Up First from NPR - Navalny Funeral, Gaza Aid Tragedy, Pig Organs for Transplants

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is being laid to rest after dying in prison for charges widely seen as politically motivated. Gaza health authorities say more than 100 civilians were killed trying to get food from aid trucks, though Israel says that number is much lower. And scientists have started cloning genetically modified pigs with organs designed to be transplanted into people.Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode was edited by Mark Katkov, Hannah Bloch, Scott Hensley, HJ Mai and Ben Adler. It was produced by Claire Murashima, Ben Abrams and Julie Depenbrock. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott, our technical director is Zac Coleman and our executive producer is Erika Aguilar.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Alexei Navalny's family is trying to bury him. They planned a funeral today for the Russian opposition leader. It took weeks for them just to claim his body from prison, so how can he be laid to rest? I'm E. Martinez, that's Steve Inskeep, and this is Up First from NPR News. A Palestinian man survived a chaotic scramble around trucks delivering food in Gaza. I was left lying on the ground for two hours because there were so many injured. What does the violence reveal about the desperation of people living under fire? Also, scientists are cloning pigs and growing them just to produce organs to transplant into people.

It's no longer a science fiction experiment. It's actually reality. We visit a farm where that reality is taking shape. No science fiction here, just the news you need to start your day. Now, Our Change will honor 100 years of the Royal Canadian Air Force and their dedicated service to communities at home and abroad. From the skies to our change, this $2 commemorative circulation coin marks their storied past and promising future. Find the limited edition Royal Canadian Air Force $2 coin today. Allies of Alexei Navalny say the late Russian opposition leader will be laid to rest near his home in Moscow today.

The announced funeral comes two weeks after Navalny's death under mysterious circumstances in an Arctic prison colony and a standoff over his burial. Navalny's widow Yulia says her husband was murdered on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a charge the Kremlin denies. Here she is speaking this week in front of the European Parliament. My husband will never see what the beautiful Russia of the future will look like. But we must see it. And I will do my best to make his dream come true. The evil will fall and the beautiful future will come. Thank you.

For now, what comes is a funeral. And NPR's Charles Maines is in Moscow, near where that funeral is reported to take place. Hi there, Charles. Morning, Steve. Where are you exactly? You know, I'm in Marina. This is in southeastern Moscow. This is the neighborhood where Alexei Navalny lived with his family, with his wife Yulia and his children he raised there. And it's also where he made his name in opposition politics, going up to the ranks of initially an anti-corruption campaigner here in Russia against state companies, and later becoming really the leader of the opposition over the past decade.

And what is happening in that neighborhood exactly? Well, that's really the question. Alexei Navalny's family says that the Russian government has repeatedly thwarted efforts to organize a memorial service they hope to hold here today. They say authorities initially delayed the release of Navalny's body, then pressured the family to hold a private ceremony out of the public eye, and even prevented them from renting any facility in Moscow that might be an appropriate place for a mass memorial. So instead, we're here in Marina. This is near an Orthodox church. We're not far from Navalny's home.

This will be followed by a burial at a nearby cemetery. And yet even that may prove problematic. Why would that be? Well, again, this is coming from Navalny's political team. They say authorities are now threatening the funeral services company that's supposed to bring Navalny's body to this church for the service.

So we don't really know yet if this funeral will actually happen, but I can tell you what I've seen so far. There's a heavy security presence here. Police have cordoned off the church with steel fencing, where mourners hope to pay their final respects. There are dozens of police vans nearby and riot police and steel fencing along this route across a bridge that leads to the cemetery as well. I should add that, you know, Navalny's immediate family, his wife Yulia, his children, are not expected to be here today simply because it's too dangerous for them. Navalny's parents, however, are still in Russia.

In fact, you might recall it was Navalny's mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, who spent that grueling week in the Arctic Circle fighting the authorities to retrieve her son's remains. And that brings us to this point. What is the Kremlin, Putin's side, saying about this? Well, the Kremlin, you know, it insists it has no interest in these proceedings at all. Putin hasn't said a word about Navalny since his death. But, you know, keep in mind, Putin never spoke about Navalny when he was alive. It was part of a strategy to treat him as a political non-entity here. Yet police actions would appear to tell a different story. We saw several hundred

Navalny supporters detained for merely attending these makeshift memorials in the days after Navalny's death. And now the question today is how many more could face arrest for just attempting to attend this final send-off. The Moscow authorities, they haven't issued orders forbidding people from attending the church service, but it certainly seems like they're doing everything possible to make sure this funeral doesn't turn into something resembling a protest. NPR's Charles Maines is in southern Moscow, where people have been planning a funeral for Alexei Navalny today.

Charles, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Sometimes a single image gets across the scale of devastation in Gaza, like one of them that you see from overhead showing whole neighborhoods destroyed as Israel responds to last October's Hamas attack. Sometimes, though, a single incident gets across the desperation of those still alive. One came yesterday when hungry people rushed to trucks distributing food in two locations. Palestinians say more than 100 people were killed. They say Israeli troops opened fire on the crowd. Israelis contend their troops fired weapons to defend themselves, and many of those killed were trampled or run over.

NPR's Jana Raff is trying to figure out what is known. Hi there, Jane. Hi, Steve. How, if at all, can you verify what happened here? It's really difficult. It's just hard to get reliable information from Gaza. And one of the reasons for that is Israel bans foreign journalists from there. Unless you're with the Israeli military, for instance, it's impossible to get in and report what's happening on the ground. We did speak with one of the survivors, Ahmed al-Haj Salim, who's in hospital in Gaza City. He said he was waiting

for an aid truck in the hope of getting some food for his three children when he was shot in the leg and then the hand. I was left lying on the ground for two hours because there were so many injured. Then after two hours, there came a cart with a horse, and it was then that he took me. You can see from satellite images or possibly drone images released by the Israeli military, people completely overwhelming trucks. There's so little food reaching Gaza. It just speaks to the desperation of people who have no other way of feeding their children. It's also worth noting, Steve, that the Israeli military said the trucks were operated by private contractors as part of an aid operation that it has been overseeing. UN agencies which would normally deliver aid say

Israel is imposing severe obstacles to access. And I want to understand those obstacles a little better because you have people around the world, including in the United States, who contend that they would like humanitarian aid to be reaching Gaza. Why isn't that happening? Well, according to aid officials, there are a few reasons. One is we have to remember Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on earth. And for the past 16 years, it's been under siege with access controlled by Israel and to some extent, Egypt. Israeli airstrikes over the course of the war, five months of it have damaged or destroyed most of Gaza's infrastructure. But really, the main reason is restrictions by Israel on aid crossing into Gaza. Before the war, 500 trucks a day entered with food and basic supplies. And that's down to as low as a couple of dozen now some days. Those main UN agencies, which would normally take the lead, are unable to do that now due to security and political factors. What are some aid routes that are working? Well, yesterday I went with the

Jordanian military on one of their airdrops over northern Gaza. Jordan has taken the lead on airdropping aid with participation from some other countries. Those drops require a lot of coordination, including from the Israelis. And yesterday was the first time in many weeks that aid was dropped into northern Gaza. Having said that, they're generally considered a last resort because of the expense, the logistics, and the fact that they can't carry as much as trucks. Save the Children aid groups CEO Y Soripto, says Israel needs to open the other existing land crossings to allow in aid. We get the intent of people and we welcome that authentic attempt to get more aid into Gaza. The fastest, most effective, most efficient way to do it is to open up

more crossings. In the meantime, though, aid officials say even more children are at risk of starving to death. NPR's Deanna Raff, thanks so much. Thank you. Science is stranger than fiction. Yeah, get this. Scientists have started cloning genetically modified pigs with organs designed to be transplanted into people. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein recently became the first journalist to tour one of the research farms breeding these creatures. Hi there, Rob. Morning, Steve. I don't know. Should I say congratulations?

Well, it was definitely a very interesting experience, I have to say that. Okay. So what are they doing and where? So I can't say exactly where the farm is located. The company that runs it, Revivacor, asked me not to for security reasons. But it's in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Reviv scientists edited the DNA in pig skin cells in the lab and then fused those cells with pig eggs to create cloned pig embryos. The company then implants them in the wombs of adult female pigs to give birth to cloned genetically modified piglets. Which grow up to be independent animals, more or less. Yes, exactly. And that's where the research farm comes in.

Four months after the cloned pig embryos are implanted into adult female pigs, they give birth to cloned piglets, each with 10 identical modifications designed to make their hearts, livers, kidneys, and other organs compatible for transplantation into people. David Ayers, who runs Rivercore, took me into a barn to see some of the newborn clone piglets. Every cell in the body of this animal has those same genetic modifications.

If you want, you know, you can hold one. Yeah, that'd be great. Okay, what's it like to hold one? Well, you know, it's the first time I've ever held a little piglet. And, you know, he was really cute and cuddly, very solid but soft, but kind of squirmy and couldn't wait to get back to his mom to continue feeding. But he's part of this experiment. That's right. And the company actually has already started testing organs from these pigs in baboons and in the bodies of people who have been declared brain dead. Surgeons have even implanted two pig hearts into men who had run out of other options.

What questions does this experimentation raise? Steve, this kind of thing has raised some fears about accidentally spreading some dangerous pig virus to people and about sacrificing thousands of these genetically modified pigs just to harvest their organs. Sid Johnson is a bioethicist at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York, and I talked to her about this. They're treated like machines for the sole purpose of being disassembled to provide spare parts for humans. And I think the hubris of a human-created, built-for-purpose animal should really give us pause. Now, Steve, Ayers argues that the company treats the animals humanely, and he says, you know, the U.S. slaughters millions of pigs every year for food. I would argue that this is a higher use for these animals. Certainly, I think, a higher use than using these animals for food. The company envisions a day not too far off when farms scattered around the country

are breeding herds of these genetically modified cloned pigs to supply organs for transplant patients. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein with a story we can't hear anywhere else. Rob, thanks so much. You bet, Steve. And that's a first for this Friday, March 1st. I'm Steve Inskeep. And I'm A. Martinez. Up First is produced by Claire Murashima,

Ben Abrams, and Julie Deppenbrock. Our editors are Mark Katkoff, Hannah Block, Scott Hensley, H.J. Mai, and Ben Adler. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. Our technical director is Zach Coleman, and our executive producer is Eric Aguilar.

Can I name two more people for you? Aisha Roscoe and Scott Simon, the people who bring you Up First on Saturday. In this feed or wherever you get your podcasts.