Ukrainians forced to take Russian passports ‘to erase their identity’

KYIV – Before fleeing occupied Ukraine, Victoria was getting squeezed to apply for a Russian passport she said she never wanted as “I’m a citizen of Ukraine”.

Soldiers in the street warned her to get one, she could not file key paperwork without it, and she heard stories of door-to-door checks ending in deportation for people lacking Russian papers.

Moscow has been steadily imposing its passports to justify its occupation and tighten control, but also to undermine Ukrainian identity, experts said.

Musk’s Neuralink says cleared for brain implants human test

SAN FRANCISCO – Elon Musk's start-up

Neuralink on Thursday said it has approval from US regulators to test its brain implants in people.

Neuralink said clearance from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its first inhuman clinical study is "an important first step" for its technology, which is intended to let brains interface directly with computers.

"We are excited to share that we have received the FDA's approval to launch our firstin-human clinical study," Neuralink said in a post on Musk-run Twitter.

Recruitment for a clinical trial is not yet open, according to Neuralink.

The aim of Neuralink implants is to enable human brains to communicate directly with computers, Musk said during a presentation by the start-up in December.

"We've been working hard to be ready for our first human (implant), and obviously we want to be extremely careful and certain that it will work well before putting a device in a human," he said at the time.

Neuralink prototypes, which are the size of a coin, have been implanted in the skulls of monkeys, demonstrations by the startup showed.

At a presentation, Neuralink showed several monkeys "playing" basic video games or moving a cursor on a screen through their Neuralink implant.

The technology has also been tested in pigs. With the help of a surgical robot, a piece of the skull is replaced with a Neuralink disk, and its wispy wires are strategically inserted into the brain, an early demonstration showed.

The disk registers nerve activity, relaying the information via common Bluetooth wireless signal to a device such as a smartphone, according to Musk.

"It actually fits quite nicely in your skull," Musk said during a prior presentation.

"It could be under your hair and you wouldn't know."

- Uploading memories? -

Musk said the company would try to use the implants to restore vision and mobility in humans who had lost such abilities.

"We would initially enable someone who has almost no ability to operate their muscles... and enable them to operate their phone faster than someone who has working hands," he said.

"As miraculous as it may sound, we are confident that it is possible to restore full body functionality to someone who has a severed spinal cord," he said. AFP

"I absolutely didn't want to do it," 43-year-old Victoria, speaking on condition her full name not be used, told AFP in Ukraine-held Zaporizhzhia. But she relented when she needed to register a home and car deed – transactions for which Moscow-installed authorities demanded Russian documents. She began getting the required Russian translations of her Ukrainian marriage and birth

Battles resume in Sudan’s Darfur on 4th day of truce At 100,

KHARTOUM – Fighting between forces loyal to Sudan's rival generals on Friday rocked the western region of Darfur, witnesses said, on the fourth day of a fragile US- and Saudi-brokered ceasefire.

The one-week truce, the latest in a series of agreements that have all been systematically violated, was breached only minutes after it took effect on Monday night. There have since been further violations of the ceasefire, which is meant to allow for much-needed humanitarian aid to reach war-ravaged parts of the country, with the warring sides blaming each other.

In El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, residents reported "battles with all types of weapons", six weeks into a war between the regular army, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Since it erupted on April 15, the fighting has killed more than 1,800 people, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.

The United Nations says more than a million Sudanese have been displaced, in addition to 300,000 who have fled to neighbouring countries.

Even before the conflict began, one-third of Sudan's 45 million people faced famine, and about 25 million people were now in need of humanitarian aid, the UN said.

While the current ceasefire agreement has allowed for a lull in fighting, no humanitarian corridors have been opened to allow civilians to leave or aid to reach the affected areas.

The United States said on Thursday observers had detected the use of artillery, drones and military aircraft as well as fighting both in Khartoum and in Darfur.

"We retain our sanctions authority and if appropriate we will not hesitate to use that authority," said US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.

Conditions have been particularly alarming in Darfur, already ravaged by a conflict that erupted in 2003 and saw then president Omar al-Bashir unleash the feared Janjaweed militia to

WASHINGTON – Henry Kissinger, whose very name is synonymous with US diplomacy, turns 100 Saturday feted by the American elite as others seethe that the ruthless Cold Warrior has never faced accountability.

From opening the door to communist China to plotting an endgame to the Vietnam War to unapologetically backing dictators who were anti-Soviet, Kissinger wielded influence like few before or after him, serving as both top diplomat and security advisor to presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

Instantly recognizable for his bookishly thick glasses and a sharpwitted monotone that never lost a touch of his native German, Kissinger was first

HITLER’S COKE? This handout picture released by the Peruvian National Police shows the police showing the 58 kilos of cocaine branded with the Nazi swastika and engraved with Hitler’s name seized in a Liberianflagged container ship docked in the northern port of Paita, Peru, on May 25. AFP certificates but left the process unfinished when she fled eastern Ukraine in January.

"Even if I got a Russian passport, I would still remain Ukrainian. For me, nothing would change," she said. Russia had for years been issuing passports to Ukrainians in the eastern Donbas areas held by pro-Moscow separatists as well as annexed Crimea.

- 'Start queueing at night'But since President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion 15 months ago, the passport drive has gradually become more aggressive.

An array of routine necessities such as receiving government benefits, getting or keeping a job and seeking medical treatment require Russian-issued papers, experts and residents told AFP.

Putin in April even signed a decree that allows Ukrainians in occupied areas to potentially be deported if they do not get a Russian passport by July 1, 2024.

"There are queues at the passport offices," 40-year-old Alyona, who spoke on condition her full name not be used, told AFP from occupied Ukraine. AFP an academic and his intellectual gifts are acknowledged begrudgingly even by some of his harshest critics.

Since leaving office in 1977, Kissinger's brand of realpolitik – the coldly cynical championing of power and national interests – has largely fallen out of favor as his successors preached moralism, but Kissinger himself has if anything enjoyed greater repute.

Ahead of his centennial, Kissinger blew candles on a cake at a celebratory luncheon at the Economic Club of New York, the city where he grew up after his Jewish family fled Nazi Germany. Showing his worldview has not changed at the century mark, Kissinger cautioned for the United States to stay within the bounds of "vital interests," telling the guests, "We need to be always strong enough to resist any pressures." AFP