All but one of the suspects arrested over recent settler attacks on an American photojournalist and a visiting French mayor in the West Bank have been released from detention and placed under house arrest, their lawyers said.

Israeli police had announced on Monday the arrests of 10 people implicated in the attacks in the occupied Palestinian territory, where violence by Israeli settlers is on the rise but perpetrators are seldom prosecuted.

Honenu, a legal aid organisation that often represents Israeli soldiers and settlers, said that all but one of the suspects had been released to house arrest.

Lawyer Assaf Gonen said in a statement that their arrests had only been “for show”, and were “intended to satisfy media pressure and foreign interests”.

The suspects have not been identified.

On Friday, photographer Heidi Levine, 65, who was on assignment for The Washington Post, was taken to hospital with broken vertebrae after being beaten by settlers while covering the West Bank’s annual olive harvest.

The incident comes 10 days after settlers beat an AFP photographer covering the West Bank olive harvest, Jaafar Ashtiyeh, leaving him also requiring hospital treatment.

A day later, settlers attacked a convoy of European diplomats and beat up Bernard Baudoux, 78, the mayor of the northern French town of Aulnoye-Aymeries who was on a goodwill visit.

The attacks drew international condemnation, but mixed messages from the Israeli government.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing a tight race for a new mandate, has tried to shore up his pro-settlement right-wing base and has cast doubt on the circumstances behind the recent settler attacks on Westerners.

His tone has drawn unusually strong criticism from the opposition, which has accused him of tarnishing Israel’s image.

Violence has flared in recent months in the West Bank, with near-daily attacks, thefts or vandalism by Israeli settlers against Palestinians.

Settlers have also been seizing olive groves owned by Palestinians, who see the trees as a cultural symbol.

Excluding east Jerusalem, around three million Palestinians live in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, alongside more than 500,000 Israelis residing in settlements considered illegal under international law.

India began annual measures on Thursday to tackle toxic air pollution in New Delhi, a megacity of 30 million people regularly ranked among the world’s most polluted capitals.

Delhi’s air quality deteriorates in winter, when cooler air traps pollutants close to the ground. Major sources include coal-fired power plants, traffic, construction and farm stubble burning in neighbouring areas.

The Delhi government on Wednesday announced a ban on open rubbish burning and ordered food stalls to stop using coal or firewood.

In previous years, such measures have failed to curb pollution, which peaks from November to January, when levels of cancer-causing PM 2.5 microparticles often hit more than 300 micrograms per cubic metre, 20 times the World Health Organisation’s recommended daily maximum.

Monitors recorded 233 micrograms per cubic metre early on Thursday, about 15 times the limit.

The government’s Commission for Air Quality Management has predicted air quality to remain “poor” in the coming days.

A study in The Lancet Planetary Health in 2024 estimated that 3.8m deaths in India between 2009 and 2019 were linked to pollution that exceeded India’s own air quality guidelines.

Last year, pollution levels peaked at 846 micrograms per cubic metre, 56 times the WHO limit.

The UN children’s agency warns that polluted air puts children at heightened risk of acute respiratory infections.

Further restrictions take effect on November 1, including doubled parking fees and work-from-home arrangements for government office staff, aimed at reducing traffic emissions.

Tighter construction rules will also begin then, followed by a complete ban on construction and demolition from Dec 10 to Jan 20.

Last month, the authorities also imposed a construction ban that will run from Dec 10 to Jan 20 as part of a winter action plan to tackle pollution. It will include restrictions on vehicular traffic aimed at encouraging residents to use public transport.

Young students attending their debut political gathering, longtime supporters coming since 2015, or curious onlookers witnessing a presidential spectacle, they all agree. As Donald Trump runs his final campaign, no one will be able to replace his rallies.

“There’s a lot of Americana. There’s a lot of, you know, happy people,” a Trump fan named Bart told AFP of Tuesday night’s outdoor campaign event in Greenville, North Carolina.

Trump has been barnstorming across multiple US states ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, with his party at serious risk of losing their majorities in Congress.

In this rural corner of the eastern United States, “we don’t have stuff like this happen very often,” said Bart, attending with his wife Courtney and their two children, ages 10 and 12.

Bart, who declined to give his last name, walked past a “MAGA” souvenir stand and rows of red, white and blue bunting before finding his seat on an airport tarmac where the rally was held.

It was a familiar feeling. He attended his first Trump campaign event in 2015.

Since then, millions of Americans have experienced this in-person ritual — a unique blend of provocative verbal attacks, consummate showmanship, and tireless enthusiasm, all from a president who has reached age 80.

Low-flying Air Force One

For 18-year-old Jaycie Bullard, dressed in Republican red, attending the rally was a no-brainer.

“When I heard that he was coming to Greenville, I knew I had to come,” said the nursing student enrolled at a nearby university.

“It’s pure joy, I feel like a little kid on Christmas.” After an hours-long wait, a plane flew low overhead: Trump had arrived. He strode onstage to the strains of “God Bless the USA,” which has become a core part of his political events.

The president launched fierce attacks — sometimes tinged with racist overtones — against his opponents, claimed against all evidence that he won the 2020 election, and cracked oft-repeated jokes before he yielded the stage to a local Republican US Senate candidate.

His rambling, repetitive Greenville speech clocked in at 111 minutes. As always, he left the stage to the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” But these moments, celebrated by the “Make America Great Again” faithful, are the vestiges of a fading political traveling roadshow that only Trump has been able to pull off.

The crowds and venues are getting smaller. Trump, constitutionally barred from a third term, must step down in January 2029.

“I’m nervous for the future,” admitted retiree Patty Laronde, who was seeing Trump for the first time.

“Who’s going to take his place?” she told AFP. “I’m hopeful with JD Vance,” the vice president widely seen as a potential 2028 presidential candidate.

Turning politics into ‘entertainment’

Even if another such master of ceremonies emerges in American politics, David, a self-employed 51-year-old, vocalised what many attendees were likely thinking: “the copy is never as good as the original.” “He is an anomaly,” added Troy, 59, a manager who also did not give his last name. “There’s… never been a president like him,” he added, “and I don’t know there ever will be again.” Researchers contacted by AFP tended to agree.

By “turning political rallies into entertainment,” Trump “takes alleged negative emotions such as resentment, grievance and disappointment and transforms them into excitement, pride and positive anticipation,” explained Yagmur Karakaya, a sociology professor at Yale University.

He relies on improvised comedy and culture-war jabs, sports metaphors, the ever-present “winning” philosophy, and business jargon, weaving it into a unique style.

“Can others do this? I am not so sure,” Karakaya said.

That is the million-dollar question, said speech communication professor Jacob Justice of the University of Mississippi, who likened a Trump rally’s atmosphere to that of “a Grateful Dead concert (or) a college football tailgate.” If anyone could inspire something similar, he or she “might come from the world of social media influencing or podcasting,” Justice said.

Should that person be JD Vance, rallygoer Bart said, “he would bring half of these people”.

Header image: US President Donald Trump gives a thumbs up as he walks past the audience at a rally in support of Republican US Senate candidate Darline Graham ahead of the midterm elections, at T. Ed Garrison Arena at Clemson University in Pendleton, South Carolina, US, October 21, 2026. —AFP

Artificial intelligence has found critical security flaws in a major programming language called PHP, with many websites taken offline Thursday as organisations worldwide scramble to fend off would-be hackers.

As AI’s fast-advancing capabilities fuel concern over the increased risk of cyberattacks, here are some questions and answers about the situation: What is PHP and how widely used is it? Created in the early 1990s, PHP is a computer programming language that helps run an estimated 70 per cent of the world’s websites.

It is “a backbone of the web”, according to security firm Wiz Research, which says it used AI to find vulnerabilities hidden in PHP for more than a decade.

PHP — a name that originally stood for Personal Home Page — underpins popular web design platforms, meaning the flaws could allow hackers to break into various sites, from online stores to government services.

A fix was released Wednesday, with the PHP Foundation telling the tech departments of companies and organisations around the world: “If you run PHP, it is imperative that you update now.”

That has resulted in a slew of apps and websites — from the Paris police website to a Pokemon sleep tracker — going dark as developers work to protect their underlying code from hacks.

How did AI find the flaws? Cutting-edge AI models, such as those from US giants OpenAI and Google, were used by Wiz and other groups to uncover PHP’s weak spots in August.

This was kept under wraps while a fix was developed.

OpenAI called the flaws “one of the most impactful vulnerabilities in recent memory”, adding that it “marks a new phase, where AI can find security bugs with internet-scale impact”.

Separately to Wiz, security firm Calif found the flaws as part of an OpenAI-funded audit of PHP’s code.

“The trouble with tools like AI is that the moment all the information’s out there, people can weaponise it very, very quickly,”

Steve Kerrison, senior lecturer in cybersecurity at the Singapore campus of James Cook University, told AFP.

“That’s why everybody’s acting with such urgency to respond to this issue.”

Have sites already been hacked? “Taking websites offline does not necessarily mean they have been hacked.”

“It can be a responsible measure to protect systems while security updates are applied,” said Dimitrios Salampasis from Australia’s Swinburne University of Technology.

So far “the evidence that security researchers are seeing is that nobody was actively performing attacks using the techniques available”, Kerrison said.

Larger institutions, from government agencies to news outlets, should be able to fix their websites relatively quickly — but others may be left vulnerable.

“There are sites, systems and people out there who will have no idea about this and still won’t for days, weeks and months,” Kerrison warned.

That may include user-run blogs that could be used to spread computer viruses, spam people or distribute malicious content.

Could there be other consequences? A data breach could affect customers in the future if their personal information is used in so-called “phishing” attacks, where someone is tricked into revealing their password to an online service.

The complex and interlinked nature of online systems, which often use third-party interfaces, means some vulnerabilities could remain even after the problem is fixed.

If the third parties use PHP, “then even though you patched yourself… you’re still unsecure”, said Rahat Masood, senior lecturer in cyber security at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.

PHP isn’t everything, however — strong cybersecurity measures should include several layers of defences, Kerrison said.

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Header image: Unplugged LAN network cables at a computer server, as cyber agencies warn that websites may be taken offline while PHP prepares a critical fix, in Berlin, Germany, on October 21, 2026. —Reuters

President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday took an apparent swipe at counterpart Donald Trump of exploiting France’s riots for advantage in the US midterm election battle, as Paris prepared for more protests this weekend.

Macron, speaking during a visit to Qatar, implied that Trump, and possibly Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also in election mode, made “stupid comments” on the unrest for political gain, though he did not name either leader.

“There are people who campaign at France’s expense — leaders who are in campaign mode, whether here in the region or on the other side of the Atlantic,” he told reporters in Doha.

Macron made his remarks as he and his government struggled to get on top of a crisis that has scarred France’s image both abroad and in financial markets, six months ahead of presidential elections to choose his successor.

France’s government has admitted it “lost control” in the frenzy of street violence that erupted last weekend, when masked youths clashed with police, looted shops and vandalised public buildings.

Trump has sought to link the “revolution” in France to “migrants, jihadists, and communists” as he campaigned for his Republican party in the United States on his anti-immigration messaging.

He also on Tuesday hailed French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who shares his ideologies, as a conservative voice, with surveys putting her as the frontrunner in France’s presidential race.

Trump’s ally Netanyahu, facing his own tough election battle, on Tuesday argued that France had been hit by an “invasion of extremist Islam”.

Several analysts have dismissed the claims that migrants were driving France’s protests.

Curfews

The unrest overshadowed demonstrations held on Saturday in which more than half a million people marched nationwide against the cost of living. Those rallies followed four weeks of student protests that have closed many schools across France.

Since the rioting — the worst France has seen in years — and ahead of further cost-of-living demonstrations this coming Saturday, Macron’s government has warned it will brook no further violence.

Authorities in Paris and several other cities imposed nighttime curfews Monday and Tuesday in certain zones prone to protests or looting.

Macron said that on Thursday he would chair a meeting of key ministers and intelligence officials to receive a “detailed account” of what happened last weekend.

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, who on Wednesday held a meeting with union leaders organising marches, has vowed a “massive” police deployment for the fresh demonstrations called for Saturday by the Yellow Vest movement protesting rising inflation.

The convulsion in France, the EU’s second-biggest economy after Germany, has rattled financial markets already nervous about the country’s growing debt pile and deficit.

The yield on the French government’s benchmark 10-year bond has been rising, and on Wednesday surpassed five percent as investors demanded a higher return given the fiscal woes. A rising yield signifies a drop in bond prices.

The Paris stock market also fell.

On Friday, the Moody’s ratings agency is expected to lower its grade on France’s public debt.

The country’s political landscape is so fragmented that Lecornu has little chance of winning swift parliamentary consensus for a cost-cutting budget that needs to be adopted before the end of this year.

Le Pen leads race

The latest survey, carried out by Ifop in the wake of the riots, suggested Le Pen would lead first-round voting intentions by a wide margin and far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon emerged as her most likely opponent in the runoff.

France’s neighbours Italy and Belgium have also started to experience similar unrest, on a smaller scale. Italy’s government has ordered 500 troops to Milan to stem street violence there.

Macron said that “we don’t need a state of emergency” that would likewise permit soldiers to reinforce police against rioters, adding that “we have the means” already at authorities’ disposal, such as curfews.

While the partial curfews have led to a calming of the situation in Paris and elsewhere, they have disrupted travel for commuters looking to take urban rail after 11pm (2am PKT).

“It’s quite disconcerting,” said one Paris commuter who gave only his first name, Louis, when he found his line closed. But “if it can prevent further acts of vandalism… then yes, I think it’s a good thing”, he said.

The Yellow Vest movement behind last weekend’s demonstrations announced on Wednesday that it had formally told authorities it planned to hold its Paris march on Saturday starting from Bastille square.

The movement also wants to hold follow-up nationwide demonstrations on Nov 5.

The images broadcast around the world of France’s street violence last weekend have prompted several countries, including the United States, China and Germany, to issue travel advisories for their citizens in France.

The first Ebola case detected in Nigeria is the Bundibugyo strain, which is behind a major DR Congo outbreak, and the patient is a diplomat, an emergency meeting heard on Wednesday.

The case in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, was detected in a woman who had travelled from Uganda to the capital Abuja on Oct 3, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) said.

Since the Ebola outbreak was declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo in mid-May, the deadly viral haemorrhagic fever has spread to several countries across the continent, including to neighbouring Uganda.

“We did three levels of tests, but all molecular. The strain was Bundibugyo,” Olajumoke Babatunde, director of the public health laboratory service at the NCDC said.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) also confirmed that it was the Bundibugyo strain, for which there is still neither a vaccine nor a specific treatment.

“This person is actually a diplomat,” another official said, adding the patient has deteriorated into “multi-organ failure”.

The director general of Africa CDC, Jean Kaseya, warned on Tuesday of “an extremely serious threat” as Kenya also declared its ninth Ebola case.

In several months, the DRC’s Ebola epidemic has become the deadliest in the country’s history, killing 4,381 people out of more than 9,000 confirmed cases, according to the health authorities.

Nigeria has identified 44 contacts that are being monitored, while intensifying efforts to find other people who may have been exposed.

The WHO said in a statement that infection prevention and control was being “ramped up” at the private hospital where the patient sought care.

Washington’s envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Saint Petersburg early Wednesday to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin following what US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described as “positive” talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.

The trip by President Donald Trump’s special envoy is part of efforts to draw a line under a bitter feud between him and Zelensky over the war with Russia.

After talks with Witkoff in Oslo, Zelensky thanked Washington on Tuesday for the resumption of US intelligence sharing on Russian strikes.

The positive tone followed days of friction between Kyiv and Washington after Trump struck a diesel-supply deal with Putin and called for Zelensky to be replaced after Ukraine refused to stop hitting Russian oil refineries.

“We are thankful that intelligence works,” Zelensky told reporters in Oslo, describing the early warnings as “very, very important for our people, for children, adults, civilians” when ballistic missiles were about to strike.

Rubio said during a visit to India that Witkoff would next head to Russia after the “positive” talks with Zelensky.

“He’ll now, armed with those ideas, be able to go to Saint Petersburg and share them with the Russian side — and let’s see if we can make some progress,” Rubio said.

Witkoff’s planned meeting with Putin on Wednesday would include Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner participating virtually, a US official told AFP.

Trump’s envoy was met at Pulkovo Airport in Saint Petersburg by the Kremlin’s adviser for international economic cooperation, Kirill Dmitriev, according to news agencies.

‘Make a deal’

Trump said Tuesday that he had asked Putin to release Stephen Hubbard, an American taken captive by Russian forces years earlier in Ukraine, though it was not clear if the request would be raised in Wednesday’s talks.

“I’ve been talking to him at length. I’ve asked him to release him. Let’s see what happens,” Trump told journalists in Washington.

Trump has also been keeping up the pressure on Ukraine, saying at the White House that he wanted Zelensky to “make a deal” with Russia, which is ramping up its strikes as a bitter winter looms.

Trump, who called on Zelensky to resign last week, also criticised the Ukrainian president for not accepting terms he said he had offered during an infamous televised row in the Oval Office in February 2025.

Ukraine reacted with dismay after Trump also waived sanctions against Russia’s war machine.

The feud spiralled as Zelensky accused Trump of weakness, and then alleged that the United States was deliberately withholding vital intelligence and delaying the delivery of interceptor missiles.

Ukraine has also reported a reduction in speeds on Starshield, the US military satellite system it uses for battlefield communications and strikes on Russian-occupied territory.

Trump has denied ordering a reduction in speeds on Starshield after Elon Musk — whose company SpaceX developed it — said the order could only have come from the White House.

Rubio said Wednesday that Washington had no prior knowledge of the slowdown of the SpaceX satellite communications.

“The president has nothing to do with the decisions that are made by Starlink and Starshield and by Mr Musk,” Rubio said in Mumbai.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that it was indeed Musk who ordered the slowdown in the military-grade version of Starlink.

‘Our future’

Witkoff’s meetings follow furious diplomatic efforts in Washington, Kyiv and Western capitals to calm the row.

Zelensky told US senators on Monday that “the Pentagon is delaying the delivery of missiles” already paid for by European countries, while the shipment was waiting for US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s signature.

Several European countries were ready to transfer Patriot interceptor missiles from their own stockpiles but were awaiting US approval, he said.

Trump, whose Republican Party faces tough midterm elections as fuel prices soar, has accused Zelensky of a lack of effort to resolve the conflict.

He said he was ready to meet Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in China next month to discuss denuclearisation, adding that talks could also cover the Ukraine war — sparking fears in Kyiv that it was being sidelined.

Zelensky insisted Tuesday that Kyiv needed to be represented at any meeting regarding Ukraine’s future.

“If there are issues about Ukraine, our future, it can be acceptable only when we are at the table of negotiations,” he said.

Laddli Khatun pulled one document after another from a yellow bag, desperately hoping one would be enough to keep her name on India’s electoral rolls.

As the world’s largest democracy overhauls its voter lists, millions like Khatun are scrambling to re-establish their credentials, despite having voted before.

Critics and opposition parties say the exercise risks mass disenfranchisement, and those removed fear wider citizenship repercussions.

More than 133 million names — including 28 million listed as dead — have been cut from rolls, according to figures reported by Indian media and cited by opposition parties in court filings.

Protests have rocked New Delhi, with demonstrators demanding the chief election commissioner’s resignation, alleging the overhaul is designed to benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The Election Commission of India (ECI), a constitutional body, denies wrongdoing and says the revision complies with the law.

‘Burden of proof’

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) requires voters to link themselves —directly or through their parents or grandparents —to electoral rolls from 2002-03, the last time such a rigorous review took place.

Khatun, 39, was not of voting age at the time. So she must now prove that at least one of her parents or grandparents featured on those rolls.

“My parents died when I was a baby,” Khatun, who lives in a Delhi slum, told AFP at a hearing reviewing voter credentials.

“They were poor unlettered people who left no documents behind.” Many face Khatun’s predicament.

“Women, minorities, people living at the margins and the poorest are the worst hit by this exercise, because they find it very difficult to produce documents which can prove their citizenship,” said transparency activist Anjali Bhardwaj.

The Election Commission previously sought to enrol eligible voters through door-to-door visits, guided by its motto: “No voter to be left behind”.

Critics say the exercise shifts the “burden of proof” onto voters.

“The methodology followed has been of physical door-to-door verification,” former election commissioner Ashok Lavasa told AFP.

“It was never that you asked people wholesale to establish their eligibility all over again… after they have been admitted to the rolls through the prescribed due process.”

‘Untraceable’

Surajmukhi, made homeless when an eviction drive demolished the slum where she had lived for 30 years, was removed from Delhi’s draft rolls and marked “untraceable”.

“I have no document to link myself to the 2002 voter rolls, because at the time I was not enrolled as a voter, and my parents are long dead,” she said, standing in the rubble of her home.

“But I have voted multiple times since — the officials themselves came to our home and enrolled us as voters. What has suddenly changed?” Officials on the ground acknowledge the difficulties the exercise poses for poorer voters.

“Mapping yourself to the 2002 voter lists is not easy for those who are not educated and technologically savvy,” said Mukesh Khanna, a booth-level officer in a Delhi suburb with a large population of working-class migrants.

Special camps have been set up to help voters, but many still struggle to navigate the process.

‘Suspicious’

Millions have also been flagged for additional checks after the Election Commission used automated systems to identify what it calls “logical discrepancies”, including mismatched names and inconsistent family details.

Independent analyses suggest Muslims have been disproportionately affected.

In Delhi, an analysis by The Hindu newspaper found Muslims accounted for around 20 per cent of voters flagged, compared with 13.6pc of the electorate.

The disparity was even starker in West Bengal, according to the Kolkata-based policy think tank Sabar Institute.

Street cleaner Shahida, 42, received a notice because her mother was only 15 years older than her — an age gap the software flagged as “suspicious”.

“What am I expected to do — go back in time and ask my dead grandparents why they got my dead mother married so young?” she said.

“The reality is child marriages were common among the poor at the time.” National rugby player and actor Aslam, 24, who uses one name, said his voter registration was flagged as “suspicious” because six other people were linked to his deceased father, according to a notice seen by AFP.

“It is clearly targeted against voters who don’t vote for the BJP,” said Aslam, a Muslim with six siblings.

“It almost feels like the idea is to create a category of second-class citizens.” Modi’s Hindu-nationalist BJP, which strongly backs the revision, has long alleged that undocumented migrants from neighbouring Bangladesh — particularly Muslims — have fraudulently entered electoral rolls.

The Supreme Court has said exclusion from electoral rolls does not establish that someone is a foreign national.

However, Indian media have reported cases in West Bengal in which people excluded from voter rolls were accused of being undocumented migrants from Bangladesh, detained and, in some instances, pushed across the border.

For Khatun, the prospect of such an outcome hangs over an already gruelling ordeal.

“I have provided document after document, everything that I have,” she said. But what if they still ask us to leave the country?

PARIS: Conceived at the 2024 Biodiversity COP, the Cali Fund was meant to raise billions of dollars for nature protection — but has so far only collected $7,085. It is a sluggish start for a fund intended as a showcase for innovative financing that charges companies profiting from the use of genetic data derived from nature.

The trickle of money highlights the difficulties involved in mobilising money for biodiversity. As a crucial UN biodiversity summit in Armenia running until Oct 30 discusses its future, here’s a rundown on how the fund works and reasons for its lacklustre start:

How does the fund work?

Adopted at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, at the end of 2024, the fund began operating in February 2025. It proposes the payment of one percent of the annual profits of pharmaceutical, cosmetics, biotechnology companies or firms specialising in animal and plant breeding, or 0.1pc of their turnover. In a preparatory document, its designers mentioned the possibility of recovering one billion dollars a year in light of the revenues of the sectors concerned.

However, so far only three companies have contributed: the British firms TierraViva AI ($1,000) and Prozomix ($5,000), and the Belgian company E-BIOM ($1,085). Two others have pledged an additional $3,571.

What is its justification?

Digital sequence information (DSI) — data derived from genetic resources such as plants, animals, fungi, viruses and micro-organisms — is freely accessible in digital databases. Companies draw on this biological heritage to turn it into economic value by developing a medicine, a cream, improving an agricultural plant and so on.

The Cali Fund is based on the idea that those who benefit from this information, directly or indirectly, should in return contribute to the protection of biodiversity and to the local communities preserving it.

The fund is not legally binding but it does invite states to adopt administrative, policy or legislative measures to encourage companies to do so.

Why are companies reluctant?

The main difficulty is that “mechanism still relies very heavily on incentives and voluntary contributions,” according to Juliette Landry from the sustainable development think tank IDDRI based in Paris. “As long as these incentives are not strong enough and consistent across countries, a company may well ask why it should contribute when its competitors are not doing so.” Pakhi Das, public policy adviser at the NGO Plant-for-the-Planet, said there were no countries currently with legislation incentivising contributions to the fund, nor are there any where such legislation is under discussion.

Beyond the challenge of drawing enough resources into it, another lies in the actual use of the money collected. “The main hurdle that companies seem to be raising is ensuring there are safeguards in place for how their funding will be used,” said Vishaish Uppal, a director at WWF-India.

Companies also want to be sure that the Cali Fund’s internationally accepted certificates — documenting receipt of payment for use of genetic resources — are also accepted nationally, to avoid paying twice.

What does the pharmaceutical industry say?

“The level of participation in the Cali Fund reflects ongoing questions about the design and implementation of the mechanism, rather than a lack of commitment to biodiversity,” said Guilherme Cintra, the director of innovation policy at the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2026

US Vice President JD Vance said he would not be following Donald Trump in endorsing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and wanted to stay on the sidelines.

“I’m not anti-endorsing him. I’m not pro-endorsing him. I’m not getting involved in Israeli elections,” Vance said of Netanyahu, in an interview on Monday with journalist Mark Halperin.

“I endorse American candidates and that’s where I’m focused on is the (US) midterms,” he added.

Trump on Sunday issued a public endorsement of his right-wing ally Netanyahu, who is seeking a new term as premier in Israel’s Oct 27 parliamentary election.

Vance’s reticence to weigh in on the Israeli vote contrasts with his approach to European elections.

Days before Hungary’s parliamentary election in April, he flew to Budapest to support then-prime minister Viktor Orban, another right-wing figure.

He has also voiced support for Germany’s far-right AfD party, whose leader, Alice Weidel, he met last year.

Vance, who is widely viewed as aiming to succeed Trump in 2029, reportedly expressed opposition to launching the US-Israeli war with Iran, but has since defended the campaign.

The vice president also had notably strong words for Israeli officials who criticised a short-lived US-Iran ceasefire agreement in June.

“Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment,” he said at the time.

“If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world,” he added.

British fighter planes will be deployed to help Saudi Arabia defend itself against increasing attacks from Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the UK government announced on Tuesday.

The defence ministry said the deployment formed part of “additional defensive military support” to Riyadh.

“The UK will fly defensive counter air missions to support the protection of Saudi cities and critical national infrastructure against aerial attack, using RAF Typhoon fighter jets,” the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in a statement.

“These aircraft will operate in a defensive role and will not conduct offensive strikes against the Houthis.”

Britain will also deploy a military transport aircraft “to support the movement of defence material within Saudi Arabia alongside UK military advisers to support Saudi staff officers”, the statement added.

“The continuing attacks from the Houthis on our ally Saudi Arabia are absolutely despicable,” said Defence Minister Wes Streeting.

“The targeting of the airport in Riyadh in particular shows the lengths the Houthis are going to (to) escalate the situation in the region,” he added.

The Saudi capital’s international airport has been targeted by strikes 20 times since the beginning of the month, with a recent attack killing 13 people and wounding more than 300.

The Houthis have imposed a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, hitting its tankers, seizing swathes of Yemen’s Red Sea coast vital for oil exports and causing energy prices to jump, while also raining missiles on the kingdom.

Yemen’s civil war — in which Saudi Arabia has led a military coalition supporting the government since 2015 — reignited in September after the collapse of a years-long truce.

Saudi Arabia, the Yemeni government and the United States accuse Iran of backing the Houthis — an allegation Tehran denies.

France will impose new curfews in areas where needed on Tuesday, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said, adding that the measures introduced in several cities the previous day had “helped keep the night calm”.

France was rocked on Saturday by some of its worst rioting in recent years, just six months before the country elects a successor to President Emmanuel Macron.

Accused of failing to anticipate and contain the street violence, the government has pledged to restore order, and had announced partial curfews in Paris and some other cities on Monday.

“Targeted curfews have contributed to calm overnight,” Lecornu wrote on X.

“Tonight new curfews will be decided where the situation requires it. These decisions will be made on the ground, by the prefects, in coordination with the mayors,” he said.

Police confirmed the night had passed without major incidents across France.

Several cities, including Paris, the southwestern city of Bordeaux and Nice on the French Riviera, introduced partial curfews on Monday in response to urban unrest that followed weeks of student demonstrations over poor learning conditions in high schools.

While some restrictions, such as those in Paris, initially applied only for the night from Monday to Tuesday, others, particularly in Bordeaux and Nice, were set to remain in force for several days.

During the night, a helicopter flew over the French capital’s Place de la Republique, one of the epicentres of the unrest, sweeping a powerful searchlight across the square to monitor compliance with the curfew.

In Lyon, despite a ban on demonstrations, around 500 people gathered on Monday evening outside the tourism office that was set on fire, to show support for shopkeepers affected by looting, according to organisers.

The word “LYON” had been spelled out on the ground with candles.

A banner hung on a fence nearby read “Anti-Rioters Lyon” and “Doucet Resign”, referring to Green mayor Gregory Doucet, an AFP journalist said.

Under pressure, the government scheduled another series of emergency meetings on Tuesday, including talks involving representatives of major social media platforms.

Finance Minister Roland Lescure pledged support measures for shopkeepers and craftspeople.

Patrick Martin, the head of France’s Medef business lobby group, on Tuesday accused the state of having “failed” during the urban unrest that hit at least 3,000 businesses, according to preliminary estimates.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that India had made “substantial progress” in diversifying its energy supplies, including away from its key importer, Russia.

“What India has expressed repeatedly is their desire to diversify their energy portfolio, which is a smart thing to do,” Rubio said on a visit to India’s economic capital, Mumbai.

“Obviously, it’s not easy to do that from one day to the next, so I think they’ve made substantial progress in that regard, and we’re happy to see that.”

This is Rubio’s second official visit to the country this year, as he pursues an Asian tour blending diplomacy and trade. He has visited Uzbekistan, where he called for stronger partnerships with Central Asian countries, before landing in Mumbai for talks with Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and meetings with business leaders.

India is a major importer of Russian oil, and US President Donald Trump’s tariff war launched in April last year has added to friction between Washington and New Delhi.

“Obviously, we think we could be a source of some of their energy inputs,” Rubio said.

The top US diplomat will visit Jamnagar, in the western state of Gujarat, a port and stronghold of billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance conglomerate and its flagship refinery, the world’s largest.

“India is a refining superpower,” said Rubio.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not scheduled to meet Rubio this time.

Washington’s top diplomat is also due to lay a wreath in memory of the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people.

The top US diplomat visited New Delhi and Kolkata in May this year, while also touring the Taj Mahal and meeting Modi.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday he had also spoken to Rubio and raised issues with the US military satellite system that Ukraine uses, as well as missile delays.

Zelensky, expected in Oslo for talks with US envoys, said he told Rubio that “Starlink/Starshield needs to be restored” and that ballistic missile interceptors “are needed to protect lives”.

‘Energy supplies’

Rubio’s visit comes as India and the United States struggle to finalise a trade deal, a persistent source of friction between the two countries.

“We’re very very close; I would say we’re about as close as you can be without having an executed agreement. I think there’s a small number of items left to wrap up,” Rubio said. “Hopefully have some good news to announce fairly soon, and perhaps the leaders can sign it thereafter.”

Speaking in Samarkand earlier this week, Rubio said Washington and New Delhi were “very close” to an agreement.

However, a deal during his visit appears unlikely.

Asked about temporary US sanctions waivers for Russian oil, Rubio said Washington had to juggle multiple factors “including our bilateral relationships with other countries and what they realistically are capable of being able to do in terms of their own energy supplies”.

“You also can’t unravel the economy of other countries because of one central issue,” he said.

The two countries reached an interim trade agreement in February aimed at reducing US tariffs on Indian goods.

But days later, the US Supreme Court struck down Trump’s sweeping tariffs, fuelling uncertainty over when the agreement would take effect.

The two sides have been negotiating ever since.

Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said this month the talks had reached “a plateau, beyond which giving or taking might be very, very difficult”.

Jaishankar met with his United Arab Emirates counterpart in Mumbai earlier on Tuesday. The UAE is a key supplier of Indian energy, especially liquefied natural gas (LNG).

“The situation in the Gulf remains a matter of deep concern,” Jaishankar told UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in public comments broadcast before their meeting started.

He said India continues to support “free, safe and unimpeded flow of trade, energy and fertiliser”.

Israeli police said on Monday that they had arrested 10 people in the occupied West Bank after settler attacks on an American photographer and a French mayor that drew international condemnation but mixed messages from the government.

In a rare action against rising settler violence, police said they raided several locations across the occupied territory and seized cars and potential evidence related to the attacks.

“Following the severe incidents of violence over the past weekend, including the assault of a media worker and the suspected attacks on foreign civilians, an arrest operation was conducted before dawn,” said Major General Moshe Finchi, the Israeli police’s West Bank commander.

“Suspects were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the violent incidents, violating a military commander’s order concerning a closed military zone, and illegal construction,” he said.

Witnesses say that settlers have been stepping up violent attacks on Palestinians during the ongoing olive harvest, aiming to seize their land during a season that carries cultural importance for the community.

Rights groups note that Israel rarely prosecutes settlers when the victims are Palestinian. The Israeli human rights group Yesh Din said it documents 561 acts of settler or military violence against Palestinians since September 27 — more than 26 incidents a day.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing a tight race for a new mandate, has tried to shore up his pro-settlement right-wing base and has cast doubt on the circumstances behind the recent settler attacks on Westerners.

Netanyahu’s tone has brought unusually strong criticism from the opposition, which has accused him of tarnishing Israel’s image.

US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, a staunch ally of Israel, had called Friday’s beating of veteran photographer Heidi Levine an “act of terror” and demanded punishment. He called Monday’s arrests a “very positive development”.

Levine, 65, who was on assignment for The Washington Post, was taken to a hospital with broken vertebrae. She was visited at her hospital bed both by President Isaac Herzog, who holds a largely ceremonial role, and centre-left opposition leader Yair Golan.

Golan, in a social media post afterwards, said that if he takes power, there will no longer be “a reality in which Jews instil terror in the name of Jewish supremacy, and stain the state we built here”.

Rising international attention

One day after Levine’s beating, settlers attacked a convoy of European diplomats, including the French and Belgian consuls general in Jerusalem as they went through the town of Taybeh in the West Bank on Saturday.

The settlers beat up Bernard Baudoux, 78, the mayor of the northern French town of Aulnoye-Aymeries, who was wearing a sash in the French tricolour during a goodwill visit in which he helped harvest olives.

Netanyahu earlier questioned the facts behind the two recent incidents.

On Levine’s beating, he alleged that Palestinians and “far-left” activists were fanning violence. With the attack on the diplomatic convoy, he pointed out that the mayor was a leftist supporter of the Palestinian cause and said that diplomats should have coordinated with the Israeli military.

The top official on human rights in the US State Department, Riley Barnes, on Sunday visited the same town where the mayor was beaten, which is largely Christian, on a trip coordinated with the military. He was unharmed.

The violence by settlers has led British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband to accuse Israel of an “ethnic cleansing” campaign and for London to impose sanctions on goods from settlements.

Marking Monday’s deadline for Israel accepting construction tenders for the E1 settlements, a major new project that Palestinians fear will divide the West Bank in two, Miliband warned businesses about consequences.

“They should be aware of legal and reputational consequences, including the risk of involving themselves in serious breaches of international law,” Miliband said in a statement.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar hit back against what he called an “obsession” with Israel by British Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government.

“The days when Israel would quietly accept threats, sanctions and attempts to dictate its policies are over,” Saar said.

A New Delhi magistrate extended the detention of two leaders of India’s youth-led Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) movement by two days on Monday, after they were remanded in custody five days ago.

CJP activists and opposition parties have defied a security crackdown to demand the resignation of India’s chief election commissioner, accusing the poll body of manipulating voter rolls to benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party.

The commission, which oversees voting in the world’s most populous nation, has denied any wrongdoing.

Television footage showed CJP leaders Ashutosh Ranka, 30, and Saurav Das, 27, being taken away in a blue police van from a police station where the hearing took place.

“This is an absolute mockery of the justice system,” the movement’s legal affairs head Ratna Singh told reporters.

Das and Ranka were taken into custody on Oct 14 for their “alleged repeated attempts to disturb public peace and violate the law”, the police said in a statement at the time.

The pair had jumped security barricades to wave the national flag at Jantar Mantar, a decades-old protest site that police have barred people from using.

“Their alleged attempts to instigate others through social media to engage in similar unlawful activities were also taken into consideration,” the statement said.

Jantar Mantar, in the heart of the capital, has been sealed off with yellow metal barricades for more than a week and guarded by security personnel.

Delhi police said last week they had removed the site from the list of designated protest venues.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk said on Monday that he would give every child in the United States a share in his SpaceX rocket company.

“Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America,” Musk, the richest man in the world, said on X.

“This will be the first of many,” he said, without providing details about how the scheme would work.

There are around 73 million children under the age of 18 in the United States, according to 2024 data from the US Census Bureau.

Musk owns 38 per cent of SpaceX, according to Forbes.

His announcement comes after US President Donald Trump promised last month to give every American adult $5,000 if his Republican party retains control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.

SpaceX set the record for the largest initial public offering in history, raising $85.7 billion in June.

The company’s Starship megarocket reached orbit for the first time in September, a milestone for the rocket central to Musk’s Mars ambitions.

France announced partial curfews in Paris and other cities on Monday after weekend demonstrations over soaring prices degenerated into some of the worst street violence in recent years.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu did not rule out imposing a state of emergency after the interior minister said police had “lost control”.

Tourists in Paris had a taste of the disruption on Monday when they found the Louvre closed because of a small group of student protesters.

Facing accusations that it failed to anticipate and respond to the violence, the government has vowed to re-establish order, while officials scrambled to contain public anger.

The unrest, erupting just six months before France elects a successor to President Emmanuel Macron, threatened to continue, with organisers calling for a new round of protests next Saturday.

Authorities said partial curfews would be enforced from Monday evening to Tuesday morning in a number of cities including Paris, Lille and Lyon, to protect businesses.

In the capital, a curfew was ordered from 11pm (2am PKT), while demonstrations were banned from 8pm.

“I’m absolutely determined to restore public order”, Lecornu said.

Other European countries have also seen demonstrations over rising prices, with smaller clashes breaking out in Milan and Belgium over the weekend and protests simmering in Spain and Portugal.

Some half a million people turned out across France on Saturday to denounce the surging cost of living, a culmination of four weeks of protests that began with students demanding better conditions at high schools.

What started as peaceful demonstrations descended into violence in many cities, as masked groups attacked law enforcement, broke into public buildings and set some ablaze, looted shops, and set fire to cars, bicycles and scooters.

Listings for ‘stolen goods’

On Monday, France’s digital minister, Anne Le Henanff, urged online resale platforms to remove listings for “stolen items” following Saturday’s looting and summoned representatives of companies including Vinted and eBay.

After the weekend scenes of chaos, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez offered his resignation, but Macron refused to accept it.

More than 2,500 people were arrested and nearly 1,000 members of the security forces injured. Protesters were also hurt, with one demonstrator’s hand blown off by a police crowd-control grenade.

Macron acknowledged failures in the government response, which had seen 60,000 law enforcement personnel deployed on Saturday.

Nationwide, more than 2,513 people have been taken into police custody since the weekend, Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin said. He added that 67 had been jailed and “dozens” of criminal cases opened.

Darmanin also said authorities would use facial recognition on social media to identify perpetrators.

At least 3,000 shops were damaged, with the cost running into hundreds of millions of euros.

In an address to the nation on Sunday, Macron slammed the “unbridled” violence.

The European Union called the violence “unacceptable” but warned that the right to peaceful protest “must be protected” in France.

Germany condemned the violence and updated its travel advice for France, saying “further outbreaks of violence in the coming days cannot be ruled out”.

China has warned citizens travelling to France to be aware of risks and take safety precautions, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Louvre blocked

In Paris on Monday, a dozen demonstrators blocked the entrance to the Louvre, the most visited museum in the world, while bewildered tourists looked on.

“We don’t want to get involved. We want to stand back and get away from them,” Pat Boland, a tourist from Australia, said of the protests.

The pensioner, 73, spoke to AFP outside barricades that had been erected at the Louvre, which was closed because a small group of protesters stood by its famed glass pyramid entrance.

The unrest has flared before presidential elections in April and May that will elect a new French president after a decade of centrist Macron.

Marine Le Pen, the far-right presidential candidate, is riding high in the polls.

The government has accused ultra-left groups of stoking the violence to boost the chances of the far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon in the presidential polls.

The interior minister and intelligence services were to meet late Monday to discuss the violence.

Europe

During the weekend, clashes broke out on the sidelines of a cost-of-living demonstration in Milan.

“I’m very worried because it’s a new phenomenon, which also originates from an international scenario and therefore feeds itself,” mayor Giuseppe Sala said.

In Belgium, police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse protesters in Brussels and Liege.

In Spain protesters have set up tents in the heart of Madrid to denounce soaring housing costs, with similar encampments going up in neighbouring Portugal’s main cities of Lisbon and Porto.

The World Food Programme said Monday it would end monthly assistance to 500,000 people in Gaza due to a funding shortfall, despite acute needs in the war-battered Palestinian territory.

With the cutbacks, 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza — still about half the population — will be receiving either food or cash assistance each month from the UN agency, in reduced amounts.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said its efforts had mitigated the effects during a famine last year in Gaza and warned that conditions had not improved to the point that it can take away aid.

“People are not safe. Airstrikes continue on a daily basis. People continue to be displaced,” Shaun Hughes, the WFP country director, told AFP at the agency’s office in east Jerusalem.

“Almost everybody remains without a permanent home to live in. And the humanitarian conditions are brutal,” he said.

According to the latest assessments, 1.4 million people — or two-thirds of Gaza’s population — are still “acutely food insecure” and need humanitarian assistance to survive, he said.

In August last year, the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification said that Gaza was suffering famine conditions.

The famine classification was lifted in December, two months after a US-brokered ceasefire was announced in Gaza. Israel has kept striking Gaza since then, vowing to kill anyone involved in the October 7 attack.

Since the ceasefire, the WFP has been able to step up assistance and had been reaching between 1.5 million and 1.8 million people every month.

“This has been a lifeline. But now, rather than being able to sustain and scale up that assistance, we’re actually having to reduce it,” Hughes said.

“And that’s not because we don’t have humanitarian access to deliver food; that’s because we don’t have funding.”

Less aid to each recipient

In addition to reducing the number of people who receive rations, the WFP has been forced to shrink the content.

Families receiving food assistance will now get only one food parcel instead of two and a smaller bag of wheat flour, the WFP said in an operational note.

The 75,000 families who receive assistance in cash will see the amount reduced from 1,250 to 750 shekels ($400 to $240) per month.

The WFP is funded by governments as well as private donors. It has seen a sharp drop in resources, including after President Donald Trump returned to power in the United States and drastically slashed contributions to UN agencies as well as bilateral aid.

The agency says it needs about $450 million over the next six months for its operations in Gaza and the West Bank, but in 2026 it has only received about half the usual financing for the Palestinian territories.

In September, the agency also reduced by half the number of aid recipients in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, from 400,000 to 200,000.

“Now is not the time in the history of Palestine and Gaza to turn away from what is happening in Gaza,” Hughes said.

The WFP says that conditions have moderately improved in Gaza but noted that needs could rise again with the onset of winter.

Israel has allowed more goods into Gaza under the terms of the Trump ceasefire but still imposes heavy restrictions, turning away shipments of anything that is seen as having potential military use — a policy that has included blocking even prosthetic limbs, according to the United Nations.

Israel has ramped up longstanding criticism of the United Nations since the Gaza war, accusing the world body of bias and perpetuating dependency among Palestinians.

Britain’s Met Office says this year’s El Nino is “unprecedented.” Japan’s weather agency has called it the strongest ever observed. US forecasters say it still trails the biggest events in its record books.

How can they all be right? The answer lies in how they measure El Nino’s strength, with meteorological agencies using different methods to assess the climate phenomenon that make direct comparisons difficult.

“By any measure, we are looking at a very strong El Nino,” climate scientist Emily Becker of the University of Miami told AFP, adding that only once it is over will scientists be able to assess how big it is and “where it fits in the context of history.”

Natural climate driver

The Pacific Ocean’s El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the planet’s main natural climate driver. Normally, trade winds blow east to west along the equator, pushing warm water from South America toward Asia, while cold water rises from the depths to replace it.

El Ninos, which occur every two to seven years on average and last nine to 12 months, disrupt this pattern.

The trade winds weaken and warm water is pushed back east toward the Americas. That shift in where ocean heat is released into the atmosphere ripples across global weather, making some regions cooler and wetter and others hotter and drier.

In describing the El Nino as unprecedented, the Met Office points to raw temperatures in the Pacific.

“Our observations confirm that sea-surface temperatures in the central equatorial Pacific have now surpassed levels recorded during previous El Nino events,” it said in a statement to AFP.

But absolute temperatures are just one way of measuring El Nino’s strength.

Agencies also look at anomalies — how far temperatures rise above a historic baseline — to assess the event.

The Japan Meteorological Agency last week declared this El Nino the strongest on record based on how far sea surface temperatures were above normal in the Nino3 region of the eastern Pacific. By its count, the event beat 1997 in observations going back to 1949.

The US watches a neighboring box, Nino3.4, in the east-central Pacific.

It declares an El Nino when temperatures there run at least 0.5C above normal and the atmosphere responds, weakening the trade winds and shifting tropical rainfall eastward. This process is known as “ocean-atmosphere coupling.”

Accounting for climate change

How “normal” is defined has been a matter of significant debate.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other agencies including the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation long used the Oceanic Nino Index (ONI), which compares temperatures to a 30-year average that is updated every five years, so that the baseline keeps pace with a warming climate.

But with climate change speeding up and warming oceans worldwide, NOAA now uses the Relative Oceanic Nino Index (RONI), and the WMO is in the process of switching.

RONI also relies on a 30-year average but goes on to measure how warm or cool the east-central Pacific is compared to the rest of the tropical ocean, because it is that difference that drives the weather impacts we care about.

“We were finding a mismatch between the temperature of the tropical Pacific and the impacts,” said Becker about the old index. La Nina years, when the central and eastern tropical Pacific is cooler than normal, were producing stronger effects than their rating suggested, and El Ninos weaker ones.

NOAA projects this El Nino will be the strongest in its records, which go back to 1950, if the three-month average RONI anomaly reaches 2.5°C or higher, a level that would put it above the 1982-83, 2015-16, and 1997-98 events.

The chances are rated “high,” but not yet certain.

“Regardless of where we’re ranking or how we’re measuring this event, it’s an incredible opportunity to study and understand this very powerful phenomenon in the context of a warming world,” said Becker.

Alberta decides Monday if it wants to pursue a binding referendum on leaving Canada, with Prime Minister Mark Carney warning a separatist win would bring dangerous uncertainty during a trade war with the United States.

Polls indicate less than a quarter of people in the western Canadian province support independence.

But attention has focused on turnout in the days before the vote, and whether a motivated separatist camp could defy the polls, helped by complacent federalists.

“Don’t let anyone tell you this is already decided. Turnout will determine the outcome,” Carney told a rally on Thursday.

Carney, who grew up in Alberta, has called the referendum “a dangerous bluff” as US President Donald Trump imposes punishing tariffs and levels annexation threats aimed — the prime minister says — at breaking Canadian resolve.

“Vote like Canada depends on it, because it does,” Carney said.

Alberta has the world’s fourth-largest proven oil reserves and separatist momentum has been driven by anger over Ottawa’s management of the sector.

Many Albertans loathed Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, who they accused of trying to suppress oil production to advance his pro-climate agenda.

“If you want me to pinpoint who is responsible for the separatist sentiment, I think it’s Justin Trudeau,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told the Canadaland podcast this month.

At a separatist rally in Edmonton on Saturday, 61-year-old Sandy Martel said people connected to the oil industry feel “robbed, cheated (and) mistreated.” “It’s time to stand up and say stop,” she told AFP.

The vote comes days after a fire at a military base in the province left at least four soldiers dead and wounded dozens, prompting a national outpouring of condolences.

‘Huge uncertainty’

Smith, a conservative, says she wants Alberta to remain in Canada but called the referendum to settle the divisive issue.

If a majority votes to separate, she has pledged to move forward with a binding referendum.

If the federalists win, Smith says the secession question should be considered closed.

Analysts have compared Smith’s tactics to those of former UK prime minister David Cameron, who had hoped to resolve the debate over Britain’s European Union membership with a vote.

Carney led the Bank of England through the turmoil that surrounded Brexit, and issued a warning to Albertans about that experience on Thursday.

“It wasn’t clear what ‘Brexit’ meant at the time,” he told a Calgary television station.

“For the next few years, while that was being determined, there was huge uncertainty, investments stopped, the economy started to underperform,” he added, cautioning over unintended economic consequences.

AI influence

Monday’s referendum features 10 questions, including several related to immigration, but focus is on question 10, which asks: “Should Alberta remain a province of Canada?” or should the province take the legal steps required for a definitive independence vote? Alberta’s election authority says ballots for question 10 will be counted first, with results expected in the early hours Tuesday.

The pre-referendum period was clouded by avalanches of manipulated AI content.

Carney has urged “a decisive result,” but experts are concerned about a contested outcome no matter the numbers.

“A very likely result of this referendum is going to be a community that sees this election as stolen or at least unfair,” said Aengus Bridgman, director of the Media Ecosystem Observatory at McGill University.

Close Trump allies have also inserted themselves into the discussion, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who in January described Alberta as a “natural partner” for the United States.

After a separatist party won Quebec’s provincial election on October 5, tech billionaire Elon Musk posted that “they would be better off” if they seceded.

“Alberta and Saskatchewan should separate too,” he added.

Asked about alleged foreign interference, Carney said Thursday that foreign governments, including the US, should not “get themselves involved in our elections.”