The Trendiest Accessory In Niger? A Russian Flag.

"Russia has quietly been distributing its own flags throughout West Africa, where they are now considered "so cool."

Young people in West African capitals wave the flags at protests or as they race through cities on motorcycles. Tailors sew dozens of them a day in the narrow alleys of buzzing markets. Taxi drivers put them on their dashboards.

Among the sea of flags flying high in a burst of patriotic fervor in Burkina Faso, Mali and lately Niger, countries that have recently undergone military coups, the red, white and blue flag of the Russian Federation has become commonplace. While it carries political overtones, it has emerged as a trendy accessory, much like a Che Guevara illustration a generation ago in the West.

"Stylish," Nana Fidaous said about the loose outfit made with Russia's colors that she had donned at a recent pro-military demonstration in Niger's capital, Niamey. A high school student, Ms. Fidaous said she wasn't sure about the symbolic meaning of wearing Russia's colors. But she said it was time to learn more about President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and what he could bring to Niger, which has been squeezed by sanctions and border closures by its West African neighbors in the wake of the coup.

As Russia has made inroads in some West and Central African countries, its flag has been the most visible sign of a broader geopolitical shift in the region, along with Russian weapons and mercenaries.

"The Russian flag has become a symbol of resistance in West Africa, affiliated with anti-West and anti-French attitudes," said Kyle Walter, the head of research at Logically, a technology company that tracked an increase of pro-Russian and anti-French narratives related to Niger in the wake of a coup there this summer.

How so many Russian flags have ended up so easily in West African capitals has been a matter of speculation among analysts and some Western diplomats who track the flags' origin, convinced that the Russian government has financed their distribution to spread its influence. And there is some evidence that the Kremlin has done so.

Ahmed Bello, the president of a Nigerien civil society group called PARADE, said that he distributed up to 70 Russian flags at each protest in Niamey and that his work was funded by the Russian government through intermediaries conducting similar operations in Mali.

"It is with them that we work to develop the expansion of Russian ideology in Africa," he said. Microsoft has identified PARADE as a creation of Russia's Foreign Ministry, and a senior European military official said on condition of anonymity that the group was a front for Kremlin-backed operations on the continent.

Mr. Bello said he had begun sending flags to other cities across Niger. At a meeting earlier this year with Russia's ambassador to Mali, Igor Gromyko, Mr. Bello said the ambassador had discussed how Russia could finance his activities in exchange for Mr. Bello's help with promoting the opening of a Russian embassy in Niger.

The Russian Embassy in Mali did not respond to a request for comment.

But in Niger, there is no mistaking the role that fashion plays in the flag's popularity.

"They just look so cool," Rédouane Halidou, 21, said as he visited a tiny tailor workshop in a residential neighborhood of Niamey one morning. Two freshly sewn polo shirts were displayed on a table, one in Niger's green, white and orange, another in Russia's red, white and blue.

Russian flags and flag-themed shirts mean good business for tailors, according to half a dozen of them who have sold hundreds of pieces: A miniature flag for a car costs 80 cents. Shirts made with Russia's national colors are sold for $3, and the largest flags go for as much as $6.

"Everyone makes them now," said Amadou Issa, a tailor who manages five workshops and dozens of employees in Niamey. As he completed a large Russian flag on a recent afternoon, he said he and his teams had sewn hundreds of Russian flags since the coup.

They also make a catchy political statement. Russia is seen by many young Africans as an anticolonial power, there to help them cast off their colonial past and write a new chapter of national history that has nothing to do with democracy, which many associate with exploitative partnerships with Western countries, corruption and poverty.

After military rulers in Niger ousted the civilian president in late July, a wave of pro-Russian sentiment spread throughout the capital, coupled with widespread anger against France, Niger's former colonizer and a longtime security ally. France's ambassador to Niger left on Wednesday. French troops positioned in the country are set to depart by the end of the year.

As hopes for economic opportunities and social progress under partnerships with France and the West have dwindled, an appetite for strongman rule has grown -- a box that West African military leaders, allied with an autocrat like Mr. Putin, tick.

"It's a release of frustration," said Ousseina Alidou, a Nigerien professor of linguistics and cultural studies at Rutgers University. "The youth is waiting. They're demanding change so something happens in their lives, but there's no prospect of employment."

The sudden surge of Russian flags on Niamey's streets has echoed similar phenomena in neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali, where military-led governments seized power in coups in recent years and then allied with Russia for military cooperation.

Whether Niger's new leaders might follow that path, after years of cooperation with Western allies like the United States and European countries, is unclear. But the ground seems to be quite fertile, helped by social media campaigns and pro-Russian groups like PARADE.

El Hadj Bagué, the owner of a grocery shop at a market in central Niamey, said he "used to hate President Vladimir Putin because of events in Ukraine." But the president's friendly attitude toward Africa, which he said he had learned about on social media, changed his views. So when his 13-year-old bought him a small Russian flag after watching pro-Russian content on TikTok, Mr. Bagué happily put it on his car's dashboard.

Mr. Bagué said his four children call Mr. Putin Dad.

In Niamey, tailors said they would keep sewing flags as long as the demand was there. Amid the clanking sounds of sewing machines, Abdoulaziz Ali Ahmane said he had sewn dozens of the flags free "out of patriotic duty."

"Niger's and Russia's flags go hand in hand now," he said, greeting patrons in a large garment made of a Nigerien flag on one half, and a Russian flag on the other." [1]

1. The Trendiest Accessory In Niger? A Russian Flag.: [Foreign Desk]. Peltier, Elian.  New York Times, Late Edition (East Coast); New York, N.Y.. 01 Oct 2023: A.6.

Tam tikri virusai, toli gražu nesukeliantys kančių, gali būti naudojami, kovojant su ligomis. Mokslininkai pagaliau imasi gydymo, į kurį per ilgai buvo žiūrima įtariai

„Gerasis virusas

     Tomas Irelandas

     Norton, 389 puslapiai, 30 dolerių

     2015 m. Kalifornijos universiteto San Diege psichiatrijos profesorius Tomas Pattersonas susirgo atostogų metu, netrukus po to, kai įropojo per mažytį kapą Egipto Raudonojoje piramidėje. Jo būklė greitai pablogėjo ir jis iš pradžių buvo perkeltas į intensyviosios terapijos skyrių Frankfurte, Vokietijoje, o vėliau į jo namų ligoninę La Jolla mieste, Kalifornijoje. Pagrindinė jo būklės priežastis: infekcija Acinetobacter baumannii – „blogiausiomis bakterijomis“ planetoje“, – teigia jo gydytojai. Dar blogiau, kad padermė buvo atspari antibiotikams. P. Pattersono žmona, patyrusi pasaulinės sveikatos epidemiologė, įnirtingai ieškojo pasaulyje visko, kas galėtų padėti. Jam skirtas gydymas buvo „bakteriofagai“ – virusai, puolantys bakterijas. Terapija, stebėtinai, veikė. J. Pattersonas grįžo nuo mirties slenksčio ir, galiausiai, visiškai pasveiko.

 

     Po Covid pandemijos idėja, kad virusas yra naudingas, gali atrodyti keista, netgi neįtikėtina. Tačiau mokslo žurnalistas Tomas Irelandas yra puikiai pasiryžęs parodyti mums, koks stiprus gali būti šis kovos su liga metodas, ir įtikinti jo svarba. Kad ir kaip įtraukiantis, bet ir platus, „Gerasis virusas“ aprašo išskirtinę bakteriofago (paprastai sutrumpinamo į „fago“) biologiją ir miglotą istoriją – gyvybės formą, kuri yra nepaprastai gausi, tačiau pakankamai neaiški, kad būtų pavadinta „tamsiąja materija biologijoje“.

 

     Fagų virusai yra visur, nuo šaltų kalnų aukštumų ir jūros vandens iki augalų lapų ir, ne mažiau svarbu, žmogaus organizme. 30-čiai trilijonų kūno ląstelių yra daugiau, nei beveik 40 trilijonų kolonizuojančių bakterijų ir 10 kartų daugiau fagų, daugiausia mūsų žarnyne. 

 

Apskaičiuota, kad pasaulyje egzistuoja trilijonai fagų rūšių – dauguma dar neatrastų – atstovaujančių „didžiausiam genetinės įvairovės šaltiniui planetoje“, rašo ponas Airija.

 

     Fagai paprastai yra mažesni, nei 10 bakterijų ląstelės dydžio. Jie būna įvairių formų, tačiau apskritai jie atrodo ir veikia, kaip maži lemputės formos švirkštai, kurių genetinė medžiaga (dažniausiai DNR, kartais RNR) yra sandariai susukta baltyminėje kapsulėje – viruso „galvoje“. Tuo tarpu uodega užsifiksuoja ant tikslinės bakterijos, todėl virusas gali suleisti mirtiną naudingą apkrovą. Patekusi į vidų, fago DNR užgrobia bakterijų mechanizmą, kad pasikartotų ir užtvindytų ląstelę viruso dalelėmis, kol bakterija sprogs, išlaisvindama fagą ir užkrėsdama naujus šeimininkus. Kartais užkrečianti DNR nusprendžia nurimti, laukdama, kol bus tinkamos sąlygos pradėti mirtiną ataką.

 

     Nors fagų veiklos pavyzdžių buvo per visą istoriją – pavyzdžiui, fagai gali lemti pasakiškas Indijos Gango upės gydomąsias savybes – jų atradimas laukė XX amžiaus sandūros. 

 

Tai buvo era, kai, rašo ponas Airija, „mikrobų medžioklė“ tapo „spalvinga profesija, patraukusia pasaulio dėmesį“. Dešimtojo dešimtmečio pradžioje Pietų Londono tyrimų institute kruopštus anglų bakteriologas Frederickas Twortas užsimojo auginti raupų virusą Petri lėkštelėse, tikėdamasis, kad jį bus galima „stebėti ir tirti, kaip bakterijas“. Jam pavyko užauginti tik užkrečiančias bakterijas, tačiau šiose kolonijose jis pastebėjo retkarčiais mažą proskyną, tarsi kažkas nematomo naikintų bakterijas. Prasidėjus Pirmajam pasauliniam karui, Twort prarado finansavimą, uždarė savo laboratoriją ir paskelbė savo rezultatus 1915 m., atsargiai teigdamas, kad virusas gali būti stebimo reiškinio priežastis. Mažai kas atkreipė dėmesį.

 

     Mažai tikėtinas Twort konkurentas būtų Feliksas d'Herelis, laisvos dvasios prancūzas, kuris paliko mokyklą, būdamas 16 metų, kad galėtų keliauti po pasaulį, „leisdamas jo gerai susietos naudingais ryšiais šeimos pinigus“, kaip sako ponas Airis. Būdamas 24 metų, d'Herelle persikėlė į Kanadą, „kur mikrobiologų buvo tiek mažai, kad jis tiesiog pasiskelbė mikrobiologu“ ir įkūrė mikrobiologijos įmonę. Tačiau netrukus kilo noras keliauti, ir jis atsidūrė Meksikoje, padėdamas vyriausybei suvaldyti skėrių užkrėtimą, augindamas bakterijas, kurios užkrėtė vabzdžius. Vėliau savo karjeroje, studijuodamas dizenteriją, jis grįžo prie šio darbo, ieškodamas „ultramikrobo“, kuris galėtų užpulti ligas sukeliančias bakterijas. Jis rado tas pačias stiklines dėmeles, kurias pastebėjo Twort ir (pastebimai mažiau santūriai) paskelbė 1917 m., kad atrado naują gyvybės formą, kurią pavadino „bakteriofagu“. D'Herelle toliau naudojo fagą, kad sėkmingai išgydytų penkis sergančius berniukus. Tačiau jo „laukinis ir abrazyvinis stilius“ (p. Ireland žodžiais tariant) nepatiko jo bendraamžiams, kurie sumanė jam pakenkti.

 

     D'Herelle atradimai įkvėpė daugelį, įskaitant Džordžą Eliavą, mikrobiologą iš Sovietų Sąjungos Sakartvelas. 1936 m. jis įkūrė pirmąjį institutą (ir vis dar vieną iš tokių nedaugelio), kurie yra skirti bakteriofagų tyrimams. Eliavos nelaimei, netrukus jis susidūrė su sovietų slaptąja policija, kuri jį 1937 m. pradangino. Institutas toliau plėtojo fagų terapiją ir iškovojo daug pergalių – fagas padėjo gydyti, pavyzdžiui, nuo gangrenos kenčiančius karius.

 

     Tačiau buvo ir varginančių nesėkmių, iš dalies dėl to, kad fagai nebuvo tinkamai išvalyti ir dažnai dėl to, kad jie nebuvo tinkamai suderinti su konkrečia užkrečiančių bakterijų paderme. Nors pasaulis (įskaitant JAV) iš pradžių „išprotėjo“ dėl fagų terapijos“, – praneša ponas Airija, rezultatai buvo „nenuoseklūs ir nenuspėjami“. Mes sužinome, jog tai reiškė, kad „ar jie dirbo konkrečiam pacientui, buvo visiška loterija“.

 

     Antrojo pasaulinio karo metu Vakarai ryžtingai atsigręžė į naujai atrastą peniciliną, pasidalydami jo formule su sovietais, bet ne su masinės gamybos metodais. Taigi sovietai ir toliau rėmėsi fagu, kaip pasirinkta bakterinių infekcijų terapija. Kai 1949 m. sovietų tyrinėtojas bandė gauti penicilino gamybos teises, jis buvo suimtas sovietų vyriausybės institucijų ir mirė tardomas, visa tai už nizkopoklonstvo nusikaltimą – Vakarų pagarbinimą.

 

     Vakarų gydytojai savo ruožtu priėmė švarius ir gerai patikrintus antibiotikus ir, anot pono Irelando, fagą laikė „tamsios ir archajiškos medicinos praeities reliktu“. Tačiau mokslininkai norėjo naudoti fagą kaip laboratorinį įrankį, ir galiausiai tai atskleidė daugybę svarbių molekulinės biologijos principų, įskaitant DNR, kaip pagrindinės genetinės medžiagos, identifikavimą. Bakterijų atsparumo fagui tyrimas vėliau atskleistų atskirų DNR sekų, žinomų, kaip Crispr, buvimą, kurios padeda bakterijoms apsiginti, suplėšant užkrečiančio fago DNR. Vėlesni tyrimai parodė, kad šį molekulinį redagavimą mokslininkai gali panaudoti tiksliai genų inžinerijai.

 

     Kadaise „išjuokta, kaip apgavysčių ir komunistų idėja“, rašo ponas Irelandas, fagų terapija, regis, mėgaujasi renesansu. Fagų pagrindu pagaminti vaistai, kuriuos daugelį metų palaikė išskirtinė pasaulinė tikrų tikinčiųjų bendruomenė, dabar patraukė galingų biotechnologų ir investuotojų dėmesį. 

 

Kelios komandos bando susintetinti farmacinio lygio fagą nuo nulio; kiti stengiasi susisteminti ir standartizuoti fago išskyrimo iš bakterijų procesą ir siekia viso proceso reguliavimo patvirtinimo. 

 

Tikrai yra neatidėliotinas poreikis: paskutinė nauja antibiotikų klasė, primena ponas Irelandas, buvo sukurta prieš dešimtmečius, o vaistams atsparių bakterijų problema toliau auga. Po ilgus metus trukusios mokslinės tremties gali pagaliau laikas terapiniam fagui grįžti iš šalčio.

     ---

     Daktaras Shaywitzas yra Takeda Pharmaceuticals gydytojas mokslininkas, Harvardo dėstytojas ir Amerikos įmonių instituto bendradarbis.“ [1]

 

Niekas nenori dirbti su antibiotikais, nes juos reikia vartoti tik retiems pacientams, kurie užsikrečia. Napsimoka, grynai lietuviška išvada. Tas pats bus ir su fagais. Su jais galima dirbti tik Sakartvele, kur valgai sau chačiapuri, geri vynelį ir negalvoji apie kapitalizmą." [1]

 

1. REVIEW --- Books: The Enemy of My Enemy --- Certain viruses, far from causing misery, can be used to fight disease. Scientists are at last pursuing a form of treatment that has been viewed with suspicion for far too long. Shaywitz, David A.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 05 Aug 2023: C.7.

Certain viruses, far from causing misery, can be used to fight disease. Scientists are at last pursuing a form of treatment that has been viewed with suspicion for far too long.

 

"The Good Virus

By Tom Ireland

Norton, 389 pages, $30

In 2015, Tom Patterson, a psychiatry professor at the University of California, San Diego, fell ill while on holiday, soon after crawling through a tiny tomb in Egypt's Red Pyramid. His condition deteriorated quickly, and he was transferred first to an intensive-care unit in Frankfurt, Germany, and then to his home hospital in La Jolla, Calif. The underlying cause of his condition: infection with Acinetobacter baumannii -- "the worst bacteria on the planet," according to his doctors. Worse still, the strain was resistant to antibiotics. Mr. Patterson's wife, an accomplished global-health epidemiologist, frantically searched the world for anything that might help. The treatment she landed on was "bacteriophage" -- viruses that attack bacteria. The therapy, amazingly, worked. Mr. Patterson returned from the brink of death and eventually made a full recovery.

In the wake of the Covid pandemic, the idea of a virus being beneficial may seem strange, even implausible. But science journalist Tom Ireland is admirably determined to show us just how potent this disease-fighting approach can be and to persuade us of its importance. As engaging as it is expansive, "The Good Virus" describes the distinctive biology and murky history of bacteriophage (generally shortened to "phage"), a form of life that is remarkably abundant yet obscure enough to have been termed the "dark matter of biology."

Phage viruses are everywhere, from frigid mountain elevations and seawater to plant leaves and, not least, the human body. The body's 30 trillion cells are outnumbered by nearly 40 trillion colonizing bacteria and 10 times as many phage, predominantly in our guts. It is estimated that trillions of types of phage -- most yet undiscovered -- exist in the world, representing the "greatest source of genetic diversity on the planet," Mr. Ireland writes.

Phage are typically less than a 10th the size of a bacterial cell. They come in a range of shapes, but in general they look and act like tiny bulb syringes, with the genetic material (usually DNA, occasionally RNA) coiled tightly within a protein capsule -- the "head" of the virus. The tail, meanwhile, latches onto the target bacterium, enabling the virus to inject its deadly payload. Once inside, the phage DNA hijacks the bacterial machinery to replicate itself and flood the cell with virus particles until the bacterium bursts open, freeing the phage to infect new hosts. Sometimes the infecting DNA opts to lie low, waiting until conditions are right to initiate its lethal attack.

While examples of phage activity have been present throughout history -- phage may account for fabled healing properties of India's Ganges River, for example -- their discovery awaited the turn of the 20th century. This was an era in which, Mr. Ireland writes, "microbe hunting" had become "a glamorous profession that had captured the world's attention." In a South London research institute in the early 1910s, the meticulous English bacteriologist Frederick Twort set out to grow the smallpox virus in petri dishes, hoping it could be "observed and studied like bacteria." He succeeded in growing only contaminating bacteria, but within these colonies he noticed the occasional small clearing, as if something invisible was killing the bacteria. With the outbreak of World War I, Twort lost funding, closed his lab and published his results in 1915, cautiously suggesting that a virus could be the cause of the observed phenomenon. Few took notice.

Twort's unlikely competitor would be Felix d'Herelle, a free-spirited Frenchman who left school at age 16 to travel the world, "spending his well-connected family's money," as Mr. Ireland puts it. At 24, d'Herelle moved to Canada, "where there were so few microbiologists that he simply declared himself one" and set up shop. But soon the urge to travel struck, and he found himself in Mexico, helping the government manage a locust infestation by cultivating bacteria that infected the insects. Later in his career, while studying dysentery, he returned to this playbook, searching for an "ultramicrobe" that might attack the disease-causing bacteria. He found the same glassy spots that Twort had observed and (with noticeably less restraint) announced in 1917 that he had discovered a new form of life, which he called "bacteriophage." D'Herelle went on to use phage to treat five sick boys successfully. But his "wild and abrasive style" (in Mr. Ireland's words) antagonized his peers, who conspired to undermine him.

D'Herelle's discoveries inspired many, including George Eliava, a microbiologist from the Soviet Union's republic of Georgia. In 1936, he would establish the first institute (and still one of the few) devoted to bacteriophage research. Unfortunately for Eliava, he soon ran afoul of the Soviet secret police, who disappeared him in 1937. The institute continued to pursue the development of phage therapy and scored many victories -- phage helped treat soldiers suffering from gangrene, for example. 

But there were also frustrating failures, in part because the phage weren't adequately purified and often because they weren't appropriately matched to the specific strain of infecting bacteria. While the world (including the U.S.) initially "went mad" for phage therapy," Mr. Ireland reports, the results were "inconsistent and unpredictable." Indeed, the "dubious and unreliable nature of commercial American phage products" in the 1930s, we learn, meant that "whether they worked for a particular patient was a complete lottery."

During World War II, the West turned decisively to newly discovered penicillin, sharing the formula for it with the Soviets but not the methods of mass production. Thus the Soviets continued to rely on phage as the therapy of choice for bacterial infections. When a Soviet researcher tried to obtain production rights to penicillin in 1949, he was arrested by government authorities and died under interrogation, all for the crime of nizkopoklonstvo -- adulation of the West.

Western physicians, for their part, embraced clean and well-tested antibiotics and regarded phage, according to Mr. Ireland, as "a relic from medicine's dark and archaic past." But researchers were keen to use phage as a laboratory tool, and it ultimately unlocked a range of important principles of molecular biology -- including the identification of DNA as the underlying genetic material. The study of bacterial resistance to phage would later reveal the presence of distinct DNA sequences, known as Crispr, that help bacteria defend themselves by snipping the DNA of infecting phage. Later research has shown that this molecular editing can be repurposed by scientists for precise genetic engineering.

Once "derided as an idea for cranks and commies," Mr. Ireland writes, phage therapy seems to be enjoying a renaissance. Having been sustained for years by an idiosyncratic global community of true believers, phage-based medicines have now attracted the attention of high-powered biotechnologists and investors. Several teams are trying to synthesize pharmaceutical-grade phage from scratch; others are working to systematize and standardize the process for isolating phage from bacteria and seeking regulatory approval for the entire process. There is certainly a pressing need: The last new class of antibiotics, Mr. Ireland reminds us, was developed decades ago, and the problem of drug-resistant bacteria continues to grow. After years of scientific exile, it may finally be time for therapeutic phage to come in from the cold.

---

Dr. Shaywitz is a physician-scientist at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, a lecturer at Harvard and an adjunct fellow at the American Enterprise Institute." [1]

1. REVIEW --- Books: The Enemy of My Enemy --- Certain viruses, far from causing misery, can be used to fight disease. Scientists are at last pursuing a form of treatment that has been viewed with suspicion for far too long. Shaywitz, David A.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 05 Aug 2023: C.7.