ARTICLES OF THE DAY

May 26th, 2022

IAN MILES CHEONG, RUSSIA TODAY ................................................................................................................ 2

ALEXANDRA WIGREISER, RUSSIA TODAY ......................................................................................................... 4

ANDREI KOLESNIKOV, FOREIGN AFFAIRS ......................................................................................................... 6

KATHY BAUGHMAN MCLEOD, FOREIGN AFFAIRS........................................................................................... 10

THOMAS CHAN, THE DIPLOMAT .................................................................................................................... 13

GI-WOOK SHIN, HALEY M. GORDON AND MALEAH WEBSTER, THE DIPLOMAT.............................................. 16

 Democrats are not letting a crisis go to waste with the Texas
school shooting
Not even a day after 19 children were killed, their graves were being used as a pulpit
Ian Miles Cheong, Russia Today
F
ollowing the tragic
school shooting in
Uvalde, Texas,
Democrats lost little time in
pointing the finger at the
Republicans. As if on cue,
many renewed calls for tighter
gun control – and even in
some cases for the abolition of
the Second Amendment,
which guarantees the right to
bear arms.
The shooting, which saw the
deaths of 19 children, even
became the subject of a
political stunt when on
Wednesday former Texas
Congressman and failed
Senate and presidential
candidate Beto O’Rourke
stormed a press conference
held by the state’s governor
and assorted lawmakers.
“Gov. Abbott, I have to say
something,” said O'Rourke.
“The time to stop the next
shooting is right now and you
are doing nothing.”
“You said this is not
predictable. This is totally
predictable,” said O’Rourke,
who has remained a fervent
advocate for gun control, once
promising to remove all
firearms from every law-
abiding gun-owner in the
United States.
Once, at a Democratic
primary debate in 2019 during
his failed bid for the
presidency, O’Rourke said:
“Hell yes, we're going to take
your AR-15, your AK-47.”
Republican lawmakers
immediately condemned
O’Rourke for his
unannounced outburst at the
press conference, with Uvalde
Mayor Don McLaughlin using
the strongest language.
“I can’t believe that you’re a
sick son of a b***h that would
come to a deal like this to
make a political issue,” said
the mayor, whose remarks
were echoed by others at the
conference.
“You're out of line and an
embarrassment,” said Texas
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
"Sit down," said Sen. Ted
Cruz.
O’Rourke, who was ushered
out of the event by police
officers, continued to shout at
the lawmakers. “This is on
you, until you choose to do
something different. This will
continue to happen.
Somebody needs to stand up
for the children of this state or
they will continue to be killed,
just like they were killed in
Uvalde yesterday.”
“{Abbott} said he was going
to do something. He did
nothing. In fact, the only thing
he did was make it easier to
carry a gun in public,” said
O’Rourke, unrelenting in his
politicization of the tragedy.
While O’Rourke was
immediately slammed on
social media for “dancing on
the graves of children” not
even 24 hours dead, his
remarks were not out of line
with the attitudes of
Democrats in general.
Moments after reports of the
shooting surfaced on Twitter,
many liberal gun-control
activists took to social media
to call for the criminalization
of firearms, pinning the
tragedy on conservatives for
their advocacy of gun
ownership.
Former President Barack
Obama, after an initial Twitter
thread of Uvalde condolences,
chose to remind his audience
that George Floyd died two
years ago.
“In the aftermath of his
murder, a new generation of
activists rose up to channel
their anguish into organized
action, launching a movement
to raise awareness of systemic
racism and the need for
criminal justice and police
reform,” Obama wrote.
The former president used the
conversation to praise social
justice activists and promote
his own NGO.
“As we grieve the children of
Uvalde today, we should take
time to recognize that two
years have passed since the
murder of George Floyd under
the knee of a police officer.
His killing stays with us all to
this day, especially those who
loved him,” wrote Obama.
“Inspired by these young
leaders, @MBK_Alliance
launched a Reimagining
Policing Pledge for mayors
and cities ready to take action.
If you’re wondering how you
can help make things a little
better today, here are some
ways to get involved.”
The immediate politicization
of the Texas shooting is in line
with other tragedies that have
occurred across the United
States – and even the world –
in recent years. Any tragedy,
near or far, is an opportunity
to posture.
“Never let a good crisis go to
waste” has long been the
modus operandi of the
Democratic party, whether
spoken or unspoken. True to
the motto, they have seized
upon every mass shooting to
demand the criminalization
and seizure of legal firearms.
New York Democrat Gov.
Kathy Hochul is using the
Buffalo massacre, which left
10 dead, to enact a package of
executive orders and gun
control bills to further restrict
legal firearms in the state.
Democrats such as Senate
Majority Leader Chuck
Schumer used the Buffalo
shooting as an opportunity to
demand action against Fox
News host Tucker Carlson,
blaming him for promoting
the so-called ‘Great
Replacement Theory’
espoused by the shooter, who
identified as a white
supremacist. Similarly,
President Joe Biden used the
tragedy to attack conservative
politicians, whom he blamed
for the act of “racially
motivated violent extremism”
– all while calling for so-
called “weapons of war” to be
banned.
When in 2021 eight people
were murdered, six of whom
were women of Asian descent,
at various massage spas in
Atlanta, Democrats were
quick to start a campaign to
“Stop Asian Hate.” The
movement, which gained
traction with the AAPI (Asian
American Pacific Islander)
manufactured demographic,
was short-lived after several
high-profile videos
showcasing violence targeting
Asian committed by people of
non-white descent flooded
social media amid the rise in
violence in American cities.
It simply didn’t fit the
narrative, and so it was
quickly forgotten. The same
can be said of the recent mass
shooting at a Laguna Woods,
California church, in which a
Chinese-born immigrant
opened fire on Taiwanese
congregants. Despite
happening a day after the
Buffalo shooting, it received
only a fraction of the attention.
The shooter, who was not a
white supremacist, didn’t
check the right boxes.
Both victims and perpetrators
must meet certain criteria for
liberals to seize on an issue
This much is evident with the
ongoing military conflict in
Ukraine, which Democrats
and their allies in the liberal
media have pounced upon to
vilify not only Russian
President Vladimir Putin, but
Russians in general – even
going so far as to turn it into a
domestic issue by calling
Ukraine an extension of
liberal democracy.
Contrast the liberals’ support
for Ukraine against Russia to
their support for the Yazidis
and Christians in Syria, or the
Christians in the Central
African Republic – both of
which continue to be
subjected to untold levels of
violence by Islamist militants.
Despite all of their pretensions
to virtue, liberals are keen to
ignore any victims who do not
fit their narrative and
worldview. Some people just
don't belong to the right
demographic.
This mentality of “us versus
them” has turned Republicans
and conservatives in general
into whipping boys, who
receive direct blame for the
deaths of children – all while
victims the world over are
turned into nothing more than
pawns in a political game.
 How peace is slowly returning to the devastated Donbass city of
Mariupol
The strategically vital port city is slowly getting back to normal life, after the final Ukrainian forces
Alexandra Wigreiser, Russia Today
he term ‘a return to
T peace’ may be a cliché,
but it's the simplest
way of putting things.
Back in April, when it became
quieter in Mariupol, the first
sign of something
approaching normality was
the emergence of traders and
money changers.
Humanitarian aid had already
come in, and people were
selling unnecessary things to
cover their essentials.
Soon, the market opened, and
products began to be
imported. At the end of that
month, lilacs bloomed. A
week later, young men had
broken off all the branches
within reach, for bouquets.
Their smiling girlfriends
accepted the flowers and took
their beaus by the arm. Every
day, there were more and
more couples like this
strolling between ruined
buildings amidst the sound of
explosions.
When water became more
available, the girls washed and
let down their hair, which they
had previously hidden under
shawls and hats. Their clothes
became cleaner, and then
more stylish.
In April, everyone walking
through the streets of
Mariupol was busy with
something – pulling a cart
loaded with five-liter water
bottles, or hurrying to get in
line wearing a backpack to fill
with humanitarian aid.
surrendered
Passersby in those days were
always preoccupied and
focused. Then there were
more people just out for a
stroll, and then, by World War
like twinkling lights in a
chandelier. One of the fighters
joked about “the starry
heavens above and the moral
law within.” I laughed.
Two Victory Day (May 9),
When the electricity was
children poured out into the
turned on in some houses a
streets – they ran around
little more than a week ago,
chattering, waved to military
this sky was immediately lost
vehicles, and screamed
behind the light of the
joyfully when they received a
windows. The stars gave way
honk in response.
to man-made lights, each of
which illuminated human life
beneath. No one observed the
They approached the local
military blackout, and I
fighters, not with requests, but
wanted to peer into the
just to chat. When the
windows to see how people
sidewalks had been partially
moved about, had dinner,
cleared, the children rolled out
talked, and quarreled.
bicycles and scooters. There
was still rumbling in the
distance – artillery and
'This is just a lie': How Jeff
aviation were working on
Bezos' Washington Post
Azovstal, the last Ukrainian
twisted a report about
hold-out, and fighting was still
Donbass refugees to fit its
taking place in the vicinity of
narrative
the plant.
But even arguing is a sign of
The dust from battles and fires
change here. The nurses at a
settled – grayish black and
hospital I visited tell me that
oily. It seemed like it
when there was active combat,
permeated everything
everyone stuck together, tried
everywhere – it stuck to the
not to bother their neighbors
skin and clothes, which then
or the doctors, spoke quietly,
really smelled of soot. In the
and rarely complained about
first days of May, this feeling
anything. I found only echoes
disappeared.
of this: With each passing day,
Until very recently, when people behaved more and
darkness covered the city at more ‘like people’ – they were
sunset, the sky above seemed angry, capricious, demanding,
to be the brightest in the world quarrelsome, and irritated.
– deeper than those hanging
Conversations became more
over the southern seas of hot
and more commonplace –
countries from children’s
surgeons sewing up a patient
books. “You can even see the
discussed the schedule of a
Milky Way,” a deputy
recently launched bus service,
commander told me, pointing
and nurses in the smoking
up. And it really was visible.
room gossiped about milk
And then the stars came out,
prices. Even a patient
wounded by shrapnel (he had
gone into a school basement
that the neo-Nazi Azov
battalion had been ousted
from in search of firewood
and had run into a tripwire)
was angrier about the painful
injections he had to endure
than the people who had set
the booby trap.
Four days ago, the last
Ukrainians who were holed up
in Azovstal laid down their
weapons and surrendered. The
city became quiet. And
through this silence, ordinary
city life emerged – today I
heard music for the first time
in Mariupol. A familiar
platoon commander drove by
– from the open (and partially
missing) windows of his car,
the Russian rock band Chizh
& Co sang: “I want so much to
live, guys, but no strength to
get out.” From a civilian
Renault, just as beat up,
another Russian rock band
promised “better times are
coming.”
Passersby were chatting, an
elderly man was loudly
scolding a dachshund that had
climbed into a garbage heap.
In the flats of a nearly intact
high-rise, they rattled dishes,
answered phone calls, and
laughed. Behind a window
frame with shards of glass
sticking out, someone was
unsteadily playing ‘Fragrant
White Acacia Clusters’ on the
piano. An acacia blossomed in
the distance. Next to it, there
were two crosses made from a
picket fence marking two
shallow graves, from which
wafted the pungent smell of
corpses.

How His War Has Erased Russia’s Past—And Endangered Its Future
Andrei Kolesnikov, Foreign Affairs
I
f a Ukrainian grandmother
with pro-Russian views
did not exist, it would be
necessary to invent her—or at
least that is what the Russian
government decided in April.
At the time, Anna Ivanova
inhabited a village near
Kharkiv. One day, mistaking a
group of arriving Ukrainian
soldiers for Russians, she took
out an old Soviet flag and
waved it vigorously at them to
remind them of their shared
past and try to deter them from
destroying the village.
Instead, the Ukrainian forces,
outraged at the sight of the
hammer-and-sickle, took the
flag from her and trampled it.
Caught on video, the episode
was immediately seized on by
the Kremlin. Soon, “Granny
Anya” as she was called—
though she’s only 69, the same
age as Putin—was adopted as
a potent symbol of local
support for Russia’s “special
operation.” Here, apparently,
was living proof that the
people of Ukraine were
desperately waiting to be
“liberated.”
Nothing could be further from
the truth. In fact, despite Anna
Ivanova’s efforts, her own
home was later damaged in a
Russian mortar attack, and for
some time she and her
husband were both in a
hospital in Kharkiv. “It was
really miserable of Russia to
attack us,” she said, in a
statement she recorded from
her hospital bed. Now, she and
her husband have returned to
Putin Against History
their home village, Velikaya inside out. As her story makes
Danilovka. plain, after nearly three
months of deadly violence, the
None of that matters, of
Russian regime has struggled
course, in Moscow. Under the
to find coherent, positive
supervision of Sergei
symbols for its “special
Kiriyenko, the Kremlin’s PR
operation” in Ukraine. It has
mastermind, a monument to
not captured any Nazis
Granny Anya was swiftly
(although the Duma would
constructed and unveiled in
like to present captured
the devastated port city of
fighters of Ukraine's Azov
Mariupol, and her image has
Battalion as such) and has also
become ubiquitous in Russian
failed to come up with a clear
war propaganda.
reason for what it is doing.
Instead, it has plunged an
entire country into a fantasy
This war is full of paradoxes.
realm, where words and deeds
Russian President Vladimir
have opposite meanings:
Putin insists he is fighting
Nikolai Patrushev, the
against a country that is
secretary of Russia’s Security
overrun by Nazis, yet among
Council, for example,
the millions of Ukrainians
invented the concept of
who have fled the Russian
“liberal fascism”; Maria
advance were 78 Holocaust
Zakharova, the legendary
survivors who were
Foreign Ministry
evacuated—to Germany.
spokeswoman, now reports
Ninety-one-year-old Vanda
that George Orwell’s 1984
Obyedkova survived the
was written about Western
German occupation of
civilization. And now the
Mariupol in World War II
Putin regime faces a more
only to die during the Russian
daunting challenge still: how
siege of the city in 2022. In
to imagine a victory out of a
Kharkiv, 96-year-old Boris
war that has brought the
Romanchenko, a survivor of
country to the brink of
the Buchenwald concentration
disaster.
camp, was killed when a
Russian shell hit his apartment
building. During World War
FROM VICTORY TO
II, the Ukrainian soldier Ivan
FANTASY
Lisun was one of the Soviet
soldiers who helped liberate The annual May 9 holiday,
Belarus and Poland from the when Russia commemorates
Nazis. Now his own home in the Soviet victory of 1945,
the Kharkiv region has been was once a day of solemn
destroyed by the Russian remembrance. It is also the
army. only holiday that unites nearly
all Russians. After Putin came
to power, the May 9
Granny Anya is a character celebrations began to take on
from the Kremlin’s world of a more pompous character,
paradoxes, a world in which but he kept them open to the
history itself has been turned rest of the world. On the
sixtieth anniversary in 2005,
for example, he invited U.S.
President George W. Bush to
attend in person. In recent
years, however, as Putin has
increasingly built his
legitimacy around the idea
that he alone is heir to the
Great Victory, the
celebrations have been
transformed into a bombastic
military show. It is an
infallible tactic for a dictator:
by equating his own actions
with the Soviet triumph over
Nazism, he implied that any
criticism of him amounted to
criticism of the sacred victory
in 1945.
By the time it rolled around
this year, the holiday had
evolved to the point where a
significant proportion of
Russians anticipated it with
unconcealed dread. In
Moscow, there were rumors
that Putin would finally
declare the “special military
operation” an actual war, and
that he would announce a
general mobilization at the
celebrations themselves, just
as Stalin sent soldiers off to
the front directly from the
Revolution Day parade on
November 7, 1941.
Russians anticipated Victory
Day with unconcealed dread.
Back then, there was
justification for such
measures: the Soviet Union
was fighting a defensive war
against an attacking enemy
that posed an existential threat
to the country. Today,
however, a general
mobilization, in a war that
continues to lack a coherent
aim or endpoint, would have
been unpopular, even among
those who support Putin and
the “special operation”—and
even among the lazy
warmongers who have for
three months cheered on the
unfolding catastrophe but
have no intention of going to
die in the trenches themselves.
Perhaps aware of the potential
backlash and the danger of
even heavier losses of
untrained and unmotivated
soldiers, the Kremlin has
decided against a full
mobilization. And instead of
World War II, it must content
itself with a more logical
analogy for the “special
operation”: the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan. But
that’s something the regime
will never admit.
Russians have gotten used to
raising their voices. On the
Kremlin-controlled TV
channels that are now one of
the main methods for shaping
public opinion, talk show
hosts shout instead of talking.
Quarrels with friends and
relatives are fought using
decibels rather than facts. The
propaganda, meanwhile, is as
primitive as could be: through
its own aggression, Russia is
defending Ukrainians from
neo-Nazi enemies and it is
liberating territory from the
“Banderites,” supporters of
the WW II-era Ukrainian
nationalist leader Stepan
Bandera. There is also now a
new argument: the West is
waging a war against Russia
using “Slav” hands. The most
fervent Putinists now call
Ukraine a “secessionist
entity” and openly talk of “de-
Ukrainianization” of the
Russian World.
Putin has turned Victory Day
into his own personal holiday,
but even Russians could see
that this year’s edition came
without a victory, and that he
was utterly alone. No other
leaders came to this year’s
celebrations, not even the
long-time rulers of Russia’s
Central Asian allies. This
time, Putin was isolated,
embittered, and spouting
nonsense about a “pre-
emptive strike.” And instead
of “Never again!”—the
holiday’s sacred
underpinnings—we now hear
“We can do it again!” This is
the slogan of Putin’s core
supporters, the people who,
several years ago, started
putting “To Berlin!” stickers
on the back of their Mercedes.
Less clear, though, is whether
Russians are ready to
contemplate just what exactly
Putin has “done again.”
WHERE'S MY COUNTRY?
In March, 81 percent of
Russians in a Levada Center
poll said they supported the
“special operation.” By April,
that figure had dropped to 74
percent. Putin’s approval
rating has also plateaued, and
his trust rating—how many
Russians say they trust him—
has also fallen slightly. But
although no one is quite sure
what might define victory, 73
percent of respondents say
they believe Russia will
achieve it. Not many
respondents believe Ukraine
could win, although 15
percent say that “neither side
could prevail.”
These numbers indicate a kind
of equilibrium taking hold:
aggressive Putin supporters
still want to see a stepped-up
campaign by the Russian
army and the takeover of
Ukraine, completely
disregarding the stated goals
of the operation, which,
however, change all the time.
On the other hand, Russians
who are more skeptical or
concerned about the direction
of the war would settle at this
point for a peace treaty. Still,
more than two-thirds of
respondents in Levada Center
poll believed that the
operation is proceeding
successfully, although 50
percent chose the more
evasive answer “largely
successful.” When asked to
define success, most
respondents dutifully indicate
the same dreary mantras about
everything going to plan and
territories being liberated
from fascists and Banderites.
Among the 17 percent of
respondents who do not
consider the operation a
success, many cite the drawn-
out nature of the military
campaign and the fact that
large numbers of civilians and
children in Ukraine and
Russian soldiers are getting
killed.
Whether they think it is a
success or not, however,
Russians overwhelmingly
blame the war on the United
States and NATO; just seven
percent of Russians blame
their own country. Yet even
this deliberate blindness is no
salvation from creeping
doubt: 82 percent of
respondents say they are
worried about events in
Ukraine, and in most cases the
reason for that worry is not the
“Banderites,” but the death,
suffering, and destruction the
has taken place (46 percent)
and even the fact of the war
itself (26 percent). In other
words, an indirect question
reveals how great Russians’
emotional and psychological
concerns are about what has
happened to their country
since February. This is despite
relentless indoctrination by
the official Russian media and
the state.
with 1945, has provoked a
more complicated attitude
It’s unlikely that Putin
toward the memory of Soviet
understands the extent to
liberation in Latvia itself: the
which he has pulled the rug
Latvian parliament has now
out from under his own most
decided to demolish the
fervent supporters, who are
Monument to the Liberators,
looking for ways to justify the
erected by the Soviets in the
unfolding nightmare. Russian
1980s.)
psychologists have already
noticed a precipitous increase
in patients suffering from
As part of the effort to
chronic anxiety, depression,
indoctrinate young Russians
and panic attacks.
with Putinism, Russian
Increasingly frequent clashes
schools have for years asked
with reality are starting to
children to write letters to or
force Russians out of the
from the front, as if they were
comfort zone of Putin’s
living when the war was
propaganda.
taking place. When my
daughter was told by her
middle school to write a letter
In daily life, the war has
from the front in the voice of
become a familiar backdrop,
her grandfather (even though
but a depressing one that
children of her age could only
people wish would disappear.
possibly have a great-great-
Many yearn for the old
grandfather or a great-
normal, but the new normal is
grandfather who fought in the
here to stay. Nor do people
war), I suggested that she
realize that the new normal is
instead write a letter in the
abnormal, and will remain so
voice of her great-grandfather,
for years to come. No one
David Traub—from the Gulag
seems to doubt victory, but it
prison camp in Russia’s Far
is conviction based more on
North where he was sent for
self-hypnosis than actual
“counterrevolutionary
facts.
activity.”
INTO THE DUSTBIN
In my own family on Victory
Stamping out the memory of
Day, we remember my wife’s
Stalin made it possible to
grandmother, Maria
invade Ukraine.
Shatilova, a correspondent
who covered the war from the But in today’s Russia, we’re
frontlines; my uncle, Eduard not supposed to remember
Traub, who volunteered to those people. They don’t fit
fight and was killed at the age into Putin’s holiday. This is
of 18 at the Battle of Kursk in why, before the “special
1943, the largest tank battle in operation” began, his regime
history, in which the Soviets decided to destroy the most
defeated nearly a million of important civic organization
Hitler’s troops; and my in the country: Memorial, the
grandfather Ivan Kolesnikov, Moscow-based NGO that
who made it home from the worked tirelessly to preserve
war, having fought in the 43rd the public memory of Stalin-
Latvian Guards Rifle era repression. Stamping out
Division, which liberated this history by closing down
Riga. (Putin, by equating 2022 Memorial at the very end of
2021 has made it possible to
go even further in 2022. It was
the elimination of Memorial
that paved the way for the
“special operation” in
Ukraine. Our collective
memory has been replaced
with a prosthetic, imaginary
history.
In my family, there are victims
of all the Soviet tragedies of
the last century: World War II,
the Siege of Leningrad, and
Stalin’s repressions at home.
No one can take that away
from my family, or from many
other Russian families. Putin
and his entourage have now
brought back that feeling of
disaster and dread to Russia.
Once again, we find ourselves
ensnared by history, even as it
is being erased. Of my late
parents, for whom the victory
over the Nazis meant
everything—they were just
finishing school in 1945—we
now utter the terrible words:
“Thank goodness they didn’t
live to see this.”
Putin has turned everything
upside down. He has
destroyed all the
achievements of recent
decades, including his own.
He has accomplished the
exact opposite of his stated
goals: instead of
demilitarizing Ukraine, he has
caused the country to arm as
never before; instead of
keeping NATO away, he has
brought it right up to Russia’s
borders; instead of making
Russia great again, he has
managed to transform it, and
his people, into a pariah
nation. Trying to impose his
version of the nation’s history,
he deprived it of its history.
And by depriving it of history,
he amputated the future.
Russia is now at a dead end, a
historical dead end.
 Every City Needs a Chief Heat Officer
A First Step Toward Adapting to Deadly High Temperatures
Kathy Baughman McLeod, Foreign Affairs
T
he Northern
Hemisphere is heading
into what will surely be
another of the hottest
summers on record. Texas has
already seen more days
registering about 90 degrees
Fahrenheit in May than ever
before in recorded history.
The weekend before
Memorial Day—the typical
start of summer weather—saw
heat advisories issued across
the United States, from
Massachusetts to Mississippi.
Meanwhile, temperatures in
India and Pakistan have
topped 122 degrees
Fahrenheit. In May, the UK
Meteorological Office issued
a study documenting that
greenhouse gas emissions had
increased the likelihood of
extreme heat waves in
Pakistan and India by a factor
of about 100. Heat now
threatens humans’ ability to
survive in whole swaths of the
globe.
And yet this year’s
temperature spike is just the
beginning: a rise in
temperatures over the next 30
years is all but inevitable.
According to the United
Nations Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), this heating trend will
continue even if countries
immediately slash their
carbon emissions to zero. Any
reductions in emissions will
merely stave off the worst
effects of global heating—and
it is far from assured that
countries will take the steps
needed to do so.
Rising temperatures kill.
During a heat wave in June
2021, roughly 600 people in
Washington and Oregon died
from causes likely due to or
exacerbated by rising
temperatures. The same heat
dome killed more than 500
people in British Columbia,
not to mention some one
billion marine animals.
Extreme weather also
damages infrastructure,
buckling roads and bending
rail lines. Most airplanes
cannot take off above 120
degrees Fahrenheit, and
mobile phones cease to
function when the temperature
hits 105 degrees.
Global warming is already
harming the current and future
U.S. workforce. Extreme heat
costs the United States more
than $100 billion per year due
to reduced worker
productivity: people get sick,
slow down, and make
mistakes due to the physical
effects of heat. Children’s
school performance can
decline as temperatures soar.
According to researchers at
the University of California at
Los Angeles, each one degree
Fahrenheit increase in
temperature during the
academic school year reduces
the amount learned that year
by one percent—and students
from low-income and
minority groups are the ones
most affected.
City dwellers—some 55
percent of the world’s
population, or about 4.2
billion people—are especially
vulnerable to the effects of
climate change. The asphalt,
cement, glass, and steel that
are features of most urban
areas are especially efficient at
absorbing, retaining, and
emanating heat. The so-called
heat island effect can cause
temperatures up to seven
degrees Fahrenheit hotter in
urban environments than in
suburbs and rural regions,
which have more green space
and foliage.
A relatively simple way in
which cities can protect their
residents is by putting
someone in charge of
responding to the most
harmful effects of climate
change. After all, cities have
departments for fighting fires
and for coordinating
responses to regional floods,
earthquakes, and hurricanes.
But just a handful of cities in
the world have someone
whose job it is to craft and
implement plans to respond to
rising temperatures. To save
lives, every municipal leader
should appoint a chief heat
officer, or CHO.
A RISING TREND
In 2020, the city of Miami
hired a chief heat officer—the
first position of its kind in the
world. Since then, Phoenix—
one of the most rapidly
heating cities in the United
States—funded an Office of
Heat Response and
Mitigation. Athens hired its
CHO last summer, as did
Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Monterrey, Mexico, and the
Metropolitan region of
Santiago, Chile, followed suit
in spring of 2022.

My organization, the
Adrienne Arsht–Rockefeller
Foundation Resilience Center,
crafted the idea of a CHO with
Daniella Levine Cava, Mayor
of Miami-Dade County,
Florida. We then set out to
establish one CHO on every
continent to serve as a model
and hub for best practices to
address heat risks. CHOs do
not have a uniform remit.
Cities’ populations and their
vulnerabilities, geographies,
weather patterns, and water
sources are all different. What
works in Vancouver might not
work in Los Angeles. For this
reason, a CHO’s work must be
tailored to the needs of a city’s
neighborhoods and
population.
To save lives, every municipal
leader should appoint a chief
heat officer.
In some cases, CHOs will find
that a vital step they must take
to protect their residents is to
overhaul their system of data
collection. That was the
experience of Miami CHO
Jane Gilbert. As in many parts
of the United States, Miami’s
primary weather station and
temperature monitors were
located at its airport. Many of
Miami’s poorer, most at-risk
residents, however, live in
treeless, asphalt-heavy
neighborhoods that regularly
register temperatures five or
even ten degrees hotter.
Gilbert worked with
volunteers and scholars at the
University of Miami and at
Florida International
University to place sensors
throughout Miami-Dade
County to capture the
temperature differentials.
These readings are reported
on the news and over the
radio, so that residents can
prepare for extreme
temperatures and seek out
cool places on the hottest
days.
CHOs outside the United
States have also launched
programs that offer lessons for
U.S. municipal leaders. The
CHO of Athens, Eleni
Myrivili, has compiled a
regional cooling guidebook
that highlights technical
recommendations for specific
tree species and their location,
and placement of green spaces
such as parks. It includes
designs for adding water—
including pop-up water
features and streams—to
public spaces. The overall
goal of Myrivili’s guide is to
give community leaders the
information that they need to
prepare for a hotter world and
to equip urban planners,
procurement teams,
engineers, and contractors
with new ways of approaching
municipal design.
In Freetown, Sierra Leone, the
city’s CHO, Eugenia Kargbo,
is enlisting some 2,000
women who work in unshaded
market stalls throughout the
city to design structures to
protect their workplaces from
the sun. Kargbo’s hope is that
this will not just help women
in the markets cope with the
effects of heat but also help
spread awareness about the
risks that high temperatures
pose to families across the
city. A particular challenge for
Freetown is the rising number
of torrential rainstorms, which
have increased the incidence
of waterborne diseases such as
bacterial infections. Kargbo is
working closely with
Freetown’s sanitation
department to address these
public health impacts by
hosting community
workshops to inform residents
and brainstorming responses
in conjunction with the city’s
sanitation team.
Kargbo’s work in this area
calls to mind the late 1800s,
when cities were first forming
public health and fire
departments. Municipalities,
of course, worked to address
disease and fires before these
entities existed, but they
generally did so in an ad hoc
manner. Only once they
created an organizational
structure to deal with the
challenges could they
systematically tackle the
problem and its root causes.
Without fire departments
coordinating responses,
conflagrations burned out of
control. But once departments
became a mainstay of city
government, big burns
became far rarer.
RALLY THE PEOPLE
Enlisting members of the
community to address the
challenge of extreme heat can
help protect vulnerable urban
residents. In Miami, for
example, Gilbert created a
“heat enhancement” training
program for emergency
response volunteers. At the
end of each training,
participants receive a tool kit
containing a thermometer,
instant ice packs, electrolytes,
and cooling towels so they can
treat victims of heat stroke.
Making this a national
initiative would save lives.
Often, the people most
vulnerable to extreme heat do
not consider themselves at
risk, and thus don’t heed
warnings. Expanding the
number of people who can
provide first aid would allow
for treatment in cases where
medical personnel aren’t
present and cannot arrive at
the scene quickly.
Community outreach will also
help raise awareness about the
dangers of extreme heat—
which is, in many ways, an
invisible problem. Unlike
hurricanes and tornadoes, heat
waves don’t make for
dramatic television. But like
storms, heat waves are
discrete events that can be
planned for. Naming and
categorizing heat waves
would help draw more public
attention to the phenomenon
and is currently being tested in
six cities including Athens,
Greece and Seville, Spain.
As hot as this year will be, it
will also be one of the coolest
for at least the next century.
Urban dwellers—who
compose 86 percent of the
U.S. population—are at
particular risk. Mayors and
city leaders would do well to
appoint CHOs and empower
them to do the hard and
necessary work to help
populations survive deadly
rising temperatures and tack
toward a cooler future.
 The Death of Hong Kong’s University Student Unions
Student societies have long played an important role in Hong Kong activism. Now they are dying out amid
the wider crackdown on dissent.
Thomas Chan, The Diplomat
N ot long after the Pillar
of Shame was
dismantled on the
University of Hong Kong
campus and covered by bright
yellow construction boards,
there was another construction
project underway not far
away.
A slogan, painted by the
university’s student union on
a paved road decades ago and
also commemorating the
Tiananmen Massacre, was
covered with tar by workers,
though the university insisted
that it was routine
maintenance. The student
union had originally painted
the protest piece; now there
was no student union left in
the university to protest ts
removal.
Hong Kong’s student societies
have historically played an
important role in social
activism and driving society’s
political narratives. After a
violent anti-colonial riot in
1967, locals learned that
organized protests are the only
way to be heard under an
unelected and non-democratic
colonial government.
Student activists, whose
interests in political and social
affairs boomed at that time,
were always at the forefront of
protests. In the decade that
followed, student activist
groups became the foundation
where Hong Kong nurtured a
generation of business and
political leaders. Even the
city’s current leader, Carrie
Lam, was a student activist
herself before joining the
colonial government; she was
involved in numerous sit-in
protests.
Much of the activism was
driven by a consolidating
sense of identification with
Hong Kong, along with hints
of anti-colonialism and
Chinese patriotism. Beijing-
sympathetic student activists
led patriotic protests and
visited mainland China.
Student activists shifted their
cause from being pro-China to
realizing a “democratic
unification” with China as
negotiations about Hong
Kong’s eventual handover
began. Hong Kong was to
gradually fully democratize
under Beijing’s promise and
the expectation that China
would one day become a
democracy.
Dr. Simon Shen, a Hong Kong
scholar on international
affairs, noted that most of the
city’s progressive ideas
evolved from the student
unions.
“It served as the forerunners
of HK’s civil society after the
1967 Riots, as part of the
colonial regime’s attempt to
develop an incremental
approach of democratization,”
Shen told The Diplomat in an
email.
After the Tiananmen massacre
in 1989, which shook Hong
Kong and the rest of the
world, student unions and pro-
democratic politicians
continued to press the cause of
democracy. Their roles drove
the agenda of civil society
through Hong Kong’s
handover back to mainland
China in 1997 and beyond.
The 2014 Umbrella
Movement became a turning
point. Student unions across
Hong Kong’s tertiary
education institutions joined
the 79-day sit-in demanding
universal suffrage. Student
leaders like Joshua Wong,
Nathan Law, and Agnes Chow
rose to international
prominence as the leading
figures of the movement.
The movement’s eventual
failure pushed activism and
democratization into disarray,
which were reignited in 2019
by the pro-democracy
protests. Student unions
contributed independently and
played a significant role in
keeping the protests’
momentum alive.
The unions were vocal in their
criticisms against the
government. Some union
members also actively
discussed the possibility of
Hong Kong independence, a
strong political taboo that
Beijing – and some university
presidents – could not tolerate.
Student unions hence became
the authorities’ target after the
National Security Law was
introduced, as all forms of
dissent could now be
criminalized. Unions across
Hong Kong’s universities
soon disbanded or were
disavowed in a similar
manner, with the last student
union disbanded in April
2022.
The University of Hong Kong
(HKU)’s student union was
forced to disband last August
after posting a social media
feed expressing sympathy
toward the assailant in an
attack on a police officer. The
attacker stabbed the patrolling
officer and committed suicide
on the scene. The act drew
sympathy from parts of the
population as bitter memories
of police brutality during the
2019 protests still lingered.
Spontaneous vigils at the
scene were quickly dispersed
by police.
HKU was quick to disavow
the union. Four members were
arrested for “glorifying
terrorism” and authorities
suggested that domestic
terrorism was infiltrating
university campuses.
Student unions “have
wantonly instilled among
students improper values and
disseminated false or biased
messages in an attempt to
incite their hatred against the
country and the [government],
or even advocated the resort to
violence and illegal acts for
political ends,” Security
Secretary Christopher Tang
said during a Legislative
Council hearing.
“People sympathizing with
violent attacks are prone to
further radicalization and
becoming supporters, who
could then easily turn into
participants of terrorist
activities,” he added.
The city’s former leader,
Leung Chun-Ying, also pulled
no punches in criticizing
student unions’ role in
politics. He believed that their
cause for self-determination is
at odds with Beijing’s
National Security Law and
would only grow if
unchecked.
“A child who steals a needle
will grow up to steal gold,” he
said in an interview with
South China Morning Post.
“We need to care for the
young. We cannot afford to
underestimate the seriousness
of the problem; tolerance will
only cause more widespread
harm.”
In February, members of City
University’s student union
posted and recited slogans
calling for freedom of thought
and defiance when being
evicted from their office by
campus security. This
attracted an investigation from
the National Security Police,
which said the act violated the
National Security Law.
The university’s facility
management office sent
emails to some 30 students
involved two months after the
incident. It demanded to know
whether they would admit to
breaching the colonial-era
anti-sedition laws during their
“unnecessary gathering.”
The university urged the
public not to intervene with its
administration, despite
previously denying any
knowledge regarding the
email sent .
In the meantime, Lingnan
University ceased collecting
membership fees on their
student union’s behalf, saying
the long-practiced
arrangement was
inappropriate. The affected
student bodies alleged that the
decision was due to pressure
from the authorities.
Shen, who had ties with
different university unions
before relocating to Taiwan,
believes the moves are part of
Beijing’s plan to isolate
individuals “into mere
atoms.” Hong Kong’s
traditional bottom-up civil
society model poses particular
concern, and Chinese
authorities are keen to pull it
up by the roots.
“Ideas exchange would be
severely restricted on campus
in the future,” Shen said.
Around 50 civil society
groups have already
disbanded since Beijing
enforced the National Security
Law. University campuses –
and society as a whole – are
now virtually free of dissident
voices.
A report from the Global
Public Policy Institute in 2020
ranked Hong Kong’s
academic freedom lower than
that of Russia and Cambodia.
The report specifically listed
the demise of student unions
as a contributing factor.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam
defended the overhauls in the
city’s universities by warning
of infiltration by “external
forces with ulterior motives.”
Those “forces,” she claimed,
are indoctrinating students
into taking part in illegal
activities.
“I would urge the university
management, the council
chairman, and the president to
be extremely careful and to
make sure that university
students will not be easily
indoctrinated by [anti-China]
prejudices and biases, let
alone to take part in activities
that will breach the laws of
Hong Kong,” Lam said,
responding to a question from
a journalist about students
being paid to join protests.
The severity of the change in
Hong Kong’s universities is
evident from the exit figures.
In the 2020-21 academic year,
the dropout rate of tertiary
students climbed by over 20
percent, reaching 2,600. The
exodus is partly linked to the
ongoing brain drain that dates
back to the enactment of the
National Security Law.
For the most part, it is
business as usual on
university grounds.
Recruitment banners for
student clubs remain pinned
on billboards, and students are
still scattered across the
campus engaged in their usual
activities, as most classes
were moved online.
But there are changes for
those observant enough to
notice. Any markings of the
student unions were crossed
out as they were left hanging
on an empty and sterile
campus, and Lennon Walls,
once frequented by students
and activists, are now
cordoned off and thoroughly
scrubbed clean.
All hints of Hong Kong’s
once-thriving student
activism, like the slogan on
the paved road and the
memories behind it, have been
swept away.
 It’s Time for K-pop Stars to Speak Out on Human Rights
With few exceptions, South Korea’s K-pop idols have been conspicuously silent on controversial subjects –
including the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Gi-Wook Shin, Haley M. Gordon and Maleah Webster, The Diplomat
A
t the 2022 Grammy
Awards on April 3,
Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
delivered a pre-recorded
speech, imploring musicians
and the global community to
speak out on the ongoing war
in Ukraine. “Russia,” he said,
“brings horrible silence with
its bombs.” Zelenskyy urged
the Grammy artists to “fill the
silence with your music…
Tell the truth about this war on
your social networks, on TV.”
Many artists in the United
States and worldwide have
been doing just that, with
singers ranging from Billie
Eilish to Elton John donating
and speaking out in support of
the Ukrainian people. But one
group has been conspicuously
absent from this movement:
South Korea’s K-pop singers.
Despite their rising global
stature, only a handful of K-
pop idols have heeded
Zelenskyy’s call.
Indeed, while outspokenness
on hot-button societal issues
has become ubiquitous among
American celebrities – who
voice their thoughts on causes
ranging from the war in
Ukraine to Black Lives
Matter, LGBTQ+ rights, and
climate change – the social
media accounts of Korean
idols cultivate squeaky-clean
images rather than broach
subjects that could prove
controversial. Only top stars
like BTS have had leeway to
speak out on pressing issues –
and even then, this is rare. At
most, others express their
support quietly with subtle
fashion items, or advocate on
relatively uncontroversial
causes, like air pollution or
animal rights.
K-pop idols’ silence is
particularly conspicuous in
comparison to their global
fanbase, which has proved to
be a formidable source of
human rights advocacy
around the world. K-pop fans
in Myanmar have played a
crucial role in organizing anti-
authoritarian protests in the
country. In 2020, pro-
democracy protesters in
Thailand marched to the tune
of the Girls’ Generation song
“Into the New World” – a
track that has a rich history of
use in South Korea’s own
protest movements. In the
United States, during the
major Black Lives Matter
movements in 2020, K-pop
fans drowned out racist voices
by flooding anti-BLM Twitter
hashtags with fancams of their
favorite idols.
Korean celebrities’ avoidance
of these contentious issues
stems, understandably, from
the goal of achieving
widespread popularity. In
trying to foster an expansive,
loyal fanbase, K-pop agencies
have instructed singers to
avoid topics that could
alienate fans instead of
attracting them. K-pop stars
are not allowed to date, let
alone voice opinions on
sensitive global causes.
Yet, if K-pop hopes to have
global staying power, it is time
to break this silence. To
ensure that K-pop is taken
seriously, the industry’s idols
should begin to engage with
serious issues that global
audiences care about. This is
especially true in light of a
growing expectation that idols
should do so. For example,
fans seek accountability from
an industry that benefits from
the appropriation of Black
culture or the support of
LGBTQ+ communities, yet
whose stars remain silent on
the rights issues these groups
face. Speaking out on such
causes is a sure way for K-pop
to garner widespread global
respect and cement its place as
a genre that is relevant, global-
minded, and here to stay.
True, idols may alienate some
fans by advancing certain
positions, but this has done
little to hurt K-pop’s overall
march toward global
domination. The genre’s
popularity is so immense that
in 2020, the Chinese
Communist Party backed
down from an attempt to stir
nationalist frenzy against
BTS. The mega-boy group
emerged unscathed.
Even the Kim Jong Un
regime, one of the most
oppressive governments in the
world, is no match for K-pop:
The genre’s popularity among
North Koreans persists despite
the threat of execution for
individuals caught listening.
In fact, the issue of human
rights in North Korea could be
an important cause for K-pop
celebrities to take up,
especially given K-pop’s
penetration into the reclusive
nation. Who is better
positioned than South Korean
idols to speak up on behalf of
their brethren to the north?
The problems within the K-
pop industry itself may be
another good place to start.
Idols face notoriously
grueling working conditions
and immense mental and
physical pressure. If idols are
to begin voicing their
opinions, agencies must better
support their artists, rather
than abandoning them when
controversy arises.
K-pop stars do not need to
become as politically
hyperactive as their
counterparts in the United
States. However, now that
they have a foothold in global
markets, they should use their
platform to speak out on
human rights movements –
not only because they are
well-positioned to support
these causes, but also because
doing so will cement their
global staying power. To
remain globally relevant, K-
pop must be the first mover,
not a fast follower – or risk
getting left behind.