Last Man Falling
NEED TO KNOW
Last Man Falling
UKRAINE
Ukraine’s plan for victory against Russia is well-known. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently told Ukrainian lawmakers, the beleaguered former Soviet republic’s future rests on four pillars, the BBC reported.
First, the US and Europe must invite Ukraine to become a member of NATO. Second, the US and Europe must lift their prohibitions on long-range strikes into Russia using Western-supplied weaponry. Third, the Ukrainians must make clear that they will never surrender territory willingly. Fourth, the Ukrainians must continue their drive into Russia’s western Kursk region.
Obviously, that plan is easier said than done.
Experts speaking to Times Radio have noted that Zelenskyy might be more open to surrendering more territory to Russia than he is willing to admit publicly if he can secure NATO membership. Under this scenario, Zelenskyy would trade land for peace that American and European troops would guarantee.
These plans depend on the progress of the war, however.
Still, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius recently wrote that Ukrainian forces can’t hold out forever against Russia’s might, an assessment that is widely shared – and likely by the Ukrainian president, too. But Zelenskyy can also take heart at the damage Ukraine has been inflicting: Putin is losing more than 1,000 soldiers a day, Newsweek reported, for a death toll of as many as 200,000 and 400,000 wounded since the war began in February 2022, the Wall Street Journal reported. Meanwhile, Ukraine has seen about 80,000 troops killed with a similar number of wounded, the Journal added.
The situation is so dire that Russia is recruiting convicts by dangling pardons in exchange for enlisting. He is also luring foreign mercenaries – often just college students or unskilled laborers from South Asia or Africa – to fight. Recently, thousands of North Koreans have gone to Russia to take part in the war, a step that has led the US to threaten to lift certain restrictions on the use of its arms by Ukraine against Russia, Reuters reported.
Already, Ukraine has secured Western support for requests once deemed unrealistic, such as Patriot air defense systems and F-16 jets.
Still, as Politico wrote, many NATO leaders are wary of allowing Ukraine to join the alliance. They fear that doing so would put them on a path to war with Russia, a conflict that could escalate into a nuclear exchange. The most hawkish NATO members, like Poland and the Baltic countries – all of whom have direct experience under Russian dominance – are more open to the idea, however.
NATO membership is especially important because ending the war without protecting Ukraine permanently opens the door for Russia to regroup and launch another invasion in the future, warned World Politics Review. Such a “frozen conflict” would allow Russia to claim territory seized illegally while cementing the commercial and military ties that Putin has either expanded or developed with China, Iran, and North Korea despite Western sanctions.
The upcoming American elections play a huge role in the issue. Vice President Kamala Harris is more likely to continue President Joe Biden’s policy of supplying arms and intelligence to Ukraine. Challenger and former President Donald Trump has said he would seek to end the war quickly.
Still, US reaction to the “Victory Plan” was noncommittal, though it did issue a new $425 million package of security assistance for Ukraine the day that Zelenskyy presented the plan to lawmakers, wrote the Washington Post.
In Europe, reactions ranged from support by the French and the United Kingdom to opposition from Hungary, which has the closest relationship with Russia in the European Union. Still, some countries such as Germany – Kyiv’s second largest military backer after the US – are growing weary of supporting Ukraine, especially as far-right parties, who oppose the support, gain traction with voters.
But analysts say that Ukraine will struggle to continue its war in spite of Russia’s losses. Ukraine’s Kursk operation, intended to distract the Russians from eastern Ukraine, is failing in that goal. Instead, the Russians are advancing toward the strategic hub of Pokrovsk and making gains elsewhere, Reuters reported.
Ukraine is also struggling as winter approaches – Russia has destroyed a significant portion of Ukraine’s power grid and that has led to daily blackouts. Meanwhile, the government is having great difficulties recruiting and training enough troops. Morale among troops and the public is low. As the Economist wrote, “There is a growing gap between the total victory many Ukrainians say they want, and their willingness or ability to fight for it.”
The best Ukraine can hope for, say analysts, is to remain standing.
“To win such war (of attrition), Ukraine needs to increase its resilience and exhaust its opponent,” Glib Voloskyi, an analyst from the Ukrainian think tank Come Back Alive Initiatives Center, told the Associated Press. “The side that falls last wins.”
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
The Standoff
MEXICO
Mexico’s lower chamber of Congress passed legislation this week that would prevent courts from challenging changes to the constitution, a move that comes amid a constitutional fight over a judicial overhaul that has pitted the government against the judiciary, Reuters reported.
The measure – first passed last week in the upper house – sailed through the lower chamber because the governing Morena party holds a large majority in both houses of Congress.
The changes will ban courts, including Mexico’s Supreme Court, from reviewing changes to the constitution. The ban will also be applied retroactively, which will prevent courts from considering challenges to the judicial reform package passed last month.
Opposition parties criticized Wednesday’s vote as authoritarian, saying it makes constitutional reforms passed by the legislature immune to checks and oversight by the judiciary.
Morena party lawmakers countered that the measure was necessary because it prevents “particular interests from using judicial avenues to hinder or reverse democratically approved reforms.”
The measure passed as the Supreme Court is planning to review the judicial reform laws, which will make Mexico the first country to elect all of its judges.
Former populist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador – who stepped down at the end of his term in September – and his Morena party have touted the changes as necessary to stamp out corruption in the judiciary and improve accountability.
His successor, President Claudia Sheinbaum, has also supported the changes.
However, critics worry that the reforms could erode the independence of the judiciary, warning that Morena holds a lot of political influence and could influence the selection of most judicial candidates, the Financial Times added.
Since August, thousands of judges and other employees of the judicial system have been taking to the streets to protest the changes. While some of them have returned to work, others continue to block access to many courthouses.
On Tuesday, eight of 11 Supreme Court judges said they would resign rather than stand for election when the changes take effect next year, the Associated Press wrote.
Amid the constitutional crisis, Supreme Court Justice González Alcántara announced that the court is trying to reach a compromise with the government to resolve the fight.
On Wednesday, he issued a draft opinion that will strike down the main parts of the reform but allow for an elected supreme court and electoral tribunal. The opinion will be put to a vote next week, but questions remain whether Sheinbaum and the Morena party will prevent the court from passing it.
To do this, 17 out of Mexico’s 32 state congresses would need to approve the measure, after which Sheinbaum would need to sign it into law – all before the top court’s vote next Tuesday.
Observers noted Sheinbaum will face a tough choice if the opinion passes.
If she complies comply with the court, she will risk alienating many within her party, who remain loyal to López Obrador. But if she ignores the ruling, she will damage her reputation for upholding the rule of law.
Long Arm of the Law
FRANCE
A French court this week sentenced former Rwandan doctor Eugene Rwamucyo to 27 years in prison for his involvement in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, marking the latest conviction by France for crimes linked to the ethnic violence that left hundreds of thousands dead in the African nation, Agence France-Presse reported.
Rwamucyo, 65, was convicted of complicity in genocide, complicity in crimes against humanity, and conspiring to commit those crimes. He was acquitted, however, of the direct charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.
During the trial, witnesses described how Rwamucyo allegedly assisted in the cover-up of the mass killings, with some accusing him of overseeing burials where wounded individuals were buried alive, according to Euronews.
Prosecutors argued that he assisted in the mass burials to conceal evidence of genocide, while his defense team argued that his involvement was solely to prevent health risks from decomposing bodies.
The defendant, who has lived and worked in France and Belgium since fleeing Rwanda, maintained his innocence throughout the trial, saying that he “did not order the killing of survivors or allow survivors to be killed.”
His legal team announced plans to appeal.
This case is the eighth trial in France connected to the Rwandan genocide: Rwamuncyo’s case follows that of another Rwandan doctor, Sosthene Munyemana, who was sentenced last year to 24 years for his involvement in the massacre.
The Rwandan genocide, perpetrated mainly by ethnic Hutus against Tutsis, claimed the lives of an estimated 800,000 people over 100 days, leading to decades of attempts to prosecute perpetrators.
Meanwhile, France’s role in prosecuting Rwandan genocide cases is under scrutiny because of its alleged involvement in the atrocities.
Last month, survivor associations filed a landmark case at the Paris Administrative Court, alleging French complicity through defense agreements, the supplying of illegal arms, and the abandonment of civilians, reported Africanews.
Plaintiffs are seeking $540 million in reparations, with the court’s ruling expected on Nov. 14.
Not Sorry
PHILIPPINES
Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said he kept a “death squad” of convicts instructed to kill other “criminals” as part of his “war on drugs” in his testimony this week to a Senate hearing into the killings, the Guardian reported.
Duterte, 79, appeared before lawmakers as part of an official investigation into his involvement in the war on drugs in his first public appearance since his presidential term ended in 2022.
Duterte served as mayor of Davao City where he began implementing his war on drugs before winning the presidency in 2016 by a landslide on a pledge to replicate his anti-crime strategy nationally, reported BBC News.
It’s estimated that as many as 30,000 people were killed between July 2016 and March 2019 in the nationwide drug war. Most of the victims were young men from poor, urban areas who were shot dead by police in the streets or in their homes.
In his opening statement, Duterte told lawmakers: “Do not question my policies because I offer no apologies, no excuses. I did what I had to do, and whether or not you believe it … I did it for my country.”
Duterte denied authorizing police to kill suspects, maintaining that he never ordered national police chiefs to carry out extrajudicial killings. But he added that he ordered officers to encourage criminals to fight back and resist arrest, so that police could then justify killing them, reported Rappler, an independent news outlet in the Philippines.
Meanwhile, he said he created a “death squad” while serving as mayor of Davao City.
“I had a death squad of seven, but they were not policemen, they were also gangsters,” he said. “I’ll ask a gangster to kill somebody. If you will not kill, I will kill you now.”
Earlier this month, a separate parliamentary inquiry heard evidence from a former police colonel who said officers could earn as much as 1 million pesos ($17,000) per killing during the drug war.
Duterte denied those accusations.
Carlos H Conde of Human Rights Watch expressed doubt that the inquiry, which was initiated by Duterte’s Senate allies who are themselves implicated in his policies, would lead to accountability.
Duterte is also facing an investigation by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity over the killings that occurred in Davao while he was mayor and also during his presidency.
DISCOVERIES
Reef Relief
For years, coral reefs around the world have been dying off, often because of rising ocean temperatures, threatening fish and other wildlife and also human livelihoods.
Now, one team of researchers believes they may be on the way to stopping the destruction – by breeding corals with improved heat tolerance.
“This (research) shows that selective breeding is feasible,” said Liam Lachs of the United Kingdom’s Newcastle University, and lead author of a new study on the selective breeding of corals for heat tolerance published in Nature.
Rising ocean temperatures have triggered coral bleaching – when coral loses the symbiotic microalgae that gives them their color and nutrients – making coral more susceptible to die-off. Marine heat waves, rising carbon dioxide levels and also overfishing have already led to the loss of half of all coral reefs on Earth since the 1950s, according to the Natural History Museum of Australia.
The scientists, attempting to address this issue, decided to try selective breeding. Used for thousands of years to enhance desirable traits in plants and animals, wrote Interesting Engineering, researchers decided to try using the method for nature conservation, marking the first attempt ever to selectively breed adult corals to withstand increasingly frequent marine heatwaves.
First, the researchers bred coral in a lab. Afterward, they conducted two tests, one exposing both the parent coral and the offspring to an intense 10-day “heatwave” with temperatures rising by 3.5 degrees Celsius (6 degrees Fahrenheit). In the other test, they exposed coral to a one-month “heatwave” by increasing temperatures 2.5 degrees Celsius. Both trials mirrored actual marine heatwave conditions.
The offspring of corals bred for high heat tolerance outperformed their parents. That means that selective breeding can improve heat tolerance in just one generation, researchers said. The improvement in tolerance was 1 degree Celsius over one week.
However, the improvement of 1 degree Celsius is modest in comparison with future marine heat waves that are expected under full-blown climate change, Phys.org reported.
Lachs, the study’s lead author, highlighted the importance of the discovery of selective breeding’s feasibility, but stressed it wasn’t a “silver bullet solution.” “In parallel, rapid reductions of global greenhouse gas emissions are an absolute requirement to mitigate warming and give corals an opportunity to adapt,” he said.
Still, the research is seen as proof that breeding corals to withstand heat is possible. The study’s authors said there was a great need for further research in selective breeding techniques and how to implement such methods in real-world scenarios, along with climate action initiatives to help curb global warming.