Carrying On
NEED TO KNOW
Carrying On
UKRAINE
Tatiana Putria is a nurse in the Kherson region of Ukraine.
“I am not a hero, I am a medic,” Putria told the United Nations Population Fund. “Often we are afraid to drive to certain areas. Sometimes, the residents say to us, ‘We just had a shelling this morning. How did you come here, how are you not afraid?’ All I can say is I just love my job, I love people. I am happy to help them as much as I can.”
She is an example of how Ukrainians are keeping calm and carrying on despite enormous hardships as they seek to rebuff Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the former Soviet republic.
Their defense has taken an enormous physical and psychological toll, however. Russian artillery has demolished 44,000 buildings and other infrastructure in the city of Kherson, the provincial capital, noted Al Jazeera. Vast cities like Mariupol have been wiped out and now property there faces seizure by Russians under dubious Russian laws to consolidate control, added the Economist.
Putria and others’ trauma have shattered them, too, on a scale not seen in Europe since the Second World War. “Wives have become widows, parents long for captured sons, classrooms are empty and farmers can’t find the hands to work the land,” wrote Reuters. “Unlikely friendships have formed; old ones have fallen apart.”
Speaking to National Public Radio, Ukrainian journalist Yaroslav Trofimov and art curator and journalist Kateryna Iakovlenko recounted how the war’s violence has touched every Ukrainian, from those who stay in the country to the refugees who have fled elsewhere for safety. However, Putin’s chauvinism against the Ukrainian people and state fuels their drive to resist him, they said. Putin has famously claimed there are no “Ukrainian people,” Time explained.
While they are certainly one nation judging by the blood they’ve spilled since Russia invaded in early 2022, the Ukrainians are also showing signs of weakening resolve. Draft dodging, for instance, has become more widespread as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seeks to recruit as many as 500,000 more personnel into the military’s ranks, reported the Washington Post.
Ukrainian officials are serious about enrolling fighters. By law, males aged between 18 and 60 years old cannot leave the country without permission. They and Moldovan officials are also now discussing how to return home Ukrainians who flee the draft by heading into that neighboring country, added RBC Ukraine, an independent local news agency.
In Vovchansk near the Russian border, one can only keep calm and carry on for so long. Captured by the Russians in 2022 before being recaptured by Ukraine, it’s been under bombardment since May and is again invaded by Russians. It’s a shell of its former self now.
Many of its residents fled. Others hide in basements – evacuating is dangerous, too.
Liudmyla Kuznetsova, 79, said she and her family were among the last to leave, she told NPR. “Whenever the doors and windows were blown off [our home], we would just repair them,” she said.
But she ran out of supplies.
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
The Fury Virus
NIGERIA
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Nigeria Thursday to protest against the rising cost of living, as the country continues to grapple with high inflation and the devaluation of its currency in the wake of reforms by President Bola Tinubu aimed at reviving the economy, Al Jazeera reported.
Demonstrations took place in cities across Nigeria with police firing tear gas to disperse crowds in the capital, Abuja. Violent incidents were also reported in Yobe and Kano states where authorities declared a 24-hour curfew properties were looted and many vehicles were burned.
In the western Niger state, local media reported that at least six people died during clashes with police, according to CNN.
The #EndbadGovernanceinNigeria online protest movement has been growing because Nigerians are struggling with food inflation of 40 percent and fuel prices that have tripled since Tinubu introduced the reforms last year, analysts say.
Protesters and organizers have presented a list of 19 demands. Chief among them is the reinstatement of a state subsidy on fuel products, which many demonstrators blame for the current crisis.
Other demands include improving the security crisis in northern Nigeria, where Islamist groups and armed bandits have been terrorizing locals. During the 2023 presidential election, Tinubu pledged to end the conflict in those areas, but attacks and kidnappings are still ongoing 14 months after he took office, according to the Associated Press.
The demonstrations were planned to last 10 days, but organizers warned they will continue until their demands are met.
In an effort to mitigate economic woes, the government announced measures to alleviate the situation Wednesday, including delivering grain to various Nigerian states and aid to the poor.
Thursday’s anti-government protests follow similar ones across other African nations in recent weeks, prompting fears of potential violence and a crackdown by authorities.
Demonstrations in Kenya turned violent late last month, when protesters stormed the country’s parliament and set part of the building on fire.
Those protests were targeted at Kenyan President William Ruto’s proposed tax hikes, which he later repealed following popular unrest.
Meanwhile, young Ugandans demonstrated across the country last week against government corruption, prompting authorities to arrest dozens of people, Reuters added.
Spreading Like Wildfire
UNITED KINGDOM
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer summoned the country’s police chiefs Thursday to address violent unrest that has gripped parts of the country this week, shortly after a stabbing attack left three young girls dead, CBS News reported.
Earlier this week, a 17-year-old attacked a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, northwest England, killing the three girls, whose ages ranged between six and nine, as well as wounding 10 others.
The mass stabbing sparked far-right-led demonstrations at a Southport mosque, which authorities said were fueled by social media speculation falsely accusing the suspect of being an asylum seeker and a Muslim.
The protests turned violent with protesters clashing with police, resulting in more than 50 injured officers. Similar violent demonstrations took place outside the prime minister’s office in London and the northeastern England town of Hartlepool this week.
Police arrested more than 100 people in London on charges including violent disorder and assaulting an emergency worker.
Police earlier said the suspect was born in the United Kingdom but did not disclose his religion. They later released his name as Axel Rudakubana, born in Cardiff, Wales to Rwandan parents, the Financial Times noted.
Rudakubana appeared before a court Thursday facing three counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder. His name was initially withheld due to his age but was later released as he turns 18 on Aug. 7.
The suspect was remanded. A plea hearing is set for October at Liverpool Crown Court.
The attack and subsequent protests sparked criticism from leaders and locals. Starmer described the far-right demonstrations as “thuggery” and accused them of hijacking the community’s grief.
On Thursday, he convened a crisis meeting with police chiefs to address the unrest, emphasizing the protection of the right to peaceful protest, while condemning those who exploit it for violence. He pledged the government’s support for police actions against such disorder.
The attack is seen as the worst mass casualty event involving children in the UK since the 1996 Dunblane massacre, in which 16 children and a teacher were killed.
It has reignited discussions on knife crime, which accounts for about 40 percent of homicides in the United Kingdom, though mass stabbings remain rare.
Having a Moment
GUINEA
A Guinean court convicted former President Moussa Dadis Camara and seven other military leaders of crimes against humanity for their role in a massacre and mass rape that took place at a stadium in the capital Conakry in 2009, the Washington Post reported.
The long-awaited trial of Camara, who came to power in a coup in 2008, began in 2022, a year after Guinea’s current military junta took power.
The case centers on Camara’s brutal crackdown in September 2009 against peaceful protesters calling for democracy and for his decision to run for the 2010 presidential election. Guinean security forces opened fire on demonstrators, with the violence resulting in at least 150 dead and more than 100 women raped by soldiers.
Camara was among 11 leaders, including top aides and ministers, who were charged with murder, rape and kidnapping – charges that were later recategorized as crimes against humanity, according to the Guardian.
On Wednesday, the court found the former president guilty based on “command responsibility” and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.
The seven other defendants included Aboubacar Diakité, the former head of the presidential guard, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Diakité admitted in December 2009 that he shot Camara at point-blank range in a dispute about who was going to take the blame for the stadium killings.
Four other people were acquitted. Meanwhile, one defendant, Col. Claude Pivi, remains at large after a 2023 jailbreak. The court sentenced him to life in prison.
All the convicted individuals were ordered to pay victims and their families a total of around $400,000.
Victims, their relatives and human rights groups welcomed the verdict as a “long overdue moment.”
The verdict came despite an ongoing strike by Guinean lawyers protesting against the junta’s arbitrary arrests of citizens and activists.
Human rights advocates have warned about ongoing repression in the West African nation: Last month, authorities detained two prominent opposition party activists, an arrest advocates say is part of a broader crackdown on civil liberties.
Still, observers believe that the court’s decision could spur change in a country with a history of autocracy.
DISCOVERIES
Chromosomal Clarity
Researchers unearthed a groundbreaking discovery in the frozen remains of a woolly mammoth that died 52,000 years ago in Siberian permafrost.
The very well-preserved chromosomes offer an unprecedented look at the genetic makeup of this extinct species, scientists wrote in their study published in the journal Cell.
Preserved in a glass-like state induced by cooling and dehydration, the chromosomes appeared structurally intact “down to the nanometer scale” for tens of millennia.
The team used a special procedure to map sections of DNA in contact with each other to reconstruct the three-dimensional structure of the mammoth’s chromosomes.
“Recently, experiments along with theory have made it possible to study the detailed structures of modern chromosomes,” co-author Vinicius Contessoto said. “But this is the first time that we have been able to turn back the clock, as it were, and look at chromosomes of extinct species in full 3D.”
The mammoth had 28 pairs of chromosomes, which is the same number as modern elephants and underscores the close genetic relationship between the species.
They compared the extinct creature’s chromosomes with those of their modern relatives and identified a number of genetic differences that showed how the woolly creatures adapted to frigid environments.
For instance, the EGFR gene is inactive in mammoths but active in Asian elephants. Previous research has shown that suppressing this gene in humans or sheep causes them to grow unruly hair, Scientific American noted.
The condition of the remains suggests that other well-preserved ancient DNA samples might be just waiting to be found, some of which could date back two million years.
The authors noted that such discoveries could significantly enhance our understanding of ancient genomes and the evolutionary history of other extinct species.
“Fossil chromosomes are a game-changer,” Olga Dudchenko, another study author, said. “Knowing the shape of an organism’s chromosomes allows us to assemble the entire DNA sequence of extinct creatures, enabling insights that were previously impossible.”
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