The Week Unwrapped: Elk arrests, bootleg gas and self-curing HIV

Olly Mann and The Week

Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and
debate what really matters.

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In this week’s episode, we discuss:

Russian dissent

The arrest of the leader of the Moscow branch of Russia’s
Communist Party has prompted allegations that Vladimir Putin is
attempting to stitch up a prominent political rival. Valery Rashkin
faces the loss of his political career over allegations of illegal
hunting, but his arrest comes to the backdrop of wider efforts to
clamp down on dissent. The Kremlin has been busy labelling everyone
from journalists to pollsters “foreign agents”. So is Russia
entering a new era of repression?

Gas smuggling

An undercover investigation has found that criminal gangs are
smuggling hydrofluorocarbons – a group of highly potent greenhouse
gases – into the UK and selling them out of car boots. While
heavily regulated and therefore expensive in the UK, they can be
cheaply produced in China. And while demand for these HFCs, which
are used in fridges and air conditioners, is relatively niche, this
is a problem that may become more mainstream as environmental bans
are extended to petrol, diesel, gas boilers and other products in
the coming decades.

HIV eradication

Aids researchers are poring over the case of an Argentinian
woman, who has become only the second person known to have rid
herself of the HIV virus without medical intervention. It is
believed that she has an unusually adapted immune system, which was
able to quarantine HIV cells and stop them replicating, before
gradually destroying them. Scientists now looking into how they may
be able to replicate the effect in other people’s immune system,
perhaps paving the way for a cure.