A cranium hidden at the bottom of a well in northeastern China for more than 80 years may belong to a new species of early human that researchers have called "dragon man."
The exciting discovery is the latest addition to a human family tree that is rapidly growing and shifting, thanks to new fossil finds and analysis of ancient DNA preserved in teeth, bones and cave dirt.
The well-preserved skullcap, found in the Chinese city of Harbin, is between 138,000 and 309,000 years old, according to geochemical analysis, and it combines primitive features, such as a broad nose and low brow and braincase, with those that are more similar to Homo sapiens, including flat and delicate cheekbones.
The ancient hominin — which researchers said was "probably" a 50-year-old man — would have had an "extremely wide" face, deep eyes with large eye sockets, big teeth and a brain similar in size to modern humans.
[. . .]
The story of human evolution is changing all the time in what is a particularly exciting period for paleoanthropology, [Professor Christopher] Stringer said.
The announcement of dragon man's discovery comes a day after a different group of researchers published a paper in the journal Science on fossils found in Israel, which they said also could represent another new type of early human.
The jaw bone and skull fragment suggested a group of people lived in the Middle East 120,000 to 420,000 years ago with anatomical features more primitive than early modern humans and Neanderthals.
BBC NEWS also speaks with Professor Stringer:
"In terms of fossils in the last million years, this is one of the most important yet discovered," he told BBC News.
"What you have here is a separate branch of humanity that is not on its way to becoming Homo sapiens (our species), but represents a long-separate lineage which evolved in the region for several hundred thousand years and eventually went extinct."
The researchers say the discovery has the potential to rewrite the story of human evolution. Their analysis suggests that it is more closely related to Homo sapiens than it is to Neanderthals.
They have assigned the specimen to a new species: Homo longi, from the Chinese word "long", meaning dragon.
"We found our long-lost sister lineage," said Xijun Ni, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Hebei GEO University in Shijiazhuang.
He told BBC News: "I said 'oh my gosh!'. I could not believe that it was so well preserved. You can see all the details. It is a really amazing find!"
Let me add in a video report on this as well.
"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Monday, June 28, 2021. Today we focus only on the strike in Iraq and what led up to it.
Sarah Abdallah Tweets:
Iraq and Syria have been bombed. Syria isn't the focus of this site. The bombing that took place in Syria also has different issues than the one that took place in Iraq, so we're focusing on Iraq. Here's the statement from Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby:
"At President Biden's direction, U.S. military forces earlier this evening conducted defensive precision airstrikes against facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups in the Iraq-Syria border region. The targets were selected because these facilities are utilized by Iran-backed militias that are engaged in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) attacks against U.S. personnel and facilities in Iraq. Specifically, the U.S. strikes targeted operational and weapons storage facilities at two locations in Syria and one location in Iraq, both of which lie close to the border between those countries. Several Iran-backed militia groups, including Kata'ib Hezbollah (KH) and Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada (KSS), used these facilities.
As demonstrated by this evening's strikes, President Biden has been clear that he will act to protect U.S. personnel. Given the ongoing series of attacks by Iran-backed groups targeting U.S. interests in Iraq, the President directed further military action to disrupt and deter such attacks. We are in Iraq at the invitation of the Government of Iraq for the sole purpose of assisting the Iraqi Security Forces in their efforts to defeat ISIS. The United States took necessary, appropriate, and deliberate action designed to limit the risk of escalation - but also to send a clear and unambiguous deterrent message.
As a matter of international law, the United States acted pursuant to its right of self-defense. The strikes were both necessary to address the threat and appropriately limited in scope. As a matter of domestic law, the President took this action pursuant to his Article II authority to protect U.S. personnel in Iraq."
US House Rep Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House. Her office issued the following statement:
Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued this statement after the United States conducted defensive precision airstrikes against facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups in the Iraq-Syria border region:
“The defensive airstrikes conducted today by the Department of Defense on operational and weapons storage facilities in the Iraq-Syria border region appear to be a targeted and proportional response to a serious and specific threat.
“Protecting the military heroes who defend our freedoms is a sacred priority. The Iran-backed militias utilizing these facilities have been engaged in attacks threatening U.S. servicemembers, as well as our allies.
“Congress looks forward to receiving and reviewing the formal notification of this operation under the War Powers Act and to receiving additional briefings from the Administration.”
Alex Horton (WASHINGTON POST) notes:
Officials have said militias employing small, explosive-laden drones to attack regional U.S. personnel is one of the chief concerns for the U.S. military mission there.
Iraq condemned the strike on its soil as a “blatant and unacceptable violation” of national sovereignty and “all international conventions.” Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada said in a statement that four of its militiamen were killed in the attack on the Iraqi side of the border. Photographs suggested that the youngest among them was in his early twenties.
Iraq condemned? Who in Iraq condemned? That's what needs to be reported.
Syria and Iraq are two different countries. I am personally opposed to both air strikes. But we're not talking about personal beliefs in this entry. An action was taken in Iraq. Can it be justified?
Sadly, yes, it can be.
Statements about national sovereignty from "Iraq"? I'd love to have names attached so that the hypocrisy could be called out. When the militias threw their tantrum a few weeks ago and flooded Baghdad over an arrest that they didn't want, when they encircled the prime minister's compound, where was the national sovereignty then?
Because the term "militias" is used to widely. They are militias -- or thugs. But they're also part of the Iraq military. Many of us opposed that move, loudly critiqued it, when it was first floated and throughout the years where it was still proposed. It never should have been made part of the Iraqi military.
It is out of control and does not respect the chain of command, it openly insults the prime minister who is now supposed to be its commander. So I'd love to know which idiot is whining "national sovereignty" in Iraq right now. I'd especially love to know if it's a hypocrite who refuses to call out Turkey's repeated violations of national sovereignty.
Did Joe Biden and the US break laws in the attack?
Probably not. The Iraqi government neither disciplines nor reigns in the militias. They do not hold them in check and although, on paper, they are supposed to have authority over them, in practice, they actually have none.
The militias have made public statements, issued them, of carrying out violence on US troops.
Attacks on US troops have taken place. As RTE notes, "Since the start of the year there have been more than 40 attacks against US interests in Iraq, where 2,500 American troops are deployed as part of an international coalition to fight the jihadist Islamic State group."
The Iraqi government could choose to expel US forces but they haven't done that and the prime minister wants US troops in Iraq. (Please don't play an ANTIWAR.COM idiot and bring up a vote in Parliament in early 2020 -- a vote that was boycotted by too many members for there to have been a quorum. The Iraqi people want the US out and have wanted that for years, many members of Parliament feel the same. But ANTIWAR.COM has repeatedly presented that non-binding nonsense as genuine and pretended as though the full Parliament turned out for that vote. ALZAEERA pimps the false claim about the vote in Parliament in their report of the Sunday strikes and that's why we're not noting them. We're not here to help spread lies.)
There is a thing known as self-defense. If the Iraqi government can't provide the protection, the US government will.
I'm talking legally, not personally. I am opposed to the strikes and don't see how they do anything but heat up an already flammable situation. I'm also excluding Syria because that's a different situation on the ground there and I do not think that a legal argument can be made to support that strike the way it can be made for the strike on Iraq.
And the fact that I believe you can make a legal case for the strike on Iraq does not mean that I think the attack was justified.
US Senator Chris Murphy's office issued the following yesterday:
WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism, on Sunday released the following statement on the U.S. military airstrikes on facilities used by Iranian-backed military groups along the Iraq-Syria border:
“I expect to be briefed tomorrow by the White House on the U.S. military airstrikes along the Iraq-Syria border and look forward to hearing more about the circumstances. There is no doubt that President Biden possesses the ability to defend our forces abroad, and I continue to trust inherently the national security instincts of this White House,” said Murphy. “My concern is that the pace of activity directed at U.S. forces and the repeated retaliatory strikes against Iranian proxy forces are starting to look like what would qualify as a pattern of hostilities under the War Powers Act. Both the Constitution and the War Powers Act require the president to come to Congress for a war declaration under these circumstances.”
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Congress does need to provide oversight, that is their role. Hopefully, they will do so publicly -- meaning with hearings. If Chris believes the actions are important enough to warrant issuing that statement, he should also believe that it's important enough for an open process which would require a heading -- not just a briefing behind closed doors.
DEUTSCHE WELLE moves beyond 'Iraq condemns' to give you an actual source:
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi slammed the US raids as "flagrant violation" of his country's sovereignty.
"We condemn the US air attack that targeted a site last night on the Iraqi-Syrian border, which represents a blatant and unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty and Iraqi national security," said a statement from his office.
Turkey has sent troops into Iraq -- supposedly not at the invitation of the Iraqi government -- and established bases in Iraq -- ibid -- while also using War Planes to drop bombs which have killed and displaced villagers and Mustafa's been at a loss for words so his newly discovered voice is about as much of a joke as he himself is. He can't control the militias, he can't protect the people. He can't even keep a killer, assassin Qasim Muslih, in custody when he goes up against the militias so let's stop pretending his prancing and preening has any meaning.
Barham Salih is the president of Iraq. It is supposed to be a ceremonial position only. But with the help of a lazy western press and Mustafa's own incompetence, Barham has elevated the position to the point that, on the international stage, it's comparable to the post of prime minister.
Phil Stewart (REUTERS) types, "Two U.S. officials, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said Iran-backed militias carried out at least five drone attacks against facilities used by U.S. and coalition personnel in Iraq since April."
Is it true? Possibly. But the reader has no way to verify it or even to determine whether or not to lend it credence. Stewart doesn't even bother to inform the reader which department the officials are with. If they do exist, of course, there's always the possibility that they don't. The claim being put forward anonymously is not the type of claim that deserves anonymity. They are backing up the claims of the administration, therefore, there's no need to hide their names. Doing so makes their assertion suspect.
Monday’s strikes were the second time Biden has ordered the use of force against Iranian-backed groups in the region. In February, U.S. forces conducted airstrikes along the Syria-Iraq border in retaliation to rocket attacks on American facilities in the Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Erbil. Since then Iranian-backed groups have targeted Iraqi bases that housed U.S. military personnel, using drones laden with explosives. The U.S. military presence in Iraq is largely limited to bases in Ain al-Asad and Baghdad as the Trump administration had significantly drawn it down. The strikes also come just a week after Iran elected hard-line leader Ebrahim Raisi, as its next president.
Tom Vanden Brook (USA TODAY) adds, "Navy Cmdr. Jessica McNulty said Sunday night that Iranian-backed militias have launched five drone attacks against facilities used by U.S. and allied troops in Iraq since April. Militia members have also fired rockets."
Repeating, I don't think the strike on Iraq was right or humane or justified. Is it legal? Yes, based upon what's taken place since the first of the year, it is. If you're offended by the strike, hopefully, you'll use that reaction to argue for US forces to be pulled out of Iraq. If you're for the strike or neutral, hopefully, you'll grasp that things were dangerous before and they just got more dangerous as a result of the strike and you'll use that awareness to argue for US troops to leave Iraq.
