pesdyuk

[pesdyuk]

Donnie Darko Plot

On October 2, 1988, troubled teenager Donald "Donnie" Darko sleepwalks outside, led by a mysterious voice. Once outside, he meets a figure in a monstrous rabbit costume named Frank who tells Donnie that the world will end in precisely 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. Donnie wakes up the next morning on the green of a local golf course and returns home to discover a jet engine has crashed into his bedroom. His older sister Elizabeth tells him the FAA investigators do not know its origin.

Over the next several days, Donnie continues to have visions of Frank, and his parents Eddie and Rose send him to psychotherapist Dr. Thurman. Thurman believes Donnie is detached from reality, and that his visions of Frank are "daylight hallucinations," symptomatic of paranoid schizophrenia. Frank asks Donnie if he believes in time travel, who, in turn, asks his science teacher Dr. Kenneth Monnitoff. Monnitoff gives Donnie The Philosophy of Time Travel, a book written by Roberta Sparrow, a former science teacher at the school who is now a seemingly senile old woman living outside of town, known to the local teenagers as Grandma Death. Donnie also starts seeing Gretchen Ross, who has recently moved into town with her mother under a new identity to escape her violent stepfather.

Frank begins to influence Donnie's actions through his sleepwalking episodes, including causing him to flood his high school by breaking a water main. Gym teacher Kitty Farmer attributes the act of vandalism to the influence of the short story "The Destructors", assigned by dedicated English teacher Karen Pomeroy. Kitty begins teaching “attitude lessons” taken from local motivational speaker Jim Cunningham, but Donnie rebels against these, leading to friction between Kitty and Rose. Kitty arranges for Cunningham to speak at a school assembly, where Donnie insults him. He later finds Cunningham's wallet and address, and Frank suggests setting his house on fire. Firefighters discover a hoard of child pornography there. Cunningham is arrested, and Kitty, who wishes to testify in his defense, asks Rose to chaperone their daughters' dance troupe on its trip to Los Angeles.

With Rose in Los Angeles and Eddie away for business, Donnie and Elizabeth hold a Halloween costume party to celebrate Elizabeth's acceptance to Harvard. At the party, Gretchen arrives distraught as her mother has gone missing, and she and Donnie make love for the first time. When Donnie realizes that Frank's prophesied end of the world is only hours away, he takes Gretchen and two other friends to see Sparrow. Instead of Sparrow, they find two high school bullies, Seth and Ricky, who were trying to rob Sparrow's home. Donnie, Seth, and Ricky get into a fight in the road in front of her house, just as Sparrow was returning home. An oncoming car swerves to avoid Sparrow and runs over Gretchen, killing her. The driver turns out to be Elizabeth's boyfriend, Frank Anderson, wearing the same rabbit costume from Donnie's visions. Donnie shoots Frank in the eye with his father's gun, and walks home carrying Gretchen's body.

Donnie returns home as a vortex forms over his house. He borrows one of his parents' cars, loads Gretchen's body into it, and drives to a nearby ridge that overlooks town. There, he watches as the plane carrying Rose and the dance troupe home from Los Angeles gets caught in the vortex's wake, which violently rips off one of its engines, and sends it back in time. Events of the previous 28 days unwind. Donnie wakes up in his bedroom, recognizes the date is October 2, and laughs as the jet engine falls into his bedroom, crushing him. Around town, those whose lives Donnie would have touched wake up from troubled dreams. Gretchen rides by the Darko home the next morning, and learns of Donnie's death. Gretchen and Rose exchange glances and wave as if they know each other, but cannot remember from where.

[pesdyuk]

How To Keep Productivity And Motivation During The War?

It is my first post on Medium this year. And it has nothing to do with Vue.js. That doesn’t mean I suddenly quit programming. I have a full-time job, which regularly provides me with coding challenges. Recently I was writing the E2E tests for the first time, which was painful. Also, I am currently working on a small pet project, where I’m trying to implement new features more flexibly and less stressful. I have a project board on GitHub, but no sprint goals or strict deadlines. Besides, I am a participant in the WWCode Kyiv Mentoring Program, where I met a talented and motivated mentee. I’ve been consulting her on her way to becoming a web developer, and I hope the process is insightful for both of us. Today I want to talk about mental health and motivation during the war. It is hard to believe and accept, but more than a year has passed since the russian troops invaded Ukraine. Over this time, Ukrainians learned what russian people were capable of: while their propaganda machine was spreading lies, the opposition kept silent, and the whole world was watching how their ordinary young men were looting, raping, and mutilating innocent civilians. But it isn’t a movie — we cannot press a stop button or leave a cinema anytime we want.

I’ve been staying in Kyiv for half a year now. The winter here was severe: the residents faced and courageously endured frequent shelling, several total blackouts, and the risk of potential evacuation. As for me, for the last couple of months, I mostly stayed at home, suffering from fear and apathy. Every time I went shopping, I couldn’t get rid of the thought: what if the russian missiles target my building next time? That affected my productivity and daily routine. After doing some work, I spent the rest of the day in bed. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t read books or watch movies. I couldn’t even use social media to distract myself. My feeds on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and even Linkedin are full of messages about someone’s death on the battlefield. When I look at their pictures, those brave women and men, lots of them were younger than me, my heart clenches in pain.

The human body reacts differently to stress. I’ve read an article where Ukrainian IT specialists describe how the war affected their productivity. Most of them say that they experience difficulties focusing on tasks. Many people had to leave their homes and look for new places to live and work. That caused a loss of a favorable working environment and a general worsening of working conditions. Some people complain about problems with concentration and memory. They procrastinate, continuously read the news, and worry about the safety of their family. Some specialists lost their jobs. Admitting a problem At the same time, fewer people claim their productivity, on the contrary, increased. Work helped them to distract from the news; they felt enough energy and motivation to earn more money to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces. I wanted to be one of them, but how? The first and hardest step was to admit the problem. I spent day after day trying not to think about the future, eating sweets to reduce stress, until one day, I weight myself. The number I saw shocked me. All at once I realized I needed to change my way of life. Creating a plan I asked myself: what can I do besides working and sleeping? The first thing that came to my mind was to increase physical activity. I set myself a goal to spend more time outside walking and running. On the 1st of March, I went for my first run this season. 2 km for 14 minutes — that was the result. I used to run 10km+ daily a few years ago. Now I had to start from the beginning. So I tried to be patient. Two weeks later, I was able to run 4 km. On the days free of running, I go to the gym or walk. I plan to get 8000 steps per day no matter what. Sharing tiniest progress Daniel Lieberman, a paleoanthropologist best known for his research on the evolution of the human head and body, wrote a book about physical activity. He claims that sharing information about what you do can help to save motivation and not give up. So, I posted a thread on Twitter about my progress and got a lot of positive feedback. Also, I use apps to visualize my work and get some stats. I loved Avocation: you can plant a tree and watch how it grows after you do a planned activity. Awesome. Asking for help This week I am having a short vacation. I have a job where management cares about the wellness of employees, but not everyone is so lucky. Many people in my country cannot afford a break during the war. They have to make for living and support their families. That is why the advice to quit a job and go to Peru does not make sense. At the same time, physical exhaustion and permanent fear of your life cause anxiety, sleep disorder, and other mental health issues. It seems like a blind corner, and the only one who can help is a psychotherapist. War experiences for soldiers and civilians are different, but there is one thing we have in common — we all are traumatized. I did not mean to write a positive article. The honest answer to the question in the title is: there is no way to keep productivity and motivation while your nation suffers from violence you cannot imagine. I described a personal attempt to preserve the remains of mental health. I gained weight, and that was a signal for me to change my habits. I accept the possibility that my plan may not work. But I will enjoy the process, as long as I can, and that is what matters.

[pesdyuk]

Russia’s Nukes Probably Don’t Work — Here’s Why

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, a curious thing happened: Putin’s modern, lethal fighting force turned out to be a broken-down, two-bit shadow of its former self.

There are many reasons for this, but the biggest seems to be unbridled corruption at a level that shook even the most hardened analysts in Western defense intelligence.

Particularly egregious was the poor maintenance on display with most, if not all, of Russia’s war machines.

Looking back now, with the benefit of time (and watching Russia flounder around in Eastern Ukraine for over a year), it’s easy to see how funds intended for operations and maintenance might have been diverted.

Hell, this story of a Russian army commander stealing engines from Putin’s prized T-90 tanks is a perfect example.

Plus, maintenance is expensive.

The entire military budget of the Russian Federation, about $70 bn, is around the same amount that just the U.S. Army spends on maintenance and operations alone.

Given the size and complexity of the Russian pre-invasion ground force, there clearly was not enough money to go around to maintain the thousands of vehicles in Russia’s arsenal. And that’s before corruption and diversion of funds — throw in the wholesale theft of rubles intended for maintenance and we should have known from the beginning that Russia would stumble in any large-scale conflict.

But fixing a broken vehicle is only half the battle. Something called “preventative maintenance” (PM) is equally as important to ensure that combat systems are in peak fighting condition.

For instance, military trucks in storage need to be turned over and moved once a month to avoid direct sunlight from rotting the tires. This movement also helps exercise the central tire air inflation system (CTIS) to see if lines have leaks or vermin nests blocking the system.

Open-source images from Ukraine show countless Russian vehicles that look like they haven’t been “exercised” in years.

The tire sidewalls give it away. In this image, the right rear tire fell apart because the rips in it were too big for the CTIS to keep aired up.

The concept of PM applies to soldiers’ bodies also: In the Army, we ran two miles every day — five miles if our squad leader was feeling froggy — and performed 25-mile road marches once a month with 60lbs on our backs to ensure that our bodies could handle the stressors of infantry combat.

By the way, the infantry is hard on the body. I’m grateful for my time there, but my platoon sergeant at age 32 looked like he was about 75 after twelve years in the infantry.

So, given the poor state of Russia’s conventional forces, why should we believe that Russia’s nuclear weapons, which are exponentially more complex than a tank, be any different?

There are two things that Russia needs to worry about: The maintenance of the bomb itself, and the maintenance of the delivery method.

But first, let’s break down how a nuclear explosion is generated to better understand Russia’s problem.

Modern nuclear weapons work by combining chemical explosives, nuclear fission, and nuclear fusion. The explosives compress nuclear material, causing fission; the fission releases massive amounts of energy in the form of X-rays, which create the high temperature and pressure needed to ignite fusion.

Only certain isotopes of certain elements can undergo fission. Plutonium-239 (Pu239) and Uranium-235 (U235) are the most common isotopes used in nuclear weapons.

In fusion weapons (also called “thermonuclear” or “hydrogen” weapons), the energy from an initial fission explosion is used to “fuse” hydrogen isotopes, deuterium, and tritium, together. This causes a “boosting” effect.

But the components that make up nuclear weapons have expiration dates.

The fuel itself should be fine for a while: U235 has a half-life of 700 million years, (give or take a few days) and Pu239 has a half-life of 24,000 years.

But the rest of the bomb is subject to oxidation, metal fatigue, decomposition, and decay.

Tritium, an essential isotope in hydrogen bombs, has a half-life of only 12.3 years, so it must be refreshed periodically.

And while deuterium is easy to come by — it can be extracted from water — tritium is significantly harder to produce. So hard, in fact, that tritium goes for about $34,000 per gram.

Even if Russia had a huge stockpile of tritium, it would slowly decay over twelve or so years. And making more is prohibitively expensive for them.

So, what happens if you don’t refresh the tritium every few years? As it decays, it converts to helium-3 which absorbs neutrons emitted by nuclear fission thereby reversing the “boosting” effect. Without this isotope, your nuke would fizzle.

Also, the conventional chemical explosives necessary to start the chain reaction undergo chemical deterioration and need to be replaced at set intervals.

And then there are the bomb’s batteries that are required to operate the warhead and other radiation-hardened electronics.

Any of these components represents a maintenance step that must be performed regularly and meticulously.

Now, multiply this by Russia’s 4,477 nuclear warheads, of which 1,588 are deployed across Russia’s vast land, with an additional 977 strategic warheads, along with 1,912 nonstrategic warheads, held in reserve. They have even more in storage.

Do you believe, knowing what we know now, that the Russian military is diligently keeping ALL of these bombs in peak operating condition?

Where do corrupt Russian military officers draw the line? Did they say, “It’s okay to commit treason against the motherland for tanks, but we dare not skim from our nuclear deterrent.”

I doubt it.

The United States has budgeted $142 billion over the 2021–2030 period to maintain and modernize its nuclear arsenal.

This includes building improved facilities associated with plutonium, plutonium pit manufacture, and chemical explosives. And it also covers tritium modernization and domestic uranium enrichment, with plans to improve facilities to produce and process tritium. This is a monetary arms race that Russia simply can’t keep up with.

Russia’s other issue is delivery of the nuclear warheads. It’s one thing to build a nuclear bomb. It’s another thing entirely to deliver the weapon to its intended target.

Like the U.S., Russia uses strategic bombers to deliver some of its nukes to targets. But its ICBMs or nuclear-tipped missiles are a different story entirely.

The amount of maintenance involved in keeping an American Minuteman III healthy is staggering.

U.S. Air Force Missile Maintenance Teams (MMT) are responsible for testing and servicing all the ignition cabling and explosive ordinance for the missile.

The MMT also inspects and maintains the missile suspension system, which is extremely hazardous given the size of the suspension system and the tension resting on it, which is supporting 78,000 pounds of a Minuteman III missile.

And the U.S. has 400 of these ICBMs spread out across the states.

Russia also has about 400 ICBMs. The sheer amount of maintenance and preventative maintenance involved in keeping these missiles flight-ready at a moment’s notice means that a good number of Russian nukes likely wouldn’t leave the ground.

The fact that Ukraine just shot down a half-dozen air-launched Kinzhal’s, (which are technically hypersonic although can’t maneuver like true hypersonics), with U.S.-made Patriot missiles, completely destabilizes Russia’s nuclear triad.

So, even if their nukes are well-maintained, and their delivery vehicles are in tip-top shape, their ballistics can be shot down with a decades-old American air defense system.

Russia’s nuclear saber-rattling is more maskirovka and politics than it is actual capability.

However, there is one area where Russian nukes are likely just fine: tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons.

Tactical nukes require much less maintenance and can last longer in storage than Russia’s strategic arsenal. Fortunately, these are not “civilization-ending” devices.

Besides tactical nukes, it’s also worth mentioning that Putin may have diverted funds from his conventional forces to keep his strategic nuclear deterrent active. However, that is extremely unlikely.

Realistically, the same widespread corruption that crippled the Russian army and air force is likely also crippling Putin’s nukes.

And that is a reassuring thought.

[pesdyuk]

4 Unsexy One-Minute Habits That Save Me 30+ Hours Every Week

These four, if practiced together, are genuinely a lethal combination that will kill procrastination. You don’t lack time. You just waste most of it on useless busyness. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to accept this. An average user spends two and a half hours daily on social media in 2022. As of 2020, Netflix users watched an average of 3.2 hours of video per day through the service⁠ — that’s 6 billion collective hours per month. When we look at these stats, it’s easy to think, “Wow! People waste so much time” as if we don't contribute to these stats. But we do. You’re a part of these. And so am I. ✅

And hence, it's better to accept that we don't lack time — but just that we waste most of it. Once you do that, you can do something about it: like incorporating tiny habits into your life that’ll save so much of your time. That’s what this article is about. Inculcate ALL 4 of these super-easy habits in your life, and I promise, the results will be extraordinary.

Time-blocking

Time-blocking is an easy time-management hack by Cal Newport that takes just a minute but leads to so much clarity in your day.

The night before, simply divide the coming day into 30-minute blocks (or 5-minute blocks if you’re Elon Musk) and assign tasks to them. This is what it looks like.

Here’s why it works wonders:

It eliminates the procrastination that stems from trying to decide “when” to start working. If you decide when to start working in real-time, procrastination is inevitable. You might think that you’ll start working in 5 minutes — but those 5 minutes will turn into an hour without you realizing it. But if it’s already decided that you’ll start working at 2 o’clock the next day, the chances of procrastination reduced massively — if not diminish completely.

Also, when you lay out your day on a piece of paper and assign tasks to them, you’ll realize that you actually have a lot of time in a day. Do this every day, and it’ll get rid of the “lack of time” mindset forever.

5–4–3–2–1: Eat the frog for breakfast!

“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”

Eating the frog is basically doing the most challenging and dreaded task of the day. And while you’re time-blocking it the night before, it’s best to schedule it first thing in the morning. Here’s why:

The most challenging task of the day is also the one that induces the most procrastination. Hence, the later you schedule it, the more time you might waste time procrastinating because of the stress it induces.

But if you do it first thing in the morning, you’ll feel like a winner all day. That’s why scheduled it for the morning.

Also, use the 5-Second rule by Mel Robbins to help you further. The idea is to start counting backward — 5–4–3–2–1 — and physically push yourself to begin working at 1. Mel says, “If you get the instinct to work on a goal, you must physically move inside of 5 seconds, otherwise your brain will kill it.” So if you’re supposed to start eating your frog at 9 AM, at 8:59 go, “5–4–3–2–1: Eat the frog!” and just get to work.

Micro-visualisation

You’ve heard of visualization as a technique to improve your future. However, visualizing a bright future alone won’t do much if you’re not willing to dial it down to the present and inculcate the needful habits to convert those imaginations into reality.

People don’t decide their futures. They decide their habits and their habits decide their future.

This is why every morning I visualize the day I time blocked the night before. I envision my day like this —

“I’ll start writing an article at 7:30 AM. Then, I’ll get dressed up and reach the medicine outpatient department by 9:30 AM. After my duty is over, I’ll have lunch at 2 PM, followed by a nap at 3 PM. Then, I’ll go to the gym at 4…”

…and so on.

This helps you double-anchor your mind to the day you planned out for yourself the night before. And this makes it even easier to stick to your plan.

Start a timer

This is the most underrated tool for productivity on your iPhone. I cannot stress how mind-bogglingly effective a timer is to increase your productivity.

Whenever you start doing your work, set a timer for like an hour, or maybe 40 minutes. Whatever works for you. I don’t really believe in techniques like the Pomodoro because I find that I can sustain my focus for different periods of time depending on the time of the day, how cognitively tired I am, and how cognitively demanding the task is.

But I do set a timer when I work. Here’s why: a timer anchors you to the task at hand and makes distractions almost impossible. Because your mind knows the timer is on, it’s going to stay focused. This happens because a timer creates a sense of accountability.

For instance, if I get up to pee, I’m going to pause my timer. I’ll resume only when I sit down again. Same for when I go to refill my bottle. And hence, even if I want to start using Twitter, I can only do so after I pause the timer. This adds a layer of accountability that enforces focused work.

Tying everything together

I promise, if you do all 4 of these, the results won’t disappoint you. Here’s how you can go about these:

Time-block your day the night before.

Then, micro-visualize the same schedule in the morning.

When it’s time to work, speak out loud, “5–4–3–2–1: Eat the frog!” Eat the biggest frog in the morning.

And then, start a timer to make sure you stay anchored to the work at hand.

[pesdyuk]

Borders

Encyclopedic entry. A border is a real or artificial line that separates geographic areas. Borders are political boundaries. A border is a physical or political line that separates geographic areas. A border is a real or artificial line that separates geographic areas.Borders are political boundaries. They separate countries, states, provinces, counties, cities, and towns. A border outlines the area that a particular governing body controls. The government of a region can only create and enforce laws within its borders. Borders change over time. Sometimes the people in one region take over another area through violence. Other times, land is traded or sold peacefully. Many times, land is parceled out after a war through international agreements. Sometimes, borders fall along natural boundaries like rivers or mountain ranges. For example, the boundary between France and Spain follows the crest of the Pyrenees mountains. For part of its length, the boundary between the United States and Mexico follows a river called the Rio Grande. The borders of four countries divide Africa’s Lake Chad: Niger, Chad, Cameroon, and Nigeria.

Borders—particularly national borders—affect travel and migration. People can usually move freely within their own country’s borders, but may not be allowed to cross into a neighboring country. When neighboring countries have similar wealth and political systems, their borders may be open and undefended. For example, citizens of the 27-country European Union may travel freely among any of the member states. Only five EU members—Bulgaria, Cyprus, Ireland, Romania, and the United Kingdom—require travelers from other EU states to present a passport or ID card at the border. On the opposite extreme, the Korean Demilitarized Zone—the border between communist North Korea and democratic South Korea—is the most heavily militarized border in the world. North Koreans must also have official permission before they leave the secretive nation. Every country has its own rules about who may travel, work, and reside within its borders. Visas and work permits are government documents issued to non-citizens that limit the type of work or travel they may do in the country, and for how long. The United States issues “green cards”—officially known as permanent resident cards—that allow non-Americans to live and work inside the borders of the U.S. and be protected by its laws. Border Protection Most countries have some sort of military or law-enforcement presence along their borders. Countries protect their borders for several reasons. One is to keep out invaders. This is especially true in areas where two or more countries have fought over the same land for many years. Cambodia and Thailand, for example, have disputed the territory of the Preah Vihear Temple for more than a century. Cambodia and Thailand, for example, have disputed the territory of the Preah Vihear Temple for more than a century. Cambodian and Thai military units are positioned along the border near Preah Vihear Temple, and skirmishes often result in deaths on both sides. Sometimes, borders serve to keep citizens in. Most governments with these “closed borders” are not democratic. In addition to North Korea, nations such as Myanmar and Cuba rarely allow their residents to cross their borders. Borders can also serve to protect resources. Sometimes, the borders of U.S. congressional districts protect ethnic, religious, or economic communities. Citizens within these borders often vote as a unit, based on shared political beliefs. The area’s representative in the U.S. House of Representatives must be aware of the interests within his or her district’s borders. The concerns of a representative from the urban area of St. Louis, Missouri, for instance, are less likely to be issues affecting farmers than a representative from rural Missouri, which is dominated by agriculture. The representative from rural Missouri would be less likely to be concerned with issues surrounding public transportation, which is much more common in cities. Border Disputes Many border disputes occur when people fight over natural resources. For instance, Sudan and Egypt have quarreled for decades over a region called Hala’ib. This triangle of land along the Red Sea is rich in the mineral manganese, which is essential to iron and steel production. It is also used as an additive in unleaded gasoline. The Sudanese government claims the land rightfully belongs to Sudan, but it currently belongs to Egypt. Many times, political borders divide groups of people who share a common religion, culture, ancestry, or language. The border between North Korea and South Korea, for example, is a purely political one; the Korean people share a united history, culture, and language. The nation of Germany was divided between East Germany and West Germany from 1949-1989. Like the Korean border, this was a purely political division, between the democratic West and the communist East. Germany reunified in 1990, and the border disappeared. Many times, one ethnic group wishes to break off and form its own, independent state. This can lead to civil war. The area of southeastern Europe on the Balkan Peninsula (known as the Balkans) has a long history of ethnic conflict and disputed borders. The country of Yugoslavia was created from many small political units after World War I. After World War II, Yugoslavia became a communist country under Marshal Josip Broz Tito. Despite Yugoslavia’s many different languages, cultures, and religions, Tito and his successors were able to maintain a stable nation until the fall of communism in the early 1990s.

After the fall of communism, however, democratic movements swept central and eastern Europe. Autocratic rulers were unable to maintain power. In the Balkans, ancient feuds began to resurface. Bosnians, Serbs, Croats, Macedonians, and Slovenians began vying for control of the region. Even within these national groups, ethnic or religious minorities pursued independence: Bosnian Serbs sought independence from Bosnia, while citizens of the Kosovo region sought independence based on their Muslim identity. The area that used to be Yugoslavia now consists of seven countries: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Kosovo. The crimes surrounding the border disputes between these countries are so numerous and graphic that an entire court in the International Criminal Court is devoted to them: the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Border issues often arise when outside powers draw borders in regions they colonize, with or without the consent of the people who already live there. During the 1800s and 1900s, European countries colonized much of Africa. These European colonists created the borders of most African countries. The divisions often did not reflect the existing ethnic or political groups that lived in those regions. The so-called “Scramble for Africa” was a conflict between European powers on African soil. European nations, led by the United Kingdom, France, and Belgium, competed to amass the most land and resources in Africa, with little regard for natural boundaries or cultural borders. By the late 1960s, most African nations had gained independence. As colonial powers withdrew from the continent, they often left a power vacuum that allowed old tribal conflicts to resurface. For example, after Belgian troops withdrew from Central Africa, two tribes—the Hutus and Tutsis—began fighting. In 1962, two new countries were formed. Rwanda was led by Hutus, while Burundi was led by Tutsis. Fighting continued until it came to a head in 1994 with a devastating civil war in Rwanda that left hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead. The Tutsis took control, forcing millions of Hutus to flee into nearby Democratic Republic of Congo (then called Zaire) and Tanzania. African leaders are working to establish stable, peaceful borders. In January 2011, the citizens of southern Sudan voted to secede from Sudan and form their own nation. The president of Sudan accepted the vote. The border between Sudan and the proposed nation of Southern Sudan has not been disputed. The regions are ethnically and religiously distinct, with Arab Muslims dominating the culture of Sudan and Christian Africans dominating the culture of Southern Sudan.

Border disputes can also develop as communities seek to establish their own city. This process is called incorporation. Many rural or suburban residents resist incorporation. They prefer to be an unincorporated part of a county, instead of affiliated with a town or city. They say it will lead to more taxes and government rules.

Other residents support incorporation and setting their own borders. They say incorporating as a town or city will allow them more independence on issues of law enforcement, education, and land use.

[pesdyuk]

Doctors stay in Ukraine's war-hit towns: 'People need us'

Dr. Ilona Butova almost looks out of place in her neatly pressed lavender scrubs as she walks through a door frame that hangs from a crumbled wall into what used to be an administrative office of her hospital in Zolochiv.

Not one building in the facility in the northeastern Ukrainian town near the Russian border has escaped getting hit by artillery shells.

Since Russia's invasion on Feb. 24, space to treat patients at the hospital has shrunk constantly because of damage. Her staff has dwindled to 47 from 120. And the number of people seeking treatment in the small town 18 kilometers (11 miles) from the border is often higher now than before the fighting began.

Ukraine’s health care system struggled for years because of corruption, mismanagement and the COVID-19 pandemic. But the war has only made things worse, with facilities damaged or destroyed, medical staff relocating to safer places and many drugs unavailable or in short supply. Care is being provided in the hardest-hit areas by doctors who have refused to evacuate or have rushed in as volunteers, putting themselves at great risk.

“It’s very hard, but people need us. We have to stay and help,” said Butova, a neurologist who also is the administrator of the hospital in the town near Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city. She added that she has had to do more with fewer resources.

The World Health Organization declared its highest level of emergency in Ukraine the day after the invasion, coordinating a major relief effort there and in neighboring countries whose medical systems also are under strain.

About 6.4 million people have fled to other European countries, and a slightly higher number are internally displaced, according to U. N. estimates. That presents a major challenge to a health care system built on family doctor referrals and regionally separate administrations.

Across Ukraine, 900 hospitals have been damaged and another 123 have been destroyed, said Health Minister Viktor Liashko, noting: “Those 123 are gone, and we’re having to find new sites to build replacements.”

In addition, scores of pharmacies and ambulances have been destroyed or are seriously damaged, and at least 18 civilian medical staff have been killed and 59 others seriously wounded, he said.

“In occupied areas, the referral system has totally broken down,” Liashko told The Associated Press. “People’s health and their lives are in danger.”

Kyiv's economy was drained by the conflict with Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine that began in 2014. When he came to power five years later, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy inherited a health care system that was undermined by reforms launched under his predecessor that had slashed government subsidies and closed many small-town hospitals. During the pandemic, people in those communities had to seek care in large cities — sometimes waiting as long as eight hours for an ambulance in severe cases of COVID-19.

As Russia has expanded the territory it controls in eastern and southern Ukraine, the supply of drugs in those areas has dwindled, along with medical staff to administer them. In the southern front-line town of Mykolaiv, “things have been very difficult,” volunteer Andrii Skorokhod said.

“Pharmacies have not been working, and shortages have become increasingly acute: Hospital staff were among those evacuated, including specialists. We just need more staff,” said Skorokhod, who heads a Red Cross initiative to provide residents with free medications.