US Spent Years Funding and Training the African Military That Just Overthrew Its US-Backed Gov’t

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The United States has sunk $500 million over the last decade into training and equipping Niger’s armed forces, which have now overthrown the democratically-elected president of the country.

Nigerien armed forces declared that they removed President Mohamed Bazoum from power amid a coup that began last Wednesday, spearheaded by a general who studied at the Department of Defense-backed College of International Security Affairs, Reuters reported. The U.S. has spent $500 million on training and arming Nigerien soldiers and stationing more than 1,000 U.S. troops in the region, according to the U.S. Embassy in Niger.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said over the weekend that the U.S. partnership with Niger is in “clear jeopardy.”

“Our economic and security partnership with Niger, which is significant, hundreds of millions of dollars, depends on the continuation of the democratic governance and constitutional order that has been disrupted by the actions in the last few days,” Blinken said at a press conference on Saturday. “So that assistance, that support, is in clear jeopardy as a result of these actions, which is another reason why they need to be immediately reversed.” (Read more from “US Spent Years Funding and Training the African Military That Just Overthrew Its US-Backed Gov’t HERE)

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Kim Jong Un Decorates Walls With Huge Portraits of Putin (VIDEO)

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Images posted Friday by North Korean state media show that the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, had large portraits of Russian President Vladimir Putin installed throughout an official building.

The portraits can be seen in photographs of Kim with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who is visiting Pyongyang this week to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War, which is called “Victory Day” in North Korea.

Max Seddon, the Moscow bureau chief for the Financial Times, noted the presence of the portraits—which are visible in multiple rooms of the building—and created a slideshow that he posted on Twitter.

Though Putin didn’t accompany Shoigu to Pyongyang, he sent a letter to Kim that was published by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Friday. (Read more from “Kim Jong Un Decorates Walls With Huge Portraits of Putin” HERE)

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Mystery Outbreak of a Deadly, Paralyzing Disease Has Experts Baffled

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A national state of emergency has been declared in Peru as doctors battle an outbreak of a rare disease that can cause lifelong paralysis or death.

More than 230 cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome have been reported in the South American country, with more than half the cases occurring in a brief five-week period from June to July.

Normally a rare disorder, GBS typically strikes only about 3,000 people per year in the US, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Four people in Peru have reportedly died of the disease since the beginning of the year, and the still-unknown cause of the outbreak has health officials scrambling.

“I think the origins of this [outbreak] remain still not completely investigated,” Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, told Healthline. (Read more from “Mystery Outbreak of a Deadly, Paralyzing Disease Has Experts Baffled” HERE)

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US Citizens Will Need to Pay for a Visa to Travel to Europe Starting in 2024

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Long gone are the days of spontaneous holidays overseas.

Beginning in 2024, the European Union will require visitors to get pre-approval via the European Travel Information and Authorisation System — and that goes for summer jet-setters from the US.

Before securing tickets, lodging, or a reservation at that trendy hotspot you saw on TikTok, vacationers will need to submit an ETIAS application for approximately $8.

Applicants will need to provide travel documentation, such as a passport, as well as personal information, education level, current occupation, anticipated trip details, and any criminal convictions.

While most applications are processed within minutes, some take longer to yield a decision and the European Union advises visitors to apply “well in advance.” (Read more from “US Citizens Will Need to Pay for a Visa to Travel to Europe Starting in 2024” HERE)

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Russia Largely Thwarts Ukrainian Drone Attacks in Moscow and Crimea

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Russian authorities said they successfully prevented Ukrainian drone attacks against Moscow and occupied Crimea early on Monday.

The Russian foreign ministry said it was able to stop two drones that were deployed to strike the capital using electronic warfare. While they crashed, no one was injured and there was only damage to two non-residential buildings. Russia accused Ukraine of being behind the attack, and a defense intelligence official told CNN that Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence, an arm of the Ministry of Defense, carried out the plot.

“All the drones have been neutralized today, and measures are being taken,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said afterward. “As for the development of the defense system, ensuring its more intensive work, this is a question for the Ministry of Defense.”

The ministry, after more than a year of targeting Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, accused Ukraine of resorting to “terrorist methods” by “intimidation of the civilian population.

“These attacks had no military meaning,” the statement said. “We strongly condemn this yet another crime of the Kyiv regime. We call on international organizations to give it a proper assessment. Behind the brazen actions of Ukrainian neo-Nazis is the West’s focus on further aggravating the situation.” (Read more from “Russia Largely Thwarts Ukrainian Drone Attacks in Moscow and Crimea” HERE)

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Zelensky Demands West: Give Me Even More Stuff

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a “full protective shield” of air defense systems to be provided to his country following a campaign of what he described as “Russian missile terror”.

Amid missile shelling attacks in the Donetsk region and the Black Sea port city of Odesa, President Zelensky has called on Western allies to provide Ukraine with more anti-aircraft systems to protect the entirety of the country.

“Ukraine needs a full-fledged sky shield – this is the only way to defeat Russian missile terror. We have already shown that we can shoot down even the Russian missiles that the terrorists boasted about,” the Ukrainian president wrote on Twitter.

“Thanks to the help of our partners and the air defense systems provided to Ukraine, our defenders of the sky have saved thousands of lives. But we need more air defense systems for our entire territory, for all our cities and communities. The world must not get used to Russian terror – terror must be defeated. And it is possible!”

The comments followed another round of attacks on the city of Odesa on Sunday morning, following strikes that appeared to target grain storage facilities earlier in the week.

(Read more from “Zelensky Demands West: Give Me Even More Stuff” HERE)

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Intelligence Agency Funding Research to Merge AI With Human Brain Cells

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An Australia intelligence agency is funding research attempting to merge artificial intelligence with human brain cells.

According to The Guardian, “Research into merging human brain cells with artificial intelligence has received a $600,000 grant from defense and the Office of National Intelligence (ONI).”

The funding from the Australia National Intelligence and Security Discovery Research Grants Program will go to research being conducted by the Monash University and Cortical Labs.

Adeel Razi, the project’s lead and associate professor from the Monash University’s Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, explained, “This new technology capability in future may eventually surpass the performance of existing, purely silicon-based hardware.” (Read more from “Intelligence Agency Funding Research to Merge AI With Human Brain Cells” HERE)

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Country Bans Transgender Contestants, Must Be a Woman From Birth: ‘Will Not Jump on the Glittery Bandwagon of Trans Activism’

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The Miss Italy pageant has banned transgender contestants from taking part in the beauty contest.

“Lately, beauty contests have been trying to make the news by also using strategies that I think are a bit absurd,” Miss Italy Official Patron Patrizia Mirigliani said, according to TND. “Miss Italia, on the other hand, will not jump on the glittery bandwagon of trans activism.”

“Since it was born, my competition has foreseen in its regulation the clarification according to which one must be a woman from birth. Probably because, even then, it was foreseen that beauty could undergo modifications, or that women could undergo modifications, or that men could become women,” Mirigliani said during an interview with Radio Cusano earlier this month.

The Miss Italy pageant banning transgender contestants arrives just weeks after a transgender beauty queen contestant was crowned Miss Netherlands 2023. Rikkie Valerie Kolle – a 22-year-old biological male – defeated a field of nine biological women to be named Miss Universe Netherlands.

Kolle will represent the Netherlands at the 72nd Miss Universe competition in El Salvador. (Read more from “Miss Italy Bans Transgender Contestants, Must Be a Woman From Birth: ‘Will Not Jump on the Glittery Bandwagon of Trans Activism'” HERE)

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Russian Company Presents 16-Qubit Quantum Computer to Vladimir Putin

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Today at the Forum for Future Technologies in Russia, President Vladimir Putin was shown through the country’s current state in quantum computing — and it might be more developed than many would initially believe. Rosatom, the Russian State Nuclear Energy Corporation that’s the main governmental body responsible for coordinating national efforts relating to technological innovation, showcased what it says is a 16-qubit trapped-ion-based quantum computer. And according to Rosatom’s own press release on the matter, they’ve already run useful, molecule-simulating computations on it. The Russian processor is said to use the same quantum annealing technology that’s been shown to be impressively useful for military applications.

There’s quite a bit to digest here, assuming we don’t have another “quantum, but not really” situation on our hands – one that mirrors Iran’s recent attempt to shine a light on its quantum computing capabilities that, amusingly, backfired. (Perhaps someone in Iran should have read our “What is Quantum Computing” article.)

Developed by Russia’s Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (LPI) and the Russian Quantum Center, the quantum computer seems to make use of trapped ion qubits with integrated photonics – an approach leveraged by marquee quantum computing companies such as Quantinuum (the child fathered by the merger of Honeywell and Cambridge Quantum) and IonQ to achieve higher qubit count scalability while also reducing the impact of noise. In quantum computing, noise refers to changes in the qubits’ environment (such as vibrations, electromagnetic interference, temperature, and others) that destroy qubits’ processing capabilities by collapsing the qubits’ entanglement and state (and as such, the information they were processing as well).

Rosatom’s push for Russia’s quantum advances started at least from November 7th, 2019, when it launched Russia’s program for the development of quantum computing and algorithmic solutions. Just one year later, Russia announced an investment of around $790 million in the country’s quantum computing capabilities, covering quantum research funding for the next five years. More recently, as early as February 2022, ROSATOM announced the creation of the National Quantum Laboratory (NQL), which aims to consolidate national quantum knowledge within one roof, with teams hailing from a number of state and private entities across Russia (and some contributions from foreign specialists as well). (Read more from “Russian Company Presents 16-Qubit Quantum Computer to Vladimir Putin” HERE)

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Italy’s Conservative Government Begins Removing Some Homosexual Parents From Children’s Birth Certificates

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Italy has begun removing the names of gay mothers from their children’s birth certificates, as part of the right-wing government’s crackdown on same-sex parenting.

The move comes after populist prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s coalition announced in March that state agencies should no longer register the children of same-sex couples, a move that sparked protests in Milan.

Families have begun receiving letters from the state prosecutor, with PinkNews reporting that 27 parents in the northern city of Padua have been issued notices that they were being removed from their child’s birth certificate. Other families have received letters in Milan, Florence and Fiumicino, near Rome.

Michael Leidi and her wife Viola were reportedly among one of the three lesbian couples to be targeted by the crackdown, with Ms Leidi telling LGBTQ+ Nation that she “cried for 10 days” after receiving the letter.

It informed them that the inclusion of Ms Leidi’s name was “contrary to public order”, as she was not the biological mother of the couple’s daughter Giulia, the site reported. (Read more from “Italy’s Conservative Government Begins Removing Some Homosexual Parents From Children’s Birth Certificates” HERE)

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