AUDIO:

POSSIBLE TOPICS: VOTETEXAS.GOV—Voter Information; REGISTER TO VOTE; APPLY FOR MAIL-IN BALLOT; ‘He was like Superman’: Family identifies good Samaritan killed on North Loop while helping driver change tire; Federal Hurricane Harvey grant to fund sweeping drainage improvements in east Pearland; Surveillance or savior? New data deepens divide over Houston gunshot tech; After a two-year pause, feds give Texas the go-ahead to resume a major Houston highway expansion; Republican sorry for suggesting ‘hanging by a tree’ as execution method; New Mexico may curb paramilitaries near southern US border; Ukraine’s representative at UN warns that Russia is slated to lead Security Council next month. A global divide on the Ukraine war is deepening; Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, U.S. Officials Say; Fifth person cured of HIV after stem cell transplant, researchers say; Fifth person cured of HIV after stem cell transplant, researchers say; More.

Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) is now on Wednesdays at 11AM (CT) on KPFT FM-HD2, Houston’s Community Station. You can also hear the show:

1. Live online at KPFT.org (from anywhere in the world!)
2. Podcast on your phone’s Podcast App
3. Visiting Archive.KPFT.ORG

Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories. My co-host and show editor is Andrew Ferguson.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/EwrSlzZC31w

1. Make sure you are registered to vote! VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter Information
   1. It;s time to snail-mail (no emails or faxes) in your application for mail-ballots, IF you qualify TEXAS SoS VOTE-BY-MAIL BALLOT APPLICATION (ALL TEXAS COUNTIES) HarrisVotes.com­ – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
   2. Harris County “Vote-By-Mail’ Application for 2022
      1. Fort bend County Elections/Voter Registration Machine takes you to the proper link
      2. GalvestonVotes.org (Galveston County, TX)
      3. Liberty County Elections (Liberty County, TX)
      4. Montgomery County (TX) Elections
      5. Brazoria County (TX) Clerk Election Information
      6. Waller County (TX) Elections
      7. Chambers County (TX) Elections
      8. For personalized, nonpartisan voter guides and information, Consider visiting Vote.ORG.   Ballotpedia.com and Texas League of Women Voters are also good places to get election info.
      9. If you are denied your right to vote any place at any time at any polling place for any reason, ask for (or demand) a provisional ballot rather than lose your vote.
      10. HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting Centers, HARRIS COUNTY – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED FOR VOTING: Do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one of these IDs?
          1. Fill out a declaration at the polls describing a reasonable impediment to obtaining it, and show a copy or original of one of the following supporting forms of ID:
          2. A government document that shows your name and an address, including your voter registration certificate
          3. Current utility bill
          4. Bank statement
          5. Government check
          6. Paycheck
          7. A certified domestic (from a U.S. state or territory) birth certificate or (b) a document confirming birth admissible in a court of law which establishes your identity (which may include a foreign birth document)
          8. You may vote early by-mail if:You are registered to vote and meet one of the following criteria:
             1. Away from the county of residence on Election Day and during the early voting period;
             2. Sick or disabled;
             3. 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or
             4. Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
             5. Make sure you are registered:
             6. Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
             7. CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
             8. CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
             9. Outside Texas, try Vote.org.
2. BE REGISTERED TO VOTE, and if eligible, REMEMBER TO FILL OUT AND MAIL NEW MAIL-IN BALLOT APPLICATIONS FOR 2023.
   
   1. You can track your Mail Ballot Activity from our website with direct link provided here https://www.harrisvotes.com/Tracking
3. ‘He was like Superman’: Family identifies good Samaritan killed on North Loop while helping driver change tire; By Rilwan Balogun | CLICK2HOUSTON.COM | Published: March 7, 2023 at 10:14 PM
   1. A family identifies a good Samaritan that was killed after he was hit while helping a driver change the tires on his vehicle Monday.
   2. Javier Leyva, 44, was attempting to help the driver of a silver Hyundai Santa Fe that had a flat tire as he was traveling on the North Loop East near Wallisville Road. …
   3. Officers said Leyva was driving a white Dodge Ram pickup truck when he stopped in front of a silver Hyundai and got out of his vehicle to assist the driver in changing the tire. A Toyota Corolla traveling westbound on the main lanes of the North Loop was struck from behind by an unknown vehicle and the impact pushed the Toyota onto the shoulder, Houston police said. The Toyota then struck the Hyundai, Leyva, and the pickup truck. According to investigators, the driver of the unknown vehicle fled the scene without stopping to render aid. …
   4. David Rose with HPD’s Vehicular Crimes division stresses the importance of safety on freeways.
   5. “It’s very dangerous to stop on the freeway at all,” Sgt. Rose said. “That’s why we tell people if they get into a fender bender and no one is injured, to get off the freeway.” …
   6. Anyone with information on the identity of the wanted driver is urged to contact the HPD Hit-and-Run Unit at (713) 247-4072 or speak anonymously to Crime Stoppers at (713) 222-TIPS.
   7. MIKE: I don’t usually mention highway accidents on this show, even tragic ones like this, but there are important lessons here for anyone who drives on the freeways.
   8. MIKE: If I may speculate, what probably happened here was the Toyota driver saw the disabled vehicle and tried to slow down as they passed, which is a correct maneuver. Also moving over would have been better. The unknown vehicle probably didn’t notice in time that the Toyota was slowing down, and hit it. This probably was the cause of the fatal chain reaction.
   9. MIKE: The first lesson is that, if reasonably and safely possible, try not to get stranded or do repairs on a shoulder with fast-moving traffic very close to you. Attempt to limp to the nearest exit ramp and get off the highway. Many modern cars even have “limp modes” that will run the car at low speed, even with engine problems.
   10. MIKE: If the problem is a flat tire, consider sacrificing the tire in order to safely get off the road.
   11. MIKE: There are also lessons here for drivers who see a disabled vehicle on the side of the road. Slow down, and if possible, move out of the adjacent lane to give plenty of space. Also, as you slow down, be aware of traffic behind you. I was once in a similar situation with a sudden traffic slowdown. As I hot my brakes, I looked behind me. There was a pickup traveling at speed and the driver was distracted by something next to him. I leaned on my horn to get his attention. Fortunately, he looked up in time and hit his brakes. Disaster avoided!
   12. MIKE: Accidents happen. Sometimes they’re unavoidable. But sometimes, being mentally prepared in advance can save lives.
   13. MIKE: There are also resources you can call if your vehicle gets in trouble on the road. The list is too long to read, but you can find it in this article at ThinkwingRadio.com
   14. MIKE: As an aside, Transtar may send a law officer of some sort to assist you. And the actual coverage area of so-called “Houston Transtar” may be only Harris County or may be the Houston inter-county area. We can’t figure it out.
   15. STALLED VEHICLE RESOURCES:
   16. Transtar’s Motorist Assistance Program (MAP) is a free program designed to help stranded drivers on all Harris County area freeways. It’s available all day and all-night Monday through Friday. Dial 713-CALL-MAP (713-225-5627)
   17. MAP officers are fully equipped to assist with the following:
       1. Changing a flat tire.
       2. Supply fuel, water and/or air.
       3. Jump-start vehicles.
       4. Assist with minor engine repair.
       5. Remove stranded vehicles from the roadway.
       6. Provide courtesy transport of stranded motorists to a safe location.
   18. The Harris County Toll Road Authority’s Incident Management Program offers roadside assistance daily between 5:00 a.m. and midnight. Call (281) 584-7500 for more information.
   19. “The Incident Management Program oversees the Incident Response Team. The primary role of the Incident Response Team is to help clear incidents on HCTRA roads as safely and quickly as possible, preventing other incidents from occurring,” the program details.
   20. The Gulf Coast Regional Tow and Go is available 24/7 including holidays, just call (713) 881-3333.
4. Federal Hurricane Harvey grant to fund sweeping drainage improvements in east Pearland; By Daniel Weeks | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 8:09 PM Mar 6, 2023 CST
   Updated 8:09 PM Mar 6, 2023 CST
   1. The Pearland City Council will soon request federal funds to pay for drainage improvements in east Pearland …
   2. The city was awarded $2.7 million from the Texas General Land Office [GLO] for the drainage projects with the funding originating from a disaster recovery grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development after Hurricane Harvey. The projects consist of about 31,000 feet of roadside ditch widening, culvert replacements and driveway replacements for improving the drainage in an area of the city with aged infrastructure. Construction will take place primarily in the Hickory Slough Watershed alongside sections of Garden Road, O’Day Road, Woody Road and Scott Lane.
   3. The GLO-funded projects are separate from the projects in the drainage bond coming to ballots on the May 6 election. [They] will be entirely funded by the Harvey disaster grant and will not require voter approval to commence.
   4. MIKE: I suspect that these are funds that were grudgingly allocated by the Texas GLO to the Greater Houston Area after years of legal wrangling that we’ve discussed on this show. Better late than never, but sooner would have been better than later.
5. Surveillance or savior? New data deepens divide over Houston gunshot tech; An HPD presentation of new ShotSpotter data has reignited debates surrounding the controversial technology. By Kennedy Sessions | CHRON.COM | March 1, 2023
   1. Since its implementation in December 2020, the gunshot detection system[offered by] ShotSpotter Technology Inc. has become an ongoing subject of controversy and debate among Houston civic leaders, police and city residents.
   2. Some view ShotSpotter, a network of auditory sensors [for] detecting gun-related crimes in progress, as a preventative tool safeguarding vulnerable communities. Others view the technology as an expensive surveillance network targeting Black and brown people in lower-income [neighborhoods]. Earlier this month, the city voted to approve ShotSpotter’s $3.5 million contract with the city—a move that renewed debates over the system’s merits, effectiveness and cost.
   3. [On one side,] there are Houston leaders and high-ranking officers with the Houston Police Department touting the technology as a vital gun violence prevention tool—one that HPD Support Services Command Assistant Chief M. W. Martin says has helped officers respond faster to shooting instances, [and recovery of] evidence such as shell casings, [thus contributing] to 100 arrests …
   4. But Texas Civil Rights Project Outreach Coordinator Christopher Rivera is among those who say the data and numbers presented by Martin demonstrate ShotSpotter’s ineffectiveness rather than [bolstering] its credentials. 
   5. “It seems to be a very ineffective tool,” Rivera said, [used mainly in Black, Latino, and poor communities.]
   6. Moreover, Rivera said the $3.5 million ShotSpotter contract should be used for other resources that could also improve public safety, like housing, education, and more. …
   7. “Unfortunately, the rhetoric is strong in Houston and relies on a tough-on-crime, pro-police kind of agenda where our money is consistently spent on surveillance, over-policing, [and] jails … ,” Rivera added. “We know that funding should go to housing, eviction protection, debt relief [and to] trash pickup.” 
   8. Both Martin and Rivera agreed that gun buyback programs similar to recent initiatives championed by Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis … could help decrease gun violence. 
   9. MIKE: This is a follow-up of a story that we discussed back in February. I was unconvinced of it’s equity and utility then, and if anything I feel more strongly now that it’s both a waste of money and resources, and discriminatory in that it targets communities that are believed to have more gun violence. They are therefore monitored for more gun violence, and then of course ShotSpotter validates that assumption by finding more. It’s a vicious cycle, but not necessarily a valid sample.
   10. ANDREW: I agree entirely, Mike. I think something interesting from the full article is how Christopher Rivera mentions programs like debt relief and municipal services like trash pickup as vectors for reducing gun violence. It’s a good, and in my experience, very novel observation. Even a lack of very mundane services like trash pickup, or a lack of support for problems that have traditionally been seen as “personal responsibility” like debt, can be aggravating factors that can lead people to commit violence that they otherwise wouldn’t. I think this kind of spending is much more useful in combating all forms of violence than either police funding or gun control funding.
   11. REFERENCE (Discussed on our Feb 15 show): ShotSpotter technology questioned after Houston City Council approval; City Council voted to adjust the ShotSpotter contract, but its effectiveness is still questionable. By Kennedy Sessions | CHRON.COM | Feb. 8, 2023, Updated: Feb. 8, 2023 10:32 a.m.
6. After a two-year pause, feds give Texas the go-ahead to resume a major Houston highway expansion; by Joshua Fechter | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | March 7, 2023, 7 hours ago
   1. Texas has resolved a two-year federal civil rights complaint and will move forward with a major highway expansion in Houston, a project neighborhood groups fear will displace residents and lead to more pollution.
   2. The Federal Highway Administration and the Texas Department of Transportation said Thursday they’ve struck a deal to allow the state to resume work on its $9 billion plan to add several lanes to Interstate 45 and expand other freeways around the city’s urban core — which state transportation planners say is needed as more people move to the region.
   3. As part of the agreement, TxDOT agreed to take steps to mitigate the construction’s impact on communities of color living near the highway. TxDOT must commit to more engagement with neighbors, including holding community meetings twice a year as they design and build the project. They also must pump more funds into affordable housing and help design parts of the road that can reconnect areas separated by the highway with green space, among other stipulations. …
   4. Texas transportation planners hope projects like the Houston highway expansion will help reduce vehicular traffic as the state’s major metro areas balloon and congestion worsens. …
   5. However, transportation experts have argued for decades that highway expansions don’t actually reduce vehicular traffic in the long term — and that the wider a road grows, the more drivers will use it.
   6. To activists who opposed the project and started the federal civil rights complaint, the outcome was a disappointment — and advocates urged federal officials to hold the state agency accountable. But with the Federal Highway Administration giving the state the go-ahead, activists have little recourse left to oppose the project and will have to try to shape the process through the community feedback mechanisms laid out in the agreement. …
   7. Across the state, major highway projects have drawn fierce opposition in recent years amid a reckoning with how highway construction in the mid-20th century created and exacerbated racial and economic segregation. In major Texas cities such as Austin, Dallas and El Paso, residents and community activists have pushed back against projects they fear will disproportionately harm communities of color through displacement and exacerbate climate change through rising carbon emissions.
   8. In Houston, residents and community leaders warn that the negative side effects of the I-45 expansion will fall hardest on historically Black neighborhoods like Independence Heights and the Fifth Ward, areas already dealing with rising housing costs, gentrification and displacement. The highway expansion project is expected to displace more than 1,000 residents and 300 businesses. …
   9. ANDREW: I still hope that someone can find an angle to launch a lawsuit to stop the project. In the meantime, I hope that TxDOT is legally bound to the results of those community meetings in some way, and if not, that the people of Houston are ready to put rhetorical and material pressure on TxDOT to have them do what the community members want them to do. Finally, I’m sure there are plenty of civil engineering, racial justice, ecology, and public policy experts that will have ideas on how this project can be “shaped” to be not as bad to the affected communities and to the environment, so I hope the activists opposing the project will reach out to them and get them involved in the community advisory process.
   10. MIKE: I want to think about “gentrification and displacement”. As soon as any prosperity pops up in a neighborhood. The dynamic isn’t that different.
7. Republican sorry for suggesting ‘hanging by a tree’ as execution method; Tennessee lawmaker Paul Sherrell faced fierce criticism for ‘grotesque suggestion’ in southern state with history of lynchings. By Martin Pengelly (@MartinPengelly) | THEGUARDIAN.COM | Thu 2 Mar 2023 15.25 EST, Last modified on Thu 2 Mar 2023 15.26 EST
   1. [The Tennessee Republican state representative from Sparta] apologised after suggesting “hanging by a tree” could be added to a bill concerning methods of execution in the state.
   2. Paul Sherrell … made the suggestion on Tuesday, during discussion of an amendment which would allow execution by firing squad in Tennessee.
   3. “I was just wondering, could I put an amendment on that that would include hanging by a tree, also,” Sherrell asked, offering to co-sponsor the state bill.
   4. The remark prompted considerable backlash, particularly as it was made in a southern state with a brutal history of racially motivated lynchings. …
   5. [Last] Wednesday, Sherrell said sorry.
   6. “My exaggerated comments were intended to convey my belief that for the cruelest and most heinous crimes, a just society requires the death penalty in kind,” he said.
   7. “Although a victim’s family cannot be restored when an execution is carried out, a lesser punishment undermines the value we place on protecting life.”
   8. Sherrell said he “sincerely apologise[d] to anyone who may have been hurt or offended”.
   9. There are currently 47 inmates on death row in Tennessee. …
   10. MIKE: I find that I’m eternally shaking my head when I read these sorts of stories. Conservatives just don’t get it. It must be a combination of education and intelligence.
   11. ANDREW: This story actually makes a very good case against the death penalty. The fact that someone who could be casually racist like this is able to make laws in this society is proof positive that racism is widespread in American governance. If lawmakers can be racist, what’s to stop the judges who enforce those laws from being racist? The death penalty is a power that would be given to judges, and if judges can be racist, then there can be no guarantee that the death penalty will be handed down fairly and without racism. If a power cannot be used fairly, it cannot be wielded responsibly, and if it cannot be wielded responsibly, it should not be in the hands of the state.
8. New Mexico may curb paramilitaries near southern US border; By Morgan Lee | APNEWS.COM | March 8, 2023
   1. Legislators in New Mexico are advancing legislation to rein in paramilitary patrols that have popped up in recent years to halt migrants near the international border with Mexico and at a protest over a statue of a Spanish conquistador.
   2. The bill places New Mexico among several states weighing changes this year to restrictions on paramilitary organizations.
   3. Lawmakers in Oregon and Vermont also are considering initiatives aimed at limiting activities by private militarized groups. Legislators in Idaho are moving in the other direction by advancing a bill to repeal a state law banning private militias, despite criticism that the move could dangerously embolden existing paramilitary groups in the region. A narrow ban on municipal-run paramilitary groups would remain in place. …
   4. The bill emerged Monday from House committee vetting for a possible floor vote, with the backing of Democrats. Republican House legislators have raised concerns that the proposal could interfere with neighborhood-watch style groups that respond to crime or limit opportunities for businesses in New Mexico that have provided tactical training to visiting security forces.
   5. [Democratic state Rep. Raymundo Lara] said the proposal doesn’t interfere with private firearms training or New Mexico’s relatively permissive gun laws that allow both open carry of firearms and concealed handguns with permit and training requirements. …
   6. [T]he proposal responds to incidents in 2019 in which armed members of the United Constitutional Patriots stopped migrants near the international border in southernmost New Mexico at Sunland Park, and in 2020 when men with long guns and tactical equipment showed up at a chaotic protest in Albuquerque about a [statue] of early Spanish settler Juan de Oñate, who is both revered and reviled. …
   7. The bill … defines a paramilitary organization as a group of three or more people with a command structure aimed at functioning in public as a combat, enforcement or security unit.
   8. Banned paramilitary activities also include interfering with government operations or a government proceeding, and actions that deprive others of their rights. Paramilitary groups also would be prohibited from posturing deceptively as peace officers. …
   9. Armed civilian groups have been an intermittent presence on the border for years, portraying themselves as auxiliaries to the U.S. Border Patrol and operating in areas where agents are not stationed.
   10. MIKE: Defining a “paramilitary group” in legal terms will be tricky, but it’s long overdue. I’ve been hearing about these groups growing ever since Bill Clinton was president. They always seem to grow when Democrats are in power and wane when Republicans are in power.
   11. MIKE: I’ve felt for years that whether we’re discussing street gangs or paramilitary groups, what we’re actually seeing is nascent warlordism. One gang’s extortion is another group’s taxes. Warlords thrive in territories with weak governance, known as fragile or failed states. All these paramilitary groups are basically run by wannabe warlords. Understanding that is one of the first steps in controlling them.
   12. ANDREW: I understand the motivation for these bills, and I agree that right-wing paramilitaries are a real problem, but I’m worried about the bills’ scope. The left-wing has a long tradition of taking up arms to defend ourselves and the working class, and as a socialist, that’s a tradition I support to this day. The US and other capitalist governments similarly have a long tradition of taking up arms to suppress the left and oppress the working class. We see this in things like the dubious terrorism charges brought against peaceful protesters, to say nothing of events like the Battle of Blair Mountain. I worry that these bills present another avenue for suppression of groups as small as left-leaning gun clubs all the way to community defense and civil rights groups like the Black Panthers.
   13. ANDREW: I think the biggest reason these right-wing paramilitaries have been able to operate and grow is that the government doesn’t pursue them nearly as strongly as they try to infiltrate and disrupt the left, even pacifist activist groups. The most appropriate action to take against right-wing paramilitaries is to fairly enforce laws that already exist, and not just let these right-wingers off the hook because they have police buddies.
   14. REFERENCE: Warlord — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
9. [Part of a longer article] Ukraine’s representative at UN warns that Russia is slated to lead Security Council next month. By Amanda Macias| CNBC.COM | Updated Mon, Mar 6 2023, 3:14 PM EST
   1. Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s permanent representative to the United Nations, urged the international forum to prohibit Russia from holding its scheduled one-month presidency over the Security Council.
   2. Kyslytsya raised the issue on Twitter by saying the saddest day in U.N. history will be when Russia presides over the Security Council on April 1, a handful of weeks after the one-year anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion.
   3. Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council, which is based in New York City and serves as the U.N. arm tasked with maintaining peace and security. Russia also holds veto power in the Security Council, which can hamper any decision-making in regard to supporting Ukraine.
   4. ANDREW: I did some research, and it does seem that if a country becomes president of the Security Council while they are involved in a war that the Council is discussing, their Permanent Representative is expected to temporarily step down. I’m not sure if that changes what country holds the presidency, or what exactly happens next, but there is at least a norm in place for this situation. Whether Russia cares enough about looking good at the UN to abide by that norm or not, I don’t know.
   5. MIKE: Excellent work, Andrew. As you cite it, however, the “Permanent Representative is expected to temporarily step down.” If this is anything like a Supreme Court Justice being expected to recuse in the case of a conflict of interest — a rule with no teeth — I wouldn’t hold my breath.
10. A global divide on the Ukraine war is deepening; Russia capitalizes on disillusionment with the United States to win sympathy in the Global South. By Liz Sly | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | Updated February 23, 2023 at 4:12 p.m. EST, Published February 22, 2023 at 5:14 p.m. EST
    1. Clement Manyathela, who hosts a popular and influential talk show on South Africa’s Radio 702, remembers the outrage he felt when Russian troops first surged into Ukraine. He had believed Russia’s insistence that it wasn’t planning to attack and felt cheated when war broke out.
    2. “We were lied to,” he said.
    3. But as the fighting continued, he, and many of those who call in to his show, began to ask questions: Why had President Vladimir Putin deemed it necessary to invade? Was NATO fueling the fire by sending so many weapons to Ukraine? How could the United States expect others around the world to support its policies when it had also invaded countries?
    4. “When America went into Iraq, when America went into Libya, they had their own justifications that we didn’t believe, and now they’re trying to turn the world against Russia. This is unacceptable, too,” Manyathela said. “I still don’t see any justification for invading a country, but we cannot be dictated to about the Russian moves on Ukraine. I honestly feel the U.S. was trying to bully us.”
    5. In the year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a reinvigorated Western alliance has rallied against Russia, forging what President Biden has trumpeted as a “global coalition.” Yet a closer look beyond the West suggests the world is far from united on the issues raised by the Ukraine war.
    6. The conflict has exposed a deep global divide, and the limits of U.S. influence over a rapidly shifting world order. Evidence abounds that the effort to isolate Putin has failed, and not just among Russian allies … such as China and Iran.
    7. India announced last week that its trade with Russia has grown by 400 percent since the invasion. …
    8. On Friday [Feb. 17], a year after the invasion began, the South African navy will be engaged in military exercises with Russia and China in the Indian Ocean, sending a powerful signal of solidarity at a moment the United States had hoped would provide an opportunity for reinvigorated worldwide condemnations of Russia.
    9. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent shockwaves around the world as … grain shipments were delayed and Russian gas curtailed.
    10. Conversations with people in South Africa, Kenya and India suggest a deeply ambivalent view of the conflict, informed less by the question of whether Russia was wrong to invade than by current and historical grievances against the West — over colonialism, perceptions of arrogance, and the West’s failure to devote as many resources to solving conflicts and human rights abuses in other parts of the world …
    11. This is not a battle between freedom and dictatorship, as Biden often suggests, said William Gumede, who founded and heads the Johannesburg-based Democracy Works Foundation, which promotes democracy in Africa. He pointed to the refusal of South Africa, India and Brazil to join Biden’s global coalition.
    12. That reluctance, he said, is the outgrowth of more than a decade of building resentment against the United States and its allies, which have increasingly lost interest in addressing the problems of the Global South, he said. …
    13. As the West pulled back, both Russia and China stepped into the vacuum, aggressively courting developing nations and capitalizing on the disillusionment with the United States and Europe by presenting an alternative to perceived Western hegemony. The Middle East and Africa are key battlegrounds in this struggle for hearts and minds, as are Asia and, to a lesser extent, Latin America, whose fortunes are more closely bound by geography to the United States.
    14. The Middle East is one region where Russia has succeeded in winning friends and influence, said Faysal, a retired Egyptian consultant on organized crime … in Egypt.
    15. “Of course I support Putin,” he said in an interview in Cairo. “A long time ago, we lost faith in the West. All the Arabs on this side of the world support Putin, and we are happy to hear he is gaining lands in Ukraine.” …
    16. Despite Western efforts to attribute global inflation and a food crisis to the Russian invasion, most countries around the world blame the West for the imposition of sanctions, said Kanwal Sibal, a former Indian foreign secretary.
    17. They do not subscribe to the narrative that countering Russia is a moral imperative if the principles of democracy and territorial integrity and the rules-based world order are to be upheld, Sibal said.
    18. “That’s not an argument that serious people buy,” he said, citing the NATO bombing of Serbia, U.S. support for dictatorships during the Cold War, and the Iraq War as examples of what he sees as the United States violating those same principles.
    19. “The rest of the world genuinely sees this as a European war. They do not see a global conflict or the way it is presented by the West,” he said. “Yes, it has international repercussions such as inflation. But those repercussions are because of the sanctions.” …
    20. MIKE: There’s more to this article that discusses politics, policies, and “hardheaded” (the writer’s word) choices made by governments about what is in their own interests regarding which side to pick, or to pick any side at all.
    21. MIKE: Looking at the map in the story, the Russo-Ukrainian War is definitely a Northern Hemisphere War, but it has serious repercussions in the hemispheric south. In some ways, WW2 was similar. Many countries in the uncolonized Southern Hemisphere remained as neutral as they could during WW2, even while being heavily impacted by it in one way or another.
    22. MIKE: I think the positions and opinions articulated in this story give the reader much to think about, both personally and geopolitically.
    23. ANDREW: I think you wrote a very reasonable response. I think I’m a little bit more outspoken on this, but I’m broadly in the same position. Russia was obviously wrong to invade uncontested Ukrainian territory, and is wrong to support oppressive occupational governments in both the breakaway regions and the uncontested Ukrainian regions that Russia is occupying. But I agree with many folks in the article who say that who is wrong and right right now is not the only thing that matters.
    24. ANDREW: [I believe this invasion would have been harder to launch and to justify if NATO had dissolved with the Soviet Union, or had chosen to honor past agreements it made to limit its membership (though that’s not ideal for self-determination), or if NATO members had placed general welfare at the core of their foreign policies instead of regime change and building soft power. I think those foreign policies of building soft power are also the biggest reason why the countries opposing Russia aren’t seeing support from the global south, because those policies have affected Africa, South America, and Asia just as much as they have Central and Eastern Europe. So …
    25. ANDREW: I really think it’s easy to see why every side in this conflict holds the opinions they do. Russia needed to push back against NATO, but Putin’s conservative party also needed nationalist fervor like the kind provided by an invasion in order to hold power in Russia. The US and allies oppose the invasion because Russia is refusing to respect the boundaries of another sovereign nation, but also because NATO countries will oppose Russia and China any chance they get in order to preserve and expand their own soft power abroad. Countries in the global south see both of these motivations and arguments, but have to keep their own interests in mind, namely which power bloc is providing them the most benefit more honestly for the least imposition of influence. It’s a complicated situation, and those are the least fun.
    26. MIKE: We have a fundamental disagreement on this issue. First, the Russian claim that NATO promised not to expand is disputed. According to NATO spokepersons, this was never a promise. It was a discussion point that was never actually agreed to, and certainly was never put into writing. Second, any claim that Putin had to “legitimate security concerns” ended when he invaded Ukraine for what amounted to the second time. If anything, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is proof that NATO needs to exist, because the only proven expansionist aggressor state in Europe since WW2 has been Russia. They invaded Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Under Stalin, they split Poland with Hitler and never gave it back. They invaded Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and never withdrew. Their enclave of Kaliningrad was part of eastern Germany, and they never disgorged it, either. It’s been attributed to Cyrus Vance in the 1960s that Soviet negotiating tactics were basically, “What’s ours is ours. What’s yours is negotiable.” To my admittedly lay knowledge, this has pretty much been true about through most of the 20^th century and into the 21^st.
11. Intelligence Suggests Pro-Ukrainian Group Sabotaged Pipelines, U.S. Officials Say; By Adam Entous, Julian E. Barnes and Adam Goldman | NYTIMES.COM | Published March 7, 2023. Updated March 8, 2023, 12:31 a.m. ET
    1. New intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last year, a step toward determining responsibility for an act of sabotage that has confounded investigators on both sides of the Atlantic for months.
    2. S. officials said that they had no evidence President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine or his top lieutenants were involved in the operation, or that the perpetrators were acting at the direction of any Ukrainian government officials.
    3. The brazen attack on the natural gas pipelines, which link Russia to Western Europe, fueled public speculation about who was to blame, from Moscow to Kyiv and London to Washington, and it has remained one of the most consequential unsolved mysteries of Russia’s year-old war in Ukraine. …
    4. S. officials said there was much they did not know about the perpetrators and their affiliations. The review of newly collected intelligence suggests they were opponents of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, but does not specify the members of the group, or who directed or paid for the operation. …
    5. Officials who have reviewed the intelligence said they believed the saboteurs were most likely Ukrainian or Russian nationals, or some combination of the two. U.S. officials said no American or British nationals were involved. …
    6. MIKE: As they say on the detective shows, proving a crime requires means, motive, and opportunity. There are lots of characters with motive, but not that many with the means. Opportunity may have been created by a relatively low level of security around the pipelines. We may have to wait for the movie to come out before we know who did it.
    7. REFERENCE: Intelligence officials suspect Ukraine partisans behind Nord Stream bombings, rattling Kyiv’s allies —By Shane Harris, Souad Mekhennet, Greg Miller and Michael Birnbaum | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | March 7, 2023 at 6:32 p.m. EST
12. OPINION: Will the non-Russians rebel?; by Alexander J. Motyl, Opinion Contributor | THEHILL.COM | 02/13/23 9:00 AM ET
    1. [As the Russian-language liberal website, Meduza, reported]… [T]he Russian Federation’s non-Russian nations may be on the verge of asserting themselves as sovereign actors and accelerating its collapse. The irony would be too sweet: In attacking Ukraine, Putin could wind up dismantling Russia, thereby demonstrating that unintended consequences can be deadly.
    2. The Free Nations of Russia Forum (FNRF) is the émigré non-Russian political grouping that hopes to replace the Russian Federation with a series of independent states. The FNRF was founded in 2022 by Ilya Ponomarev, an ex-member of the Russian Duma who opposed Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and denounced his invasion of Ukraine in 2022. A vociferous opponent of the Russian dictator and his fascist regime, Ponomarev currently resides in Ukraine. The Forum has met five times, [most recently] in late January 2023 …
    3. Attending the conference were representatives of regions that most readers probably have never heard of: Siberia, Cherkessia, Ichkeria (Chechnya), the Pskov Republic, the Laplandia Republic/Murmansk, the Nogai Republic, Don\Kazakia, Tatarstan, Ingria-Latvia, the Moscow Republic, the Kuban, Bashkortostan, Sakha (Yakutia), Königsberg (Kaliningrad), Karelia, Ingushetia, Buryatia, and Idel-Ural. …
    4. [I]t would be premature to dismiss the Forum as a meaningless émigré conclave. Although the tone of Meduza’s report was skeptical, its reporter did attend and write a lengthy piece, suggesting that the issues that concerned the gathering were worth attention. Putin’s propagandist-in-chief, Vladimir Solovyov, also made fun of the event — a sure sign that he’s worried. As is Putin, who has spent two decades chipping away at the prerogatives of Russia’s non-Russian administrative units. Most recently, he effectively reduced Tatarstan to a mere province of the Federation. …
    5. Russia’s non-Russians nations have borne the brunt of the fatalities thus far. … At some point they will ask whether it’s better to submit to Putin’s destructive schemes or to bolt — not because they will necessarily have been influenced by the Free Nations of Russia Forum, but because secession will be the only guarantee of survival in the deadly chaos that seems to be Russia’s unavoidable future.
    6. [The author] is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory …
    7. MIKE: As always, this article was extremely excerpted for this show. Click the link to read it in full.
    8. ANDREW: Hey, I’ve heard of Siberia. I’ve not heard much other than it’s cold there, but I’ve heard of it. More seriously, I think the characterization of Russia under Putin as fascist is a bit hyperbolic as they haven’t checked off every warning sign of fascism (though Russia under Putin is certainly autocratic), and rather telling about where the author’s biases lie. But this is an interesting hypothetical.
    9. ANDREW: I certainly think Putin did not expect the invasion of Ukraine to go as poorly as it has for him, and I think a primary motivator of it was to appeal to that conservative nationalist sensibility that his party has based its support on. The invasion is embarrassing that sensibility and Putin’s political presence, I think, which has been holding Russia together through a lot of unpopular policies and decisions.
    10. ANDREW: Without that presence to hold the country together, some regions will find breaking away to be a lot more feasible than at any other point in recent history. Whether it will be feasible enough to accomplish and whether the people in those regions will support secession remains to be seen.
    11. MIKE: How likely is this potential outcome? Is it more or less likely than the US South “rising again”? The only answer to give is whether someone in 1989 would have expected the USSR to be dissolved by 1991. It’s anyone’s guess. But this article qualifies as informed speculation.
13. Fifth person cured of HIV after stem cell transplant, researchers say; by Joseph Choi | THEHILL.COM | 02/20/23 5:16 PM ET
    1. Researchers from Germany say a man has been cured of HIV following a stem cell transplant that was performed after several rounds of chemotherapy, making him the fifth known case of the virus being cured in an individual.
    2. In the study published in the Nature science journal, German researchers detailed the case of a 53-year-old patient who was diagnosed with HIV in 2008. …
    3. During the patient’s treatment for their cancer, they received a stem cell transplant from a female donor with whom they matched. This transplant occurred roughly two years after their cancer diagnosis and five years after being diagnosed with HIV.
    4. The female donor had a mutation that is believed to confer resistance to HIV infection. …
    5. Testing of the patient following treatment was unable to find traces of virus capable of replicating and infecting cells. [Antiretroviral therapy — ART —] was ultimately discontinued in the patients in 2018, 10 years after they were first diagnosed with HIV. After ceasing ART, the patient displayed no symptoms of HIV. …
    6. Timothy Ray Brown, the first patient believed to be cured of HIV, received the same kind of transplant as the Düsseldorf patient in 2007 to treat his leukemia. It was reported last year than [sic] a woman had been cured of HIV also through the use of stem cell transplant, with these cells harvested from umbilical cord blood.
    7. Two other cases of HIV being cured are believed to have occurred when the two patients’ immune systems eliminated the virus without treatment, a rare phenomenon that researchers have not yet been able to fully explain.
    8. While the findings of this study are promising for future HIV treatment, researchers noted that this type of stem cell transplant is “neither a low-risk nor an easily scalable procedure.” During the course of such treatment, the patient’s immune system is essentially destroyed and replaced through the transplant.
    9. And the mutation that protects against HIV infection is rare, detected only in a small percentage of people of Northern European descent.
    10. MIKE: This is a big deal. Bone marrow transplants have been used effectively for leukemia and other cancers for a long time, though they’re medically and individually challenging. This may be a variation of that, but using these very rare stem cells from a very rare HIV-resistant donor. This treatment will likely not be widely available until it’s both clinically proven, and the stem cells can be cloned or artificially induced.

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