The World Today for April 10, 2023

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The Cheerleaders

RUSSIA

Russian blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, 40, had been a cheerleader for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. As Reuters reported, he could be scathing of what he saw as Russia’s incompetent military establishment. But he called for Russia to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy soon after the liberation of the Ukrainian city of Kherson from its Russian occupiers.

“We’ll defeat everyone, we’ll kill everyone, we’ll loot whoever we need to, and everything will be just as we like it,” Tatarsky said last year after Putin announced that Russia had “annexed” four Ukrainian regions, the Guardian noted.

Just days ago, as he spoke in a St. Petersburg café before a group known as “Cyber Z Front,” the “Z” as a reference to what has become a Russian symbol for the war, a bomb exploded, killing Tatarsky and wounding 30 others. Local media said the explosion occurred soon after a woman named Nastya gave Tatarsky a bust that she claimed to have made of him.

Russian police quickly arrested 26-year-old Daria Trepova, alleging that she had handed Tatarsky the booby-trapped bust, CNN wrote. Trepova’s husband insisted she was innocent. She had been arrested before, however, for participating in demonstrations against the so-called special military operation, Putin’s euphemism for the war in Ukraine. Such expressions of political opinion are prohibited in Russia.

Meanwhile, Russian officials blamed Ukraine, the Guardian wrote.

Russian comedians, including one who fled to Berlin in order to avoid the wrath of Russia’s authorities, as Radio Free Europe explained, made jokes about the supposedly warmongering blogger’s demise. The response was harsh to say the least. “Humor off of human tragedy is a crime. People want cheap fame from blood. Society must respond. It is in our power to make them understand that we do not need blasphemous humor,” wrote Russian legislator Yana Lantratova on Telegram, according to the Daily Beast.

As the BBC noted, bloggers with “extreme anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western views” have been extremely popular in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine. Some have more than a million followers on social media platforms like Telegram. They spread conspiracy theories of Ukrainian Satanism and other wild accusations.

In the meantime, a Russian group that aims to undermine Putin’s regime, the National Republican Army, claimed responsibility for the bombing and murder, Newsweek wrote.

Repression has reached “unprecedented levels” in Russia, argued Foreign Policy magazine. Putin has killed (or nearly killed), imprisoned, or sidelined his political rivals, like opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Foreign organizations have been barred from the country. Bloggers like Tatarsky represented the kind of authentic Russian media that Putin wants to shore up his regime.

But in Putin’s Russia these days, even the acceptable bloggers encounter violence.

THE WORLD, BRIEFLY

In the Cauldron, Boil and Bake

IRAN

Dozens of schoolgirls were poisoned at schools across Iran, local media said over the weekend, as the attacks that have rattled the Islamic Republic for months continue even amid an aggressive investigation by authorities, Agence France-Presse reported.

Officials and local media said instances of poisonings took place in at least three provinces, with the girls displaying various symptoms, including headaches and shortness of breath.

At least 60 students were poisoned in a girls’ school in the oil-rich southwestern province of Khuzestan, a local official told the state television’s IRIB news agency.

Since November, numerous schools in Iran – primarily for female students – have experienced sudden incidents of poisoning from toxic gases or substances that have sometimes caused fainting and hospitalization.

Early last month, authorities said they estimate that “more than 5,000 students” have been affected by these attacks at more than 230 schools or other facilities, located in 25 of the country’s 31 provinces.

The country’s leaders have called for “severe sentences,” including the death penalty for those responsible.

The incidents began just two months after the start of the women-led mass protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who died in police custody following her arrest for allegedly violating Iran’s strict Islamic dress code.

Some in Iran believe that conservatives opposed to girls’ education may be behind the poisonings, according to the Bangkok Post.

Separately, Iranian police announced Saturday it will implement “smart” technology to identify women who violate the country’s hijab law. Officials added that the move is aimed at “preventing resistance against the hijab law,” noting that such defiance tarnishes Iran’s spiritual image and spreads insecurity.

Last month, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, the head of the judiciary, declared that “removing (one’s) hijab amounts to enmity toward values and people who commit such abnormality will be punished.”

Waiting … and Waiting

SUDAN

Pro-democracy protesters took to the streets across Sudan this week to protest the postponement of the country’s transition to a civilian government, a delay that came as Sudan marked the anniversary of the 2019 demonstrations that ousted longtime autocrat Omar al Bashir, Reuters reported.

Demonstrators marched in the capital chanting “no militia can rule the country,” while large crowds blocked main roads in other cities. Observers described the protests as the largest this year.

The unrest took place as Sudanese pro-democracy groups marked the fourth anniversary of the April 6 sit-in that removed Bashir after nearly three decades in power.

The protests were sparked by Sudan’s military government and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Force (RSF) moving to delay – for the second time – the signing of an agreement that would see the country transition to civilian rule and eventually usher in elections.

The deal would help restore Sudan’s movement toward democracy that began after the 2019 protests, when a transition government of civilian and military officials was formed.

But that process stalled in October 2021, when the army launched a coup that deposed civilian leaders, prompting ongoing street protests against the junta, the Middle East Eye wrote.

The current postponement came amid disagreements between the military and the RSF over a number of issues regarding the integration of the paramilitary group into the army. Even so, both army and RSF leaders said in a statement marking the anniversary that they are committed to a final deal.

While the agreement has received backing from the international community, it faces opposition from pro-democracy “resistance committees” which reject negotiations with the army and have led anti-military protests since the coup.

Honoring and Remembering

FRANCE

France will erect a memorial in honor of the victims of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, a decision that comes as the African nation commemorates the 29th anniversary of the massacre, Radio France Internationale reported Saturday.

French officials said the monument will be built on Paris’ Left Bank, across the river from a memorial to the victims of the mass killings of Armenians during World War I.

The presidency said the idea behind the monument is for France “to pay its visible and permanent respects to the memory of the victims.”

The decision comes around two years after President Emmanuel Macron recognized France’s role in the killing of 800,000 mostly Rwandan Tutsis by Hutu militias between April and July 1994.

For decades, Rwanda had accused France, which had close ties with the ethnic Hutu government at the time, of complicity in the mass killings.

In 2021, a commission appointed by Macron released a report, saying that France had been “blind” to preparations for the genocide.

The commission noted that France bears the burden of “heavy and damning responsibilities” in the Rwandan genocide but was not complicit in the slaughter, the Guardian wrote in 2021.

Marcel Kabanda, president of the Ibuka France genocide survivor association, hailed the planned memorial, noting that the decision marks a sign that France “recognizes its history.”

“It’s a gesture to appease memories between France and Rwanda, and to appease the hearts of survivors of the genocide,” he added.

DISCOVERIES

Hacking Nature

Photosynthesis seems pretty simple at first glance: Plants use water, sunlight and carbon dioxide to create their own food as well as oxygen.

But the process is actually so complicated that scientists have spent centuries studying the specifics of what exactly happens inside the plants, according to Popular Magazine.

Now, researchers have gained additional insight into photosynthesis by observing it at superspeed timescales.

For their study, they fired up laser pulses at live plant cells that allowed them to see electrons move through the whole photosynthetic process.

This method illuminated a previously undiscovered pathway of energy flow at the start of photosynthesis, which could allow for more effective charge extraction.

The findings add more insight into how plants produce their own fuel but also could be exploited to harness more of the incredible efficiency of photosynthesis in transforming sunlight into energy.

The authors explained that “hacking” this process could help boost plants in absorbing and storing carbon dioxide to help fight climate change in the process, CNET noted.

They added that it could also be used to generate more efficient processes for creating biofuels.

“What makes photosynthesis really special is its near 100 percent efficiency in converting light to electrons,” lead author Tomi Baikie told CNET. “By (…) understanding the mechanisms of photosynthesis, we can use this knowledge (…) to improve existing solar cell technology.”

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