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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Gun Violence Is America’s Never-Ending Plague</strong> - The mass shooting in Monterey Park was one of dozens already this year. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/gun-violence-is-americas-never-ending-plague">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>On the Picket Lines of Britain’s Shattered National Health Service</strong> - The N.H.S. is the country’s pride. But rolling strikes reveal a system in the midst of collapse. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-uk/on-the-picket-lines-of-britains-shattered-national-health-service">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The N.F.L. Playoffs Offer a Thrilling, Troubling Reminder That Football Hasn’t Changed</strong> - The Bills and Bengals met again, shadowed by what happened to Damar Hamlin just a few weeks before. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/sports/sporting-scene/the-nfl-playoffs-offer-a-thrilling-troubling-reminder-that-football-hasnt-changed">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Democratic Party’s Political Gift to Ron DeSantis</strong> - Republicans’ sustained and successful courting of Latino voters in South Florida could be a road map for the G.O.P. in 2024. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-democratic-partys-political-gift-to-ron-desantis">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>“Argentina, 1985” Gets an Oscar Nod</strong> - The film tells the improbable—and history-making—story of how a military dictatorship was brought to justice. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/argentina-1985-gets-an-oscar-nod">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
<ul>
<li><strong>We pulled pandas back from the brink of extinction. Meanwhile, the rest of nature collapsed.</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5xsf6Oef8ANZZei4IHG-HnzWyF0=/258x0:1758x1125/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71874223/lede_animation_revised.0.gif"/>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
The trouble with the conservation’s cutest mascot.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5Pz1BE">
On a chilly spring day in 1966, zookeepers in London loaded a giant panda named Chi-Chi onto a commercial plane. The aircraft was bound for Russia. Chi-Chi was bound, you might say, for love. She would soon arrive at the Moscow Zoo to meet a slightly younger male named An-An, the only other captive giant panda living outside of China at the time. The goal was to get the two bears to breed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5hqMXM">
To prepare for Chi-Chi’s departure, British European Airways removed about 30 seats in the front of the plane. The panda was carried aboard in a crate and separated from 37 passengers by a screen. Flight attendants sprayed deodorant to try and vanquish the scent of the 235-pound bear. For lunch, the attendants served passengers a side of bamboo hearts in Chi-Chi’s honor.
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A black-and-white photo of a panda in a cage in an airplane." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/OvPtoyqFaT1TYfxjKWo0g_u5Szw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24339057/GettyImages_3062381a.jpg"/> <cite>Terry Fincher/Express/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Chi-Chi leaves London for Moscow on March 11, 1966.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bvSHpK">
The media breathlessly covered the long-distance love affair. Yet it was doomed from the start. When the bears first met in Moscow, An-An attacked Chi-Chi and zookeepers had to separate them with brooms, <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1966/09/12/113430915.html?pageNumber=17">one newspaper reported</a>. The pandas stayed in separate cages that summer. In the fall, keepers arranged another meeting, but this time, Chi-Chi “slapped” An-An in the face. Soon after, Chi-Chi returned to London, prompting headlines like “From Russia … Without Love.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vSGPuf">
Although attempts to breed Chi-Chi and An-An failed, they marked the start of a massive, global campaign to breed pandas in captivity. It was fueled by a sense of urgency: The giant panda population was dwindling. In southwestern China, the only place on Earth where the animals live, human development was destroying forests, and pandas were being plucked from their land and placed in zoos. In the 1980s, only about 1,100 bears remained, down from a historical population that scientists believe once numbered in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/25/everything-about-panda-sex-edinburgh-zoo-long-read">tens of thousands</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eytv1R">
As pandas started vanishing from the wild, they grew into powerful symbols of the movement to conserve the natural world. As the plight of wildlife was making headlines, pandas — clumsy, big-eyed bears that look like plush toys come to life — emerged as the perfect mascot to rally support.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AwQ3bY">
The World Wildlife Fund, an influential environmental organization, helped formalize the animals as icons when it chose the panda as its logo in 1961. Chi-Chi, An-An’s wouldn’t-be mate, was the inspiration for the design. (WWF, now known internationally as the World Wide Fund for Nature, chose the panda, in part, because black-and-white logos were cheaper to print.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jtszR1">
As pandas shot to stardom, China, the US, and zoos around the world fueled the captive breeding campaign with tens of millions of dollars in veterinary research. China also created dozens of forest reserves to protect the bears. In 2018, the country announced plans to combine many of them into a single habitat <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/giant-pandas-national-park-china">three times larger</a> than Yellowstone National Park.
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jmjACFanCmyGFhH4ojsuKW56QQM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24354065/GettyImages_1389303894a.jpg"/> <cite>VCG via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Giant panda cubs rest in a tree at the Shenshuping Panda Base in the Wolong Nature Reserve in China in April 2022.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7czmER">
These efforts have unquestionably paid off for pandas. Scientists learned from Chi-Chi and An-An’s platonic exchange and, in time, they nearly perfected the difficult art of panda breeding and husbandry. That’s the only reason you can see them in zoos today.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3LDWc9">
The bears are also recovering in the wild. The most recent estimates indicate that more than 1,800 pandas now live in southwestern China, and their numbers are increasing. That trend prompted the country to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/07/09/1014593425/china-giant-pandas-endangered-vulnerable-iucn">announce, in 2021</a>, that pandas are no longer endangered. (The International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the global authority on endangered animals, delisted pandas in 2016.)
</p>
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jlU0LJPxR0gqG5SqeKsbLMTv56g=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24355311/losing.png"/>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KsilBt">
Imagine that: The panda, the very symbol of endangered species, is no longer endangered.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Fk1pph">
But if giant pandas are mascots for endangered species, then their team is, so to speak, losing. In the time that environmental advocates were saving pandas, much of the rest of the planet’s wildlife continued to deteriorate. The world now faces an unprecedented and accelerating crisis of biodiversity loss, with more than <a href="https://ipbes.net/news/Media-Release-Global-Assessment">1 million species</a> at risk of extinction. Forests are quieter. The oceans are emptier.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8HFFFa">
The story of the panda is, in a sense, a story of success. Tales of rebounding animal populations are rare. But it carries with it a warning: The model of conservation that lifted up pandas won’t work to save everything else.
</p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="PpRkfQ"/>
<p class="p--has-dropcap" data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="x9vu6M">
The global effort to save giant pandas is rooted in our collective obsession with these bears. It dates back to at least the 1930s, when a New York City socialite journeyed East.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uvHOJl">
The only pandas on American soil back then were stuffed bears in natural history museums. But in 1936, a <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/840252318/?terms=panda&amp;match=1">dress designer</a> in NYC named Ruth Harkness traveled to China in search of a live cub. She was trying to finish what her late husband, William Harkness Jr., had started: Months earlier, the young explorer died from cancer on an expedition to capture a panda and bring it back to the US.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YyWj6Z">
One November morning, Mrs. Harkness and her local guide heard squealing by the stump of a large spruce tree in the mountains outside of Chengdu, Henry Nicholls recounts in <em>The Way of the Panda. </em>There, she found a baby panda no larger than a kitten. The cub was perhaps less than two weeks old.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AnyDxF">
“I stood for minutes in a trance,” Harkness, known for her deep voice and bright red lipstick, told <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/743006291/?terms=Mr.%20William%20Harkness%20expedition%20tibet&amp;match=1">a reporter</a> in 1937. “I had discovered a most precious thing — a tiny offspring of one of Mother Nature’s greatest and rarest mysteries in the animal kingdom.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Wbi04P">
She named the cub Su-Lin and took him back to New York City on a steamship. He was an instant hit. “Wherever she goes, Mrs. Harkness lugs her 10-pound jewel along in a traveling basket,” the Daily News <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/420801509/?terms=harkness%20su-lin%20panda%20new%20york&amp;match=1">wrote</a> at the time. “The infant panda has viewed the interior of some of New York’s best restaurants since its arrival.”
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A black-and-white photo of a woman holding a very cute baby panda, roughly the size of a large human infant. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/d4deho_8uPW30uY_L88nP0KHNeQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24339110/GettyImages_515143684a.jpg"/> <cite>Bettmann Archive</cite>
<figcaption>
Ruth Harkness holds Su-Lin in her room at the Hotel Biltmore in New York City in 1936, shortly after returning from China.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZxNCU3xoynZVSXWH2_2Zlteillk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24354423/kingdom.png"/>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vkNoMN">
What makes animals like the panda so popular? Maybe it’s their looks, their striking appearance, cute and fearsome all at once. Pandas also exploit our parenting instincts. Cubs have round faces with big cheeks, and they tumble about like helpless toddlers. (We also tend to like what we can relate to. Fellow mammals with arms? Sure. <a href="https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2022/10/27/23424362/freshwater-mussels-fish-lure-extinction">Freshwater mussels</a>? Not so much.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4svOny">
Harkness eventually brought Su-Lin to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, where the cub — the first live panda in the US — drew a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/15/arts/the-lady-and-the-panda.html?searchResultPosition=10">record</a> 53,000 visitors on the first day he was displayed.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AKnFfO">
It was China, however, that turned the bears into a global sensation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pFrwxF">
In the 1970s, the Chinese government began sending wild-caught pandas around the world as state gifts — a sign of goodwill and friendship, historian Elena Songster wrote in her 2018 book, <em>Panda Nation. </em>There was even a term for it: Panda diplomacy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zmt5QP">
“Giant pandas served the Chinese government as invaluable tools for putting a friendly face on China,” Songster wrote. “These fuzzy creatures thawed Cold War tensions and promoted the idea that warmer relations with the inscrutable Communist power could be possible.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FVQRHm">
Most famously, China gave two pandas to President Richard Nixon in 1972 after a series of successful peace talks. The bears, Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling, flew to DC on Air Force One and were taken to the National Zoo “under security measures as tight as if they had been Chairman Mao,” the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1972/04/18/archives/new-pandas-melt-hearts-at-national-zoo-2-pandas-from-china-melt.html?searchResultPosition=13">reported</a>. (In exchange, the US sent China Matilda and Milton, a pair of musk oxen with some kind of skin condition.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OWR17s">
American pandas were as famous as any celebrity. Two decades after Hsing-Hsing and Ling-Ling arrived, China sent the US two more bears, Shi Shi and Bai Yun, this time to the San Diego Zoo. News helicopters filmed their high-security motorcade as if they were <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/155514410">heads of state</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Fzcxkh">
“Make no mistake: That phenomenon that zookeepers call ‘pandamania’ is back,” the LA Times <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/155517240/?terms=San%20Diego%20Zoo%20Bai%20Yun&amp;match=1">wrote</a> in 1996. “No animal in the history of US zoos brings the crowds and the awe-struck response of pandas.”
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A black-and-white photo of several photographers with bulky cameras taking photos of a small panda cub. One of the photographers is crouching, getting a shot at ground level." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tkHkAb502A02Eh9dTCfjSdl7Hns=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24353846/GettyImages_1190896716.jpg"/> <cite>Irving Haberman/IH Images/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Photographers get close-up photographs of a giant panda eating bamboo shoots and leaves at the Bronx Zoo in New York circa 1947.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Nu1OCH">
Pandamania was good for zoos and for China. It wasn’t necessarily good for wild pandas.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0xSjf3">
In the 1980s, China stopped giving away pandas as state gifts but began loaning them out for a few months at a time, often at the expense of the wild population. George Schaller, then director of science at a large environmental organization called the Wildlife Conservation Society, criticized these short-term loans as “rent-a-panda” programs.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zKYfiL">
“I have a nightmare vision of evermore pandas being drained from the wild until the species exists only in captivity,” he wrote in his 1993 book <em>The Last Panda.</em>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9dNzFy">
In those years, pandas were facing other pressures in their homeland. Mines and human developments in Sichuan Province were replacing forests. Meanwhile, pandas were running out of food — stirring up fears that the world’s most beloved animal might soon go extinct.
</p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="EXbwsI"/>
<p class="p--has-dropcap" data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5NAHSW">
Pandas, like humans, are technically omnivores. About 6,000 years ago, however, they stopped consuming meat, for the most part. Today, pandas almost exclusively eat bamboo.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XxrhJq">
While bamboo grows abundantly in China, it has a few critical shortcomings. Like celery, it doesn’t have many calories, so pandas have to spend half of the day eating. Plus, they can’t put on enough fat to hibernate in the winter like other bears.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A graphic illustration of a panda in a bamboo forest." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/6vtCYBttQn_zNCEPFUIPmdYVmBI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24358212/middle_image_revised.png"/>
</figure>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="h8mkSY">
Bamboo is also a somewhat unreliable food source. Every so often, at seemingly random intervals, entire hillsides of bamboo stalks flower, produce seeds, and die.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yaZQVZ">
Normally, only one or a few bamboo species might flower at the same time, so pandas can just forage for other varieties if they need to. But in the ’70s, multiple species died all at once, according to Songster, causing the bears to starve. By some estimates,<a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/188381077/?terms=panda%20bamboo%20flowering&amp;match=1"> more than 100</a> died. Then in the ‘80s, bamboo forests flowered and died once again, fueling concerns that pandas were at risk of extinction (not to mention <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/379230870/?terms=%22Starving%20pandas%20loot%20houses%20in%20rural%20China%22&amp;match=1">reports</a> that pandas were looting food from peoples’ homes).
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nuYVrV">
Although it’s not clear whether the second bamboo die-off actually harmed many pandas, it helped ignite the global campaign to save these animals — at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="L5iMnL">
China and groups such as WWF relied on two main approaches. One was to establish a system of protected areas that prohibited hunting, logging, and other harmful human activities, as China has done. Another was to build out a massive breeding operation, the likes of which the world had never seen.
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<div class="c-image-grid">
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A photo of three tiny pandas, each roughly the size of a sweet potato, inside a clear plastic box that resembles a prenatal incubator." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/um8qpzDABZSUMUEN-DeM33OZpQU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24354068/AP744505458912a.jpg"/> <cite>Kin Cheung/AP</cite>
<figcaption>
One-month-old panda triplets rest as they receive a body check at the Chimelong Safari Park in Guangzhou, China, in August 2014.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A photo of a newborn panda cub that resembles a fetus more than a baby, with visible pink skin beneath wispy white hairs. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/9oYj2P5X9KA0ive0_QY9OfRfSFs=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24354071/GettyImages_1329461563a.jpg"/> <cite>He Haiyang/Sichuan Daily/VCG via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
A giant panda cub is seen at the Shenshuping Panda Base in the Wolong Nature Reserve in China in July 2021.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
</div>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Eight small panda cubs, the size of a cocker spaniel, but rounder, play and roll on the ground with people in matching jackets. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Ury_w4H6zFQgan8pKpN3loud_uQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24353824/GettyImages_73297455a.jpg"/> <cite>Liu Jin/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Breeders play with panda cubs at the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Wolong, China, in February 2007.
</figcaption>
</figure></div></li>
</ul>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Io9sUc">
Breeding animals in captivity can theoretically help refresh a dwindling wild animal population. It also helps restock zoos. Without breeding pandas or taking them from the wild, zoos would eventually run out of their biggest attractions. That’s a problem, not only for zoos but for conservation, said William McShea, a scientist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OTcKGf">
“If you’re going to sell people on giant pandas, you need to show people a giant panda,” he said. (Pandas are “great showmen,” McShea added. “Giant pandas will sit there and essentially do tricks for you all day long.”)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AVtEO1">
Breeding pandas, however, is a challenge.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pYjwwk">
Female pandas ovulate just once a year for one to three days. In the wild, males will congregate along ridge tops in the spring and “a stream of visiting females in heat keeps the mating activity intense,” McShea has <a href="https://theconversation.com/pandanomics-is-a-grey-area-but-to-us-the-value-of-giant-pandas-is-black-and-white-112956">written</a>. In captivity, however, vets have to introduce a pair of pandas at just the right time. Even then, the bears may prefer to swat at each other rather than have sex.
</p>
<div class="c-float-left c-float-hang">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8CIZCE-8el9Oi3kdAFtbdWBYlac=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24354424/panda.png"/>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9YlQk4">
“There was nothing easy about any of it,” said David Kersey, an associate professor of physiology at Western University who helped develop the National Zoo’s captive breeding program.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="92gBoP">
In several instances, zoos have tried using videos of pandas copulating, a.k.a. panda porn, to get the bears in the mood. This is <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/berlin-pandas-panda-porn-breeding-berlin-zoo-bao-bao-626245">not a joke</a>. At one of the most famous breeding facilities in China, scientists showed a video of pandas mating to a five-year-old female bear named Ke Lin because she kept rejecting her mate, Yongyong.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="eDmqyp">
“We played them the film and she took great interest in it,” a spokesman at the Chengdu facility <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/panda-porn-finally-gets-yongyong-and-clueless-and-unenthusiastic-ke-lin-in-the-mood-8536849.html">told</a> the Independent. “After that, there was no stopping her and they mated successfully.”
</p>
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Zookeepers have also tried giving pandas viagra and working them out. In 2011, keepers at the National Zoo ran Tian Tian, a popular male panda, through a sort of sex training program designed to strengthen his legs. “We’re building up his stamina,” Brandie Smith, a senior curator at the zoo, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/zoo-getting-pandas-in-the-mood-to-mate/2011/01/13/ABf2PpD_story.html">told</a> the Washington Post. “I think Tian is in pretty good shape, but … we’re turning him into an Olympic athlete.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZYGBsj">
The early years of panda breeding were full of disasters. In one case, a male panda in Japan <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/image/488270628/?terms=Xing%20Xing%20died&amp;match=1">reportedly</a> died during a routine electro-ejaculation procedure — which involves a veterinarian sending a small shock to the animal’s prostate to get him to produce semen. Zookeepers also had a hard time figuring out if a bear was pregnant until right before she gave birth. Infants are tiny, weighing just <a href="https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/giant-panda#:~:text=At%20birth%2C%20a%20giant%20panda,the%20size%20of%20its%20mother.">3 to 5 ounces</a>. During ultrasounds, zookeepers would occasionally confuse feces for a fetus. It was a mess.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tvXDGT">
Yet little by little, the science improved. Vets figured out how to tell exactly when a female is ovulating and in heat. They also learned which males make the perfect genetic match. “We’ve seen the success rate of breeding just skyrocket,” Kersey said.
</p>
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hAvukna4phG8SIfAR9sXYieI1E4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24354437/topalign_tiny.png"/>
</figure>
</div>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="USn6Dp">
Scientists also learned how to keep more babies alive. In the ’90s, the survival rate of captive cubs in China was about 10 percent, according to Qiongyu Huang, a wildlife biologist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. Today, it’s almost 90 percent, he said. There are now around <a href="https://www.pandasinternational.org/education-2/panda-facts/#:~:text=They%20are%20found%20living%20in,zoos%20and%20wild%20life%20parks.">600</a> pandas in captivity.
</p>
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“Veterinary science has done an outstanding job,” said Marc Brody, president of the NGO Panda Mountain, who’s worked on panda conservation for more than two decades.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KorjlR">
Pandas are a threatened species, still just one step away from the classification of endangered. But along with China’s growing efforts to protect a massive area of forested land, captive breeding has, for now, managed to avert their extinction. “The turnaround in China has just been remarkable,” McShea said.
</p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="tluLu5"/>
<p class="p--has-dropcap" data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gge0AY">
Pandas are one of several iconic creatures that have for decades drawn the bulk of conservation support and public attention. Tigers, mountain gorillas, wolves, and elephants are other examples.
</p>
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Pouring resources into a handful of popular animals was the dominant approach to conservation in the late 20th century, said Jason Gilchrist, an ecologist at Edinburgh Napier University. The idea was to use those flashy species to draw in funding that could trickle down to other animals — in other words, pandas could be tools for conservation, not just diplomacy. Plus, protecting land for one kind of animal can shield a whole host of others.
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This approach, known as single-species conservation, has worked to some degree, especially for nature’s A-listers. Since 2008, for example, India has doubled its wild population of tigers. The number of mountain gorillas in Central Africa is up, too, as is the US population of gray wolves and bald eagles. Recent <a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/conl.12762">research</a> also shows that past conservation efforts have, at least temporarily, helped prevent a number of bird and mammal species from going extinct. <strong> </strong>
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Zjoq7w">
Still, it’s hard to see this species-focused model as a success, some scientists say, if the ultimate goal of conservation is to protect biodiversity and the countless benefits it provides. On this endeavor, the world has failed.
</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A graphic illustration of a crocodile on a rock." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/luTwUXWkJCQoP7A4gd2EaxnhMv4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24358225/end_image_revised.png"/> <cite>Praveeni Chamathka for Vox</cite>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iMifgh">
Since 1970, as the campaign to save pandas was ramping up, populations of most major animal groups including birds, mammals, and fish have declined by an average of <a href="https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2022/10/12/23399105/biodiversity-loss-wwf-living-planet-index">69 percent</a>. Species without popular appeal are often worse off. One-fifth of reptiles such as crocodiles and turtles are now <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/4/27/23040966/snakes-turtles-lizards-reptiles-extinction">threatened with extinction</a>. <a href="https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2022/10/27/23424362/freshwater-mussels-fish-lure-extinction">Mussels</a> are in peril, <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/23016412/coral-reef-restoration-climate-change">as are corals</a> — two animals that provide essential services for us and other creatures. (The latter, for example, provide shelter for fish and <a href="https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/23046997/hurricane-ian-coral-reefs-climate-change-hurricanes">safeguard coastal communities from flooding</a>. Popularity isn’t always a sign of ecological importance.)
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Furthermore, parks designed to protect charismatic species don’t always safeguard other animals. A<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1260-0"> 2020 study</a> in the journal <em>Nature, </em>for example,<em> </em>found that four species of large carnivores (the leopard, snow leopard, wolf, and an Asian dog called a dhole) have declined across panda habitat since the mid-20th century. Another <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000632072030971X">study</a>, published in 2021, found that populations of several species that overlap with giant pandas, including the Asiatic black bear, Chinese serow, and forest musk deer, have all plummeted, as well. (Panda preserves may have slowed these species’ declines.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IlRoCp">
“Panda conservation doesn’t appear to be benefiting other species, or the wider ecosystem,” Gilchrist <a href="https://theconversation.com/giant-panda-conservation-is-failing-to-revive-the-wider-ecosystem-new-study-143849">wrote</a> about the 2020 study. “These findings shake the foundations of one of conservation’s most enduring ideas — that investing time and money into protecting particular large, influential species can pay dividends for the other species and habitats they coexist with.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="526ALP">
Put another way, “you’re essentially sleepwalking into losing biodiversity by focusing resources on specific species,” Gilchrist told Vox.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NagEOl">
Breeding animals in captivity — now a widespread practice among zoos — also has questionable benefits for wild populations, according to some researchers. “Captive breeding is not a conservation strategy,” said Jillian Ryan, a researcher who wrote her dissertation at the University of South Australia on panda conservation.
</p>
<div class="c-wide-block">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A photo of a panda emerging from a crate while onlookers watch and take photos. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/TdmMUP7VKI-LYCZyCVmb0wD4F6M=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24354346/GettyImages_951566122a.jpg"/> <cite>Xinhua/Xue Yubin via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Giant panda Hua Yan, from the China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Pandas, is released into the wild at Liziping Nature Reserve in Ya’an, China, in October 2016.
</figcaption>
</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9xxTo1">
Zoos “carefully breed their animals as if they might be called upon at any moment to release them, like Noah throwing open the doors to the ark,” Emma Marris wrote in the 2021 book <em>Wild Souls: Freedom and flourishing in the non-human world</em>. “But that day of release never quite seems to come.”
</p>
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Zoos rarely reintroduce animals to the wild because they don’t often survive, Ryan said.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7bvlnw">
A dozen or so captive pandas have been released in China so far, and at least a few of them have died. The first panda scientists ever released, named Xiang Xiang (or “Lucky”), died in 2007, less than a year after his return to the wild. He likely fell out of a tree following a fight with wild-born pandas, according to multiple news reports.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="An3Bs6">
“Any reintroduction program has an inherent challenge: You’re increasing the potential for the animal to die,” said Jake Owens, director of conservation at the Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens. “The nice thing about zoos is that they do provide really high care.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="y0pjfe">
Owens and some other researchers argue that captive breeding can be an essential tool to avert extinction. It’s helped species like the endangered California condor <a href="https://www.nps.gov/articles/california-condor-recovery.htm#:~:text=To%20offset%20this%2C%20captive%20breeding,and%20sometimes%20a%20third%20egg.&amp;text=Best%20of%20all%2C%20captive%20bred,California%20beginning%20in%20January%201992.">recover</a>, he says. Zoos and breeding facilities also help people fall in love with pandas, he said, which has put pressure on China to conserve their habitat.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RnRcU3">
But using zoo animals as inspiration for conservation has its limits, Marris argues. “There’s no unambiguous evidence that zoos are making visitors care more about conservation or take any action to support it,” she writes. People go to the zoo, she added, to be entertained.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Bnhpsv">
Some scholars also argue that campaigns to save charismatic animals have distorted the human relationship with nature. Pandas, and most other highly charismatic species, are only visible in zoos or protected areas far from cities, reinforcing the idea that nature is something to look at, something apart from ourselves. Yet we all exist within ecosystems and depend on the services they provide, from water purification to crop pollination.
</p>
<div class="p-fullbleed-block">
<div class="c-image-grid">
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A crowd of people smile while taking photos. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Tx-ojLvIkywu-Hl1GrOKyJWsQmw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24354087/GettyImages_912861306a.jpg"/> <cite>Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Visitors take photographs of giant panda cub Xiang Xiang at Ueno Zoological Gardens in Tokyo, Japan, in February 2018.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<div class="c-image-grid__item">
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XPeOrn6SeD4XZ4GlIEZvoJDSPIU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24354097/GettyImages_912861192a.jpg"/> <cite>Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>
Seven-month-old panda cub Xiang Xiang rests on a tree stump as adoring fans photograph her.
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</figure>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4uk29w">
Indeed, most of the world’s remaining biodiversity exists alongside humanity — all 8 billion of us. To conserve wildlife, people will need to steward the plants and animals in their own backyards, in cities, in places they consider their home, said David Jachowski, a professor of wildlife ecology at Clemson University.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="34RUVP">
The environmental movement is changing. In recent decades, large environmental groups have adopted a more ecosystem-scale approach to their work.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="638Hpz">
In a <a href="https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/23518769/cop15-un-biodiversity-conference-montreal-biodiversity-wwf">previous interview</a> with Vox, Marco Lambertini, then the head of WWF International, said that using pandas and tigers to inspire the public to care about wildlife was incredibly effective. That approach helped WWF grow into the world’s largest environmental organization. But he acknowledged that the nonprofit could have done a better job at “connecting the dots,” linking wildlife to ecosystems and all the benefits they provide for people. (WWF told Vox that ecosystem-based approaches have always been core to the organization’s strategy.)
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wbAilS">
Perhaps, then, it doesn’t make sense to have a single species as the mascot for conservation.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ga20U7">
If there were one animal to represent the movement to conserve the natural world, the panda is probably the wrong one. It could be <a href="https://theconversation.com/weasels-not-pandas-should-be-the-poster-animal-for-biodiversity-loss-192895?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=bylinetwitterbutton">the weasel</a>, Jachowski says; they’re predators that help sustain the food chain. Other researchers have argued that even <a href="https://theconversation.com/earthworms-are-more-important-than-pandas-if-you-want-to-save-the-planet-74010">earthworms</a> would be better candidates.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fV43qQ">
Worms and weasels might not have the appeal of pandas. But they’re linchpins in a complex web of life that’s unraveling before our eyes.<strong> </strong>To sustain these and so many other underrated animals — the moths and flies, the bats and shrews — is to sustain the world’s ecosystems. It is to sustain ourselves.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LndBne">
<a href="https://www.vox.com/authors/benji-jones"><em>Benji Jones</em></a><em> is a senior environmental reporter at Vox, covering biodiversity loss and climate change. Before joining Vox, he was a senior energy reporter at Insider. Benji previously worked as a wildlife researcher.</em>
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</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>You may be thinking about animals all wrong (even if you’re an animal lover)</strong> -
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/oLIXaFWx1nBlgCv5xByTLCZicJg=/213x0:2880x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71874217/vox_1.0.jpg"/>
<figcaption>
Gianna Meola for Vox
</figcaption>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Philosopher Martha Nussbaum says humans should grant equal rights to animals, even in the wild. Is she right?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="omxO4m">
Martha Nussbaum is a <a href="https://humanities-web.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/philosophy/prod/2022-06/CV6-8.pdf">very, very big deal</a>, the kind of philosopher who, when she publishes a book, makes waves well beyond the ivory towers of academia. Her new volume, <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Justice-for-Animals/Martha-C-Nussbaum/9781982102500"><em>Justice for Animals</em></a>, plunges into the animal welfare debate,<strong> </strong>billing itself as a “revolutionary new theory” in how we humans think about other animals. Which makes it all the more surprising that, at its heart, her theory isn’t very revolutionary at all.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tJffFF">
Nussbaum, whom the New Yorker once <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/martha-nussbaums-moral-philosophies">described</a> as “monumentally confident,” contends that pretty much everyone has been thinking about animals wrong — including animal lovers. She rejects the leading ethical approaches to animals and urges us to accept hers: the capabilities approach. And as a philosopher who is also steeped in the<strong> </strong>law, she wants her theory to change real-world policy.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4xP5Ga">
Nussbaum first co-developed the <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/ge-capab/">capabilities approach</a> in the 1980s<strong> </strong>with humans in mind, working with its original architect, the Nobel-winning economist Amartya Sen. The theory argues that a just society should give each human the chance to flourish, which requires the opportunity to access some core entitlements to at least<strong> </strong>some minimum degree — things like good health and physical safety that any living thing requires, but also social relationships and play. These aren’t random; they’re things that human beings have specific<strong> </strong>reason to value because of the type of creatures we are.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AFTus0">
Now, she wants us to extend this approach to other species. Each species will have its own list of core entitlements, tailored to its unique form of life. The animal’s nature — its intrinsic capacities — would decide how it has the right to be treated, as opposed to us humans deciding how <em>we</em> think it should be treated.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sSD27Y">
The appeal of the capabilities approach is that it gives us clear rules about what we can and can’t do to animals, an ethical formula that can claim to be<strong> </strong>rooted in something intrinsic or objective. Which would be nice:<strong> </strong>Life is so complicated and messy; it’s comforting to have a formula!
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="z91Fin">
But ultimately, it does humanity a disservice. The obligations we feel to animals can’t be captured by any immutable formula because they don’t only flow from the animals’ intrinsic capacities; they’re also shaped by the relationships those animals can have with us, and by our own historical, economic, and cultural conditions, which are always changing.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iDdQqr">
By clinging to the dominant style of argument in animal ethics — a style that says our obligations to animals are forced on us by the nature of animals themselves or even the <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/why-korsgaards-kantian-argument-about-animals-doesnt-work">nature of reasonableness itself</a> — Nussbaum’s theory ends up leading to some iffy conclusions. It leads to a focus on helping individual animals, not species. And it prompts us<strong> </strong>to consider<strong> </strong>the idea that we should intervene to help not just those animals we’ve domesticated, which are utterly dependent on human beings, or those directly harmed by our actions, like endangered species, but also <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22325435/animal-welfare-wild-animals-movement">those trillions of animals that suffer and have always suffered in the wild</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6YBaiP">
By the end of the book, Nussbaum is declaring things like this: “To say that it is the destiny of antelopes to be torn apart by predators is like saying that it is the destiny of women to be raped. Both are terribly wrong.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yuEB9U">
Like I said, iffy.
</p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="PtLjfg"/>
<p class="p--has-dropcap" data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="z4XAp3">
Let’s back up a bit: What are the existing<strong> </strong>ethical approaches to animals that Nussbaum rejects, and where does she think they fail?
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="D9V0IC">
One is what she calls the “So Like Us” approach. It says we should particularly<strong> </strong>protect animals that display intelligence and reason like us. One group that embraces this approach is the <a href="https://www.nonhumanrights.org/">Nonhuman Rights Project</a>, which tries to win <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/14/happy-elephant-bronx-zoo-00039409">legal personhood rights</a> for species like elephants and chimpanzees with arguments that are primarily based on the intelligence of those species.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dIaOSz">
But using human-like intelligence as the yardstick for moral value is an <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22373580/animals-intelligent-smart-orcas-chickens">old mistake</a>: Ever since Aristotle developed the idea of the <a href="http://palaeos.com/systematics/greatchainofbeing/scala_naturae.html">Scala Naturae</a>, a “natural ladder” that classified some animals as higher life forms and others as lower, humans (at least in the West) have repeatedly<strong> </strong>underestimated the cognitive complexity of other species. Suffering from an anthropocentric bias, we tend to think something counts as intelligence only when it looks like human intelligence. But researchers are<strong> </strong>increasingly <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/animals-are-much-smarter-than-people-realize-scientist-says">recognizing</a> that every species has its own brand of smarts. Each is perfectly adapted to its unique environment and needs.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3FBEHC">
The second approach Nussbaum rejects is that of the 18th-century British<strong> </strong>utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham. The right question to ask about animals, Bentham argued, is not “Can they reason?” but “Can they suffer?” So instead of using intelligence as the yardstick for moral value, the utilitarian camp uses <a href="https://www.animal-ethics.org/what-is-sentience/">sentience</a>: the ability to experience pain or pleasure. It says we should minimize pain for any creature that can feel it, a position most prominently held today by the Australian ethicist<strong> </strong><a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/10/27/21529060/animal-rights-philosopher-peter-singer-why-vegan-book">Peter Singer</a>.
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Nussbaum likes the emphasis on sentience. She thinks it makes sense to view it as a clear<strong> </strong>dividing line in nature: Only creatures with sentience deserve rights. But she rejects the utilitarians’ decision to calculate pain and pleasure as an aggregate, with the aim of producing the greatest good for the greatest number. As utilitarian thought experiments <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/1/24/21078196/morality-ethics-culture-universal-subjective">show</a>, this approach can produce a result that’s great on net even while making some individuals deeply miserable. That neglects the importance of individual lives, treating them as interchangeable cogs.
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Nussbaum is determined to preserve the inviolability of each individual animal, and this leads her to investigate a third major theory: that of Immanuel<strong> </strong>Kant, as read through the contemporary philosopher Christine Korsgaard. According to Kant, you should never treat a human being as a means to an end; people are ends in themselves. It would never be right to harm one person even if it benefits many on net.<strong> </strong><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/fellow-creatures-9780198753858?cc=us&amp;lang=en&amp;">Korsgaard takes that basic idea and extends it to animals</a>.
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It’s a move Nussbaum applauds. But she takes issue with the fact that Korsgaard still gives special status to humans because of our ability for complex ethical reasoning. Korsgaard says animals aren’t capable of that, so they can only be passive citizens of the world.
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“I think that is just much too simple because animals are very active in indicating what they need and want,” Nussbaum told me in an interview late last year. “They have marvelous, complicated ways of speaking or signaling … and we should be listening to that and taking account of that.”
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So Nussbaum salvages from the utilitarians an emphasis on sentience, and from Kant an emphasis on the inviolable rights of each end-in-itself creature. She thinks combining these two ingredients sets her up for a better approach: her capabilities approach.
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But she ends up hamstrung by the limitations of each view. Sentience isn’t the bright dividing line utilitarians believe it is, and Kantians fail to reckon with the need to balance competing needs with each other.
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Sentience has always been a <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Sentient/Jackie-Higgins/9781982156565">squishy category</a>. Some experts<strong> </strong>define it as basic sensitivity — your ability to sense things, like the color red. Others say it’s your ability to feel pleasure or pain. Nussbaum defines it more broadly: You’re sentient if you have a subjective point of view on the world, and there’s something that it’s like to be you (whereas the answer to “what is it like to be a rock?” is “nothing”).
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It makes sense that she’d embrace sentience as a dividing line in nature. She says justice requires giving each creature the chance to fulfill its significant strivings, so she needs a way to tell which creatures are capable of significant striving.
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But if we think of sentience in such<strong> </strong>binary terms — either you’ve got it or you don’t — then we create a sharp border, where those who are “in” have a right to be treated justly, and those who are “out” don’t. This should give us pause because every time we humans have come up with a way of dividing up nature, later generations have overturned it.
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Historically, societies started by thinking that being a male human is what matters, and then expanded the notion to believe that being a human is what matters, and then that being an intelligent animal is what matters, and now that being sentient is what matters. “In light of that history, we should be a little skeptical of our current impression that we happen to now be fully morally enlightened and are including everybody we should be including,” Jeff Sebo, a professor of environmental studies and philosophy at New York University, <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22373580/animals-intelligent-smart-orcas-chickens">told me</a> in 2021.
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Philosophers and researchers increasingly believe a binary idea of sentience doesn’t fit well with what we see when we look closely at living things in the natural world. That’s because the more we learn about different species, even<strong> </strong>simple ones,<strong> </strong>the more we find glimmers of sentience.
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For example, people have long thought of fish as emotionally vacant, but recent experimental studies <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22301931/fish-animal-welfare-plant-based">challenge that view</a>; it turns out romantic breakups really suck, <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/7/20/20700775/fish-pain-love-emotion-animal-cognition-study">even for fish</a>. The same goes for octopuses, lobsters, and crabs, all of<strong> </strong>which the British government now <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/lobsters-octopus-and-crabs-recognised-as-sentient-beings">recognizes as sentient</a>. The <a href="https://www.si.edu/spotlight/buginfo/bugnos#:~:text=At%20any%20time%2C%20it%20is,described%20species%20is%20approximately%2091%2C000.">10 quintillion insects</a> on the planet may be sentient, too, <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/on-the-torment-of-insect-minds-and-our-moral-duty-not-to-farm-them">evidence suggests</a>. In recent years, some scientists have even argued that <a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-secret-language-of-plants-20131216/">plants</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/science/plants-consciousness-anesthesia.html">have</a> <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/can-a-plant-remember-this-one-seems-to-heres-the-evidence">sentience</a>.
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Some thinkers have adapted by proposing that sentience comes in degrees. The primatologist <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/Mamas-Last-Hug/">Frans de Waal</a> has suggested there are three levels of sentience: sensitivity, experience, and consciousness. And the philosopher <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/daniel-c-dennett/kinds-of-minds/9780786723621/">Daniel Dennett</a> has hypothesized that “‘sentience comes in every imaginable grade and intensity, from the simplest and most ‘robotic,’ to the most exquisitely sensitive, ‘hyper-reactive’ human.”
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But even this is probably too simplistic. If we say sentience comes in degrees, we’re saying it lines up neatly on a single scale, running from “more sentient” to “less sentient,” and suddenly we’re back on Aristotle’s Scala Naturae. <a href="https://rethinkpriorities.org/publications/why-neuron-counts-shouldnt-be-used-as-proxies-for-moral-weight">There is</a> <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Beyond-Neural-Correlates-of-Consciousness/Overgaard-Mogensen-Kirkeby-Hinrup/p/book/9781138637986">reason to doubt</a> whether a creature’s sentience can be measured in terms of just one metric, like its number of neurons. Rather than viewing sentience as running on a single scale, some philosophers now <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41649-022-00230-5">argue</a> that sentience is “a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/48628592">multi-dimensional phenomenon</a>.”
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If they’re right,<strong> </strong>sentience will go the way of intelligence. Just as people like Nussbaum want to ditch the older framing of “this species is smarter than that species” in favor of “different species are smart in different ways (that are best suited to their form of life),” we’ll want to ditch the framing of “this species is more sentient than that species” for “different species exhibit different forms of sentience (that are best suited to their form of life).”
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But Nussbaum doesn’t go this route. She is too committed to viewing each individual creature as a Kantian “end in itself” — and that doesn’t come in degrees. It only has one dimension.<strong> </strong>You either are an “end in yourself” or you’re not.
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Nussbaum writes that her view sees “animal lives as having intrinsic value” — with the caveat, “ethically, though not in my political theory.” She claims this is just her personal belief and it doesn’t factor into her theory.
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“What I think metaphysically has nothing to do with it,” she told me. “Because my overall position, in my view, is that in political principles and legal principles, we should never include any controversial metaphysical positions. This is what John Rawls said famously in <em>Political Liberalism</em> — that if we’re in a pluralistic society where people differ about metaphysics, we should never include in our political principles these controversial metaphysical claims about which people differ.”
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But her controversial claims <em>do</em> factor into her theory. In fact, her whole theory has a strong flavor of <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/">moral realism</a>, a doctrine that says there is such a thing as objective moral values. Her underlying premise is that we can find out what objective moral rights an animal has by examining that animal’s objective capacities. The animal’s nature forces obligations on us.
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In her book, Nussbaum critiques philosophers who take a more anti-realist stance, who argue that value is a subjective human creation, that it doesn’t exist “out there” to be discovered. According to Nussbaum, that’s a controversial position and should be left out.
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But if anti-realism is a controversial position, Nussbaum’s realism is equally controversial. And it leads her down some very controversial paths.
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For one thing, Nussbaum argues that “for ethics, it is the individual creature that is the end, not the species.” She does acknowledge that preserving an endangered species may have instrumental value, like scientific or aesthetic value. But she insists that a species doesn’t “count as an end for the purposes of political justice” because “a species has no point of view on the world.”
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It’s true that a species doesn’t feel or suffer; that’s what the individual animals that make up a species<strong> </strong>do. But the argument that only individual animals can be wronged runs aground when the needs of different species conflict.
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This is a problem Australia has recently had to face. Hundreds of millions of feral rabbits — which trace back to just <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/24/world/australia-feral-rabbit-invasion-origins-intl-hnk/index.html">24 rabbits brought over by an English settler</a> in 1859 — have driven some of the country’s native plant species to the brink of extinction and altered entire ecosystems by munching away at vegetation. In 2011, the Australian government <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/rabbit.pdf">noted</a> that rabbits had “reduced Philip Island to bedrock, leaving at least two plants locally extinct,” and announced that it would kill rabbits to conserve ecosystems.
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If Australia had applied Nussbaum’s view, it might have been warier about killing the rabbits, even if it meant some native species were decimated. Rabbits are sentient individuals with a point of view on the world, but ecosystems or plants don’t have a point of view on the world, according to Nussbaum, so they are deemphasized in her theory. Placing so much emphasis on who is a sentient end in itself could tip the scales in favor of individual creatures even when an entire species is at stake.
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Viewing each animal as an end in itself also inflects Nussbaum’s view on our responsibility toward animals in the wild. Partly, she’s driven by the very reasonable observation that there are hardly any truly “wild” spaces left on Earth: Humans control habitats on land, in the sea, and in the air, and through climate change we damage those habitats. It’s disingenuous to say we have no duty to consider the well-being of wildlife. “Wild” versus “domesticated” is a misleading split.
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But it gets weird when Nussbaum urges us to think not only about remediating human harms, but also about proactively protecting wild animals. Natural types of animal suffering like starvation and disease, which were a fact of life on Earth since well before the first Homo sapiens, trouble her. For her, even the pain of an individual antelope as it’s eaten by a predator is a horrible problem. (Remember her quote from earlier? “To say that it is the destiny of antelopes to be torn apart by predators is like saying that it is the destiny of women to be raped.”) She’s not just worried about whether antelopes as a species survive. She’s worried about each and every end-in-itself antelope, trying to survive in a natural world that is red in tooth and claw.
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So she says “we must use our knowledge — wisely and deliberately — to protect wild animal lives.” When it comes to predation, she acknowledges there are good reasons to hold off on intervening for now (for all we know, getting rid of the antelopes’ predators might topple the whole ecosystem, harming the very animals we meant to protect). But there are other interventions she’s more bullish about, like <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22325435/animal-welfare-wild-animals-movement">using contraceptives</a> for wild animals to tackle population imbalances.
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She gave me the example of a habitat where elks have reproduced rapidly. Now the elks don’t get enough to eat, and they’re going hungry. “Suppose we concluded that humans have not really caused this problem. I still think that animal contraception should be investigated as part of the solution,” she told me.
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Overall, when it comes to intervening in the wild, she writes, “How much further can we go in this direction? We need to press this question all the time.”
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Other philosophers push back on that stance. Take Elizabeth Anderson, who was once Nussbaum’s student at Harvard and who now teaches at the University of Michigan. She subscribes to the school of thought in philosophy known as <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pragmatism/">pragmatism</a>, which sees moral truths as contingent, not objective. This results in a story about animals that is very different from the one Nussbaum tells.
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Anderson points out that for most of human history, we couldn’t have survived and thrived without killing or exploiting animals for food, transportation, and energy. The social conditions for granting animals moral rights didn’t really exist on a mass scale until recently (although certain non-Western societies did ascribe moral worth to some<strong> </strong>animals).
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“The possibility of moralizing our relations to animals,” she <a href="https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil308/Anderson.pdf">writes</a>, “has come to us only lately, and even then not to us all, and not with respect to all animal species.”
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Anderson notes that we feel different levels of moral obligation to different species, and that has to do not only with their intrinsic capacities like intelligence or sentience, but also with their relationships to us. It matters whether we’ve made them dependent on us by domesticating them — like the <a href="https://www.chickenfans.com/chicken-population-stats/">more than 30 billion domesticated chickens</a> alive at any given time, most of them <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21437054/chickens-factory-farming-animal-cruelty-welfare">suffering terrible pain at our hands</a><strong> —</strong> or whether they live in the wild. It also matters whether they’re fundamentally hostile to us.
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For example, if you find bedbugs in your house, nobody expects you to say, “Well, they’re maybe sentient and definitely alive, so they have moral value. I’ll just live and let live!” It is absolutely expected that you will exterminate them.
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Why? Because with vermin, Anderson writes, “there is no possibility of communication, much less compromise. We are in a permanent state of war with them, without possibility of negotiating for peace. To one-sidedly accommodate their interests … would amount to surrender.”
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Anderson’s point is not that animals’ intelligence and sentience don’t matter. It’s that lots of other things matter, too, including our own ability to thrive.
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So her view doesn’t require us to draw one bright line through nature. Anderson is inclined to value all living things, including plants, which she notes clearly have interests. And she’s inclined to think protecting a species in some cases can justify getting rid of non-endangered individuals, as in the case of Australia’s action against invasive rabbits. Individuals’ sentience isn’t a trump card.
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“There’s a plurality of values at stake here, and I’m disinclined to think that any single one of them necessarily overrides all the others,” Anderson told me. “It depends on the context.”
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Anderson’s insistence on taking seriously a plurality of values also guides her approach to the question of animals in the wild. She thinks it’s bizarre to worry about wild animals suffering at the hands of predators. Suffering, after all, “is inherent to the animal condition,” she told me. “The idea of minimizing suffering becomes a single-minded goal that doesn’t really grasp the vital importance of predators for ecosystems.”
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It’s possible to wed Anderson’s inclination to value all living things and the ecosystems that support them with<strong> </strong>Nussbaum’s capabilities approach. You can say, “This is the human form of life, and to some extent it is different from other forms of life. All lives are uniquely wonderful in their own way” — and then to apply the capabilities approach by respecting each and every organism’s form of life as much as you can.
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But there are two very understandable fears about adopting this view.
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One is that it’s just going to make things, well, really hard! If every living thing is potentially invested with moral value, that seems to impose on us a crushing amount of responsibility. How could we even move at all in such a world, knowing that every step we take could change that world and the animals that live in it? What would we do when the needs of different species conflict?
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To which Anderson essentially responds, that’s life. The best we can do is look at creatures’ intelligence and sentience and aliveness and relationships to us as clues about their importance. But it doesn’t tell us how to weight those clues and what to do when they conflict.
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“There’s no simple formula,” Anderson told me. “I think that’s a hopeless quest.”
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The other fear you might have is the inverse: Instead of worrying that people will now care about everything, you might worry that people will now care about nothing. If you say creatures do not have objective rights, why shouldn’t we treat nature as a free-for-all — which is largely what humans have done through most of our existence?
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But that’s the point: History shows that saying creatures have objective rights<strong> </strong>doesn’t magically convince people to treat animals well. Most people are not moral philosophers and are not<strong> </strong>swayed by a priori reasoning alone. Where they change their behavior to be more considerate of other beings, it’s often because the <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/4/18285986/robot-animal-nature-expanding-moral-circle-peter-singer">economic and cultural constraints operating on them have changed</a>.
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For example, in the early 1900s there was still a perceived need for women to stay home and perform household labor. But by the middle of the century, the invention of new household appliances — like the washing machine or dishwasher — <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/11/10/21363336/vegan-meat-alternatives-technology-melanie-joy">catalyzed the emancipation of women</a> by undercutting the perceived need for them to labor so long at home.
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Similarly, if a society feels it needs to eat animal products to get enough nutrition, it might have a hard time viewing all animals as morally valuable. But if a society doesn’t feel it needs to eat animal products, it may have an easier time looking upon animals and feeling awe or empathy. Our ability to access those sorts of emotions is constrained or bolstered by the context we live in.
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According to that line of thinking, even the cleverest moral arguments may have less influence on animal welfare than<strong> </strong>the advent of <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/11/10/21363336/vegan-meat-alternatives-technology-melanie-joy">cheap and delicious plant-based meat</a>, like Beyond Meat and Impossible Burgers, as well as plant-based dairy and eggs. This type of tech innovation could free us up to see animals as creatures inspiring awe or empathy, making it easier to adopt kinder practices toward them.
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Ultimately, concern for animals is not forced on us by the nature of animals themselves. And if it’s not forced on us, that means it has to be a choice. Perhaps the best we can do is influence economic and cultural conditions to make it more possible for people to choose to care.
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This is an uncomfortable place for most philosophers to land. Many see it as their job to come up with grand theories, totalizing systems that can compel a certain kind of ethical behavior.<strong> </strong>Nussbaum writes that her capabilities approach “aims to supply a virtual constitution to which nations, states and regions may look in trying to improve (or newly frame) their animal-protective laws.”
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But even the most convincing of grand theories have never managed on their own to compel everyone to behave a certain way. And<em> </em>any grand theory will be unconvincing for those of us who ask: If morality is conditioned by our cultural context, why would there ever be one universal, timeless formula that tells us how to slice up nature into clear moral categories?
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Nussbaum’s capabilities approach doesn’t need to present itself as a grand theory in order to make a helpful contribution to our world. Although it won’t, on its own, motivate concern for animals, it can be a very useful framework when we’re trying to figure out how to express our concern. Beyond that, philosophy actually has a crucial role to play: If it acknowledges that our moral beliefs are conditioned by cultural context, it can help show us that there was nothing inherently “normal” or “natural” about our ancestors’ cruel practices toward animals, and that those practices are mostly not necessary now. It can free up our culture to tell a new story about ourselves and other animals.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AZ95Vz">
<a href="https://www.vox.com/authors/sigal-samuel"><em>Sigal Samuel</em></a> <em>is a senior reporter for </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect"><em>Vox’s Future Perfect</em></a><em> and co-host of the </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect-podcast"><em>Future Perfect podcast</em></a><em>. She writes primarily about the future of consciousness, tracking advances in artificial intelligence and neuroscience and their staggering ethical implications. Before joining Vox, Sigal was the religion editor at the Atlantic.</em>
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<li><strong>Ukraine’s corruption shake-up, briefly explained</strong> -
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<img alt="Deadly helicopter crash in Brovary" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Wr2vJpEAGT8iuCG2G6Ccq4tr-zk=/172x0:4545x3280/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71902687/1246324930.0.jpg"/>
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Deputy head of the Presidential Office Kyrylo Tymoshenko speaks to the press at the scene of the fatal helicopter crash at a kindergarten in Brovary, Kyiv Region, northern Ukraine. Tymoshenko resigned this week amid a corruption scandal. | Evgen Kotenko/Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images
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Top officials are ousted or resign in the biggest reshuffle since the start of the Russian invasion.
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A <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-corruption-zelensky-fighting-east/32236992.html">corruption scandal is shaking up the Ukrainian government</a>, with top officials stepping aside as Kyiv seems eager to assure Western partners of their responsible stewardship of <a href="https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/">billions</a> in military and economic aid.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ynx4Kd">
Among the high-profile exits are Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head in the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and a deputy in the ministry of defense, <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-corruption-zelensky-fighting-east/32236992.html">Vyacheslav Shapovalov</a>, who was responsible for overseeing supplies and food for troops. <a href="https://english.nv.ua/nation/ukrainian-deputy-prosecutor-general-fired-after-scandal-over-spain-getaway-50299569.html">A deputy prosecutor general</a> was also sacked, as were a handful of <a href="https://english.nv.ua/nation/ukrainian-deputy-prosecutor-general-fired-after-scandal-over-spain-getaway-50299569.html">regional governors and a few other government ministers</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xHmUp4">
The actual details of what prompted the shake-up are a bit murky, and not all of the resignations and ousters appear to be related, <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/defense-ministry-denies-buying-food-095101123.html">but it comes after at least one report</a> in Ukrainian media that the Ministry of Defense had purchased food for troops at extra-high prices. The Ministry of Defense <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MinistryofDefence.UA/posts/pfbid02zYDhmdQJCMM4G6wArjizfPQxUHfj8wep4q4XPFHBvSdtjauvD8uZdNznjUCXNWotl">had said </a>the allegations were a deliberate attempt to mislead, but said it would conduct an internal audit. Additional media <a href="https://bihus.info/">reports</a> in the past week had questioned officials, including Tymoshenko, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64383388">who appeared to be enjoying lavish lifestyles</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="frIDXm">
This represents the most high-profile reshuffle since Russia’s invasion last year. More details about the alleged graft are likely to emerge, but it seems clear that Zelenskyy’s government moved fast to tamp down any allegations of widespread corruption, especially from international backers who are providing tens of billions of dollars in assistance that Ukraine depends on in its fight against Russia. Some <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/national/explainer-why-did-zelensky-launch-the-biggest-government-reshuffle-during-full-scale-invasion">critics</a> have also suggested the shake-up is more of a political move, rather than a genuine anti-corruption effort.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tecsFk">
In his Tuesday evening address, <a href="https://t.me/V_Zelenskiy_official">posted on Telegram</a>, Zelenskyy acknowledged the personnel shifts and said that any internal problems “that hinder the state are being cleaned up and will be cleaned up. It is fair, it is necessary for our defense and it helps our rapprochement with European institutions.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="c8QLz9">
Ukraine <a href="https://www.vox.com/22902846/ukraine-russia-nato-zelensky-poroshenko">has previously struggled to root out high-level corruption and bolster the rule of law</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2019/9/24/20882359/trump-impeachment-ukraine-president-zelensky">despite Zelenskyy promising to do so when he was elected in 2019</a>. Ukraine’s backers in the United States and Europe <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/21/fact-sheet-us-assistance-ukraine">had long put pressure on Kyiv</a> to deal with these issues, especially as a condition for Ukraine’s invitation into Western institutions, including perhaps one day joining the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/17/world/europe/ukraine-eu-membership-corruption.html">European Union</a>. Russia’s full-scale attack last year shunted some of those corruption concerns aside, as Western governments rushed to back up Ukraine and as Ukraine itself became a global symbol for democratic resistance.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cR2FS5">
Within Ukraine, some civil society groups and anti-corruption forces who’d long been critical of the Ukrainian government and Zelenskyy put on hold some of their activism as Ukrainian society fully mobilized in the war effort. <a href="https://eucrim.eu/articles/war-and-corruption-in-ukraine/">According to a report on war and corruption in Ukraine released last summer</a>, about 84 percent of anti-corruption experts abandoned their activities because of the conflict.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8nHD2y">
Still, concerns about Ukraine’s approach to corruption <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/07/20/1112414884/corruption-concerns-involving-ukraine-are-revived-as-the-war-with-russia-drags-o">never totally dissipated</a>. The chaos of conflict — lots of rapid procurements, an influx of funds and supplies moving through many hands — tends to be fertile areas for potential graft and can exacerbate existing problems. <a href="https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/lessonslearned/SIGAR-21-46-LL.pdf">This is true no matter where the war or who’s doing the fighting</a>. Ukraine is no exception.
</p>
<h3 id="m8gTZa">
What we know about the Ukrainian government shake-ups
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jV1tcn">
The recent reshuffle appears to be connected to a few different scandals. Perhaps the most high-profile is this allegation, <a href="https://zn.ua/ukr/economic-security/tilovi-patsjuki-minoboroni-pid-chas-vijni-piljajut-na-kharchakh-dlja-zsu-bilshe-nizh-za-mirnoho-zhittja.html">first reported in the Ukrainian media outlet ZN.UA</a>, that the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense had signed a contract paying <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/ukrainian-defense-ministry-overpays-food-161000223.html">two to three times more for food than retail prices in Kyiv</a>. Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov rejected the claims, saying it was a “technical error” and suggesting the leak was<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-politics-military-technology-joint-chiefs-of-staff-lloyd-austin-1b505c88a5a6f331cd482762c62fa29c"> timed to a meeting of Western donors</a>, in an effort to undermine Ukraine. “Information about the content of food service shoppers who have taken up public space is spreading with signs of deliberate manipulation and mislead,” the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MinistryofDefence.UA/posts/pfbid02zYDhmdQJCMM4G6wArjizfPQxUHfj8wep4q4XPFHBvSdtjauvD8uZdNznjUCXNWotl">ministry said in a statement</a>. The ministry said it was opening an investigation into the “spread of intentionally false information,” though it was also conducting an internal audit.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qLeUgx">
In response to the procurement allegations, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) publicly announced its own investigation. On Tuesday, Deputy Defense Minister Viacheslav Shapovalov reportedly <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-deputy-defense-minister-vyacheslav-shapovalov-resign-corruption-war-zelenskyy/">asked to be dismissed</a>, so as “not to pose a threat to the stable supply of the Armed Forces of Ukraine as a result of a campaign of accusations related to the purchase of food services.”
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PrRRwZ">
But Ukraine’s government shake-up extends beyond that. On Tuesday, Tymoshenko<strong>, </strong>a close aide to Zelenskyy, announced his resignation, saying it was of his “own volition.” <a href="https://sports.yahoo.com/ukraines-minister-internal-affairs-flying-091814182.html">Tymoshenko had a fairly public-facing role during the war</a>, and Ukrainian media had reported last year that he had driven an SUV donated for humanitarian purposes for his personal use (he denied that report). In December, another investigation suggested Tymoshenko had been driving an expensive sports car, and had rented a mansion belonging to a prominent businessman — flashy accessories for a government official in wartime. Tymoshenko has <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/now/zelenskyy-office-official-tymoshenko-denies-144500867.html">said</a> he rents the house because his own is in an area targeted by airstrikes.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GEeB1n">
Oleksiy Symonenko, <a href="https://english.nv.ua/nation/ukrainian-deputy-prosecutor-general-fired-after-scandal-over-spain-getaway-50299569.html">a deputy prosecutor general</a>, was also ousted, following reports last month in Ukrainian media that <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/ukrainian-deputy-prosecutor-general-fired-120100893.html">he had gone on a 10-day holiday in Spain during the war</a>. On Monday, Zelenskyy <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/kyiv-officials-traveling-abroad-moscow-border-measures-oleksii-reznikov-volodymyr-zelenskyy-ukraine-russia/">banned </a>all government officials from leaving the country for anything other than official business.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZSO4y5">
In addition to these high-profile ousters, a few other deputy ministers and regional governors — <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/national/explainer-why-did-zelensky-launch-the-biggest-government-reshuffle-during-full-scale-invasion">including those in Kyiv and Kherson Oblasts</a> — were also fired. <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/national/explainer-why-did-zelensky-launch-the-biggest-government-reshuffle-during-full-scale-invasion">According to the Kyiv Independent</a>, some of these officials have been implicated in graft, while others appear to have just been caught up in the reshuffle.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GCjdkg">
This turmoil also comes days after Ukraine’s deputy infrastructure minister, Vasyl Lozinskyi, was fired following <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/23/ukraine-deputy-minister-sacked-for-alleged-theft-of-400000?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other">allegations from Ukrainian prosecutors</a> that he stole $400,000 (£320,000) that was intended to go to the purchase of aid, including generators, to help Ukrainians withstand the winter after Russian attacks <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2022/11/18/23460933/ukraine-infrastructure-strikes-russia-blackouts-war">badly damaged energy infrastructure</a>. He has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/23/ukraine-deputy-minister-sacked-for-alleged-theft-of-400000">not commented</a> on the allegations.
</p>
<h3 id="wZXVFu">
Ukraine corruption is a focus again, a year into war
</h3>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xfcqLf">
A few firings and resignations will not fix endemic corruption or rule of law problems in Ukraine, just as Ukraine’s resistance against Moscow will not erase all of its underlying governance weaknesses. A bigger question is how widespread these latest instances of corruption are, and whether the ousters and resignations now represent a real and sustained effort to crack down or are more a political reshuffle and a public show to reassure Western partners and the Ukrainian public.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cLMM0O">
An aid to Zelenskyy tweeted that the moves show the government won’t turn any <a href="https://twitter.com/Podolyak_M/status/1617806743718985728?s=20&amp;t=Usd8oVCCjg8Msp3_G8dNtQ">“blind eyes”</a> to misdeeds. Yet some critics have suggested this is more of a political shake-up, and <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/national/explainer-why-did-zelensky-launch-the-biggest-government-reshuffle-during-full-scale-invasion">that other politicians accused of corruption remain in their posts</a>.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DBjR41">
In 2021, Transparency International had <a href="https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/ukraine">ranked</a> Ukraine 122 among 180 countries for corruption, making it one of the worst offenders. Even on the eve of Russia’s invasion, the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/09/01/joint-statement-on-the-u-s-ukraine-strategic-partnership/">United States </a>and <a href="https://www.eca.europa.eu/en/Pages/DocItem.aspx?did=59383">European</a> partners had continued to put pressure on Zelenskyy to implement anti-corruption and rule of law reforms. Those calls didn’t <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/eu-chief-ukraine-needs-to-give-anti-corruption-reforms-teeth/a-62324723">stop once the war commenced</a>, but the focus, with legitimate reason, was on supporting Ukraine’s resistance to Russia and providing military, humanitarian, and economic aid to Kyiv.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZZCwfF">
Within Ukraine, too, some of the government’s biggest critics redirected their energies to the larger war effort, according to a survey of 169 anti-corruption experts who<strong> </strong>responded in April 2022. <a href="https://eucrim.eu/articles/war-and-corruption-in-ukraine/">Around 47 percent </a>reported feeling endangered if they continued to fight corruption during the conflict.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cqA0In">
This, of course, is why war and conflict can deepen corruption. Ukraine is fighting for its existence as a state, so, naturally, that’s the priority above all else. Government resources, attention, and funding all go to mobilizing for that, which means anti-corruption efforts and rule of law reforms fall by the wayside. On top of that, war creates plenty of opportunities for graft, with less time and attention on accountability and oversight.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dlnN0Z">
The recent allegations come nearly one year into the war as the West once again gears up to send Ukrainian massive tranches of weapons — including, now, reportedly advanced US tanks. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/24/us-house-approves-ukraine-aid-including-arms-after-zelenskyy-visit.html">The US alone has contributed about $100 billion toward Ukraine</a>, including military, security, and economic assistance. As of November, European countries and EU institutions have pledged <a href="https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/">more than €51 billion in assistance to Ukraine</a>, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. As the war drags on, some Western lawmakers are questioning the amount of aid flowing to Ukraine — and are calling for more accountability on where everything is going. <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/932e333d-021b-46d9-9e78-0de4fe9ad58a">That includes some of the newly sworn-in Republican majority in the US House</a>.<strong> </strong>Kyiv relies on foreign support in its fight against Russia, and repeated hints of misuse may jeopardize that, so it’s not surprising Kyiv is moving quickly to respond.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZtbiXa">
And that is perhaps one of the big questions: How much of this is for optics, and how much does this reflect a deeper commitment on those corruption promises? The <a href="https://www.state.gov/department-press-briefings/">US </a>lauded Ukraine for making these moves, but a lot will depend on how the investigations play out and what they uncover. Still, Ukraine’s efforts to signal to the world — and a domestic audience who’s sacrificed a lot for the war — still carry a warning to other officials.
</p>
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</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>PSA tournament and India Open juniors at National Stadium</strong> - Sports Bureau</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Chaposa Springs, Asio, Aurora Borealis and Royal Supremacy shine</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Suryakumar Yadav named ICC Men's T20I Cricketer of the Year 2022</strong> - Suryakumar Yadav had a stellar 2022, breaking an array of records and setting a benchmark in T20 cricket</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Australian Open 2023 | Sania-Bopanna pair reaches mixed doubles final</strong> - Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna reached the mixed doubles final of the 2023 Australian Open in Sania’s final Grand Slam appearance</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>BCCI announces owners of Women’s IPL teams; combined valuation of ₹4,670 crore</strong> - Three IPL franchises are among the owners of the five new Women’s Premier League teams announced by the BCCI</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Congress media chief’s tweet delivers propaganda setback to the party ahead end of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra</strong> - The post has reportedly dispirited Congress workers who organised public screenings of the documentary braving the Centre’s “ban”</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Here are the big stories from Tamil Nadu today</strong> -</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Andhra Pradesh Governor extends Republic Day greetings</strong> - Biswa Bhusan Harichandan’s message will be aired on All India Radio, Doordarshan and FM Radio on Jan. 26, says Raj Bhavan</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Pawan Kalyan performs special puja for campaign vehicle ‘Varahi’ at Kanaka Durga temple in Vijayawada</strong> - It is aimed at putting an end to the demonic rule of the Jagan Mohan Reddy government, he says</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Kerala HC directive for compliance with AIS 093 in truck body building</strong> -</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
<ul>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Germany confirms it will provide Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks</strong> - Russia has downplayed the impact of the move, saying Western tanks will “burn like all the rest”.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>MH17: Court ruling due on Dutch case against Russia</strong> - The European Court of Human Rights is to say whether it will hear a case about Moscow’s role in the crash.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Andrew Tate claims case against him ‘empty’</strong> - Tate says there is “no justice in Romania” as he is taken for police questioning at a special unit.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Top Ukrainian officials quit in anti-corruption drive</strong> - A top aide and deputy defence minister are among those to resign as Kyiv tackles corruption reports.</p></li>
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine: Chris Parry and Andrew Bagshaw killed in Soledar rescue attempt</strong> - Chris Parry and Andrew Bagshaw were killed in Soledar, eastern Ukraine, family members say.</p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>As egg prices soar, the deadliest bird flu outbreak in US history drags on</strong> - Risk to humans is low, but epidemiologists fear a future pandemic by such a flu. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1912393">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>These scientists created jewelry out of the striking shapes of chaos theory</strong> - Not just inspired by chaos theory, but directly created from its mathematical principles. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1912198">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The DOJ sues Google for ad dominance, wants to break company up</strong> - US trust-busters want to take the DoubleClick out of Google. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1912246">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Blizzard studio halts union plans amid alleged management meddling</strong> - Proletariat union cites “confrontational tactics” from CEO that “took their toll.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1912345">link</a></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>It’s getting easier to buy bigger SSDs for the Steam Deck and Surface PCs</strong> - Special 30-mm-long SSDs are gradually coming to retail, though big names are MIA. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1911921">link</a></p></li>
</ul>
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
<ul>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Why does Chuck Norris never have to flush the toilet?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
He just scares the shit out of it.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/hoosyourdaddyo"> /u/hoosyourdaddyo </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/10kkupw/why_does_chuck_norris_never_have_to_flush_the/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/10kkupw/why_does_chuck_norris_never_have_to_flush_the/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>I like my women like I like my coffee</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
Strong and valued in the work place.
</p>
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
<span class="md-spoiler-text">E Jesus fuck this joke brought out a lot of fucking creeps</span>
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/vanilla_disco"> /u/vanilla_disco </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/10k717e/i_like_my_women_like_i_like_my_coffee/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/10k717e/i_like_my_women_like_i_like_my_coffee/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>I like my women like I like my snow.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
I don’t know how I like it, I’ve never touched or seen any outside of TV.
</p>
</div>
<!-- SC_ON -->
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Alexhue123"> /u/Alexhue123 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/10k460i/i_like_my_women_like_i_like_my_snow/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/10k460i/i_like_my_women_like_i_like_my_snow/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>My girlfriend poked me in the eyes…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
<div class="md">
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
So unfortunately I stopped seeing her for a while.
</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/c0dyw0dy27"> /u/c0dyw0dy27 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/10kbzh6/my_girlfriend_poked_me_in_the_eyes/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/10kbzh6/my_girlfriend_poked_me_in_the_eyes/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A dyslexic son asked his mum if he can have some McDonald’s for dinner.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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He’s mum said ok, but only if he can spell out McDonald’s. The son replied: Fuck it, I’ll just have some KCF!
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/juza83"> /u/juza83 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/10k6ane/a_dyslexic_son_asked_his_mum_if_he_can_have_some/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/10k6ane/a_dyslexic_son_asked_his_mum_if_he_can_have_some/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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