Monthly Archives: April 2021

A handful of Arabian silver coins found in New England may be the last surviving relics of history's most notorious act of piracy and perhaps one of the most famous pirates who ever lived.

Evidence suggests the distinctive coins were spent as common silver in the American colonies in the late 1690s by the fugitive pirate crew of Henry Every, also known as John Avery, who had fled there after plundering the Mughal treasure ship Ganj-i-sawai as it was returning pilgrims from the Muslim Hajj.

Researchers aren't certain that the coins are from the Ganj-i-sawai, but their origin, their dates and their discovery in such a distant region suggest they were seized by the pirates and spent in the Americas.

Related: 30 of the world's most valuable treasures that are still missing

The coins may have been handled by Every himself, who disappeared a few years later but who came to be portrayed as an almost heroic figure from what some have called the "Golden Age of Piracy."

Their discovery has also cast new light on Every's whereabouts shortly before he vanished with his loot. "We can prove beyond a doubt that he actually was in the mainland American colonies," Rhode Island metal detectorist Jim Bailey told Live Science.

Bailey found one of the first of the Arabian silver coins, called a comassee, in 2014 at the site of a colonial settlement on Aquidneck Island, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Providence.

More than a dozen similar coins thought to be from the pirate raid on the Ganj-i-sawai have now been discovered by metal detectorists and archaeologists elsewhere in Rhode Island, and in Massachusetts, Connecticut and North Carolina maybe the last evidence of one of the greatest crimes in history.

In 1695, Every and his cutthroat crew on board their ship Fancy joined a pirate raid on a convoy in the Red Sea that was returning to India from Mecca.

Every's ship chased and caught the convoy's flagship, the Ganj-i-sawai, which belonged to the Grand Mughal Aurangzeb, the Muslim emperor of what is now India and Pakistan. Reports say the pirates tortured and killed its crew and 600 passengers, before making off with gold and silver, including thousands of coins, said to be worth between 200,000 and 600,000 British pounds the equivalent of between $40 million and $130 million in today's money.

Related: In photos: Pirate ship discovered in the UK

After an outcry led by the British East India Company, whose profits on the riches of India were threatened by the raid, Britain's King William III ordered what is regarded as the first international manhunt to capture Every and the other pirates.

By this time, however, Every and his crew had escaped to the New World. They lived for several months in the Bahamas, possibly with the collusion of the British governor of the islands; but they fled in late 1696 as the Royal Navy closed in.

Some of Every's crew went to live in the mainland colonies, where they were eventually tried and acquitted, possibly as a result of bribery; but there were no further sightings of Every. Later reports suggested he had sailed to Ireland while still on the run and that he died there, impoverished, a few years later. Since his loot from the Ganj-i-sawai was never accounted for, rumors long persisted that the treasure had been buried somewhere in secret.

Bailey is an amateur archaeologist who worked on the recovery of the wreck of the Whydah, a pirate ship discovered off Cape Cod in 1984.

Related: The most notorious pirates ever

In 2014, his metal detector picked up the first of the mysterious coins in a meadow on Aquidneck Island that was once the site of a colonial township.

"You never field-clean a coin, because you could damage it," he said. "I had to run to my car and get a big bottle of water the mud came off, and I saw this Arabic script on the coin and I was amazed, because I knew exactly where it'd come from," he said. "I was aware that the American colonies had been bases of operation for piracy in the late 17th century."

Studies of the Arabic writing on the coin showed it had been minted in Yemen in southern Arabia in 1693, just a few years before the pirate attack on the Ganj-i-sawai. Another 13 have been found, mostly by metal detectorists, but the latest in 2018 by archaeologists in Connecticut; two Ottoman Turkish silver coins thought to be from the same hoard have also been unearthed in the region.

Bailey has carefully studied each of the discoveries, while researching historical sources about the pirates who might have brought the coins to the Americas; and in 2017, some of his work was published in the Colonial Newsletter, a research journal published by the American Numismatic Society.

Several of the coins show the year they were minted, while some are marked with the names of rulers at the time, which can be used to date them. "None of the coins date after 1695, when the Ganj-i-sawai was captured," Bailey said.

Every is thought to have sailed directly to Ireland after his time in the Bahamas, but Bailey's research suggests Every first spent several weeks on the American mainland, trading in African slaves he had bought with the loot from the Ganj-i-sawai.

Historical records relate that a ship Every had acquired in the Bahamas, Sea Flower, sold dozens of slaves on the mainland, and Bailey's research suggests that Every was on board, he said.

Bailey thinks Every probably died in Ireland eventually, as described by some chroniclers. But others portrayed him as a swashbuckling "king" who ruled for years over a fictional pirate utopia in Madagascar.

There's no way to know if Every handled the New England coins himself, but Bailey thinks they were almost certainly part of the hoard looted from the Mughal ship (Some coin specialists, however, are not convinced by his theory.)

While most of the loot was probably melted down to hide the origins, "what we're finding basically are the coins that were being used by the pirates when they were on the run: coins for lodgings, coins for meals, coins for drinking," he said.

Astonishingly, the coins may also have been referred to in the manhunt proclamation by King William, which stated that Every and the other fugitives had looted many "Indian and Persian" gold and silver coins from the captured ship.

"How often do you find a coin that's mentioned in the proclamation for the capture of a pirate and the subject of the first worldwide manhunt?" Bailey said. "It's just fantastic."

Originally published on Live Science.

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Silver coins unearthed in New England may be loot from one of the 'greatest crimes in history' - Livescience.com

Discovering a thread in the nonlinear course of history is a difficult task, especially by the exacting and rigorous academic standards. Tim Harper is a rare historian-storyteller who has uncovered several interconnected strands over a large landscape. In a strange coincidence, Underground Asia: Global Revolutionaries and the Assault on Empire was published just when some scholars argued that the vestiges of the Empire are still shaping the world.This unique research by Harper, a journalist-cum-academic, explores the subversive campaigns in Asia that often extended to Europe, America, Canada and other distant parts of the world in the early 20th century. Each was varied in its context, but they were all sustained and bound by one sentiment to overthrow imperialism. The bombing at Chandni Chowk in Delhi in 1911 on Lord Hardinges procession to the Red Fort by Rash Bihari Bose, or, the Muzaffarpur bombing by Khudiram Bose turns out to be intricately linked to the bombings at Canton and other parts of Southeast Asia.This wave of insurrection in Asia drew its sustenance from a new generation of intellectuals (who) sought to weave together seemingly irreconcilable doctrines anarchism, nationalism, communism, even religious revival in the name of unity and opposition to Western Imperialism. Most of the men and women involved in it were truly internationalists but driven simultaneously by the urge to create a utopia in their homelands. Tan Malaka, known as the father of the republic of Indonesia, was a Marxist guerrilla who clamoured for 100 per cent freedom from the yoke of Dutch imperialism. Similarly, MN Roy from India was wedded to Marxism and Leninism, and travelled across the globe chasing his dream. Over a period of time, ironically, most of these activists slipped into oblivion and their footprints were washed away. Yet, in many ways, they were pathfinders for a world without empire and for an Asian future, writes Harper.The first three decades of the 20th century were marked by an incredibly fast pace of political and social changes in the world. In 1905, the Russia-Japan war had conclusively disabused the notion of Western superiority in warfare. Similarly, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 conjured up the dream of an ideal nation whose philosophical moorings lay in proletarian internationalism until it mutated into authoritarianism of the worst kind under Joseph Stalin. In China, Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek were fighting for the independence and reunion of a divided China. Subsequently, Chiang was driven to Taiwan by the redoubtable Communist Party of China chief, Mao Tse-tung, as he evolved a new mutant of parochial nationalism in the garb of a communist revolution.In this global context, Asia was indeed the battleground for revolutionary ideas. Despite his London education and familiarity with India House, the hub of subversive thinking, Mahatma Gandhi ploughed his lonely furrow and stuck to non-violence and truth to dislodge the Empire. Of course, Gandhis political course was quite at variance with the prevalent political ideologies that either condoned or justified violence to attain a greater objective. But there is hardly any doubt that violence weaves a seductive logic that attracts younger and idealist people who were fighting for their ideas of the nation. Take, for instance, the manner in which Madan Lal Dhingra justified his act of shooting in London by saying, a nation held down by foreign bayonet is in perpetual state of war The only lesson required in India at present is to learn how to die, and the only way to teach is by dying ourselves. These words found resonance in anti-colonial movements across India that compelled a section of the youth to take to violence to challenge the British Raj.The best part of the book is that it weaves its narrative around the global events without tainting them with the authors subjectivity. In those tumultuous times, when the boundaries of nations were not rigid and western empires were overlapping in certain parts with emerging powers such as the United States in the Philippines and Japan in China and Korea, the movement of people from one place to another was not so difficult. Therefore, the book details the pathways of three important figures of that era Nguyen Ai Quoc alias Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam, Malaka of Indonesia and MN Roy of India. Fired by the revolutionary zeal of Marxism, they travelled to many parts of the world to forge an international coalition against the Empire. At the end of it, the deception of their dream became evident as the USSR and China started imitating the empires in their worst form.Roy returned to India and spent his last days as a radical humanist, having become politically irrelevant during his lifetime. The book paints a poignant picture of the revolution when he is quoted as saying, I came to the conclusion that the civilised mankind was destined to go through another period of monasticism, where all the treasures of past wisdom, knowledge and learning will be rescued from the ruins to be then passed on to a new generation engaged in the task of building a new world and a new civilisation. Towards the end of his life, at his Dehradun residence, he kept a photograph of Stalin on his mantelpiece, though he was shunned by the mainstream Left parties.Interesting anecdotes propel a powerful story that lends credence to the belief that the empires were quite rattled by the audacity of these groups of men and women who could not be repressed into submission. In the Indian context, the illusion of the mighty British Raj and its administrative stranglehold over the country was substantially dispelled by these romantic revolutionaries who considered Asia to be a beacon of hope for the world. For them, the idea of the nation, instead of being a rigid concept, was integrated into internationalism without the dominance of empires. While writing a farewell note from the Andaman cell to his friends, Veer Savarkar evocatively summed up the story of those who crossed the ocean and took to revolutionary paths: As in some oriental play sublime, all characters, the dead as well as living, in Epilogue they meet: thus actors we innumerable all-once more shall meet on Historys copious stage before the applauding audience of Humanity This book has truly brought alive all those characters who were either erased or faded away from memory and paid them a tribute they richly deserved.

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Ajay Singh is press secretary to the President of India

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Revolutionaries and their shadowy networks come alive in Tim Harpers new book - The Indian Express

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA Norma was 20 years old and homeless when the police took her to a psychiatric hospital, where she has lived for the past five years. She was pregnant at the time and gave birth to a son a few months later.

Because Norma was in the mental health system, however, a court determined that she could not keep her baby, and he was given up for adoption. She is petitioning the court for permission to see her son and asked that her last name not be published, out of fear that it could jeopardize her case. Now she wears a necklace with a pendant of a child, as a way to remember him.

He was very small, and he would laugh when I bathed him, Norma says, her face lighting up.

What Norma didnt know until a few months ago is that the court didnt just force her to give up custody it also prevented her from having any more children. By court order, when Normas doctors delivered her son by cesarean section, they also tied her fallopian tubes.

Nobody asked her if it was what she wanted.

At the end of December, after years of protests and campaigning by womens rights groups, Argentina became the largest South American country to legalize abortion without restriction in early pregnancy. Yet even as millions of women have rallied around the slogan my body, my choice, many Argentine women with mental disabilities are still denied the opportunity to make their own reproductive decisions.

Doctors may sterilize women who are legally declared incompetent, according to a 2006 law, substituting their consent with authorization by the courts at the request of a family member or legal guardian. This is despite the fact that in 2008 Argentina signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which states that the will of a person with disabilities cant be taken away.

A temporary court-appointed legal guardian requested Normas tubal ligation. A public curator, appointed by the state, has legal responsibility for Norma now.

Lucila Pellettieri, GPJ Argentina

Norma wears a necklace with a pendant of a child to remember her son, whom she was forced to give up for adoption.

There is no official record of how many people have been sterilized by court order in Argentina, but Normas experience is hardly an isolated case. Marcela Gasic, a social worker at a neuropsychiatric hospital in Buenos Aires, says she has worked with several women who were sterilized against their will. One of them was told of the tubal ligation when she woke after doctors performed a C-section.

They told her that theyd tied her tubes so she wouldnt have to go through the same thing again, Gasic says. As if they had done her a favor.

Women who use the mental health system are also sometimes forced to use birth control pills or contraceptive implants, says Macarena Sabin Paz, a psychologist and coordinator of the mental health team at the Center for Legal and Social Studies, a human rights organization.

Sexual rights, reproductive rights and the right to not reproduce are still a utopia inside of mental health institutions, she says.

Alicia Alvano, a member of the Assembly of Mental Health Patients, a patient advocacy group, experienced firsthand this lack of autonomy after she was committed to a mental health facility and medicated against her will.

They dont generally ask for your consent that doesnt apply, Alvano says. I didnt even know what kind of medication I was taking. The nurse puts medicine in your mouth, and then checks to make sure that you swallowed it.

They told her that theyd tied her tubes so that she wouldnt have to go through the same thing again. As if they had done her a favor.Marcela GasicA social worker in Buenos Aires, describes a woman who was sterilized against her will

According to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, medical care is supposed to be provided on the basis of free and informed consent. Argentinas national mental health law also specifies that involuntary hospitalization may be carried out only in cases where there is imminent risk of harm.

But women with disabilities are often viewed with prejudice, according to Carolina Buceta, a member of the Network for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, another advocacy group.

Society considers us asexual beings, completely innocent, or the opposite, to have an exacerbated sexuality, Buceta says. Theres still the belief that disabled women wont be able to take charge of their birth control methods.

Constanza Leone, a spokesperson for the Directorate of Sexual and Reproductive Health at the Ministry of Health, says that all parts of society hold preconceptions about people with disabilities including the state. She says the directorate supports efforts to reform Argentinas law to guarantee that people with disabilities have autonomy over their reproductive choices. The directorate is also working with people with disabilities and reproductive rights organizations to train health professionals to be more aware of the rights of people living with disabilities.

Were fighting for each individuals informed decision over their own body to be respected, despite their age, their gender or their condition, Leone says. We must provide the necessary resources so that they can receive the information and choose a reversible birth control method on their own.

Disability rights advocates are also pushing for changes to Argentinas law to make it clear that people with disabilities are free to make their own reproductive choices, and that sterilization can be performed only with the consent of the individual.

Let the law be changed, Norma says. It makes me want to cry.

As she waits to hear whether the court will allow her to see her son, she and her primary care doctor are trying to determine whether another operation could reverse her tubal ligation.

I want them untied, Norma says. Id like to have a girl.

Originally posted here:

A New Front in the Fight for Reproductive Rights - Global Press Journal

China looked to the heavens when it named its first Mars rover calling it Zhurong, after a mythical god of fire and war.

Its in keeping with Chinas ambitious plans for the Red Planet which they call Huo Xing, or Fire Star that include becoming the third country after the US and the former Soviet Union to send a robot there, the China National Space Administration announced Saturday.

The rover is already en route to Mars aboard the Tianwen-1 probe, which is due to land in May and will look for evidence of life, the Associated Press reported.

Zhurong is revered as the earliest god of fire in traditional Chinese culture, symbolising the use of fire to illuminate the earth and bring light,space administration officialssaid Saturday.

The first Mars rover was named Zhurong, and it means to ignite the fire for interstellar exploration in our country, and guide mankind to continue exploration and self-transcendence in the vast starry sky.

Chinas space plans involve more than Mars exploration, however. The country plans a crewed orbital station, and intends to land a human on the moon. In 2019 it became the first country to land a space probe on the far side of the moon. Last year it brought back lunar rocks to Earth for the first time since the 1970s.

Tianwen-1 will probably alight upon Utopia Planitia, a rock-riddled flat area where the U.S. lander Viking 2 touched down in 1976. The rover will then help fulfill the mission goals of mapping out the Martian surface and analyzing its geology.

Chinese officials say they hope to look for evidence of water ice and plan to study the climate and surface environment.

Continue reading here:

China invokes mythic god of war and fire for its Mars rover name - New York Post

The pandemic has been a devastating health issue for more than a year. But it has also impacted the movie industry and even forced the Motion Picture Academy to push back its Oscar ceremony to April 25. The late date for the Academy Awards this Sunday prompted me to compose my own list of the best films of 2020.

Aired 4/23/21 on KPBS News

Listen to this story by Beth Accomando.

2020 was most decidedly a crazy year. The pandemic impacted everyone and it also changed the way we watched films. With cinemas closed, people streamed more movies than ever at home including first run Hollywood blockbusters. Drive-ins even saw a resurgence as a safe place to watch movies.

For me, the caution I exercised to avoid getting COVID-19 made me hungry for films that were anything but cautious. So, my 10-best list mostly highlights smaller films that pushed the envelope and displayed something unexpected.

Honorable mentions

In many ways, this was a great year because smaller films could compete more equally with big Hollywood films. This was a year that I could have done a 10-best list of just documentaries or just horror.

So to start, I want to do an honorable mentions list of truly clever and inventive indie horror films starting with the Zoom inspired "Host," the Rod Serling influenced "Vast of Night," and the wicked fun of "Wolf of Snow Hollow" and "Anything for Jackson."

The documentary honorable mentions go to the inspiring "Danny Trejo: Inmate Number 1," the enlightening Bruce Lee doc "Be Water," and the just insanely absurd tale of "Red Penguins." Also noteworthy were "Crip Camp" and "David Byrne's American Utopia" directed by Spike Lee.

Foreign film highlights include "Another Round" (Denmark/Sweden), "Martin Eden" (Italy), "Night of Kings" (France/Cte d'Ivoire/Canada/Senegal), and "La Llorona" (Guatemala/France).

And a few films that didn't really push the envelope but which excelled at what they did were the lush black and white Hollywood tale of "Mank," the surprising romantic comedies "Palm Springs" and "Spontaneous," and the compelling humanity of "Minari" and "The Mauritanian."

Lastly, I just want to highlight an amazingly talented group of women filmmakers that all deserve attention and more importantly more financing to make more films. The women are Chloe Zhao for "Nomadland," Regina King for "One Night in Miami," Emerald Fennell for "Promising Young Woman" and Eliza Hittman for "Never rarely Sometimes Always."

Cinema Junkie Acting Awards

I also want to highlight some individual talent here.

Best actress was perhaps the fiercest competition in years. I was thrilled to see so many films driven by female protagonists and/or created by women writers and directors. What really thrilled me was that the women were diverse and flawed and complex. That is exciting! There were so many to choose from but these actresses just went the extra mile.

Best Actress: Viola Davis, "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"

Runners up: Morfydd Clark in "Saint Maud," Azura Skye in "Swerve" and Haley Bennett in "Swallow"

The best actor category was not quite as exciting but for me there was only one hands down winner.

Best Actor: Delroy Lindo, "Da 5 Bloods"

Runners up: Steven Yeun in "Minari," Willem Dafoe in "Tommaso" and "Chadwick Boseman in "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom"

Top 10 films of 2020

Starting at number 10: Im always excited by new voices and "His House" marks the debut feature of Remi Weekes. He brilliantly uses African culture and folklore to give fresh flavor to a familiar haunted house formula. Plus he endows the film with an underlying social commentary.

At number nine is the first of a quartet of documentaries that just exploded expectations with creativity and energy. "Dick Johnson is Dead" is a daughters film about her father. Filmmaker Kirsten Johnson stages her fathers funeral before he dies and before he succumbs to dementia. The film is unexpectedly hilarious as well as poignant, always gracefully navigating between the two, so tears of laughter blur into tears of sadness.

A radically different documentary comes in at number eight, "Collective." Starting with a fire in a Bucharest club that leads to horrific health care scandals, this searing investigative documentary plays out like a Romanian "All the Presidents Men."

Coming in at number seven: While "Collective" serves up riveting cinematic journalism, "Time" is all about an expressionistic sense of artistry. Filmmaker Garret Bradley makes thoughtful, beautiful and provocative choices as she pleads for a more compassionate legal system. As the title implies, time is a key element and Bradley creates an ebb and flow thats exquisite.

The final documentary on my list is "The Truffle Hunters" at number six. This is a film in which simplicity and minimalism become sublime as we look at a dying breed of men and their dogs who hunt for truffles in Italy.

The next two films are both from debuting filmmakers who display intoxicating talent. At number five, Carlos Mirabella-Davis "Swallow" plays out like a Hitchcock thriller in which a woman (Haley Bennett) feels trapped in her elegant home and decides to swallow objects as her only means of controlling her life. Not a hair is out of place and the production design is rendered in terrifying perfection.

Then at number four: First time feature director Rose Glass delivers the ferociously bold and original "Saint Maud." From its opening score and fevered images, the film announces itself as an audaciously unsettling look at the dangerous intersection of madness and religion. Morfydd Clark is riveting as a young woman desperate to find purpose and meaning in her lonely life.

The most mainstream film on my list is "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" at number three. It won this spot almost exclusively on the jaw-dropping performance of an unrecognizable Viola Davis as the title character. Director George C. Wolfe adapts August Wilsons period play with vigor to remind us that the past is not some creaky ole thing to be viewed through sepia toned nostalgia. Wolfe makes us feel the heat and sweat of a past that informs the present.

I see my top two picks as comfort food. Theres nothing like dread to make me feel better about a scary and often infuriating real world. At number two is "Im Thinking of Ending Things," Charlie Kaufmans deliciously baffling film that refuses to explain anything. Kaufmans puzzle box requires you spend time examining it. In our culture of instant gratification it's nice to have something to savor long after its been consumed.

And my favorite film of 2020 is Brandon Cronenbergs relentless and disturbing "Possessor Uncut." It manages to be both cerebral and visceral. Cronenbergs father David once told me in an interview that hes not interested in comfortable cinema. Neither is his son, and while I sit at home trying to stay safe from a pandemic, neither am I.

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Beth Accomando Arts & Culture Reporter

I cover arts and culture, from Comic-Con to opera, from pop entertainment to fine art, from zombies to Shakespeare. I am interested in going behind the scenes to explore the creative process; seeing how pop culture reflects social issues; and providing a context for art and entertainment.

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Before the Oscars On Sunday Check Out This Top 10 List - KPBS