Democrats diverge on outreach to anti-abortion swing voters
JUST ANOTHER WHITE MALE VOTING BLOCK

FILE - In this July 30, 2019, file photo, from left, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., greet each other before the first of two Democratic presidential primary debates hosted by CNN at the Fox Theatre in Detroit. Democratic presidential hopefuls are offering different approaches to the central challenge of how to talk about the polarizing debate over abortion. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — In a party that’s shifted leftward on abortion rights, Democratic presidential hopefuls are offering different approaches to a central challenge: how to talk to voters without a clear home in the polarizing debate over the government’s role in the decision to end a pregnancy.

While Bernie Sanders said this month that “being pro-choice is an absolutely essential part of being a Democrat,” his presidential primary opponent Amy Klobuchar took a more open stance last week in saying that anti-abortion Democrats “are part of our party.” Klobuchar’s perfect voting score from major abortion-rights groups makes her an unlikely ally, but some abortion opponents nonetheless lauded the Minnesota senator for extending a hand to those on the other side of an issue that’s especially important for Catholics and other devout voters.

The praise for Klobuchar suggests that Democrats who have heeded rising worry within their base about GOP-backed abortion limits by pitching significant new abortion-rights policies may risk alienating religious voters who are otherwise open to supporting their party over President Donald Trump. Voters in that group looking for an appeal to “common ground” on abortion, as former President Barack Obama put it during his 2008 campaign, have heard few of those statements during the current Democratic primary.

“Plenty of pro-life Catholics are looking for an alternative to voting for President Trump,” said Kim Daniels, associate director of Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life. “We wish the Democratic Party would offer us an alternative instead of doubling down on support for abortion throughout pregnancy, taxpayer funding and the like.”

Klobuchar has underscored her abortion-rights support, and she’s signed onto legislation that would limit states’ efforts to constrain abortion access, such as the multiple state-level anti-abortion laws that passed last year. But Daniels described Klobuchar’s rhetorical openness to working with abortion opponents as “an important step,” and she’s not alone.

Chris Crawford, a pro-life activist who tweeted about Klobuchar’s welcoming response to him during a recent event in New Hampshire, said that “I don’t like” the senator’s abortion record or positions, “but I do like the work she’s doing on adoptions.”

“And if she’s serious about putting together an agenda that can provide for mothers ... that would make a big difference for me and other voters I know,” added the Catholic Crawford, who said he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 but has not yet decided who he’s supporting in 2020.

Religion is not the only factor motivating potential Democratic voters who favor some degree of abortion limits -- Democrats for Life executive director Kristen Day pointed out in an interview that atheists are part of her coalition. But abortion restriction is still a priority for a sizable number of Catholics, even as Pope Francis orients the church toward a more expansive definition of the term “pro-life,” pressing President Donald Trump on some of his immigration policies.

An AP-NORC poll taken in December found that 45% of Catholics backed significant restrictions that would make abortion illegal except in cases of rape, incest, or threats to a mother’s life. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning adults, 17% said that abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, a number that rises to 25% among self-identified conservative or moderate Democrats, according to a Pew Research Center survey last year.

The abortion debate is set to return to the political forefront next month, when the Supreme Court hears arguments in a high-profile challenge to a Louisiana state law, authored by an anti-abortion Democratic lawmaker, which requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. A final decision is anticipated by June.

Charles Camosy, an associate professor of theology at Fordham University who recently left the board of Democrats for Life in frustration over what he saw as the party’s absolutist approach to abortion, asserted that “something is missing” when the same blanket “pro-choice” terminology can be used to apply to both Klobuchar and Sanders.

A Democratic candidate willing to focus on common ground could have “a golden opportunity to meet pro-lifers, or at least religious people who are mildly pro-choice,” Camosy said.

However, Klobuchar’s comments left some abortion-rights and anti-abortion activists cold. The anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List tweeted that the Minnesota senator is “still extreme & out-of-touch,” pointing to her record of abortion-rights votes, and Ilyse Hogue, president of the abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America, warned Klobuchar against “giving credence to right-wing red herrings.”

Hogue said in an interview that under the umbrella of abortion-rights advocacy, she sees room for shared values of “compassion and freedom” as well as different feelings about the decision to terminate a pregnancy.

“Where we are in common service together,” Hogue said, is that “none of us ever want anyone to feel like they have to terminate a pregnancy because they will not get the support they need to parent.”

Hogue also underscored the sharp contrast between Democrats and the GOP, where Trump has embraced anti-abortion policies and burnished his standing with religious conservatives as a result. That distance between the parties has grown in recent years, with fewer anti-abortion Democrats serving in Congress and two straight Democratic platforms adopting stronger language on abortion rights.

Indeed, Sanders described abortion-rights support as “essential” this month but took flak from some abortion-rights advocates in 2017 for backing an anti-abortion Catholic candidate for mayor of Omaha, Nebraska. Anti-abortion Democrats are not wholly extinct, with the Catholic Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards winning reelection last year, but two such members of Congress are facing primary challenges from the left.

In this year’s Democratic presidential primary, Klobuchar’s inclusive language marked a rare instance of daylight between candidates in an abortion debate that’s already put pressure on her rivals.

When pressed on abortion by executive director Day of Democrats for Life during a Fox News town hall last month, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg said that “I support the position of my party that this kind of medical care needs to be available to everyone.”

Joe Biden, a Catholic who last year reversed his stance to back unrestricted federal funding for abortions, was denied communion by one South Carolina priest last fall in response to the former vice president’s support for abortion rights.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, for her part, said at November’s debate that safeguarding abortion rights is “fundamentally what we do and what we stand for as a Democratic Party” and demurred when pressed about whether an abortion opponent like Bel Edwards would be welcome.

Like those Democrats, Klobuchar supports codifying the abortion-rights protections of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision into law. And for some anti-abortion voters, inclusive language like Klobuchar’s may not be enough to overcome that substantive Democratic alignment.

Klobuchar’s handling of the issue is “going to make her look much more moderate” and could break through with potentially persuadable Catholic voters, said Robert George, a Princeton University professor and past GOP appointee to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

But that advantage can be “undercut” by Klobuchar’s abortion-rights votes, George added, which Trump’s campaign would seek to do.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through the Religion News Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Utah lawmakers get tough on porn, ease up on polygamy


FILE - In this Jan. 30, 2020, file photo, Republican Rep. Brady Brammer, poses for a portrait at the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City. A proposal to require warning labels on pornography in Utah passed the state House on Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2020, a move an adult-entertainment industry group called a dark day for freedom of expression. Brammer, the lawmaker behind the plan to mandate the labels about potential harm to minors, says it’s aimed at catching the “worst of the worst.”(AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah lawmakers voted Tuesday to put new regulations on pornography and remove some on polygamy in separate proposals moving quickly through the Legislature in the deeply conservative state.

Senators voted unanimously to change state law to remove the threat of jail time for consenting adult polygamists, a step that supporters argue will free people in communities that practice plural marriage to report abuses, like children being taken as wives, without fear of prosecution.

A majority of people in Utah belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which had an early history of polygamy but has forbidden it for more than a century.


An hour later, House lawmakers approved a proposal to require pornography to carry warning labels about harm to minors. An adult entertainment industry group called the vote a dark day for freedom of expression.

The faith widely known as the Mormon church declared pornography a public health crisis in 2016, and since then, more than a dozen states have advanced similar proposals.

The labeling proposal from Republican state Rep. Brady Brammer would carry a potential penalty of $2,500 per violation.

“I think it will make a difference,” Brammer said. “It won’t stop every problem related to obscenity, it will not stop all obscenity, but it will move the ball further down the field.”

Republican lawmakers called it a creative solution. The measure would apply to material that appears in Utah in print or online and allow the state and residents to sue producers.

The new measure is narrowly aimed at hardcore obscene material, but the way the law is written could still allow for thousands of lawsuits, said Mike Stabile, a spokesman for the Free Speech Coalition, a pornography and adult entertainment trade group.

“Really it just sort of opens up the floodgates for lawsuits over all sorts of content,” he said.

He also argues the dire harms outlined in the proposed warning label haven’t been proven.

The porn warning labels need to be approved by the Senate, while the reduction in punishments for polygamy must pass the House.

Utah’s restrictive bigamy law is an outgrowth of the church’s history with polygamy. While mainstream members abandoned the practice in 1890, an estimated 30,000 people living in polygamous communities follow teachings that taking multiple wives brings exaltation in heaven.

Utah goes further than other states by prohibiting cohabitation with more than one purported spouse. The measure from Republican Utah Sen. Deidre Henderson would make that an infraction rather than a felony.


Some former members of polygamous groups have spoken against the change, saying it would do little to help victims like those in underage marriages.

Polygamists with Utah ties range from Warren Jeffs, who was convicted of sexually assaulting girls he considered wives, to Kody Brown, whose four wives chose the relationship as adults. The Browns have opened their lives to reality TV cameras in the TLC show “Sister Wives.”

Utah has publicly declined to prosecute otherwise law-abiding polygamists for years. Still, Henderson argues that fears remain, left over from raids where children were separated from their parents.

The new proposal would keep harsher penalties for other crimes sometimes linked to polygamy, including coerced marriage.

“Bad people really can, and have, weaponized the law in order to keep their victims silent and isolated in their control,” she said.


In this Jan. 30, 2020 photo, Republican Rep. Travis Seegmiller poses for a portrait at the Utah State Capitol. A proposal to require warning labels on pornography in Utah passed the state House on Tuesday Feb. 18, 2020, a move an adult-entertainment industry group called a dark day for freedom of expression. "I've had constituents, including some dear friends, bring to me their personal stories of the truly horrific and nightmarish costs their families have suffered because their child has been exposed to these sorts of things," said Seegmiller. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Republican Sen. Deidre Henderson looks on during a hearing Monday, Feb. 10, 2020, in Salt Lake City. Polygamists have lived in Utah since before it became a state, and 85 years after the practice was declared a felony they still number in the thousands. Now, a state lawmaker says it's time to remove the threat of jail time for otherwise law-abiding polygamists. "The law is a failure. It hasn't stopped polygamy at all and it's actually enabled abuse to occur and remain unchecked," said Henderson. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Boeing finds a new issue with Max, debris in fuel tanks
By DAVID KOENIG today

Boeing said Tuesday that it found debris contaminating the fuel tanks of some 737 Max jets that it built in the past year but was unable to deliver to airline customers.

A Boeing official said the debris was discovered in “several” planes but did not give a precise number. Boeing built about 400 undelivered Max jets before it temporarily halted production last month.

The fuel tank debris was discovered during maintenance on parked planes, and Boeing said it immediately made corrections in its production system to prevent a recurrence. Those steps include more inspections before fuel tanks are sealed.


A Boeing spokesman said that the issue would not change the company’s belief that the Federal Aviation Administration will certify the plane to fly again this summer.

An FAA spokesman said the agency knows that Boeing is conducting a voluntary inspection of undelivered Max planes.

The FAA “increased its surveillance based on initial inspection reports and will take further action based on the findings,” said spokesman Lynn Lunsford.

Metal shavings, tools and other objects left in planes during assembly can raise the risk of electrical short-circuiting and fires.

Mark Jenks, Boeing’s general manager of the 737 program, said in a memo to employees who work on the 737, “During these challenging times, our customers and the flying public are counting on us to do our best work each and every day.”

Jenks called the debris “absolutely unacceptable. One escape is one too many.”

The debris issue was first reported by aviation news site Leehamnews.com.

Max jets were grounded around the world last March after two crashes killed 346 people. Boeing is conducting test flights to assess updates to a flight-control system that activated before the crashes on faulty signals from sensors outside the plane, pushing the noses of the aircraft down and triggering spirals that pilots were unable to stop.

While investigators examining the Max accidents have not pointed to production problems at the assembly plant near Seattle, Boeing has faced concerns about debris left in other finished planes including the 787 Dreamliner, which is built in South Carolina.

Ehardt introduces bill to ban trans girls from girls' sports

NOT MY FAVORITE IDAHO 

AND WHAT ABOUT TRANS BOYS?
By NATHAN BROWN nbrown@postregister.com
Feb 13, 2020

Rep. Barbara Ehardt speaks to audience members during the House Republican Caucus Town Hall at the Bonneville County Commissioner’s Chambers on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2019.

JOHN ROARK | jroark@postregister.com

BOISE — An Idaho Falls Republican has introduced a bill to restrict transgender girls and women from playing on girls’ teams in high school and college sports.

Rep. Barbara Ehardt, who attended college on a basketball scholarship and went on to a 15-year career as a college basketball coach, has been working on the idea for the past year-and-a-half. Ehardt grew up in the 1960s, when girls’ opportunities to participate in sports were more limited, and she remembers the passage of the federal Title IX civil rights law in 1972.

“This ... (provided) opportunities to girls and women to participate as our counterparts had been participating in sports,” she told the House Education Committee on Wednesday.
×
For Ehardt, being able to take part in sports was a childhood dream that helped shape both her later career and her character.

“It’s helped me with leadership, with confidence, with conflict resolution,” she said in an interview. “Sports has done so much for me, and I see what it’s done for our counterparts.”

Ehardt said she doesn’t view her bill as anti-gay or anti-transgender. She sees transgender girls and young women being able to play on girls’ teams as unfair to other girls.

“This bill is truly all about continuing opportunities, not taking away opportunities,” she said.

Ehardt’s bill would require public schools, colleges and universities, or private ones that are affiliated with the Idaho High School Activities Association or with the college sports organizations the state’s public colleges and universities belong to, to designate teams as either male, female or coed, and says teams designated for females shall not be open to male students.

In case of a dispute, the bill says sex should be established with a physician’s statement based on the student’s external genitalia, the amount of testosterone the student naturally produces and a genetic analysis.

The bill also says that students who are “deprived of an athletic opportunity or (suffer) any direct or indirect harm as a result of a violation of this chapter” can sue the school, college or university that isn’t following the law.

Ehardt said she expects to get a hearing on the bill in the House Education Committee next week, after which it would go to the full House if the committee OKs it. Sen. Mary Souza, R-Coeur d’Alene, is sponsoring it in that chamber. The bill comes in the context of a larger nationwide debate over whether transgender girls should be allowed to take part in girls’ sports, and GOP lawmakers have introduced bills similar to Ehardt’s in several other states this year.

Ehardt said she has been working with the Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based socially conservative group that opposes letting transgender girls take part in girls’ sports, on the bill and they helped craft the language. Much of the language in Ehardt’s bill is identical to one that was introduced in Mississippi earlier this month.

Lawmakers in several states also have proposed bills this year banning gender reassignment surgery for people under 18. Rep. Christy Zito, R-Hammett, introduced one in Idaho’s House Judiciary Committee on Friday that would subject doctors who break the law to up to life in prison.

“There are a number of states that are trying to introduce these anti-trans bills,” said Assistant Minority Leader Rep. John McCrostie, D-Garden City. “It’s very disheartening again, to try to take their humanity.”

The Education Committee voted to introduce Ehardt’s bill after Rep. Steve Berch, D-Boise, made an unsuccessful motion to reject it.

“I think we have so many important issues to deal with in education in this state and this is so far down the list,” he said.

A couple of Republicans replied they do see it as important.

“We have come a long ways from those early days of women’s sports, and this issue that Rep. Ehardt has raised is not one down on the list, it’s one of absolute significant importance that girls can grow up knowing they can compete with other girls in sports,” said Rep. Gary Marshall, R-Idaho Falls, who first met Ehardt when he was a high school athletic director in Idaho Falls and she was playing basketball and volleyball.

McCrostie, who is the only openly gay member of the Legislature, said after the meeting that the Idaho High School Activities Association and the National Collegiate Athletic Association both have policies saying transgender athletes need to have been taking hormone therapy for at least a year. He said the bill sends the message that transgender girls and women really aren’t girls and women.

“Everyone deserves the opportunity to experience their humanity, and a bill like this is just so aggressive,” McCrostie said


Reporter Nathan Brown can be reached at 208-542-6757. Follow him on Twitter: @NateBrownNews.

Did Neanderthals bury their dead with flowers? Iraq cave yields new clues

Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Neanderthal skeleton unearthed in an Iraqi cave already famous for fossils of these extinct cousins of our species is providing fresh evidence that they buried their dead - and intriguing clues that flowers may have been used in such rituals.

A view of the entrance to Shanidar Cave in the foothills of the Baradost Mountains in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region, the site where fossils of 10 Neanderthals have been unearthed is seen in an undated photo. Courtesy of Graeme Barker/Handout via REUTERS.

Scientists said on Tuesday they had discovered in Shanidar Cave in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq the well-preserved upper body skeleton of an adult Neanderthal who lived about 70,000 years ago. The individual - dubbed Shanidar Z - was perhaps in his or her 40s or 50s. The sex was undetermined.

The cave was a pivotal site for mid-20th century archaeology. Remains of 10 Neanderthals - seven adults and three infants - were dug up there six decades ago, offering insight into the physical characteristics, behavior and diet of this species.

Clusters of flower pollen were found at that time in soil samples associated with one of the skeletons, a discovery that prompted scientists involved in that research to propose that Neanderthals buried their dead and conducted funerary rites with flowers.

That hypothesis helped change the prevailing popular view at the time of Neanderthals as dimwitted and brutish, a notion increasingly discredited by new discoveries. Critics cast doubt, however, on the “flower burial,” arguing the pollen could have been modern contamination from people working and living in the cave or from burrowing rodents or insects.

But Shanidar Z’s bones, which appear to be the top half of a partial skeleton unearthed in 1960, were found in sediment containing ancient pollen and other mineralized plant remains, reviving the possibility of flower burials. The material is being examined to determine its age and the plants represented.

“So from initially being a skeptic based on many of the other published critiques of the flower-burial evidence, I am coming round to think this scenario is much more plausible and I am excited to see the full results of our new analyses,” said University of Cambridge osteologist and paleoanthropologist Emma Pomeroy, lead author of the research published in the journal Antiquity.

COGNITIVE SOPHISTICATION

Scholars have argued for years about whether Neanderthals buried their dead with mortuary rituals much as our species does, part of the larger debate over their levels of cognitive sophistication.

“What is key here is the intentionality behind the burial. You might bury a body for purely practical reasons, in order to avoid attracting dangerous scavengers and/or to reduce the smell. But when this goes beyond practical elements it is important because that indicates more complex, symbolic and abstract thinking, compassion and care for the dead, and perhaps feelings of mourning and loss,” Pomeroy said.

Shanidar Z appears to have been deliberately placed in an intentionally dug depression cut into the subsoil and part of a cluster of four individuals.

“Whether the Neanderthal group of dead placed around 70,000 years ago in the cave were a few years, a few decades or centuries - or even millennia - apart, it seems clear that Shanidar was a special place, with bodies being placed just in one part of a large cave,” said University of Cambridge archeologist and study co-author Graeme Barker.

Neanderthals - more robustly built than Homo sapiens and with larger brows - inhabited Eurasia from the Atlantic coast to the Ural Mountains from about 400,000 years ago until a bit after 40,000 years ago, disappearing after our species established itself in the region.

The two species interbred, with modern non-African human populations bearing residual Neanderthal DNA.

Shanidar Z was found to be reclining on his or her back, with the left arm tucked under the head and the right arm bent and sticking out to the side.

 

'Tiger widows' shunned as bad luck in rural Bangladesh

AFP / Munir UZ ZAMANBangladeshi mother-of-four Mosammat Rashida, whose husband was killed by a Bengal tiger a decade ago while he was collecting honey, has been blamed for her spouse's untimely death by superstitious villagers

Abandoned by her sons, shunned by her neighbours and branded a witch.

Mosammat Rashida's crime? Her husband was killed by a Bengal tiger.

Women like her are ostracised in many rural villages in Bangladesh, where they are viewed as the cause of their partner's misfortune.

"My sons have told me that I am an unlucky witch," she told AFP in her flimsy plank home, in the honey-hunters' village of Gabura at the edge of the Sundarbans -- a 10,000-square-kilometre (3,860-square-mile) mangrove forest that straddles Bangladesh and India.

Her husband died while out collecting honey in the jungles there.

"Honey-hunters prefer to collect honey mostly in the southwestern Sundarbans, where most of the man-eaters (tigers) live," leading Bengal tiger expert at Jahangirnagar University, Monirul Khan, told AFP.

Tigers are an endangered species but climate change and human development is reducing their wild habitat, often forcing them towards villages in search of food.

Wildlife charities estimate there are some 100 tigers in the Bangladesh side of the Sundarbans.

AFP / Munir UZ ZAMANTigers are an endangered species but climate change and human development is reducing their wild habitat, often forcing them towards villages in search of food

At least 519 men died from tiger attacks in 50 villages in one district -- home to half a million people -- between 2001 and 2011, according to Ledars Bangladesh, a charity helping widows reintegrate back in the villages.

Their deaths are a double blow for the women left behind.

Already grieving the loss of their partner, overnight they become 'tiger widows' -- pariahs in their homes and villages at a time when they most need support.

They are often left with little means to support themselves or their families.

- 'Bring bad luck' -

Rashida is heartbroken but unsurprised that her adult sons, aged 24 and 27, abandoned her and their too young siblings.

"They are part of this society after all," the 45-year-old said, as she wiped tears from her eyes.

Her tiny shack has no roof -- it was blown off by a deadly cyclone -- but there have been no offers of help from neighbours or officials, who she claims helped others in the village but shunned her.

Instead she uses an old tarpaulin to keep the elements out.

Next door, Mohammad Hossain was fixing his broken tin roof, and confessed he had been instructed by his wife not to talk to Rashida.

AFP / Munir UZ ZAMANAt least 519 men died from tiger attacks in 50 villages in one district -- home to half a million people -- between 2001 and 2011, according to Ledars Bangladesh, a charity helping widows reintegrate back in the villages

"It would mar my family's well-being and could bring bad luck," the 31-year-old honey-hunter said.

Officials denied omitting Rashida from the help they provided after the cyclone.

But the head of Ledars Bangladesh, Mohon Kumar Mondal, said the mistreatment of "tiger widows" was widespread in highly conservative communities, which often held "centuries old" prejudices.

"They (charities) are working to restore the widows' dignities. The main challenge is to change people's beliefs," he explained.

"The change is very slow. Still, I'd say there has been progress," he added, noting that younger, more educated villagers were less fearful of the widows.

- 'Staying alive' -

Rijia Khatun, who said she has learnt to cope with being ostracised by her fellow villagers after her honey-hunter husband's death 15 years ago, has been secretly supported by her nephew and his family.

"My sons were young. But nobody helped me. I felt bad at first as they kept blaming me for my husband's death. I didn't know what was my fault," she recalled, adding: "But now I've learnt to live with this adversity."

Her nephew Yaad Ali, who has witnessed several attacks including his uncle's, explained that while he wanted to help, he could not do so publicly.

"We had to do it (help Khatun) with confidentiality or else the village society would have ostracised us as well," he confessed.

AFP / Munir UZ ZAMANAlready grieving the loss of their partner, overnight they become 'tiger widows' -- pariahs in their homes and villages at a time when they most need support

Honey hunting has traditionally been seen as a more accessible vocation for villagers who can't afford the equipment or boats needed to undertake the region's other main profession -- fishing.

But fears of being killed by the predators -- and the consequences for the wives they leave behind -- has meant more and more men are opting for a different trade.

Harun ur Rashid, whose father was killed by a tiger, said he was now a fisherman, despite coming from generations of honey-hunters.

The 21-year-old said: "My mother doesn't want me to end up like my father. And I want to stay alive and take care of her because she has suffered a lot and endured enough abuses after my father's death."

TRANSHUMANISM 

Body work: Russia's 'biohackers' push boundaries

AFP / Dimitar DILKOFFA growing number of Russians are interested in biohacking, a global movement whose followers seek to "upgrade" their bodies with experimental technology and DIY health fixes

Gripping a scalpel, Vladislav Zaitsev makes an incision in the fold of skin between his client's thumb and index finger and pushes in a small glass cylinder.

Alexei Rautkin, a 24-year-old programmer in a hoodie, is having a chip inserted in his hand so he can open the door to his office without swiping a card.

"It's something I decided a long time ago," he says.

"Mainly because it's convenient but there's also a kind of exclusivity, because practically no one else has this."

Rautkin and Zaitsev are among a growing number of Russians interested in biohacking, a global movement whose followers seek to "upgrade" their bodies with experimental technology and DIY health fixes that began in Silicon Valley at the start of the last decade.

For some, the lifestyle trend involves implanting technology under their skin.

For others -- mainly wealthy Russians -- the quest is to live longer, which they hope to do through intensive monitoring of their bodies, taking vast quantities of supplements or extreme exercise.

Although it's unclear how many biohackers there are in Russia, the movement is spreading, with social media forums, conferences and businesses springing up to cater to their needs.

Zaitsev, a programmer with a ducktail haircut, taught himself to insert chips, helped by the fact he's a medical school dropout.

The 28-year-old caught national attention in 2015 by taking the chip out of a Moscow metro pass, dissolving it in acetone and encasing it in silicone before inserting it into the back of his hand.

The disc, about the size of a British one penny coin, is still visible but currently defunct -- Zaitsev reprogrammed it with bank card details, only for the bank to close.

AFP / Dimitar DILKOFFFor some, the quest is to live longer, which they hope to do through intensive monitoring of their bodies, taking vast quantities of supplements or extreme exercise

He also has magnets on his fingertips, mainly for party tricks.

He says the biohacking movement is about using technology to facilitate concrete tasks.

"In biohacking, I like things that give a real, confirmed effect, for example putting in chips," he says.

Based on the contact between the close-knit community on social media, he estimates that about 1,000 Russians are chipped.

Most install work passes, he says, while some insert magnets or a compass implant that vibrates when they turn north.

"I like the idea of expanding the capabilities of the human body."

Around the world, implanted microchips are being used to start cars, turn on smartphones, computers and printers, monitor body temperature and store medical information or as business cards.

Professional magicians even use them to enhance their tricks.

Some chips have been approved for human use, but Zaitsev said he uses veterinary ones made in Taiwan and ordered by mail for about 500 rubles ($8) each.

While some have raised concerns over potential surveillance and hacking, the number of chipped people is still very small in Russia, and unlike smartphones, the chips do not transmit the users' location.

- Studio flat surgery -

In his studio flat, Zaitsev charges Rautkin 2,000 rubles ($32) for the operation to insert the chip that is slightly bigger than a grain of rice.

He has chipped about 50 others, too, he says.

The "typical client is a geek", he adds. "Most are men aged 35 or younger."

Other biohackers have little time for chipping, however.

Entrepreneur Stanislav Skakun says that biohacking is about extending life, potentially for thousands of years, an idea known as transhumanism.

AFP / Dimitar DILKOFFIt is unclear how many biohackers there are in Russia, but the movement is spreading, with social media forums, conferences and businesses springing up

"I haven't yet found a chip that would be useful for prolonging life... I can't see any point in doing this yet," the 36-year-old said.

Instead, he regularly attends a private clinic where nurses fill some 20 test tubes with his blood for analysis.

It's just part of his exhaustive routine over the last five years, measuring hundreds of biochemical markers and taking handfuls of vitamins and supplements daily.

Although he declines to talk in detail about what he takes, he says the supplements include iodine, Vitamin D, magnesium and prebiotics.

As well as genetic tests to identify personal risk factors and compensate for them, he undergoes tests for inflammation, cholesterol, glucose, bone density, the stress hormone cortisol and the efficiency of his immune system.

- Molecular 'scissors' -

Trim with piercing blue eyes, Skakun claims that "in the last five years, my biological age hasn't changed at all."

He hopes to live long enough to see scientific advances extend life massively.

"If we conquer cancer, Alzheimer's and cardiovascular disease, we'll prevent practically all the reasons we die," he said.

Such ideas are espoused by international proponents of transhumanism, such as controversial British gerontologist Aubrey de Grey, who believe humans will be able to significantly extend their lifespan and only die from accidents or violence.

AFP / Dimitar DILKOFFPatrons pay steep sums to join "biohacking labs" in the Russian capital

Currently the oldest human on record, France's Jeanne Calment, died at the age of 122.

Some biohackers have jumped on breakthroughs in gene therapy, one of the hottest areas of medical research.

Controversially, US biohacker Josiah Zayner, who is a scientist, in 2017 livestreamed an experimental attempt to alter his own DNA using new gene editing technology called Crispr.

The tool, informally known as molecular "scissors", is being used to treat genetic conditions, such as sickle cell disease, and has made gene editing more widely accessible.

But the US Food and Drug Administration has expressed concern about safety risks involved in DIY kits available to the public for self-administered gene therapies.

Kiran Musunuru, a genetics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, says the Crispr "scissors" often cut next to the targeted gene, causing unexpected mutations.

"It's very easy to do if you don't care about the consequences," Musunuru added.

Top US science journal Science said last July that the tools for public and private regulators to manage biohacking's public health risks were largely already available.

"But they must be used better," it said, in an opinion piece.

- 'Wishful thinking' -

Maxim Skulachev, a Russian biologist at Moscow State University who studies longevity, said that biohackers were right to say that ageing may be programmed into our genes and theoretically could be blocked.

"We think ageing was somehow introduced in our genome as a programme," he said.

"For us the only way to fight ageing is to somehow break this programme -- hack it."

In doing so, this could end age-related conditions and cancer, he said, adding that living to the age of 100 would become the new norm.

AFP / Dimitar DILKOFFSome have raised concerns over surveillance and hacking, but supporters say implanted microchips don't transmit user locations

Nevertheless, he also predicts that the super-elderly will develop other health problems limiting their lifespan which have not yet even manifested themselves.

The problem with biohackers is they are "running too fast," said Skulachev, 46, whose team is trying to come up with a drug to interfere with the genetic ageing process.

"At the moment there is no technology to break this programme and from this point of view... biohackers are engaged in wishful thinking."

- 'Upgrade Yourself' -

Yet biohacking in Russia is already "a big movement" with conferences and businesses, says Skakun, who formerly worked in corporate finance.

Two years ago he founded a startup called Biodata that arranges tests for clients and stores information, charging 150,000 rubles ($2,430) for a full checkup.

Clients are "mainly top managers and business people", he said.

Well-heeled patrons are also paying up to 250,000 rubles ($4,050) annually for a Moscow gym that calls itself a "biohacking laboratory".

The gym, which opened last year with the slogan "Upgrade Yourself", is on the 58th floor of a skyscraper in the business district.

Similarly, members are "company owners or top managers", says founder Artyom Vasilyev.

The slim 29-year-old got into sports science after competing seriously as a runner.

AFP / Dimitar DILKOFFSome clients stand in a chilled liquid nitrogen chamber, others have their physical exercise closely monitored and analysed

On the treadmill, a gym member dons a face mask to analyse the gases in his breath.

Minutes later he gets a breakdown that shows when his workout was most effective.

Afterwards, he stands in a chamber chilled by liquid nitrogen to minus 120 degrees Celsius (minus 184 Fahrenheit), which Vasilyev says aids recovery.

For all his enthusiasm, Vasilyev doubts that people will live for hundreds of years any time soon.

"I'm more into the idea that you can live 100, 115 years or 120 years but live them in a good-quality way."

Zaitsev, the chipping enthusiast, is scathing about the quest for longevity, which he calls "a kind of religion" seeking a "magic pill".

A month after the implantation, Rautkin is using his chipped hand to open doors at his e-commerce company.

Unfortunately it doesn't work on the main door, but he is philosophical about this.

"I am using it quite successfully," he says.

"It's not a problem at all to remove it, or leave it for some other use, possibly to identify myself in some other place, maybe to unblock a phone or notebook."

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Myanmar's most isolated pray for harvest

AFP / Ye Aung THUA Naga tribeswoman carrying a child at the end of an overnight ceremony to bless the harvest in Satpalaw Shaung village in Myanmar's Sagaing region

A haunting refrain pierces the night as the tribeswomen of the Gongwang Bonyo, among the most isolated people in Myanmar, dance around a campfire to bless the harvest ahead.

The group are part of the Naga, a blanket term for dozens of tribes each with their own distinct dialect living near the Indian border, only accessible by nerve-shredding motorcycle journeys and on foot.

 

AFP / YE AUNG THUDressed in black and wearing orange bead necklaces and palm leaf headbands, they rotate around a fire in Satpalaw Shaung village, hands held tightly and braving the cold with bare arms

Dressed in black and wearing orange bead necklaces and palm leaf headbands, they rotate around a fire in Satpalaw Shaung village, hands held tightly and braving the cold with bare arms.

"This is the essence of our village and it brings us joy," they chorus.

Like most Naga, the Gongwang Bonyo are mainly subsistence farmers who clear and burn the steep slopes around them to plant paddy, maize and vegetables.

AFP / Ye Aung THUThere are some 400,000 Naga in Myanmar, cut off from three million others in India

The next season they move on, leaving the soil to recover for up to 10 years.

"The song is a prayer to bring success to the hill farms this coming year," 32-year-old village head Maung Tar tells AFP.

"We dance in a circle to show we're united and that nobody can divide us. We don't let go, whatever happens."

But the Naga are a people divided.

AFP / Ye Aung THUThe group are part of the Naga, a blanket term for dozens of tribes each with their own distinct dialect living near the Indian border

Tracing a mountain ridge, the India-Myanmar frontier is a legacy of British rule, left behind by the retreating colonial power in the wake of World War II.

It has left some 400,000 Naga in Myanmar estranged from three million others in India.

A struggle for independence waged by armed factions on both sides has simmered for decades and yearning for a united Nagaland remains strong.

The women continue their campfire ritual through dawn, temperatures plummeting in a test of physical endurance helped by an occasional draught of rice wine.

AFP / Ye Aung THUThe women continue their campfire ritual through until dawn in a test of physical endurance helped by an occasional draught of rice wine

It will be the men's turn in a few weeks' time, once the newly designated land is fully cleared and ready for planting.

As the roosters crow and the sun rises, youngsters are welcomed into the circle while the men prepare a freshly slain pig for the day's feast.

"We worry about losing our traditions. That's why we teach them to our children," says village head Maung Tar.