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30,000-year-old baby mammoth found almost perfectly preserved in Canada
A gold miner found a mummified baby wooly mammoth that was almost perfectly preserved in the Trʼondëk Hwëchʼin Traditional Territory in Yukon, Canada.
According to a press release from the local government, the female baby mammoth has been named Nun cho ga by the First Nation Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in elders, which translates to “big baby animal” in the Hän language.
Nun cho ga is the most complete mummified mammoth discovered in North America, Science Alert reported.
Nun cho ga died and was frozen in permafrost during the ice age, over 30,000 years ago, said the press release. She would have roamed the Yukon alongside wild horses, cave lions, and giant steppe bison.
The frozen mammoth was recovered by geologists after a young miner in the Klondike gold fields found the remains while digging up dirt.
Dr. Grant Zazula, the Yukon government’s paleontologist, said the miner had made the “most important discovery in paleontology in North America,” reported The Weather Channel.
The baby mammoth was probably with her mother when it ventured off a little too far and got stuck in the mud, Zazula told The Weather Channel.
Professor Dan Shugar, from the University of Calgary, part of the team who excavated the wooly mammoth, said that this discovery was the “most exciting scientific thing I have ever been part of.”
He described how immaculately the mammoth had been preserved, saying that it still had intact toenails, hide, hair, trunk, and even intestines, with its last meal of grass still present.
According to the press release, Yukon is renowned for its store of ice age fossils, but rarely are such immaculate and well-preserved finds discovered. Zazula wrote in the press release that “as an ice age paleontologist, it has been one of my lifelong dreams to come face to face with a real wooly mammoth.”
“That dream came true today. Nun cho ga is beautiful and one of the most incredible mummified ice age animals ever discovered in the world.”
The wooly mammoth, about the size of the African elephant, roamed the earth until about 4,000 years ago. Early humans hunted them for food and used mammoth bones and tusks for art, tools, and dwellings. Scientists are divided as to whether hunting or climate change drove them into extinction.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has called a United Nations report on Afghan opiates “tailor-made political propaganda” saying such publications do not help combat drug trafficking in Afghanistan.
The ministry said that the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report, published in late October, recorded an increase in the cultivation, production and distribution of Afghan opiates for the first time since the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) imposed a ban in 2022.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said the report, which the IEA has already rejected as politically motivated, appears unbalanced and relies on indirect evidence, including satellite images that are open to different expert interpretations.
According to UN estimates cited in the report, the area under poppy cultivation increased from 10,200 hectares in 2025 to 43,300 hectares in 2026, while opium production rose from 300 tonnes to 1,470 tonnes.
The ministry acknowledged that Afghanistan’s drug problem still exists and said authorities in Kabul are aware of the issue. It added that Afghan security forces conduct almost daily operations in various parts of the country to destroy drug laboratories and seize narcotics.
According to the statement, more than 7.4 tonnes of various narcotics and over 4.7 tonnes of precursor chemicals were seized in Afghanistan over the past week, while two drug laboratories were dismantled.
Cooperation between the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Investment and the Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce has paved the way for exporting potatoes from Bamyan province to the Uzbek market.
In this regard, Sayed Karim Hashemi, President of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Investment, and Doran Vahabov, President of the Uzbekistan Chamber of Commerce, have agreed on the export of 100,000 tons of Bamyan potatoes to Uzbekistan. Work is underway to finalize the export agreement.
Meanwhile, the first shipment of potatoes, consisting of eight trucks, has departed for the Uzbek city of Termez through the Hairatan Port.
The chambers of commerce of both countries, in cooperation with local authorities in Bamyan, have facilitated connections between traders and farmers and coordinated the purchasing, marketing, and transportation of the produce. This initiative is expected to expand market opportunities for Bamyan farmers and strengthen trade between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.
Afghanistan’s Prime Minister, Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, met with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk in Kabul on Thursday evening, emphasizing the need to strengthen bilateral relations and expand economic cooperation between the two countries.
According to a statement from the Presidential Palace, several senior officials from both countries attended the meeting, including Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and representatives of Russia’s political and economic sectors.
Akhund described Afghanistan’s security and stability as favourable conditions for foreign investment and thanked Moscow for recognizing the Islamic Emirate and supporting Afghanistan in international forums.
Meanwhile, Overchuk praised the security situation and developments in Afghanistan, expressing Russia’s interest in investing in various sectors of the country.
He said around 70 representatives of Russia’s private sector were accompanying the delegation and were expected to hold discussions with relevant ministries and institutions of the Islamic Emirate on trade and investment agreements, as well as ways to address existing obstacles.
The Russian deputy prime minister reaffirmed his country’s support for Afghanistan in various fields.
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