Ai, a “genius” chimpanzee who could recognise more than 100 Chinese characters and the English alphabet, has died aged 49, Japanese researchers said.

Ai, which means love in Japanese, took part in studies on perception, learning and memory that advanced our understanding of primate intelligence, the Center for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior at Kyoto University said in a statement.

She died on Friday from multiple organ failure and ailments related to old age, the school said.

Aside from mastering Chinese characters and the alphabet, Ai could also identify the Arabic numerals from zero to nine and 11 colours, primatologist Tetsuro Matsuzawa said in 2014.

In one study, Ai was presented with a computer screen displaying the Chinese character for pink, along with a pink square and an alternative purple square. The chimpanzee correctly chose the pink square, Matsuzawa said.

When shown an apple, Ai picked out a rectangle, a circle and a dot on the computer screen to draw a “virtual apple”, he said.

Her high ability made her the subject of a number of scholarly papers and media programmes, including studies published in the journal Nature, and earned her the nickname “genius” in popular media.

The chimpanzee from west Africa arrived at the university in 1977, and in 2000, gave birth to a son Ayumu, whose abilities drew attention to studies of parent-child knowledge transfer, Japan’s Kyodo News said.

Ai’s studies helped to establish “an experimental framework for understanding the chimpanzee mind, providing a crucial foundation for considering the evolution of the human mind,” the Center said.

“Ai was highly curious and actively participated in these studies, revealing various aspects of the chimpanzee mind for the first time.”

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has declared himself the “Acting President of Venezuela” days after a US military operation that led to the capture of the country’s President Nicolas Maduro.

The US president shared what appeared to be an edited Wikipedia-style image on his social media platform, Truth Social, portraying himself as “acting president” alongside his official portrait and title.

The post also named US Vice President JD Vance as the “Vice President of Venezuela.”

However, Venezuela’s actual Wikipedia page does not list Trump as acting president, and no international body has recognised or endorsed the claim.

The post followed the US capture and removal of sitting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was flown to New York along with his wife to face federal drug trafficking charges. The operation came after months of US pressure, sanctions, and military activity targeting the oil-rich nation.

Addressing a press conference following the attack, Trump announced: “This was one of the most stunning, effective and powerful displays of American might and competence in American history.” He further said that Washington would run the oil-rich country until a transition takes place.

During the court hearing on Jan 5, Maduro pleaded not guilty in New York federal court to four criminal counts that include narco-terrorism, cocaine importation conspiracy and possession of machine guns and destructive devices.

He told the federal judge that he had been “kidnapped” from Venezuela and said: “I’m innocent, I’m not guilty.”

Maduro is accused of overseeing a cocaine-trafficking network that partnered with violent groups including Mexico’s Sinaloa and Zetas cartels, Colombian FARC rebels and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang.

UN Chief Antonio Guterres raised concerns about instability in Venezuela and the legality of Trump’s strike, the most dramatic US intervention in Latin America since the 1989 Panama invasion. US Special Forces swooped into Caracas by helicopter on Saturday, shattered his security cordon and dragged him from the threshold of a safe room.

Barham Salih has known torture and the wrenching loss of exile. Four decades after his own ordeal, he has taken the helm of the UN refugee agency as it grapples with a funding shortfall and ever-rising needs.

A former Iraqi president, Salih, 65, became the first former head of state to run the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) at the start of the year.

“It is a profound moral and legal responsibility,” Salih told AFP during his first trip in the new role — to Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya.

“I know the pain of losing a home, losing your friends,” he said.

The Kakuma refugee camp, which Salih visited on Sunday, is east Africa’s second largest, hosting roughly 300,000 people from South Sudan, Somalia, Uganda and Burundi. It has been in place since 1992.

The world “should not allow this to continue”, Salih said, praising a new initiative by Kenya to turn its camps into economic hubs.

“We should not only protect refugees […] but also enable them to have more durable solutions,” he said, while adding: “The better way is to have peace established in their own countries […] nowhere is nicer than home.”

‘Electric shocks, beating’

The son of a judge and a women’s rights activist, Salih was born in 1960 in Sulaymaniyah, a stronghold of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which sought self-determination for Iraq’s Kurds.

He went into exile in Iran in 1974, spending a year at a school for refugees. As a teenager in 1979, back in Iraq and already a member of the PUK, he was arrested twice by former dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime.

“I was released after 43 days after having suffered torture, electric shocks, and beating,” he said.

Upon release, he still managed to rank among Iraq’s top three high school students, according to a former colleague, before fleeing with his family to Britain, where he earned a degree in computer engineering and a doctorate.

Salih has “real experience of exile […] He brings a personal perspective of displacement, which is very important,” Filippo Grandi, his predecessor at UNHCR, told AFP last month.

Salih went on to a successful career in Iraqi Kurdistan and Iraq’s federal government after Hussein’s overthrow in 2003, holding the largely ceremonial role of president from 2018 to 2022.

‘Serious budget cuts’

Refugee numbers have doubled to 117 million in the past decade, the UNHCR said in June, but funding has dropped sharply, especially since Donald Trump returned to the White House.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently praised Salih’s experience as a “crisis negotiator and architect of national reforms” at a time when the agency faces “very serious challenges”.

“We have had very serious budget cuts last year. A lot of staff have been reduced,” Salih told AFP.

“But we have to understand, we have to adapt,” he said, calling for “more efficiency and accountability” while also insisting the international community meets its “legal and moral obligations to help”.