Yevgeny Roizman trial: Russian opposition leader accused of criticizing army

Yevgeny Roizman is now the latest in a long line of Kremlin critics to stand 

trial. Those who've avoided heavy jail terms have been killed, narrowly 

escaped death or were exiled.

Roizman is the former mayor of Russia's fourth biggest city of Yekaterinburg. He was detained last year for his criticism of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. FRANCE 24's Peter O'Brien tells us more.

Former Opposition Mayor Roizman On Trial for 'Discrediting' Russian Army

By AFP

Former Yekaterinburg Mayor Yevgeny Roizman at the Oktyabrsky District Court.

Donat Sorokin / TASS

Yevgeny Roizman, a prominent Kremlin critic and popular former mayor, stood trial on Wednesday over accusations of “discrediting” the Russian military.

Roizman is one of just a few leading opposition figures who remain in Russia and have not been jailed. He faces up to five years in prison.

Since invading Ukraine in February last year, the Russian authorities have intensified their crackdown on domestic critics, with almost all of the Kremlin's major opponents in exile or behind bars.

In 2013, Roizman became Russia's most prominent opposition mayor, serving for five years in public office in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.

He resigned from his post after authorities moved to scrap mayoral elections, but he has been closely involved in charity work since then.

NEWS
Russian Opposition Ex-Mayor Roizman Jailed Over Social Media Post READ MORE

Until recently, Roizman appeared largely untouchable.

But in August, the authorities opened a criminal probe against him for "discrediting" the Russian army in comments he made about the invasion of Ukraine.

Russia's Justice Ministry placed him on its list of "foreign agents" back in November.

Dressed in blue jeans and a white T-shirt, Roizman pleaded not guilty at the start of the trial in Yekaterinburg Wednesday.

Roizman, who openly denounces President Vladimir Putin and the war, has said he knows he could go to prison at any moment.

The former politician has a penchant for crude language and has peppered Twitter with swear words to mock officials in Russia, much to the delight of his supporters.

Tall and sporty, Roizman first rose to prominence in the early 2000s as an anti-drugs activist fighting Russia's severe narcotics epidemic.

Roizman: Russia's maverick ex-mayor and Kremlin critic

AFP
Wed, April 26, 2023

Opposition politician Yevgeny Roizman, who went on trial on Wednesday, has been one of the last vocal critics of the Kremlin and its offensive in Ukraine to remain in Russia and not behind bars.

But it seems not for much longer.

The popular former mayor of the Urals city of Yekaterinburg risks up to five years in jail for his remarks about Russia's military campaign in Ukraine.

Since President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine last year, Russia has intensified its crackdown on opposition voices.

Most prominent critics are either in jail or have fled the country.

Roizman, a tall and sporty 60-year-old, is a charismatic and sometimes controversial member of the opposition, known for his punchy tweets.

He did not hold back when speaking out against Russia's Ukraine campaign as soon as it was launched over a year ago.

"Something horrible is happening, evil is prevailing. Absolutely vile evil is suddenly prevailing before our eyes," he said in an interview with AFP last July.

Roizman's weapon of choice was his Twitter account, where he posted hundreds of short satirical messages peppered with Russian swear words, as he denounced the Kremlin's actions and state media.

"It's short and brutal anti-propaganda," he told AFP, saying he was inspired by works of French Renaissance writer Francois Rabelais known for his gallows humour.

While he has not been in police custody ahead of the trial, Roizman has been banned from using the internet and giving interviews, ending his Twitter campaign.

The charge against him is for "discrediting" the Russian army under legislation criminalising criticism of the Ukraine offensive.

- 'No fear' -

Born to a Jewish engineer father and a Russian childcare worker mother, he served a prison sentence in his youth for theft.

In the 1990s, he became an entrepreneur when Yekaterinburg was an epicentre of gang warfare.

In 1999, he launched a campaign to fight drug use. The group was accused of stigmatising drug addicts and forcing them into withdrawal by force.

Rights activists have questioned the centre's methods, which included handcuffing addicts to their beds and forcing heroin users to go cold turkey.

Its supporters however have reported a drop in drug-related deaths since the foundation was set up.

Roizman was a lawmaker between 2003 and 2007. In 2013, he snatched the mayoral seat from under the Kremlin's nose, becoming Russia's highest-profile opposition mayor.

In 2018, Russia abolished direct mayoral elections and Roizman resigned.

Determined to remain independent, Roizman did not officially join opposition parties or movements.

But he actively supported Alexei Navalny, who narrowly survived a poisoning attack in 2021 and was later jailed.

Roizman remained popular in his native Yekaterinburg, which observers say has shielded him from prosecution.

As many opposition figures and activists either fled or were forced into exile, Roizman said he would never leave the country where he was born.

Fellow opposition politician Ilya Yashin was recently sentenced to eight and a half years for discrediting the army and Kremlin critic Vladimir Kara-Murza was jailed for 25 years on charges including treason.

But Roizman has told AFP that he knew that he could be arrested at any moment.

"I have no illusions. But I also have no fear."

France lets aged African army veterans finally 'go home'

Lucie Peytermann
Wed, April 26, 2023 


Three suitcases sit piled on top of one another in 95-year-old Yoro Diao's cramped studio apartment outside Paris.

After nearly 20 years of living thousands of miles from his family so he could claim his French army pension, the old soldier is finally being allowed to return to live in his native Senegal.

"It's a victory," the decorated veteran told AFP as he prepared to fly back on Friday with eight other former soldiers aged 85 to 96. "We're going home to live with our grandchildren."

"I'm going to live and eat well. I'll walk around the village. It's paradise over there," he added, a smile lighting up his thin face.

Hundreds of thousands of African soldiers fought for their colonial master France in the two world wars and against independence movements in Indochina and Algeria.

But until this year, surviving veterans among the so-called "Senegalese Infantrymen" had to live in France for half the year or lose their pension.

In January, the French state dropped the condition, saying they could return home for good and continue receiving their monthly allowance of 950 euros ($1,000).

It would also pay for the flight and move of any veterans wishing to leave.

- 'Neglected' -

In his small room in the Paris suburb of Bondy, Diao pulled a fourth suitcase from beneath his bed.

From it he drew out pictures of his family in Senegal, men he fought with in Algeria and Southeast Asia, and the day in 2017 when he was awarded France's highest honour, the Legion d'Honneur.

Then "President (Francois) Hollande was supposed to hand it to me, but he was busy, so it was a prefect instead," he said wryly.

As he packed, Diao left himself written reminders dotted around the room.

In the frenzy of preparations, his passport, which was in the pocket of one of his jackets, was shipped in a container by mistake, and he had to obtain a second emergency document.

Some 37 retired colonial soldiers like Diao still live in France, according to the Association for the Memory and History of Senegalese Infantrymen.

Its head, Aissata Seck, said the nine returning to Senegal on Friday was the culmination of a decade-long campaign for their rights.

"They were long neglected," said Seck, 43, whose late grandfather was also a colonial soldier.

- 'Given back their dignity' -

When she first met Diao and his comrades 10 years ago, many lived alone in tiny hostel rooms sharing a communal bathroom, effectively stuck far from home yet unable to bring their families to France on their meagre income.

Their pensions were increased to adjust for inflation for the first time in almost five decades in 2006.

"I was shocked that all these old men who had contributed to our freedom couldn't even become French," she said.

Only after years of lobbying were the foreign veterans finally granted French nationality in 2017 by Hollande.

President Emmanuel Macron's government then lifted the six-month residency condition for their pension in January.

Finally, "they have been given back their dignity," Seck said.

The government's decision came after a film starring French actor Omar Sy -- best known abroad for Netflix series "Lupin" -- helped shine light on the plight of France's forgotten colonial troops.

In "Father and Soldier", Sy plays a Senegalese father who joins the French army during World War I to keep an eye on his son after he is forced into uniform.

- 'I lost a lot of friends' -

Diao said he gave his youth to France. He spent three years fighting in the Indochina war that raged from 1946 to 1954 in Vietnam.

"It was terrible... I was the head medic, in charge of the stretcher bearers, carrying the wounded under enemy fire," he said.

"I lost a lot of friends."

He was then deployed to Algeria for two years during another bitter war for independence from France.

After all those sacrifices, being forced to spend six months in France every year has been tough.

He was in France when his wife of 40 years died.

"I lost her just like that, without being there... It was painful," he said quietly.

Before she died, he flew twice to Senegal in the same year to look after her.

Because he broke the six-month rule, the French government slapped him with a huge fine.

Ever since it has deducted 66 euros ($72) from his monthly stipend. He still owes some 13,000 euros ($14,000) to the French state.

Diao said the French government's waiver has been a long time coming -- too late for some veterans who are now too frail to make the journey home.

But for those who still can, "it's better late than never," he said.

lp/ah/sjw/fg

ABORTION IS A HUMAN RIGHT

Harris pushes abortion as key issue in 2024 US campaign

Camille CAMDESSUS
Tue, April 25, 2023 


The same day US President Joe Biden announced his re-election bid, his vice president put forth abortion as a key issue in their 2024 campaign.

"I trust the women of America," said Kamala Harris, speaking at Howard University, in Washington, before a crowd chanting "four more years."

"We are living in a moment in time where so many of our hard-earned freedoms are under attack," said Harris, accusing her Republican opponents of wanting to outlaw abortion nationwide.

"We cannot sleep on this," Harris said. "There is too much at stake."

The Biden administration has made the bet that abortion can be used as a hot issue to mobilize its base ahead of the 2024 election, as was the case in the midterm elections in November.

After the Supreme Court axed the nationwide right to abortion last year, Democrats -- especially young people -- turned out to the polls in numbers. While Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives, the "red wave" of Republican dominance projected in that election was largely dented.

Since the Court's decision, multiple states that have held referendums on abortion have voted to protect it -- including conservative ones.

And according to polls, a majority of Americans think abortion should be legal.

- 'On the ballot' -

Shirts distributed at the Howard rally, which was organized around abortion access, staked out the Democrats' framing of the issue, emblazoned with the phrase "Abortion is on the ballot."

Stephanie Nash, head of the Blue Ridge Abortion Fund in Virginia, grabbed one, promising to "continue the fight."

She said she was excited to see Harris, a fellow Black woman and the first to serve as vice president, "use her platform to speak up and speak out."

"It makes a difference"

Republicans, despite claiming victory in the Supreme Court ruling, have since struggled to stake out their party's definitive position on abortion. Strict bans enacted in some conservative states have some Republicans wanting to adopt more moderate positions, while others want to hold firm on near or total bans -- the same bans that fire up Democratic voters.

- Biden's stance -

"I've been looking forward to seeing her!" 19-year-old student Naudia Thurman said of Harris, adding that she hoped abortion would be a dominant political issue in the 2024 campaign.

"I think it would also be important if Biden was here," the psychology major added. In her opinion, women are often forced to take the lead on the issue in US politics.

Biden, a devout Roman Catholic, has staunchly defended abortion rights as they've come under pressure from the right.

Also on the agenda for the Biden-Harris ticket: Pitching their economic message to middle-class Americans, a key demographic the Republicans will also fight over.

Both parties will have plenty of time to do so, given the United States' uniquely long campaign season: The election is more than 550 days away.

cjc-nro/bfm

The big history of Albania's tiny Koran

Briseida MEMA
Tue, April 25, 2023 



The ritual is always the same. Mario Prushi carefully washes his hands and face before kissing and pressing one of the world's smallest Korans to his forehead.

For generations, the postage stamp-sized book has been passed down in his family -- surviving wars and one of the world's most fanatical "godless regimes".

Scholars say it is one of the smallest Korans on record, with the minuscule holy book held inside a silver case blackened with age.

"We have kept it from generation to generation with absolute dedication," Prushi, 45, told AFP at his home in Tirana.

Just two centimetres (0.7 inches) wide and one centimetre thick, the book almost disappears in the palm of Prushi's hand, and it can only be read with a small magnifying glass embedded in its case.

The Koran is difficult to date in the absence of scientific analysis, but according to Elton Karaj -- a researcher in Koranic studies at Beder University in Tirana -- the 900-page copy has been around since at least the 19th century.

"This Koran was printed in a very small format, one of the smallest in the world. From its appearance, its publication dates back to the end of the 19th century. It is an extraordinary work, very valuable. It is fortunate that this copy is in Albania," said Karaj.

- Miraculously preserved -

But its size is not the only remarkable thing about the Koran. It is also responsible for converting the Prushi family from Catholicism to Islam.

"My great-great-grandparents were digging the ground for a new house in the Djakovica region of Kosovo when they found the perfectly preserved body of a man buried there," said Prushi.

"The Koran was found intact laying over his heart."

The family took the discovery as a divine sign and embraced Islam.

His grandfather, an officer in the army of Albania's King Zog in the 1930s, knew Arabic and would invite friends to his home every night to read verses from it.

Years later, under the communist dictatorship of Enver Hoxha -- who completely banned all forms of religion and sent all practicing believers to prison -- the book survived in part because it could be so easily hidden.

"Someone had notified the secret police that we had a Koran in our house, but it was so small that my father managed to hide it. The agents moved heaven and earth without finding it," said Prushi.

- 'Blessings' -

Following the incident, Prushi's father Skender decided to entrust it to friends in neighbouring Kosovo after smuggling it across the border hidden in a lorry full of coal.

He only recovered it only after the war in Kosovo in 1999, where it was buried during to save it from the fighting.

Prushi then inherited the Koran shortly before his father's death in 2012.

"This little book carries so many stories, blessings and miracles. It is very dear to me," said Prushi.

"Every time I touch it, I am moved," his wife Blerina told AFP.

"When something goes wrong or when our daughter is sick, we feel reassured, we know that the Koran will protect us, it is a real talisman," she added.

The family has received numerous offers to buy it, including from museums.

"I never think of selling it," said Prushi. "This Koran belongs to our family and it will always stay with us."

bme-ev/ds/fg

Anime luminary Maruyama warns Japan's top spot at risk


Tomohiro OSAKI
Tue, April 25, 2023 


Japan's powerhouse anime business risks being overtaken by rising Chinese competition because a tilt towards commercialism has stifled creativity, industry heavyweight Masao Maruyama has warned.

Maruyama, a protege of manga great Osamu Tezuka, said he fears Japan is losing its edge.

"In Japan, people are no longer trained in animation," he told AFP in an interview.

"The only reason China hasn't quite caught up with Japan yet is because of a bunch of restrictions imposed on free expression there," he said.

"If more freedom is unleashed, Japan will be overtaken in no time."


Maruyama doesn't draw or direct, but he has clout that few in Japan's anime industry can match because of the breadth of the behind-the-scenes roles he has played -- from studio founder and recruiter to fixer.

The 81-year-old acknowledged his career was in its twilight, and Maruyama was far from optimistic as he prepared to leave behind an industry he helped shape.

He fears Japan is so hell-bent on cranking out money-spinning genres, such as those starring "kawaii" cute female characters, that its anime "doesn't necessarily outshine" America's Disney or France's arthouse productions in terms of creativity.

He warned that occasional successes from this prolific approach have distracted Japan from systematically fostering next-generation talent, even as China invests aggressively in young animators.

- 'God of manga' -

Maruyama has risen from a protege of the late Tezuka, the "God of manga" known for the pioneering cartoon series "Astro Boy", to a force behind some of Japan's most acclaimed anime directors, overseeing three animation studios along the way.

It was partly a desire to keep Tezuka's works alive that convinced Maruyama to take on his current project "Pluto", adapted from a manga with an "Astro Boy" arc.

The upcoming series for Netflix, of which he is executive producer, is steeped in themes such as war and discrimination that some feel are particularly relevant today.

Maruyama is unapologetic about his view that he is "the most authentic inheritor of Tezuka's DNA", from his blithe ignorance of budgets to an uncompromising work ethic that he says borders on "selfish".

Like Tezuka, "I flip-flop all the time, saying something totally different from what I said a day before", Maruyama said with a chuckle.

"But creating works is all about challenging yourself to do something new, regardless of what you said in the past. That makes you selfish in a way, and it's a trait I've inherited in its pure form."

Maruyama has helped bring to life hundreds of anime shows and films in his nearly 60-year career, including boxing saga "Ashita no Joe", critically acclaimed "Ninja Scroll" and award-winning "In This Corner of the World".

He is content to play second fiddle to directors, and is known for handling everything from pitching projects and raising funds to hand-picking animators.

- 'Cook and clean toilets' -

His deep involvement in productions earned him a reputation as a shadow shogun, but eventually he began stepping into the limelight.

His strategy was to use his credentials to promote and vouch for directors he felt deserved attention, animation history researcher Masahiro Haraguchi said.

From Mamoru Hosoda ("The Girl Who Leapt Through Time") to Satoshi Kon ("Perfect Blue") and Sunao Katabuchi ("In This Corner of the World"), many of Japan's top-notch anime directors saw their careers take off after working under Maruyama, Haraguchi said.

"Maruyama's magic was to team up with these directors and cause their transmogrification," he said.

Maruyama, however, jokes that all he does is "cook and clean toilets".

"I have no special skills," he said.

"I don't steer the directors but I just follow them and their talent."

His work ethic is legendary and is seen in the names of his three studios Madhouse, MAPPA and M2, which he says all start with 'M' for a reason.

"It means I'm masochistic," he said, breaking into a wide grin.

"The more challenging, painful and excruciating the project is, the more motivated I become."

Maruyama said he is determined to remain active "as long as my body and mind permit".

But that doesn't mean he is oblivious to his mortality.

He organised a flamboyant living funeral for himself last year, painting his face white to appear as a ghost to the amusement of his friends and colleagues.

"I thought then: 'well, I've had a good life'."

tmo/sah/pbt/dva

Hit Japan anime genre offers escape, second chances

Tomohiro OSAKI
Tue, April 25, 2023 


Getting hit by a truck doesn't sound like anyone's favourite fantasy, but it's an idea central to an escapist type of Japanese anime exploding in popularity.

"Isekai" or "alternative world" anime covers a broad range of storylines in which a character is transported into a new life.

But one form of isekai often starts with a bang: a struggling protagonist, sometimes depicted as a loser, dies a violent death but is reincarnated as a hero with unique powers.

It's found new popularity in Japan and beyond, with US speciality streaming service Crunchyroll reporting "great appetite" for the genre that includes titles like "That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime".

"We've seen very strong performance of these titles worldwide," Asa Suehira, chief content officer for Crunchyroll, told AFP.

In 2021, five of the top 10 most-watched Japanese anime on China's video platform Bilibili featured isekai storylines.

And the genre is so popular that "isekaied" even features in the online lexicon guide Urban Dictionary, defined as "the act of being run over by a truck and reborn".

Experts and fans alike say the genre taps into the pent-up frustrations of people who feel undervalued and dissatisfied with modern life.

While traditional anime franchises tend to showcase heroes navigating hostile worlds, isekai focuses instead on a chance at a do-over of life.

"The prevailing mindset in isekai is that 'I'm better off just being transported into a world where I can excel'," Satoshi Arima, an editor with publishing giant Kadokawa, told AFP.

- Living vicariously -

Over the years, the publishing house has released a plethora of isekai-themed light novels, many of which have then inspired manga and anime adaptations.

The current iteration of isekai began to take off around 2012, and the rise of platforms from Crunchyroll to Netflix has helped make them a mainstay among today's anime fans.

Arima said a core audience for Kadokawa's novels is "salarymen" -- Japanese office workers -- in their 30s and 40s.

They may be dreaming of "just switching to jobs that recognise them better," in defiance of Japan's ingrained lifetime employment system, he said.

"Since this kind of way of living is not always possible, they might be fulfilling that desire vicariously through these novels."

The escapism has broad appeal, though, and is increasingly winning over female fans who recognise themselves in previously underappreciated heroines "living their lives the way they want to", he added.

Popular series include "Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation" -- the tale of a 34-year-old "jobless male virgin" who is hit by a truck and reincarnated as an infant with magical powers.

At this year's AnimeJapan convention, a long line of mostly male fans of the series formed at a booth promoting the show and other works.

"Japan isn't at its best anymore, so stories like this make me think people might be looking for ways to vent their stress and escape," one fan, 50-year-old Shinya Yamada, told AFP.

- 'Free from regrets' -

Such escapism "serves a therapeutic purpose, although I think it's kind of sad," Yamada said.

Still, isekai's popularity appears to be growing in Japan and abroad.

A search on a major manga-curating site turns up more than 4,000 works with "isekai" in their titles.

Over the years, the genre has spawned so many works it risked being "overcrowded", Suehira said, but the subgenres it has generated have helped keep it fresh.

While some isekai narratives start with protagonists escaping their current lives by dying, others are transported into alternate universes in a less violent fashion.

Some iterations see heroes put through gruelling battles for survival featuring outlandish transfigurations into a spider monster or slime.

The increasingly popular "slow life" isekai, however, showcases characters whose new life is stress-free and tranquil.

The variety means that isekai can tap into a broad fanbase -- from those fantasising about a more leisurely lifestyle to those imagining a bit more excitement, said Suehira.

The genre offers a fresh start, "free from the regrets or mistakes every person experiences in life".

tmo/sah/dva

Fly me to the Moon: Firms lining up lunar landings


Sara HUSSEIN
Tue, April 25, 2023


Japan's ispace on Wednesday became the latest company to try, and fail, at a historic bid to put a private lunar lander on the Moon.

Only Russia, the United States and China have made the 384,000-kilometre (239,000-mile) journey and landed safely on the Moon's surface.

Here are some of the companies who have made the journey, or plan missions soon:

- SpaceIL -

In February 2019, the 585-kilogram Beresheet lander launched from Earth on a Falcon 9 rocket belonging to Elon Musk's SpaceX company.

The lander was a joint project between Israeli non-profit SpaceIL and state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries.

Beresheet, meaning "Genesis" in Hebrew, was carrying an Israeli flag, a time capsule with Israeli historical and cultural data, and various instruments to collect data.

It was described as the world's first spacecraft built in a "non-governmental mission" and successfully reached lunar orbit about six weeks after launch.

But the $100 million mission ended in disappointment in April 2019 when the craft crashed into the lunar surface.

"We are on the Moon, but not in the way we wanted," a staffer was heard saying during a live control room broadcast.

SpaceIL plans to launch Beresheet2 in 2025.

- ispace -

Japanese start-up ispace, like SpaceIL, grew from the Google Lunar XPrize, which in 2010 offered $30 million in awards to encourage scientists and entrepreneurs to dream up low-cost Moon missions.

The prize expired without a winner, but several contestants forged ahead, seeking private funding.

The company sent its Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander into space in December and reached lunar orbit in March.

It was carrying two lunar rovers, one Japanese and one belonging to the United Arab Emirates.

It had been due to land on the lunar surface on Wednesday, but communications were lost after it began its descent and ispace later concluded it had likely crashed.

The company is already developing two further lunar missions, the first of which could launch as soon as next year.

- Intuitive Machines -

Texas-based Intuitive Machines, founded in 2013, aims to launch its Nova-C lander as soon as this June.

The lander will carry five NASA payloads, as well as cargo from private companies, and is intended to gather data on subjects like the effect of space weather on the Moon.


On board will be sculptures by American pop artist Jeff Koons called "Moon Phases" that are intended to be left permanently on the lunar surface.

It will also be equipped with an "EagleCam" that is designed to allow "the first-ever third-person picture of a spacecraft making an extraterrestrial landing" -- in other words, a lunar selfie.

- Astrobotic -

Astrobotic, another one-time Google Lunar XPrize contender, is based in the US city of Pittsburgh and is targeting a Moon landing with its Peregrine lander.

It plans to send the boxy lander -- standing 2.5 metres across and nearly two metres high -- into space on a United Launch Alliance rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Its earliest launch date is currently May 4, a conveniently symbolic date that references the famous Star Wars line: "May the force be with you."

It will be carrying a range of instruments, mementos and payloads from six countries, including a rover developed by students at Carnegie Mellon University and a plate with a copy of the first block of Bitcoin ever mined.

- Further ahead -

Both Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic are part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services -- a programme to hitch rides to the Moon with private companies.

Other participants include Firefly Aerospace, which plans a lunar landing carrying NASA payloads in 2024.

sah/kaf/cwl

Japanese Moon lander likely crashed, company says after losing contact


AFP
Issued on: 26/04/2023

Employees of "ispace" at a venue in Tokyo, Japan, April 26, 2023. 

© Kim Kyung-Hoon, Reuters

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Japanese startup ispace inc said its attempt to make the first private moon landing had failed after losing contact with its Hakuto-R Mission 1 (M1) lander, concluding it had most likely crashed on the lunar surface.

"We lost communication, so we have to assume that we could not complete the landing on the lunar surface," founder and Chief Executive Takeshi Hakamada said on a company live stream.

It was the second setback for private space development in a week after SpaceX's Starship rocket exploded spectacularly minutes after soaring off its launch pad.

A private firm has yet to succeed with a lunar landing. Only the United States, the former Soviet Union and China have soft-landed spacecraft on the moon, with attempts in recent years by India and a private Israeli company ending in failure.

Shares in ispace, which delivers payloads such as rovers to the moon and sells related data, were untraded Wednesday morning but indicated to fall by their daily limit. The stock made its debut on the Tokyo Stock Exchange just two weeks ago and had doubled in value since then.

Japan's top government spokesperson Hirokazu Matsuno said that while the mission went unaccomplished, the country wants ispace to "keep trying" as its efforts were significant to the development of a domestic space industry.

Japan, which has set itself a goal of sending Japanese astronauts to the moon by the late 2020s, has had some recent setbacks. The national space agency last month had to destroy its new medium-lift H3 rocket upon reaching space after its second-stage engine failed to ignite. Its solid-fuel Epsilon rocket also failed after launch in October.
Brakes on a ski slope

Four months after launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a SpaceX rocket, the M1 lander appeared set to autonomously touch down at about 12:40 p.m. Eastern time (1640 GMT Tuesday), with an animation based on live telemetry data showing it coming as close as 90 metres (295 feet) from the lunar surface.

By the expected touchdown time, mission control had lost contact with the lander and engineers appeared anxious over the live stream as they awaited signal confirmation of its fate which never came.

"Our engineers will continue to investigate the situation," Hakamada said. "At this moment, what I can tell you is we are very proud of the fact that we have already achieved many things during this Mission 1."

The lander completed eight out of 10 mission objectives in space that will provide valuable data for the next landing attempt in 2024, he added.

Roughly an hour before planned touchdown, the 2.3 metre-tall M1 began its landing phase, gradually tightening its orbit around the moon from 100 km (62 miles) above the surface to roughly 25 km, travelling at nearly 6,000 km/hour (3,700 mph).

At such velocity, slowing the lander to the correct speed against the moon's gravitational pull is like squeezing the brakes of a bicycle right at the edge of a ski-jumping slope, Chief Technology Officer Ryo Ujiie has said.

The craft was aiming for a landing site at the edge of Mare Frigoris in the moon's northern hemisphere where it would have deployed a two-wheeled, baseball-sized rover developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Tomy Co Ltd 7867.T and Sony Group Corp 6758.T. It also planned to deploy a four-wheeled rover dubbed Rashid from the United Arab Emirates.

The lander was carrying an experimental solid-state battery made by Niterra Co Ltd 5334.T among other devices to gauge their performance on the moon.

The mission was insured by Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co, an MS&AD Insurance Group 8725.T unit, and ispace said it may receive some compensation.

(REUTERS)

Undeterred by jail, Germany's climate activists ramp up protests

AFP
Issued on: 26/04/2023 - 

The road blockades are the latest in a series of high profile protests launched by the Letzte Generation (Last Generation) activists, a controversial group that has been described by German politicians as "climate terrorists" 

© Odd ANDERSEN / AFP


Berlin (AFP) – Moritz Riedacher sat down at a busy road junction with four other climate activists in southwestern Germany earlier this year, holding up traffic for hours –- an action that landed him a jail sentence. But he remains undeterred.

This week, the 26-year-old journalism student again halted traffic, this time in Berlin where fellow activists in the group Letzte Generation (Last Generation) launched a campaign demanding stronger climate protection policies.

Riedacher, who has not yet been imprisoned pending appeals, is among the first in Germany to land a jail conviction over such protests.

"I find it really, really hard to process the verdict," he told AFP, calling the four-month sentence handed to him this month over the Heilbronn protest "disproportionate".

"It is definitely urgent" for the government to do more for climate protection, he said, pointing to the 2021 deadly flooding in southern Germany.

"We can't say let's just go on as normal. Rather, we need to cause disruptions," said Riedacher.

The controversial tactics of Letzte Generation, from hunger strikes to throwing mashed potato on paintings in museums, has resulted in the group being described by some German politicians as "climate terrorists".

Over the last year, its sit-ins on roads complete with some members being glued to the asphalt have become increasingly frequent.

In turn, more activists are landing in court.

'Coercion'

While most received fines for disrupting traffic or obstructing police work, the court in Heilbronn has raised the stakes with months-long jail sentences.

For judge Julia Schmitt, the road blockade constituted "coercion", a crime carrying up to three years' imprisonment.

Activists from the Letzte Generation group vow to bring traffic to a standstill across Berlin © John MACDOUGALL / AFP

Deputy chief of the union for German police, Heiko Teggatz, said Schmitt's ruling should be used as an example.

"That is the only signal that these idiots understand," Teggatz told the daily Welt, urging preventive detention of up to 30 days followed by expedited trials that result in heavy jail-terms.

The protesters have not drawn sympathy from Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government, with even junior coalition partner the Greens opposed.

Calling the group's approach "wrong", Economy Minister Robert Habeck of the Greens told news channel NTV that "this protest doesn't win a majority for climate protection, rather, it irritates people, divides society and in that sense, it's not a helpful contribution to climate protection".

Accusations have flown that the blockades hinder emergency services such as ambulances.

And scenes of frustrated motorists shouting at the protesters or dragging them away have accompanied much of the action.

But Riedacher argued that "at the same time, more people are showing solidarity, perhaps after being moved by these harsh rulings".

If the verdict against him is upheld, he could end up with a criminal record that could prove troublesome in the future.

But he and other protesters, many of whom are young, are unfazed.
'Pay the price'

In central Berlin last month, activist Irma Trommer was facing a judge with a similar charge of coercion.

Actress Irma Trommer is among activists facing justice for participating in street blockades © Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP

Prosecutors argue that street blockades force motorists to take certain actions -- stop moving -- against their will.

Different courts have weighed up the imperatives of the right to protest against the coercion charge, with varying outcomes.

Whatever the verdict in her case, the 26-year-old actress vowed to keep blocking traffic "because I understand that the climate crisis is now the key point on which our entire future hinges".

The activists carry out demonstrations with the full knowledge about potential consequences.

Not only do they undergo training on how to glue themselves on asphalt but are also given legal advice.

The trials themselves offer "a platform with wide reach" to bring climate concerns to the public, said Last Generation on its website.

Activist Henning Jeschke glued himself onto a table during his trial.

After he was carried out of court with the table, he halted traffic a month on again with other activists, table in tow.

Trommer's father, Stefan Diefenbach-Trommer, told AFP of his "shock" at his daughter landing in court "not because of her action but because she is being prosecuted for taking on responsibility for the future of this planet".

Like his daughter, he shrugged off the potential impact that the legal procedure could have on her livelihood.

"What's the use of a super CV or a great university degree if the world is no longer liveable?" he said.

Trommer admitted that she had been jittery on the eve of the trial, but added: "I am ready to go to jail if necessary."

"Having a criminal record is the lesser evil compared to what the climate crisis will bring. If that's the price that I have to pay, then I'll pay," she said.

© 2023 AFP

Climate protesters try to bring Berlin traffic to a halt

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER

yesterday

1 of 10
Police removes the pavement next to the hand of a climate activist during a protest against the climate policy of the German government in Berlin, Germany, Monday, April 24, 2023. German climate activists tried bringing traffic to a standstill in Berlin on Monday morning by gluing themselves to streets all over the capital. 

(AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

BERLIN (AP) — German climate activists temporarily brought traffic to a standstill in some parts of Berlin on Monday by gluing themselves to streets all over the capital.

Members of the group Last Generation have repeatedly blocked roads across Germany in the past year in an effort to pressure the government to take more drastic action against climate change. On several occasions, they have glued themselves to the roads, enraging some motorists and prompting accusations of extremism from conservative politicians.

In addition to the road blocks, the activists said Monday they would also block traffic by marching very slowly through the city later in the day as they already did on Friday.

In the morning, there were more than 30 road blocks across the city, German news agency dpa reported.

“We will no longer accept that the government has no plan to stop the destruction of our livelihoods,” Last Generation said in a statement. ”We are resisting now.”

According to the Berlin police, up to 500 officers were on the streets in the city all day to prevent the blockades or end them quickly, dpa reported. A police helicopter was hovering over the city to alert colleagues on the ground about the blockades as well.

The group said last week that its members would step up their actions in the coming days and try to “peacefully bring the city to a standstill.”

The protests led to traffic jams on many of Berlin’s main roads and a city highway, as well as in some of the outer neighborhoods of the German capital.

While some people seemed to support the protesters’ fight for climate protection, others — especially angry drivers who were stuck in congested traffic — tried to pull the activists off the roads violently even though officials have warned motorists repeatedly not to engage in vigilantism against the group.

In some cases, it took more time than in the past to detach protesters from the streets because some of them used a different kind of glue this time. Instead of using oil to detach the protesters’ hands from the streets, officers had to use tools and damage the asphalt to remove the protesters.

Last Generation wants Germany to stop using all fossil fuels by 2030 and take short-term measures including the imposition of a general speed limit of 100 kilometers per hour (62 mph) on highways as a way of cutting transport emissions.

Government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said Monday that the current German administration has done more to curb climate change than any of its predecessors.

“We are a parliamentary democracy. There are possibilities to express criticism. I have my doubts that such massive disruptions of public order and the like serve the intended purpose,” he told reporters in Berlin. “Naturally we don’t support such forms of protest.”

Asked whether Chancellor Olaf Scholz plans to meet with the activists, like other politicians have and are planning to, Hebestreit said he wasn’t aware of any appointments.

“Such talks make particular sense if one wants to exchange views and not if the aim is to force through maximum demands,” he added.

Transport Minister Volker Wissing, who has rejected the demand for a speed limit, plans to meet activists on May 2. He has sharply criticized the group for its road blockades in the past.

___

Frank Jordans contributed to this report.

How cadmium-induced inflammation increases the severity and mortality of lung infections

Description of this mechanism offers a promising therapeutic target to limit lung injury and death. Lower respiratory tract infections, including bacterial pneumonia, are the fourth-leading cause of death worldwide, with 120 million to 156 million cases a year

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM

 

IMAGE: A. BRENT CARTER view more 

CREDIT: UAB

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – A key mechanism of cadmium-linked inflammation that increases severity and mortality of lung infections has been described, offering a promising therapeutic target to limit lung injury and death.

This study, led by University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers Jennifer L. Larson-Casey, Ph.D., and A. Brent Carter, M.D., is based on an underserved, primarily African American community that is proposed as a National Priorities List area by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, due to heavy metals, including cadmium, in the soil and air that have caused lung disease. This North Birmingham, Alabama, community historically housed people who worked in mines, coke plants and heavy industries.

Air pollution from tiny particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in size is linked to respiratory infections, and this pollution is often tainted with cadmium, a poisonous heavy metal emitted from sources like smelters, coal fired plants, coke factories and forest fires. Environmental cadmium is associated with higher risk of death from flu and pneumonia, and it doubles the risk of lung disease; but the mechanism of cadmium’s influence was not known.

Lower respiratory tract infections, including bacterial pneumonia, are the fourth-leading cause of death worldwide, with 120 million to 156 million cases and 1.4 million deaths a year. Streptococcus pneumoniae accounts for more than 55 percent of those deaths.

The UAB research, published in the journal JCI Insight, focused on bone marrow-derived macrophages that are recruited in large numbers to the lungs during infection to defend against respiratory pathogens. These immune cells are initially inflammatory to fight the pathogen, and then should become anti-inflammatory as the disease is controlled, so that continued inflammation does not damage the lung tissue. The Carter lab had previously shown that cadmium-mediated lung injury resulted in the persistence of the inflammatory, classically activated lung macrophages by inhibiting the nuclear localization of the transcription factor PPAR-gamma. Active PPAR-gamma is a negative regulator of the inflammatory response by inhibiting production of pro-inflammatory cytokines and reactive oxygen species.

An enzyme called extracellular signal-regulated kinase, or ERK, has been known to play a pivotal role in lung inflammation and mouse models of lung injury; but how it acts was not known. In the present study, Larson-Casey, Carter and UAB colleagues used a mouse model to describe how cadmium or S. pneumoniae infection impairs the activation of PPAR-gamma in macrophages that were recruited to the lungs.

The exposure to cadmium or S. pneumoniae led to ERK activation in only the recruited macrophages. Activated ERK increased the post-translational phosphorylation of PPAR-gamma at its serine 112 amino acid. That change led to PPAR-gamma degradation, canceling its anti-inflammatory role.

The researchers also showed that the experimental drug BVD-523 — an inhibitor of ERK that is currently in clinical testing to treat cancer — protected mice from lung injury after cadmium exposure or infection. They further found that human subjects, who live in industrial North Birmingham, had increased cadmium levels in their lung fluid. Those residents also showed PPAR-gamma inhibition, as compared to controls who live elsewhere, that was mediated, at least in part, by ERK activation.

“Although lung injury after respiratory infection is often unavoidable, identifying modifiable risk factors that predispose individuals to severe pneumonia is an unmet need,” Carter said. “Our observations suggest that the regulation of PPAR-gamma in monocyte-derived macrophages is a novel target to protect against the severity of lower respiratory tract infections secondary to lung injury mediated by air pollution.”

In the mouse model, mice were instilled intratracheally with cadmium chloride or saline, and S. pneumoniae was given five days later. All mice that were given just saline or cadmium alone were alive 15 days later; but only about 80 percent of the mice given saline and S. pneumoniae survived, and less than half the mice given both cadmium and S. pneumoniae survived. Cadmium-exposed mice had increased numbers of macrophage cells in the lungs, and that number increased further after the cadmium-exposed mice were given S. pneumoniae. Both cadmium- and S. pneumoniae-exposed mice showed lung injury, and the lung injury was significantly greater in cadmium-exposed mice that were infected with S. pneumoniae.

In other details, the UAB researchers used single-cell RNA sequencing of cells from the lung to show that the PPAR-gamma gene was expressed predominantly in macrophage cells rather than 13 other cell types detected from the lung. That gene expression was about the same in macrophages exposed to cadmium or S. pneumoniae alone, or to cadmium and S. pneumoniae together.

The researchers also found that cadmium and S. pneumoniae increased the production of pro-inflammatory TNF-alpha and interleukin-6, and decreased production of the anti-inflammatory interleukin-10. Activated PPAR-gamma is known to inhibit production of TNF-alpha and interleukin-6, and it increases expression of interleukin-10.

Carter is a professor and Larson-Casey an assistant professor in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine in the UAB Department of Medicine.

Co-authors with Carter and Larson-Casey in the study, “Impaired PPARɣ activation by cadmium exacerbates infection-induced lung injury,” are Shanrun Liu, UAB Department of Medicine, Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology; Jennifer M. Pyles and Suzanne E. Lapi, UAB Department of Radiology; Komal Saleem and Veena B. Antony, UAB Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine; Manuel Lora Gonzalez, UAB Department of Pathology; and David K. Crossman, UAB Department of Genetics.

Support came from National Institutes of Health grants ES027723-03, a National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Superfund grant that is determining the effects of heavy metals in lung disease, ES015981-15 and HL114470-10; Department of Veteran Affairs grant CX001715-04; and UAB.

At UAB, Medicine, Pathology, Radiology and Genetics are departments in the Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine.

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JOURNAL

JCI Insight

DOI

10.1172/jci.insight.166608 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Impaired PPARɣ activation by cadmium exacerbates infection-induced lung injury

Trim the sugar: New HIV vaccine design improves immune response

Scripps Research vaccine candidate headed for clinical trials.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE

 

IMAGE: A STRUCTURAL DEPICTION OF TWO HIV NANOPARTICLE VACCINES (E2P AND I3-01V9) AND A CLOSE-UP OF THE ENV PROTEINS THESE NANOPARTICLES DISPLAY ON THEIR SURFACES (HIV-1 BG505 UFO TRIMER). THE VACCINES ARE DESIGNED TO HAVE SHORTER SUGARS (OR GLYCANS) ON THE ENV PROTEIN. view more 

CREDIT: SCRIPPS RESEARCH

LA JOLLA, CA— A new HIV vaccine from Scripps Research has shown a significantly improved ability to neutralize the virus in preclinical tests, and it will soon be studied in healthy people who volunteer to participate in clinical trials.

The new and unique vaccine design, described in a paper in Nature Communications on April 9, 2023, uses tiny protein “nanoparticles” to display multiple copies of HIV’s surface protein Env, thus presenting itself to the immune system much as real HIV particles would without causing HIV infection. The key innovation that explains its effects has to do with flexible sugar molecules called glycans, which normally cover Env on the real virus but are shortened in the new design. After achieving promising preclinical results, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has agreed to sponsor a future clinical trial.

“With this design we appear to have solved a big piece of the HIV vaccine puzzle,” says the paper’s senior author Jiang Zhu, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology at Scripps Research.

The co-first authors of the study were postdoctoral associates Yi-Nan Zhang, PhD and Aleksandar Antanasijevic, PhD; scientific collaborator Jennifer Paynter, PhD; and postdoctoral associate Joel Allen, PhD, from the laboratory of vaccinologist Max Crispin, DPhil, professor at the University of Southampton.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that 38.4 million people worldwide are currently living with HIV, and 1.5 million people became newly infected with HIV in 2021 alone. Apart from very rare cases involving bone marrow transplants, there is no cure for the infection, which must be held in check indefinitely with antiviral drugs to keep it from progressing to the deadly immune deficiency condition known as AIDS.

One of the defense strategies the virus uses is to shield its most exposed structure, Env, with glycans. Glycans are simple, chain-like molecules that are made by human cells to carry out various essential functions. Env contains sites where glycans will automatically fasten, so that when it is inside a human host, it ends up largely covered by them.

Glycans are difficult for antibodies to grip, and anything coated in them appears less like a foreign invader to the immune system. At the same time, Env proteins typically leave some of their less critical, more mutable parts uncovered by glycans, harmlessly diverting much of the antibody response.

While the best way to present glycans on the Env proteins used in vaccines is still a subject of lively debate among researchers, Zhu and his team took their vaccine design in a unique direction: not by removing glycans or adding them to no-glycan regions as some designs do, but instead simply by shortening their lengths. They reasoned that this would reduce the decoy power of no-glycan regions by reducing their contrast with glycan-dense regions—while simultaneously making vulnerable sites on the virus more accessible to antibodies. They also suspected that the desirable antibodies that can use glycans to hit Env would still be able to grip the trimmed glycans.

They designed experiments to test their predictions. Animal studies showed better antibody binding to key vulnerable sites on Env, and less binding to decoy sites. Moreover, in vaccinated animal models, the trimmed-glycan version of the vaccine induced strikingly stronger virus-neutralizing antibody responses compared to the non-trimmed-glycan version.

“In one test in mice, for example, seven out of eight immunized animal models generated robust neutralizing antibody responses, compared to only one of eight for the non-glycan-trimmed version,” Zhu says. “The difference with the glycan trimming was rather striking.”

The journey also extends beyond the lab and into the product development front. “As the exclusive licensee of this advanced vaccine platform technology, Uvax Bio is completing the GMP production of two vaccine candidates, namely, the wild-type Uvax-1197 and trimmed-glycan Uvax-1107,” added Ji Li, CEO of Uvax Bio.

In advance of the NIAID-supported clinical trial, Zhu and colleagues will do further experiments to confirm the specific antibodies, Env binding sites, glycan interactions and other vaccine components that are most important to test in this new vaccine candidate. A clinical trial may start as early as 2024.

“Single-component multilayered self-assembling protein nanoparticles presenting glycan-trimmed uncleaved prefusion optimized envelope trimers as HIV-1 vaccine candidates” was co-authored by Yi-Nan Zhang, Jennifer Paynter, Aleksandar Antanasijevic, Mor Eldad, Yi-Zong Lee, Jeffrey Copps, Linling He, Ian Wilson, Andrew Ward, and Jiang Zhu, of Scripps Research; Joel Allen, Maddy Newby, and Max Crispin of the University of Southampton; and Deborah Chavez, Pat Frost, Anna Goodroe, John Dutton, Robert Lanford and Christopher Chen of the Southwest National Primate Research Center.

Support for the research was provided by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) (INV-008352/OPP1153692, INV-034657, INV-008352/OPP1153692), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; the Scripps Consortium for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Development (CHAVD 1UM1 AI144462); the National Institutes of Health (P01 AI124337, R01 AI129698, R01 AI140844), the Southwest National Primate Research Center (P51 OD011133 and U42OD010442), Tulane National Primate Research Center (P51 OD011104), and UVAX BIO, LLC.

 

About Scripps Research

Scripps Research is an independent, nonprofit biomedical institute ranked one of the most influential in the world for its impact on innovation by Nature Index. We are advancing human health through profound discoveries that address pressing medical concerns around the globe. Our drug discovery and development division, Calibr, works hand-in-hand with scientists across disciplines to bring new medicines to patients as quickly and efficiently as possible, while teams at Scripps Research Translational Institute harness genomics, digital medicine and cutting-edge informatics to understand individual health and render more effective healthcare. Scripps Research also trains the next generation of leading scientists at our Skaggs Graduate School, consistently named among the top 10 US programs for chemistry and biological sciences. Learn more at www.scripps.edu.

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-023-37742-z 

ARTICLE TITLE

Single-component multilayered self-assembling protein nanoparticles presenting glycan-trimmed uncleaved prefusion optimized envelope trimers as HIV-1 vaccine candidates