3) feel more than free to share! Have fun!

[miawashere]

in uganda…

recently, an Anti Homosexuality Act was passed in Uganda which no longer legally sees same sex marriages as valid and punishes those who are lgbtq+. this is because the idea of homosexuality is looked down upon, and i hope the law changes soon but for now, i hope those affected by the law stay safe 🫶.

link to learn more!!

[evildilf2]

Hey guys, my friend Ayiko recently got diagnosed with colon cancer and needs help paying for his cancer treatments.

“*grey freeze frame* i’m sure you’re wondering how i got here—and for those of you who don’t know, i’m Ayiko, a 22 year old queer artist and musician. I’ve always been a creative, from theatre to a film major. My dream is to keep creating, to keep telling stories, to keep sharing my art with the world and with your help i’ll be able to continue with what i love, with my passions. On the night of February the 6th, what was thought to be a routine doctor visit for severe stomach pain turned into an in-patient hospital stay. A CT-Scan revealed the source of the pain was from a rare telescoping and entanglement of the intestines, known as Intussusception. After a successful colonoscopy relieved the pain, it also revealed a lump that was removed during the procedure. Further testing by the pathology department discovered that not only was the lump cancerous but there were additional tumors that were inaccessible without open surgery. The cancer had grown into 5cm tumors and had spread to some lymph nodes. On February the 17th i went under the knife(or in this case a laser) for a robotic colectomy to remove the remaining cancer. There was very little risk in it spreading and it was one of the least aggressive cancer of its type(Neuroendocrine Tumor of the Gastrointestinal Tract). After the surgery, i will be unable to lift more than 10 lbs or walk for long periods of time, which has left me unemployed. Now in post-recovery, i gently ask the community to rally behind my family and i as we face the financial burdens of hospital bills. As a first generation immigrant i am also aware of the family back home that my parents have to look after too(in fact my father is going to visit Uganda in less than a week). That’s why we would greatly appreciate donations of any amount, as i continue my recovery and face the possibility of chemotherapy. Just sharing the link can go a long way. Thanks for reading!” -Ayiko @pretty-roach

Currently donations are at 1.2k out of a 20k goal- any & all help is appreciated, please reblog to circulate.

[calvinphil]

HELLO LGBTQ COMMUNITY WORLDWIDE,🌈

Today marks 5 years and 8 months since I was forced into exile. My name is Calvin, and my journey has been anything but easy. At just 17, my family in Uganda disowned me and nearly killed me when they discovered I was transgender. Since then, I've faced all kinds of persecution—bullets, beatings, and fire.

Now, I find myself in Gorom camp in South Sudan, still standing and still fighting. But I am not alone. Alongside me are hundreds of other LGBTQ refugees, each with their own stories of survival and resilience. We share the same challenges, the same pain, and the same hope for a better future.

I want the world to know that we are still here, still existing, still resisting. The persecution we face has not ended—it has evolved. We are not just calling for attention; we are calling for actions.

We were forced to leave Kakuma camp, but the conditions here are no better. We live in a cramped space that is far from adequate. We are starving, with no access to proper medical care or other basic necessities. We are calling out for support and help. Your donations can make a huge difference in our daily survival—helping us secure food, medical care, and better housing. Help us and donate to our fundraiser

Please, Donate. Reblog, share, and like this post. Let our stories be heard, and let the world know that we will not be silenced.

Thank you for your support.🌈🏳️‍⚧️

https://gofund.me/4d80b32c

[kaythefloppa]

New Episodes of Wild Kratts

Three new episodes of Wild Kratts will be airing in November of 2024. Salamander Streaming, Bumblezzz, and Chimpanzee and Me.

The synopsis for Bumblezz is yet to come, however we have plots for Salamander Streaming and Chimpanzee and Me.

Salamander Streaming - Airing Monday November 4th, 2024.

Mysteriously, the Tortuga shorts and powers down while the gang is streaming a movie. Koki says it won't be back today. What are they going to do? Chris and Martin announce they can still do streaming - salamander streaming! The rest of the gang wonders, what in the world is salamander streaming? The bros explain that salamander streaming is getting miniaturized and floating down a stream in tiny little boats looking for salamanders, of course! It's a race to find as many salamanders as they can while Koki tries to fix the Tortuga.

Pre-Episode Thoughts:

This was one of the episodes that the brothers announced at their live shows. I think that they will be focusing on tiger salamanders. Either way, I think it's gonna be cool that we might have a Salamander Power Suit.

WK's pop-culture references in the modern seasons are really hit and miss, but this is actually some good fucken wordplay with streaming.

If the Tortuga really is powered down, then will we actually see Salamander Power? Or is it gonna be like Mystery of the Squirmy Wormy where the brothers don't use any Power Suits? Either way, I'm looking forward to it.

Chimpanzee and Me - Airing - Airing Wednesday, November 6th, 2024

The gang travels deep into Uganda's tropical forests to uncover the true nature of the chimpanzee, but Chris sprains his ankle at the most inopportune time and can't participate. He is sad and upset. It's the climbing adventure that he's always looked forward to most. He tries to hide his disappointment and gets support from his friends, but it is a young chimp who shows him how to truly make the best of a bad situation.

Pre-Episode Thoughts:

This was another episode that Martin had hinted at the live shows. What's funny is that 2D Martin also expressed the idea of heading into the African rainforests in Rattlesnake Crystal (an episode that IRL Martin wrote). Again, not sure why it took them almost a decade and a half to get to this, but I digress.

Goddamn we are getting a LOT of angst in S7. Between this, No Name Dream, and the most recent episode, A Fish Out of Water, we're getting more character-driven plots, (especially if you count Paisley's redemption in the special). And while this does seem to be similar to Flight of the Draco, this does seem to have an intereting twist. Chimpanzees have many abilities apart from climbing, such as intellect, empathy, craftiness, and communciation. Maybe Chris will discover that and eventually use those skills to rescue the chimpanzees and/or the gang from a bad situation later.

Also, baby chimps are really fucking cute. I so hope that Chris gets to name it in the episode.

I've debated with my friends on this, and I do hope that we see a Chimpanzee Suit.. but knowing how anatomically similar chimps are to humans, and given how uncanny the Power Suits in the modern seasons have been.... I very much wonder.

That being said, if there is gonna be a Chimp Suit, I wonder if Chris will be the one to invent it? Assuming that he's staying behind at the Tortuga throughout this episode and makes the observations, then it would make sense that he'd invent the suit. Martin invented the Ermine Power Disc back in Season 5, so maybe Chris could invent a Chimpanzee Suit. Part of me thinks it'll backfire just as horribly, but after the bullshit that was the Indri-Conda Suit, I'm willing to accept anything 😭😭

[typhlonectes]

Wooded Grasslands Flourished in Africa 21 Million Years Ago – New Research Forces a Rethink of Ape Evolution

An ape that lived 21 million years ago was used to a habitat that was both grassy and wooded.

By Laura M. MacLatchy, University of Michigan, Dan Peppe, Baylor University, and Kieran McNulty, University of Minnesota

Apes have stable, upright backs. Once the back is vertical, an ape no longer has to walk on the top of small branches like a monkey. Instead, it can grab different branches with its arms and legs, distributing its body mass across multiple supports. Apes can even hang below branches, making them less likely to lose their balance. In this way, they are able to access fruits growing on the edges of tree crowns that otherwise might be available only to smaller species. But was this scenario true for the earliest apes? A 21 million-year-old site in Moroto, Uganda, became an ideal place to investigate this question. There our REACHE team discovered teeth and other remains belonging to Morotopithecus, the oldest ape for which scientists have found fossils from the cranium, teeth and other parts of the skeleton. Two bones in particular helped us understand how this species moved. A lower backbone found decades ago and curated by the Uganda National Museum had already been noted for its bony attachments for back muscles, indicating that  Morotopithecus had a stiff lower back, good for climbing upright in the trees. A discovery of our own confirmed this climbing behavior in a major way. At Moroto we found a fossil ape thigh bone that is short but strong, with a very thick shaft. This kind of bone is characteristic of living apes and helps them climb up and down trees with a vertical torso...

Read more: https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/wooded-grasslands-flourished-in-africa-21-million-years-ago-new-research

[labete-du-gevaudan]

The Okapi used to be known as the Atti locally, or the African Unicorn by Europeans. The ancient description of the animal was a mysterious mix between a donkey, zebra and giraffe. The creature was thought to be a story that Europeans didn’t believe at the time. In 1901, the Okapi was dubbed a real animal scientifically. The British governor of Uganda at the time, Sir Harry Johnston, sent a full pelt and skull to London, proving the this unicorn’s existence. They discovered that this species was closely related to an ancient giraffe species that was unearthed in 1838 in Greece.

The Okapi is often called one of the symbols of cryptozoology; it was a seemingly mystical animal that was proven by science to exist. It even used to be the symbol of the International Society of Cryptozoology which ended its run in 1998.

[mindblowingscience]

Humans are outliers for the way many of us, along with a handful of toothed whale species and Asian elephants, will live well beyond our reproductive years. The rarity of menopause among animals has long puzzled researchers, and so has its origins since our close primate relatives didn't appear to share this marker of fertility's end. Or so we thought. Researchers have discovered a remote population of wild chimpanzees in Uganda do in fact live decades after they go through menopause, displaying similar hormonal changes as those seen in humans. University of California evolutionary anthropologist Brian Wood and colleagues analyzed 21 years of demographic and behavioral data on the Ngogo community of wild chimpanzees in Kibale National Park in southwest Uganda, to calculate their fertility rates and survivorship.

Continue Reading

[tomorrowusa]

There are a number of threats to the LGBTQ+ community around the world. And with Pride Month on the horizon, federal law enforcement in the US is urging people to be more alert.

Authorities warned US citizens abroad to "exercise increased caution". "Stay alert in locations frequented by tourists, including Pride celebrations," a warning issued by the state department said. The advisory came on Friday, a week after a similar alert issued by US law enforcement agencies. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said: "Foreign terrorist organizations or supporters may seek to exploit increased gatherings associated with the upcoming June 2024 Pride Month." Although no specific gatherings or locations were mentioned in the warnings, the law enforcement agencies noted that messages from the Islamic State (IS) group distributed in English in February 2023 included rhetoric against LGBTQI+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and intersex) events and venues.

Being concerned about anti-LGBTQ+ violence is not paranoid even during "normal" times. Remember the Pulse massacre in 2016?

During Pride Month in June 2016, a man inspired by IS ideology shot dead 49 people and wounded 53 more at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The FBI and DHS warning also noted that three IS sympathisers had been arrested for attempting to attack a Pride parade in Vienna, Austria in 2023. The Counter Extremism Project, a New York-based non-profit group, noted that anti-LGBTQ ideas had been taken up by both Islamist and far-right extremists. "It is no surprise that neo-Nazis and jihadis often express mutual admiration for their shared anti-gay visions," Mark D Wallace, the project's chief executive, said in a statement.

The narrowly averted attack on a Pride march in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho in 2022 was a close call. A heads up by a concerned citizen prevented violence.

The 31 people arrested in Idaho have ties to a White nationalist group and planned to riot at a Pride event, police say. Here’s what we know

After an alarmed 911 caller reported a group dressed like a “little army” getting into a moving truck, police in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, arrested 31 men believed to be linked to a White nationalist group, who had plans to riot at a weekend Pride event, authorities said. The large group – which police believe was affiliated with Patriot Front – was seen at a hotel piling into a U-Haul with riot gear, the caller told a 911 dispatcher. They were later pulled over and arrested, Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White said.

When becoming aware of an immediate threat inside the United States, call 911. If you discover credible evidence of anti-LGBTQ+ violence being planned for some future time, call the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324). Hate crimes are against the law. All threats of violence should be taken seriously.

If you're abroad, remain alert and pay attention to local advisories and those from embassies.

There's an axis of homophobia which includes Russia, Iran, Uganda, and the far right in the West. Islamic State and (so called) Patriot Front are essentially on the same side. It's sad, but such threats, regardless of source, cannot be ignored.

[busdinessblogger]

USVİSAMASTER - SİLVER

Your Pathway to a Fulfilling Career in the USA! usavisamaster.com is your trusted partner in making your dream of working in the USA a reality. Our dedicated team specializes in immigration and employment solutions, offering a comprehensive range of services to individuals from Ghana, Uganda, and the Philippines who aspire to build their careers in the United States. At Usa Visa Master, we understand that pursuing a career in the USA can be both exciting and challenging. With our trademark commitment to excellence, we've become known as the leading authority in immigration and employment solutions. Our name, Usa Visa Master, symbolizes expertise, reliability, and professionalism. Our Services: Immigration and Sponsorship: Usa Visa Master simplifies the complex immigration process, providing expert guidance and support to help you secure your dream job in the USA. Accommodation and Flight Ticket Support: We recognize the importance of a smooth transition. That's why we offer assistance with accommodation and flight ticket arrangements to ease your relocation. Job Contracts: Your career is our priority. We connect you with reputable employers, offering secure job contracts that protect your rights and ensure a stable employment experience. Visa Application: Navigating the intricacies of the us visa application process can be challenging. Usa Visa Master offers expert assistance to make the process efficient and stress-free. Preliminary Employment Assessment: Our comprehensive assessment helps you determine your eligibility to work in the USA, equipping you with vital information for informed career decisions. Our Operation Area: While we proudly serve individuals from around the world, our primary focus is on empowering residents of Ghana, Uganda, and the Philippines to explore exciting career opportunities in the USA. Our services are tailored to meet the unique needs of clients in these regions. At Usa Visa Master, we don't just help you find a job; we pave the way for endless opportunities. Join the countless individuals who have achieved their dreams of working in the USA with our assistance. Your journey to a brighter future begins here. Secure your work permit visa, land your dream job, and embark on a life-changing adventure. Discover the Usa Visa Master advantage today. Contact us to take the first step toward a rewarding career in the USA. Your success is our mission, and we're here to make your dreams come true. Get your free assessment eligibility: https://usavisamaster.com/apply-page/

[gorillawalkingsafaris]

Truth about gorilla permit Updates in Uganda

You need to book your gorilla permit as soon as you make the decision to track the gorillas. You cannot confirm travel dates without first securing a gorilla permit. All tourists must have Gorilla permits while entering the park and are advised.....

A Gorilla Permit is a document that allows one access to mountain gorillas in Bwindi impenetrable national park and mount Mgahinga gorilla national park, either for habituated gorilla or gorilla tracking in Uganda. Are you thinking of how to book a gorilla permit?  Acquiring a gorilla permit or pass to watch mountain gorillas is one of the most important things to consider when planning to go on…

[thegirlmirage]

I've been approached by a man from Uganda who is suffering both under the anti-gay laws and the cultural homophobia there. As someone from Britain I feel a historic responsibility to help but also Queer solidarity is important to me.

He was discovered to be gay and lost his family, friends, workplace, and safety, and he is among many other queer people who are without proper shelter food or medicine, and are regularly attacked. I've seen the pictures and they are very worrying. There is no place he can turn to without violence.

His intention is to flee Uganda with the queers he's with but that is expensive and many of them need treatment.

I've never fundraiser for something like this before and I'm way out of my depth. I've tried to speak to local advocacy groups and seek support from people familiar with this sort of thing but it seems so far it is just me by myself, and him and his friends relying on me.

If there's any way that anyone can help, even if it's just sharing the campaign, giving money or even just advice (I've no idea what I'm doing), I promised him I would do my best to help and I do not want to leave him to die.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/lgbtqiaplus-fleeing-persecution-in-uganda

[bopinion]

2024 / 33

Aperçu of the week

“All we have to do is call our opponent a communist or a socialist or someone who will destroy our country.”

(Donald Trump. We'll see about that...)

Bad News of the Week

Since the end of the coronavirus pandemic - although there hasn't actually been one - I've been waiting for its successor in a slightly anxious mood. Another rapidly infecting virus that spreads worldwide, is potentially deadly and, above all, restricts all our lives again. Now it's here: Mpox. For the first time since Corona, the WHO (World Health Organization of the United Nations) has declared the highest alert level, a “public health emergency of international concern”. Because of the virus that was previously called “Monkey Pox”. Discovered in Congo at the end of 2023, it has now also broken out in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya.

The initial figures spoke of 14,000 suspected cases. Based on the usual 50% rate and the reported 500 deaths, this means that one in twelve people who become infected will die. That's a lot. So it's certainly a virus that should be taken seriously. One day later, it was reported that the first case in Europe had emerged in Sweden. Then the first three in Asia in Pakistan. It's the usual pattern: on the one hand, every infectious disease spreads faster and more uncontrollably in times of international travel. On the other hand, specific cases are only discovered when they are specifically sought or tested for. So the numbers will now quickly go through the roof. Because the spread is already more advanced than we know.

What will happen now? What will the states do? How will society react this time? And above all: what have we learned? There is a lot of talk in Germany about the need to come to terms with everything that has happened around COVID. Also to learn from the mistakes. There is a lot of need for clarification - for example with regard to the procurement of masks, the closure of schools, compulsory vaccination, curfews and unequal treatment in the retail sector. And what has happened since (drum roll please!): Nothing. What applies to politics also applies in private life. Some friends turned out to be conspiracy theorists, others were law and order hardliners, most were simply irritated and unsettled. There were even rifts right through families. Rifts that still exist.

And now we could all be facing the same situation, just as ill-prepared. And if Mpox doesn't develop into a pandemic, perhaps swine fever will spread to humans. Or bird flu. Or something else entirely, be it from the South American jungle or from the secret laboratory of some deep state. Or a revenant from the past spreads again - cholera still exists after all and first cases of polio are reported from Gaza. No, I'm not panicking. But I do have one or two worries. After all, humanity has shown itself more than once to be incapable of learning from the past. I would love to be wrong about that.

Good News of the Week

Venezuela is not giving up. It is wonderful to see how the people are fighting for democracy, no longer wanting to put up with the corruption of their “elites” and finally wanting to have a perspective worth living in. Just under a month ago, elections were held in the Latin American country, which could actually live in prosperity and peace but is suffering from dramatic economic decline, inflation and poverty since years. Or as investigative journalist Sebastiana Barráez says in the news magazine Der Spiegel: “Maduro has couped!”

Initially, the state electoral authority declared President Nicolás Maduro Moro, who has been clinging to power since 2013, the winner without providing any evidence - as is actually required by the constitution. The opposition has now had access to more than 80 percent of the printed protocols of the individual polling stations and has made them public. According to these, their candidate Edmundo González won with around 67 percent of the vote - compared to 30 percent for the incumbent head of government. So did Maduro commit electoral fraud? It looks like it.

The United Nations and the Carter Center had sent election observers to Venezuela. They have now criticized the election authority's actions and declared that the official result was not achieved democratically. The panel of experts speaks of an “unprecedented process in recent electoral history”. No wonder that most Latin American countries as well as the USA and Europe did not recognize the “official result”. And Maduro? He doesn't give a damn. The despot has further intensified the repression against the population with the help of the military, the National Guard and other state organs loyal to him. According to the independent rights organization Foro Penal, over 2,000 people have been arrested since the election. These include opposition politicians. And journalists. That speaks a clear language.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the US government has now offered Maduro and close associates of the regime an amnesty if they relinquish power. I wish the Venezuelans would keep up the pressure. And the international stage too. Until Madura and his clan really abdicate. Because then the country, which has already been abandoned by 20% of its population in recent years, could return to better times. In a survey conducted by the Gallup polling institute in December 2012, the country's inhabitants were among the happiest people on earth. It would be nice if this vague memory could become reality again.

Personal happy moment of the week

“Your application for an Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA) has been approved. You are now authorized to travel to Canada by air.” Nothing more to add here. Taking off this sunday. Boy am I excited...

I couldn't care less...

...about the discussion that Germany “only” came 10th in the medal table at the Summer Olympics in Paris - behind hosts France and Great Britain, even though their populations are smaller. “What does it take for more medals?” asks the Tagesschau news channel. That is of little interest to me. Much more important is the charisma of athletes as figures of identification for a nation, the role model function for children, the motivation to surpass oneself. After all, it's not for nothing that the Olympic motto is “Taking part is everything”. In that sense, Eddie the Eagle really did fly.

It's fine with me...

...that the Democrats' party conference is now turning into a coronation mass. Because the most important decisions have been made: Presidential candidate and his (better in this case “her”) running mate. Normally, I would now say that political program content should not be completely secondary. But I don't care about that at the moment. The main thing is momentum. The main thing is optimism. The main thing is not to go back. The main thing is that Donald Jessica Trump doesn't triumph in November. Harris Walz!

As I write this...

...we're trying to catch a mouse. Apparently it was raining too hard outside and it wanted to get out into the dry. Now she's hiding behind a bookshelf and is afraid of us - even though we want to rescue her and set her free. Update: we've got her and she's fine. Second update: there seems to be another one...

Post Scriptum

It's good when someone doesn't look away but points. Even if it's about Israel committing an injustice. After all, you are then almost reflexively vilified as an Anti-Semite. In this respect, I am pleased that the European Union is showing more and more backbone in this regard. In this case, I am not referring to the maltreated Gaza Strip, but to the West Bank, where the Palestinian population is suffering more and more from brutal attacks by militant Israeli settlers - who can be sure of the backing of Benjamin Netanyahu's increasingly right-wing extremist government.

Once again, there have been attacks by extremist Israeli settlers on the population of the West Bank. And now EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has had enough. He will “present a proposal for EU sanctions against the supporters of the violent settlers, including some members of the Israeli government”. Including the government! That's a bombshell. I very much hope that he finds the necessary support for this. Because this massive problem is currently all too easily overlooked in the great shadow of Gaza.

[justforbooks]

It did not seem like a good thing when a precious consignment of human tumour samples on its way from Kampala, Uganda, to Heathrow was diverted to Manchester. When the samples finally arrived at the Middlesex hospital in London, they were swimming in murky fluid in their vials as though they had been infected with bacteria.

But when the pathologist Anthony Epstein looked at the fluid under the microscope he saw no bacteria, just individual cells that had been shaken loose from the tumours. And that was just what he needed in order to search for elusive virus particles and test his hunch that they were causing cancer.

In the early 1960s Epstein, who has died aged 102, had heard a lecture by Denis Burkitt, an Irish surgeon working in Kampala, that described strange tumours (now known as Burkitt lymphoma) growing around the jaws of children in equatorial Africa.

Intriguingly, the geographical distribution of the condition seemed to depend on temperature and rainfall, suggesting a biological cause. Epstein, who had been working with viruses that cause cancer in chickens, immediately suspected a virus might be involved, perhaps in association with another tropical disease such as malaria.

Epstein began to collaborate with Burkitt, who supplied him with tumours from children he had treated. But Epstein’s efforts to grow pieces of tumour in the laboratory and isolate a virus had all been unsuccessful until the dissociated cells arrived.

With his graduate student Yvonne Barr, he then decided to look at cultures of these cells in an electron microscope, a powerful instrument that had only recently become available in his lab.

The very first image showed a tell-tale outline that looked like one of the family of herpes viruses. It turned out to be a previously undescribed member of that family, and was given the name Epstein-Barr virus. In 1964, Epstein, Barr and Epstein’s research assistant, Bert Achong, published the first evidence that cancer in humans could be caused by a virus – to be greeted by widespread scepticism even though they went on to demonstrate that EB virus caused tumours in monkeys.

Thanks to samples supplied by Epstein, in 1970 Werner and Gertrude Henle at the Children’s hospital in Philadelphia discovered that EB virus also caused glandular fever. That made it possible to design a test for antibodies to the virus in order to confirm a diagnosis. EB virus turned out to be very common, infecting most children in early life, though it usually causes glandular fever only in older teenagers and young adults. As well as causing Burkitt lymphoma in endemic areas in Africa and Papua New Guinea, it is also associated with a cancer of the nose and throat that is the most common cancer of men in south China, as well as cancers in people whose immune systems have been compromised, such as those infected with HIV.

More recent research suggests that EB virus might also be involved in some cases of multiple sclerosis, and that people who have previously had glandular fever are more susceptible to severe Covid-19.

After the discovery, Epstein and others devoted time and effort to trying to find out under what circumstances EB virus causes cancer. The relationship between the virus, other diseases, human genetics and cancer is complex, and it took decades before the medical community could accept the EB virus as a cause with confidence.

Not until 1997 did the International Agency for Research on Cancer class it as a Group 1 carcinogen, formally acknowledging its role in a variety of cancers.

The discovery of EB virus opened up a whole new field of research into cancer-causing viruses. It also raised the exciting possibility of preventing cancers through vaccination, an advance that has now been achieved in the case of human papilloma virus, which causes cervical cancer, and hepatitis B virus, which causes liver cancer.

By the time of his retirement in 1985, Epstein’s research group at the University of Bristol had developed a candidate vaccine that protected monkeys infected with EB virus against tumours, but neither it nor any other candidate has yet been successfully developed for human use.

Epstein was born in London, one of three children of Olga (nee Oppenheimer) and Mortimer Epstein. Mortimer was a writer and translator who edited The Statesman’s Yearbook for Macmillan from 1924 until his death in 1946. Olga was involved with charitable work in the Jewish community. Anthony attended St Paul’s school in west London, where the biology teacher Sidney Pask encouraged boys to go far beyond the syllabus and whose pupils also included Robert Winston and Jonathan Miller.

Epstein won a place to study medicine at Trinity College, Cambridge. He moved to Middlesex hospital medical school in wartime London to complete his training, before doing his national service in India with the Royal Army Medical Corps. He returned to work at the Middlesex hospital as assistant pathologist, conducting his own research. Thinking electron microscopy might be useful in his studies of cancer-causing viruses in chickens, he spent some time learning the new technique at the Rockefeller Institute in New York (now Rockefeller University). Not long afterwards he attended Burkitt’s lecture and began the serendipitous route to his discovery.

In 1968 he was appointed professor and head of the department of pathology at the University of Bristol, where he remained until his retirement. He moved to Oxford as a fellow of Wolfson College in 1986, becoming an honorary fellow in 2001.

An exemplary scientific good citizen, he served as foreign secretary and vice-president of the Royal Society, and sat on boards and councils for numerous national and international research organisations, including as a special representative of the director general of Unesco; he was also a patron of Humanists UK. Among his many prizes and honorary degrees, he received the international Gairdner award for biomedical research in 1988. He was appointed CBE in 1985 and knighted in 1991.

“It was a series of accidents, really,” he said of his discovery in a conversation with Burkitt they recorded for Oxford Brookes University’s oral history archive in 1991. “Lucky quirks.” Burkitt immediately responded with Louis Pasteur’s aphorism: “Chance favours the prepared mind.”

Epstein was a deeply cultured man who retained a lively interest in many subjects – particularly oriental rugs, Tibet and amphibians – until the end of his life.

He is survived by his partner, Kate Ward, by his children Susan, Simon and Michael, from his marriage to Lisbeth Knight, from whom he was separated in 1965, and who died in 2015, and by two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

🔔Michael Anthony Epstein, pathologist, born 18 May 1921; died 6 February 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[reasoningdaily]

Across a sterile white table in a windowless room, I’m introduced to a woman in her forties. She has a square jaw and blonde hair that has been pulled back from her face with a baby-blue scrunchie. “The girls call me Marmalade,” she says, inviting me to use her prison nickname. Early on a Wednesday morning, Marmalade is here, in a Finnish prison, to demonstrate a new type of prison labor.

The table is bare except for a small plastic bottle of water and an HP laptop. During three-hour shifts, for which she’s paid €1.54 ($1.67) an hour, the laptop is programmed to show Marmalade short chunks of text about real estate and then ask her yes or no questions about what she’s just read. One question asks: “is the previous paragraph referring to a real estate decision, rather than an application?”

“It’s a little boring,” Marmalade shrugs. She’s also not entirely sure of the purpose of this exercise. Maybe she is helping to create a customer service chatbot, she muses.

In fact, she is training a large language model owned by Metroc, a Finnish startup that has created a search engine designed to help construction companies find newly approved building projects. To do that, Metroc needs data labelers to help its models understand clues from news articles and municipality documents about upcoming building projects. The AI has to be able to tell the difference between a hospital project that has already commissioned an architect or a window fitter, for example, and projects that might still be hiring.

Around the world, millions of so-called “clickworkers” train artificial intelligence models, teaching machines the difference between pedestrians and palm trees, or what combination of words describe violence or sexual abuse. Usually these workers are stationed in the global south, where wages are cheap. OpenAI, for example, uses an outsourcing firm that employs clickworkers in Kenya, Uganda, and India. That arrangement works for American companies, operating in the world’s most widely spoken language, English. But there are not a lot of people in the global south who speak Finnish.

That’s why Metroc turned to prison labor. The company gets cheap, Finnish-speaking workers, while the prison system can offer inmates employment that, it says, prepares them for the digital world of work after their release. Using prisoners to train AI creates uneasy parallels with the kind of low-paid and sometimes exploitive labor that has often existed downstream in technology. But in Finland, the project has received widespread support.

“There's this global idea of what data labor is. And then there's what happens in Finland, which is very different if you look at it closely,” says Tuukka Lehtiniemi, a researcher at the University of Helsinki, who has been studying data labor in Finnish prisons.

For four months, Marmalade has lived here, in Hämeenlinna prison. The building is modern, with big windows. Colorful artwork tries to enforce a sense of cheeriness on otherwise empty corridors. If it wasn’t for the heavy gray security doors blocking every entry and exit, these rooms could easily belong to a particularly soulless school or university complex.

Finland might be famous for its open prisons—where inmates can work or study in nearby towns—but this is not one of them. Instead, Hämeenlinna is the country’s highest-security institution housing exclusively female inmates. Marmalade has been sentenced to six years. Under privacy rules set by the prison, WIRED is not able to publish Marmalade’s real name, exact age, or any other information that could be used to identify her. But in a country where prisoners serving life terms can apply to be released after 12 years, six years is a heavy sentence. And like the other 100 inmates who live here, she is not allowed to leave.

When Marmalade first arrived, she would watch the other women get up and go to work each morning: they could volunteer to clean, do laundry, or sew their own clothes. And for a six hour shift, they would receive roughly €6 ($6.50). But Marmalade couldn’t bear to take part. “I would find it very tiring,” she says. Instead she was spending long stretches of time in her cell. When a prison counselor suggested she try “AI work,” the short, three-hour shifts appealed to her, and the money was better than nothing. “Even though it’s not a lot, it’s better than staying in the cell,” she says” She’s only done three shifts so far, but already she feels a sense of achievement.

This is one of three Finnish prisons where inmates can volunteer to earn money through data labor. In each one, there are three laptops set up for inmates to take part in this AI work. There are no targets. Inmates are paid by the hour, not by their work’s speed or quality. In Hämeenlinna, around 20 inmates have tried it out, says Minna Inkinen, a prison work instructor, with cropped red hair, who sits alongside Marmalade as we talk. “Some definitely like it more than others”. When I arrive at the prison on a Wednesday morning, the sewing room is already busy. Inmates are huddled over sewing machines or conferring in pairs over mounds of fabric. But the small room where the AI work takes place is entirely empty until Marmalade arrives. There are only three inmates in total who regularly volunteer for AI shifts, Inkinen says, explaining that the other two are currently in court. “I would prefer to do it in a group,” says Marmalade, adding that she keeps the door open so she can chat with the people sewing next door, in between answering questions.

Those questions have been manually written in an office 100 kilometers south of the prison, in a slick Helsinki coworking space. Here, I meet Metroc’s tall and boyish founder and CEO, Jussi Virnala. He leads me to a stiflingly hot phone booth, past a row of indoor swings, a pool table, and a series of men in suits. It’s an exciting week, he explains, with a grin. The company has just announced a €2 million ($2.1 million) funding round which he plans to use to expand across the Nordics. The investors he spoke with were intrigued by the company’s connection to Finland’s prisons, he says. “Everyone was just interested in and excited about what an innovative way to do it,” says Virnala. “I think it’s been really valuable product-wise.”

It was Virnala’s idea to turn to the prisons for labor. The company needed native Finnish speakers to help improve its large language model’s understanding of the construction-specific language. But in a high-wage economy like Finland, finding those data laborers was difficult. The Finnish welfare system’s generous unemployment benefits leaves little incentive for Finns to sign up to low-wage clickwork platforms like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. “Mechanical Turk didn’t have many Finnish-language workers,” says Virnala. At the same time, he adds, automatic translation tools are still no good at Finnish, a language with only 5 million native speakers.

When Virnala pitched his idea to Pia Puolakka, head of the Smart Prison Project at Finland’s prison and probation agency, she was instantly interested, she says. Before the pandemic, another Finnish tech company called Vainu had been using prisoners for data labor. But Vainu abruptly pulled out after a disagreement between cofounders prompted Tuomas Rasila, who had been in charge of the project, to leave the company.

By the time Virnala approached her with his proposal in 2022, Puolakka was eager to resurrect the AI work. Her job is to try and make the relationship between Finnish prisons and the internet more closely resemble the increasingly digital outside world. So far, she has been installing laptops in individual cells so inmates can browse a restricted list of websites and apply for permission to make video calls. She considers data labor just another part of that mission.

The aim is not to replace traditional prison labor, such as making road signs or gardening. It’s about giving prisoners more variety. Data labeling can only be done in three-hour shifts. “It might be tiring to do this eight hours a day, only this type of work,” she says, adding that it would be nice if inmates did the data labeling alongside other types of prison labor. “This type of work is the future, and if we want to prepare prisoners for life outside prison, a life without crime, these types of skills might be at least as important as the traditional work types that prisons provide,” she says.

But how much data labeling offers inmates skills that are transferable to work after prison is unclear. Tuomas Rasila, the now estranged cofounder of Vainu, who managed the prison project there for a year, admits he has no evidence of this; the project wasn’t running for long enough to collect it, he says. “I think asking people, who might feel outside of society, to train the most high-tech aspect of a modern society is an empowering idea.”

However, others consider this new form of prison labor part of a problematic rush for cheap labor that underpins the AI revolution. “The narrative that we are moving towards a fully automated society that is more convenient and more efficient tends to obscure the fact that there are actual human people powering a lot of these systems,” says Amos Toh, a senior researcher focusing on artificial intelligence at Human Rights Watch.

For Toh, the accelerating search for so-called clickworkers has created a trend where companies are increasingly turning to groups of people who have few other options: refugees, populations in countries gripped by economic crisis—and now prisoners.

“This dynamic is a deeply familiar one,” says Toh. “What we are seeing here is part of a broader phenomenon where the labor behind building tech is being outsourced to workers that toil in potentially exploitative working conditions.”

Toh is also skeptical about whether data labor can help inmates build digital skills. “There are many ways in which people in prison can advance themselves, like getting certificates and taking part in advanced education,” he says. “But I'm skeptical about whether doing data labeling for a company at one euro per hour will lead to meaningful advancement.” Hämeenlinna prison does offer inmates online courses in AI, but Marmalade sits blank-faced as staff try to explain its benefits.

Science

Your weekly roundup of the best stories on health care, the climate crisis, genetic engineering, robotics, space, and more. Delivered on Wednesdays.

By the time I meet Lehtiniemi, the researcher from Helsinki University, I’m feeling torn about the merits of the prison project. Traveling straight from the prison, where women worked for €1.54 an hour, to Metroc’s offices, where the company was celebrating a €2 million funding round, felt jarring. In a café, opposite the grand, domed Helsinki cathedral, Lehtiniemi patiently listens to me describe that feeling.

But Lehtiniemi’s own interviews with inmates have given him a different view—he’s generally positive about the project. On my point about pay disparity, he argues this is not an ordinary workforce in mainstream society. These people are in prison. “Comparing the money I get as a researcher and what the prisoner gets for their prison labor, it doesn't make sense,” he says. “The only negative thing I’ve heard has been that there’s not enough of this work. Only a few people can do it,” he says, referring to the limit of three laptops per prison.

“When we think about data labor, we tend to think about Mechanical Turk, people in the global south or the rural US,” he says. But for him, this is a distinct local version of data labor, which comes with a twist that benefits society. It’s giving prisoners cognitively stimulating work—compared to other prison labor options—while also representing the Finnish language in the AI revolution.

Without this kind of initiative, Lehtiniemi worries that non-English languages are being locked out of this next generation of technology. Smart speakers still struggle to understand Finnish dialects. “Not all Finnish people speak English very well, so there's a need for these local forms of data labeling as well,” Lehtiniemi says. Metroc isn’t the only company that has been forced to get creative about finding Finnish data labor. In 2011, the national library created a game to incentivize volunteers to help digitize its archive. In 2020, broadcaster YLE teamed up with Helsinki University and the state development company VAKE to ask volunteers to donate recordings of them speaking Finnish.

There is a sense in Finland that the prison project is just the beginning. Some are worried it could set a precedent that could introduce more controversial types of data labeling, like moderating violent content, to prisons. “Even if the data being labeled in Finland is uncontroversial right now, we have to think about the precedent it sets,” says Toh. “What stops companies from outsourcing data labeling of traumatic and unsavory content to people in prison, especially if they see this as an untapped labor pool?”

It's also not clear whether labor conditions in Finland's prisons—which famously focus on rehabilitation—could be replicated in other countries with a less progressive approach to justice. In the US, 76 percent of prisoners report that prison labor is mandatory, according to civil rights group, the ACLU. “The prison system in the United States is very, very different from what we have in Finland or Nordic countries. It's a completely different idea,” says Rasila. “In Finland, there is an exclusively positive feeling around the project because everyone knows that this is very voluntary.”

AI companies are only going to need more data labor, forcing them to keep seeking out increasingly unusual labor forces to keep pace. As Metroc plots its expansion across the Nordics and into languages other than Finnish, Virnala is considering whether to expand the prison labor project to other countries. “It’s something we need to explore,” he says.