Receding ice leaves Canada’s polar bears at rising risk

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A polar bear observes at a Beluga whale pod passing along the shoreline of the Hudson Bay near Churchill on August 5, 2022. (Olivier Morin / AFP)
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A female polar bear stands along the shoreline of the Hudson Bay near Churchill on August 5, 2022. (Olivier Morin / AFP)
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A female polar bear walks between rocks to find something to eat along the shoreline of the Hudson Bay near Churchill on August 5, 2022. Olivier Morin / AFP)
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Updated 29 September 2022
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Receding ice leaves Canada’s polar bears at rising risk

  • The fate of the polar bear should alarm everyone, says Flavio Lehner, a climate scientist at Cornell University who was part of the expedition, because the Arctic is a good “barometer” of the planet’s health

CHURCHILL Canada: Sprawled on rocky ground far from sea ice, a lone Canadian polar bear sits under a dazzling sun, his white fur utterly useless as camouflage.
It’s mid-summer on the shores of Hudson Bay and life for the enormous male has been moving in slow motion, far from the prey that keeps him alive: seals. 
This is a critical time for the region’s polar bears.
Every year from late June when the bay ice disappears — shrinking until it dots the blue vastness like scattered confetti — they must move onto shore to begin a period of forced fasting.
But that period is lasting longer and longer as temperatures rise — putting them in danger’s way.
Once on solid ground, the bears “typically have very few options for food,” explains Geoff York, a biologist with Polar Bear International (PBI).
York, an American, spends several weeks each year in Churchill, a small town on the edge of the Arctic in the northern Canadian province of Manitoba. There he follows the fortunes of the endangered animals.
This is one of the best spots from which to study life on Hudson Bay, though transportation generally requires either an all-terrain vehicle adapted to the rugged tundra, or an inflatable boat for navigating the bay’s waters.
York invited an AFP team to join him on an expedition in early August.
Near the impressively large male bear lazing in the sun is a pile of fishbones — nowhere near enough to sustain this 11-foot (3.5-meter), 1,300-pound (600-kilo) beast.
“There could be a beluga whale carcass they might be able to find, (or a) naive seal near shore, but generally they’re just fasting,” York says.
“They lose nearly a kilogram of body weight every day that they’re on land.”
Climate warming is affecting the Arctic three times as fast as other parts of the world — even four times, according to some recent studies. So sea ice, the habitat of the polar bear, is gradually disappearing.
A report published two years ago in the journal Nature Climate Change suggested that this trend could lead to the near-extinction of these majestic animals: 1,200 of them were counted on the western shores of Hudson Bay in the 1980s. Today the best estimate is 800. 




A female polar bear stands along the shoreline of the Hudson Bay near Churchill on August 5, 2022. (Olivier Morin / AFP)

Cycle of life disrupted

Each summer, sea ice begins melting earlier and earlier, while the first hard freeze of winter comes later and later. Climate change thus threatens the polar bears’ very cycle of life.
They have fewer opportunities to build up their reserves of fat and calories before the period of summer scarcity.
The polar bear — technically known as the Ursus maritimus — is a meticulous carnivore that feeds principally on the white fat that envelops and insulates a seal’s body.
But these days this superpredator of the Arctic sometimes has to feed on seaweed — as a mother and her baby were seen doing not far from the port of Churchill, the self-declared “Polar Bear Capital.”
If female bears go more than 117 days without adequate food, they struggle to nurse their young, said Steve Amstrup, an American who is PBI’s lead scientist. Males, he adds, can go 180 days.
As a result, births have declined, and it has become much rarer for a female to give birth to three cubs, once a common occurrence.
It is a whole ecosystem in decline, and one that 54-year-old York — with his short hair and rectangular glasses — knows by heart after spending more than 20 years roaming the Arctic, first for the ecology organization WWF and now for PBI.
During a capture in Alaska, a bear sunk its fangs into his leg.
Another time, while entering what he thought was an abandoned den, he came nose-to-snout with a female. York, normally a quiet man, says he “yelled as loud as I ever have in my life.”
Today, these enormous beasts live a precarious existence.
“Here in Hudson Bay, in the western and southern parts, polar bears are spending up to a month longer on shore than their parents or grandparents did,” York says.
As their physical condition declines, he says, their tolerance for risk rises, and “that might bring them into interaction with people (which) can lead to conflict instead of co-existence.”

“Prison” for bears

Binoculars in hand, Ian Van Nest, a provincial conservation officer, keeps an eye out through the day on the rocks surrounding Churchill, where the bears like to hide.
In this town of 800 inhabitants, which is only accessible by air and train but not by any roads, the bears have begun frequenting the local dump, a source of easy — but potentially harmful — food for them.




Provincial Polar Bear Patrol Officer Ian Van Nest on patrol on the shoreline of the Hudson Bay outside Churchill on August 7, 2022. (Olivier Morin / AFP)

They could be seen ripping open trash bags, eating plastic or getting their snouts trapped in food tins amid piles of burning waste.
Since then, the town has taken precautions: The dump is now guarded by cameras, fences and patrols.
Across Churchill, people leave cars and houses unlocked in case someone needs to find urgent shelter after an unpleasant encounter with this large land-based carnivore.
Posted on walls around town are the emergency phone numbers to reach Van Nest or his colleagues.
When they get an urgent call, they hop in their pickup truck armed with a rifle and a spray can of repellent, wearing protective flak jackets.
Van Nest, who is bearded and in his 30s, takes the job seriously, given the rising number of polar bears in the area.
Sometimes they can be scared off with just “the horn on your vehicle,” he tells AFP.
But other times “we might have to get on foot and grab our shotguns and cracker shells,” which issue an explosive sound designed to frighten the animal, “and head onto the rocks and pursue that bear.”
Some areas are watched more closely than others — notably around schools as children are arriving in the morning “to ensure that the kids are going to be safe.”
There have been some close calls, like the time in 2013 when a woman was grievously injured by a bear in front of her house, before a neighbor — clad in pajamas and slippers — ran out wielding only his snow shovel to scare the animal away.
Sometimes the animals have to be sedated, then winched up by a helicopter to be transported to the north, or kept in a cage until winter, when they can again feed on the bay.
Churchill’s only “prison” is inhabited entirely by bears, a hangar whose 28 cells can fill up in the autumn as the creatures maraud in mass around town while waiting for the ice to re-form in November.

Barometer of planet's health

The fate of the polar bear should alarm everyone, says Flavio Lehner, a climate scientist at Cornell University who was part of the expedition, because the Arctic is a good “barometer” of the planet’s health.
Since the 1980s, the ice pack in the bay has decreased by nearly 50 percent in summer, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center.
“We see the more — the faster — changes here, because it is warming particularly fast,” says Lehner, who is Swiss.
The region is essential to the health of the global climate because the Arctic, he says, effectively provides the planet’s “air conditioning.”
“There’s this important feedback mechanism of sea ice and snow in general,” he says, with frozen areas reflecting 80 percent of the sun’s rays, providing a cooling effect.
When the Arctic loses its capacity to reflect those rays, he said, there will be consequences for temperatures around the globe.
Thus, when sea ice melts, the much darker ocean’s surface absorbs 80 percent of the sun’s rays, accelerating the warming trend.
A few years ago, scientists feared that the Arctic’s summer ice pack was rapidly reaching a climatic “tipping point” and, above a certain temperature, would disappear for good.
But more recent studies show the phenomenon could be reversible, Lehner says.
“Should we ever be able to bring temperatures down again, sea ice will come back,” he says.
That said, the impact for now is pervasive.
“In the Arctic, climate change is impacting all species,” says Jane Waterman, a biologist at the University of Manitoba. “Every single thing is being affected by climate change.”
Permafrost — defined as land that is permanently frozen for two successive years — has begun to melt, and in Churchill the very contours of the land have shifted, damaging rail lines and the habitat of wild species.
The entire food chain is under threat, with some non-native species, like certain foxes and wolves, appearing for the first time, endangering Arctic species.
Nothing is safe, says Waterman, from the tiniest bacteria to enormous whales.

Beluya whales also affected

That includes the beluga whales that migrate each summer — by the tens of thousands — from Arctic waters to the refuge of the Hudson Bay.
These small white whales are often spotted in the bay’s vast blue waters.




A polar bear swims to catch a beluga whale along the coast of Hudson Bay near Churchill on August 9, 2022. (Olivier Morin / AFP)

Swimming in small groups, they like to follow the boats of scientists who have come to study them, seemingly taking pleasure in showing off their large round heads and spouting just feet from captivated observers.
The smallest ones, gray in color, cling to their mothers’ backs in this estuary, with its relatively warm waters, where they find protection from killer whales and plentiful nourishment.
But there has been “a shift in prey availability for beluga whales in some areas of the Arctic,” explains Valeria Vergara, an Argentine researcher who has spent her life studying the beluga.
As the ice cover shrinks, “there’s less under the surface of the ice for the phytoplankton that in turn will feed the zooplankton that in turn will feed big fish,” says Vergara, who is with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation.
The beluga has to dive deeper to find food, and that uses up precious energy.
And another danger lurks: Some climate models suggest that as early as 2030, with the ice fast melting, boats will be able to navigate the Hudson Bay year-round.
Sound pollution is a major problem for the species — known as the “canary of the seas” — whose communication depends on the clicking and whistling sounds it makes.
The beluga depends on sound-based communication to determine its location, find its way and to locate food, Vergara says.
Thanks to a hydrophone on the “Beluga Boat” that Vergara uses, humans can monitor the “conversations” of whales far below the surface.
Vergara, 53, describes their communications as “very complex,” and she can distinguish between the cries made by mother whales keeping in contact with their youngsters.
To the untrained ear, the sound is a cacophony, but clearly that of an animated community. Scientists wonder, however, how much longer such communities will last?
Far from the Arctic ice one lonely beluga became lost in the waters of France’s Seine river before dying in August. And in May a polar bear meandered its way deep into Canada’s south, shocking those who discovered it along the Saint Lawrence River.


India grants license to Musk’s Starlink

Updated 4 sec ago
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India grants license to Musk’s Starlink

  • The launch of Starlink has sparked fierce debate in India over issues ranging from predatory pricing to spectrum allocation
  • Elon Musk has butted heads with Jio Platforms owner Mukesh Ambani over how the satellite spectrum should be awarded
NEW DELHI: New Delhi had granted a license to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite Internet service, opening India’s “next frontier of connectivity,” according to the country’s communications minister.
The launch of Starlink, which provides high-speed Internet access to remote locations using low Earth orbit satellites, has sparked fierce debate in India over issues ranging from predatory pricing to spectrum allocation.
Communications minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said he held a “productive meeting” with Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of Starlink owner SpaceX.
Shotwell “appreciated the license granted to Starlink, calling it a great start to the journey,” the minister said late Tuesday on Musk-owned social media platform X.
It follows two of India’s biggest telecom service providers — Jio Platforms and its rival Bharti Airtel — in March announcing deals with SpaceX to offer Starlink Internet to their customers.
SpaceX owner Musk has butted heads with Asia’s richest man and Jio Platforms owner Mukesh Ambani over how the satellite spectrum should be awarded.
While Musk’s business interests in India are currently limited to X, the tech mogul’s electric vehicle maker Tesla is preparing its entry into the country.

India regulator says no ‘major safety concerns’ on Air India’s Boeing 787 fleet

Updated 3 min 8 sec ago
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India regulator says no ‘major safety concerns’ on Air India’s Boeing 787 fleet

  • 24 of Air India’s 33 Boeing 787 aircraft had completed an ‘enhanced safety inspection’ it had ordered the airline to carry out
  • The regulator raised concerns about recent maintenance-related issues reported by the airline

India’s aviation safety watchdog said on Tuesday surveillance conducted on Air India’s Boeing 787 fleet did not reveal any major safety concerns, days after one of its jets crashed, killing at least 271 people.

“The aircraft and associated maintenance systems were found to be compliant with existing safety standards,” the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said in a statement. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London with 242 people on board crashed seconds after take-off in Ahmedabad on Thursday hitting nearby buildings. All but one passenger on board was killed, along with about 30 people on the ground.

The DGCA also said 24 of Air India’s 33 Boeing 787 aircraft had completed an “enhanced safety inspection” it had ordered the airline to carry out.

The regulator, in a meeting with senior officials of Air India, raised concerns about recent maintenance-related issues reported by the airline.

It advised the carrier to “strictly adhere to regulations,” strengthen coordination across its businesses and ensure availability of adequate spares to mitigate passenger delays, it added.

The DGCA had met senior officials of Air India and Air India Express to review their operations amid increasing flight volumes.


G7 leaders try to salvage their summit after Trump’s early exit effectively makes it the ‘G6’

Updated 18 June 2025
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G7 leaders try to salvage their summit after Trump’s early exit effectively makes it the ‘G6’

  • Trump again offered his often-repeated claims on Monday that there would have been no war if G7 members hadn’t expelled Putin from the organization in 2014 for annexing Crimea
  • Before leaving, Trump joined the other leaders in issuing a statement saying Iran “can never have a nuclear weapon” and calling for a “de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, including a ceasefire in Gaza”

KANANASKIS, Alberta: Six of the Group of Seven leaders were wrapping up their summit on Tuesday, attempting to prove that the wealthy nations’ club still has the clout to shape world events despite the early departure of US President Donald Trump.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and his counterparts from the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Japan were joined by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and NATO chief Mark Rutte and discussed Russia’s relentless war on its neighbor at what has essentially become just the G6.
Zelensky said of overnight Russian attacks that killed 15 people and injured 150-plus in his country “our families had a very difficult night, one of the biggest attacks from the very beginning of this war.”
“We need support from allies and I’m here,” Zelensky said. He added, “We are ready for the peace negotiations, unconditional ceasefire. I think it’s very important. But for this, we need pressure.”
Carney said the attack “underscores the importance of standing in total solidarity with Ukraine, with the Ukrainian people” and pledged $2 billion in new aid that would fund drones and other military items.
Numerous meetings continued, and the remaining leaders agreed to jointly attempt to combat what they called non-market policies that could jeopardize global access to critical minerals.
They similarly pledged to limit the potential downsides of artificial intelligence on jobs and the environment while still embracing the potential of the “technological revolution.”
But, notably, the leaders did not release any joint statements on Russia’s war in Ukraine. Zelensky had been set to meet with Trump while world leaders were gathering in the Canadian Rocky Mountain resort of Kananaskis, but that was scrapped.
The US previously signed an agreement granting American access to Ukraine’s vast mineral resources amid Russia’s ongoing war in Zelensky’s country.
The summit opened with the specific goal of helping to defuse a series of pressure points, only to be disrupted by a showdown over Iran’s nuclear program that could escalate. Israel launched an aerial bombardment campaign against Iran and Iran has hit back with missiles and drones.
Trump departed before the final day began. As conflict between Israel and Iran intensified, he declared that Tehran should be evacuated “immediately” and has demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender.”
Before leaving, Trump joined the other leaders in issuing a statement saying Iran “can never have a nuclear weapon” and calling for a “de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, including a ceasefire in Gaza.” Getting unanimity — even on a short and broadly worded statement — was a modest measure of success for the group.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that he sat next to Trump at Monday night’s summit dinner. “I’ve no doubt, in my mind, the level of agreement there was in relation to the words that were then issued immediately after that,” he said.
Still, Trump’s departure only heightened the drama of a world on the verge of several firestorms — and of a summit now without its most-watched world leader.
“We did everything I had to do at the G7,” Trump said while flying back to Washington.
Things were getting awkward even before he left.
After the famous photo from the G7 in 2018 featured Trump and then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel displaying less-than-friendly body language, this year’s edition included a dramatic eye-roll by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as French President Emmanuel Macron whispered something in her ear during a Monday roundtable.
That, and concerns about the Russia-Ukraine war, little progress on the conflict in Gaza and now the situation in Iran have made things all the more geopolitically tense — especially after Trump imposed severe tariffs on multiple nations that risk a global economic slowdown.
Members of Trump’s trade team nonetheless remained in Canada, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council. Bessent sat at the table as other world leaders met Tuesday with Zelensky, representing the US
Trump’s stance on Ukraine puts him fundamentally at odds with the other G7 leaders, who are clear that Russia is the aggressor in the war. Trump again offered his often-repeated claims on Monday that there would have been no war if G7 members hadn’t expelled Putin from the organization in 2014 for annexing Crimea.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the G7 now looks “very pale and quite useless” compared to “for example, such formats as the G20.”
With talks on ending the war in Ukraine at an impasse, Britain, Canada and other G7 members slapped new tariffs on Russia in a bid to get it to the ceasefire negotiating table. Trump, though, declined to join in those sanctions, saying he would wait until Europe did so first.
“When I sanction a country, that costs the US a lot of money, a tremendous amount of money,” he said.
Trump also seemed to put a greater priority on addressing his grievances with other nations’ trade policies than on collaboration with G7 allies. He has imposed 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum, as well as 25 percent tariffs on autos. Trump is also charging a 10 percent tax on imports from most countries, though he could raise rates on July 9, after the 90-day negotiating period set by him would expire.
Trump announced with Starmer that they had signed a trade framework Monday that was previously announced in May, with Trump saying that British trade was “very well protected’ because “I like them, that’s why. That’s their ultimate protection.”
But word of that agreement was somewhat overshadowed when Trump dropped the papers of the newly signed deal on the ground. Starmer stooped to pick them up, explaining Tuesday that he was compelled to ditch diplomatic decorum, since anyone else trying to help risked being shot by the president’s security team.
“There were quite strict rules about who can get close to the president,” Starmer told reporters on Tuesday. “If any of you had stepped forward other than me … I was just deeply conscious that in a situation like that it would not have been good for anybody else to have stepped forward.”

 


China’s Xi in Kazakhstan to cement ‘eternal’ Central Asia ties

Updated 18 June 2025
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China’s Xi in Kazakhstan to cement ‘eternal’ Central Asia ties

  • Astana summit brings Xi together with Central Asian leaders

ASTANA, Kazakhstan: Xi Jinping celebrated China’s “eternal friendship” with Central Asia at a summit in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, as the Chinese leader blasted tariffs and sought to assert Beijing’s influence in a region historically dominated by Russia.

The summit in Astana brought together Xi with the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Under Russia’s orbit until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the five Central Asian states have courted interest from major powers including China, the European Union and the United States since becoming independent.

At the summit, the group signed a pact of “eternal” friendship as Xi called for closer ties with the resource-rich region.

“We should... strengthen cooperation with a more enterprising attitude and more practical measures,” said Xi in comments carried by state news agency Xinhua.

Central Asia is also seen as a key logistics hub, given its strategic location between China, Russia, the Middle East and Europe.

Speaking as Western leaders gathered on the other side of the world for the G7 in Canada, Xi refreshed his criticism of US President Donald Trump’s trade policies.

“Tariff wars and trade wars have no winners,” Xinhua quoted him as saying.

While Central Asian leaders continue to view Russia as a strategic partner, ties with Moscow have loosened since the war in Ukraine.

China has also shown willingness to invest in massive infrastructure projects in the region, part of its Belt and Road initiative that uses such financing as a political and diplomatic lever.

In a meeting with Kyrgyzstan’s president, Xi called for moves to “advance high-quality construction of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway and foster new drivers of growth in clean energy, green minerals and artificial intelligence.”

The five Central Asian nations are trying to take advantage of the growing interest in their region and are coordinating their foreign policies accordingly.

They regularly hold summits with China and Russia to present the region as a unified bloc and attract investment.

High-level “5+1” format talks have also been organized with the European Union, the United States, Turkiye and other Western countries.

“The countries of the region are balancing between different centers of power, wanting to protect themselves from excessive dependence on one partner,” Kyrgyz political scientist Nargiza Muratalieva told AFP.

Russia says China’s growing influence in the region does not pose a threat.

“There is no reason for such fears. China is our privileged strategic partner, and the countries of Central Asia, naturally, are our natural historical partners,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.

But China has now established itself as Central Asia’s leading trading partner, far outstripping the EU and Russia.

Construction of the Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan-China railway and the China-Tajikistan highway, which runs through the Pamir Mountains to Afghanistan, are among its planned investments.

New border crossings and “dry ports” have already been built to process trade, such as Khorgos in Kazakhstan, one of the largest logistics hubs in the world.

“Neither Russia nor Western institutions are capable of allocating financial resources for infrastructure so quickly and on such a large scale, sometimes bypassing transparent procedures,” said Muratalieva.

Kazakhstan said last week that Russia would lead the construction of its first nuclear power plant but that it wanted China to build the second.

“Central Asia is rich in natural resources such as oil, gas, uranium, gold and other minerals that the rapidly developing Chinese economy needs,” Muratalieva said.

“Ensuring uninterrupted supplies of these resources, bypassing unstable sea routes, is an important goal of Beijing,” the analyst added.

China also positions itself as a supporter of the predominantly authoritarian Central Asian leaderships.

At the last Central Asia-China summit, Xi called for “resisting external interference” that might provoke “color revolutions” that could overthrow the current leaders in the region.

“Beijing sees the stability of the Central Asian states as a guarantee of the security of its western borders,” Muratalieva said.

Central Asia border’s China’s northwestern Xinjiang region, where Beijing is accused of having detained more than a million Uyghurs and other Muslims, part of a campaign the UN has said could constitute crimes against humanity.


Belgium seeks to try former diplomatic official over 1961 killing of Congo leader

Updated 17 June 2025
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Belgium seeks to try former diplomatic official over 1961 killing of Congo leader

  • If he goes on trial, Davignon would be the first Belgian official to face justice in the more than six decades since Lumumba was murdered

BRUSSELS: Belgian prosecutors said Tuesday that they were seeking to put a 92-year-old former diplomat on trial over the 1961 killing of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba.

Etienne Davignon is the only one still alive among 10 Belgians who were accused of complicity in the murder of the independence icon in a 2011 lawsuit filed by Lumumba’s children.

If he goes on trial, Davignon would be the first Belgian official to face justice in the more than six decades since Lumumba was murdered.

A fiery critic of Belgium’s colonial rule, Lumumba became his country’s first prime minister after it gained independence in 1960.

But he fell out with the former colonial power and with the US and was ousted in a coup a few months after taking office.

He was executed on Jan. 17, 1961, aged just 35, in the southern region of Katanga, with the support of Belgian mercenaries.

His body was dissolved in acid and never recovered.

Davignon, who went on to be a vice president of the European Commission in the 1980s, was a trainee diplomat at the time of the assassination.

He is accused of involvement in the “unlawful detention and transfer” of Lumumba at the time he was taken prisoner and his “humiliating and degrading treatment,” the prosecutor’s office said.

But prosecutors added that a charge of intent to kill should be dropped.

It is now up to a magistrate to decide if the trial should proceed, following a hearing on the case set for January 2026.

“We’re moving in the right direction. What we’re seeking is, first and foremost, the truth,” Juliana Lumumba, the daughter of the former Congolese premier, told Belgian broadcaster RTBF.

The prosecutor’s decision is the latest step in Belgium’s decades-long reckoning with the role it played in Lumumba’s killing.

In 2022, Belgium returned a tooth — the last remains of Lumumba — to his family in a bid to turn a page on the grim chapter of its colonial past.

The tooth was seized by Belgian authorities in 2016 from the daughter of a policeman, Gerard Soete.

A Belgian parliamentary commission of enquiry concluded in 2001 that Belgium had “moral responsibility” for the assassination, and the government presented the country’s “apologies” a year later.