The Cali Fund, set up to raise $1bn a year for biodiversity from drug companies, remains near empty

Big pharmaceutical companies have been accused of “free-riding on nature”, after a landmark biodiversity fund that invites businesses to put some of their profits back into conservation was left virtually empty.

The Cali Fund set out to raise $1bn (£750m) annually, by asking companies that profit from nature’s genetics to contribute towards conservation in low-income countries. But more than 18 months after the fund was launched, it remains far below this target.

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© Photograph: Rebecca Cole/The Guardian

© Photograph: Rebecca Cole/The Guardian

© Photograph: Rebecca Cole/The Guardian

The Cali Fund, set up to raise $1bn a year for biodiversity from drug companies, remains near empty

Big pharmaceutical companies have been accused of “free-riding on nature”, after a landmark biodiversity fund that invites businesses to put some of their profits back into conservation was left virtually empty.

The Cali Fund set out to raise $1bn (£750m) annually, by asking companies that profit from nature’s genetics to contribute towards conservation in low-income countries. But more than 18 months after the fund was launched, it remains far below this target.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Rebecca Cole/The Guardian

© Photograph: Rebecca Cole/The Guardian

© Photograph: Rebecca Cole/The Guardian

Ereván, 22 oct (Prensa Latina) Las consecuencias económicas de la salida de Armenia de la Unión Económica Euroasiática (UEE) serían catastróficas, según resultados de un estudio publicado hoy por la Agencia de Calificación Euroasiática (ACE).

The post Armenia perdería casi la mitad de su PIB si sale de la UEE first appeared on Noticias Prensa Latina.

In 2022, I helped push through the international agreement to protect biodiversity. Wars and economic pressures can make nature seem like a ‘nice-to-have’. But it is a critical asset, and Cop17 must deliver real action

When I was five, property developers came to cut down the woods behind my home in La Tuque, Quebec. My mother encouraged me to climb one of the trees in protest, then told the developers, straight-faced, that there was nothing she could do when they asked her to get me down. A few days later, the tree was cut down anyway.

I thought about that tree in the early hours of a freezing Montreal morning in December 2022, as the gavel came down on a global agreement between nearly 200 countries to halt and reverse the loss of nature by 2030. I thought about how important nature is for our health, our food security and our economies, but also how much passion there is around protecting it, and how it has the power to inspire people all around the world.

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© Photograph: COP17

© Photograph: COP17

© Photograph: COP17

As Cop17 kicks off, records since 1921 show more bee species declining than increasing in all parts of Europe except the Alps

Most of Europe’s wild bee species and about half of its hover fly species have declined over the last century, a study has found, as a UN biodiversity summit begins in Armenia.

Records since 1921 show more bee species are declining than increasing in all parts of Europe except the Alpine region. The richness of bee and hover fly species suffered a persistent drop in the Atlantic and Continental regions, the study found, though trends in other regions were mixed or even positive.

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© Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

© Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

© Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

As Cop17 kicks off, records since 1921 show more bee species declining than increasing in all parts of Europe except the Alps

Most of Europe’s wild bee species and about half of its hover fly species have declined over the last century, a study has found, as a UN biodiversity summit begins in Armenia.

Records since 1921 show more bee species are declining than increasing in all parts of Europe except the Alpine region. The richness of bee and hover fly species suffered a persistent drop in the Atlantic and Continental regions, the study found, though trends in other regions were mixed or even positive.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

© Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

© Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

Four years ago nearly every government on Earth agreed to protect nature. Now, as countries gather for Cop17, the pressure is on to follow through on those commitments

• Cop17 at a glance: everything you need to know about the UN’s nature summit

Passersby could smell the dead fish before they saw them. In August, more than 3,000 pike, roach, carp and rudd were found lifeless along the River Wensum in Norwich. Some gasped for air in their final moments, desperate for the oxygen that heatwave conditions had depleted in the water. Investigators believe that the die-off was triggered by heavy rainfall that flushed through high concentrations of pollution at a time when wildlife were already struggling.

The 45-mile (70km) chalk river is one of about 250 in the country. They are a geological accident almost unique to Britain – and one of Earth’s rarest habitats. They emerge from chalk aquifers and are home to species such as freshwater shrimp, otters and stoneflies, also providing drinking water for millions of people. But just 11 have formal protection, with many ravaged by sewage pollution and overextraction. The Norfolk river is one of the few that does have legal protection, but it is in poor ecological health.

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© Photograph: Norwich Green Party

© Photograph: Norwich Green Party

© Photograph: Norwich Green Party

This month’s biodiversity summit in Yerevan, Armenia, aims to push governments to meet the 23 targets agreed at Cop15 in 2022

• Can countries deliver on a deal to save the world’s plants and animals?

This month, nearly every country on Earth will return to the question of how to stem the rapid destruction of the natural world. Humans are driving it, but so far we have not found a way to stop it.

In late 2022, governments reached an ambitious once-in-a-decade deal to better protect nature amid scientific warnings that the planet is going through the largest loss of life since the extinction of the dinosaurs. Now, they are assessing their progress on the targets for the first time.

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© Photograph: Andrej Ivanov/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Andrej Ivanov/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Andrej Ivanov/AFP/Getty Images

The claim that strikes on Russian tech giant Yandex thinned out social media bots finds no support in the networks tracked by Ukrainian disinformation-monitoring company LetsData, co-founder Ksenia Iliuk told Euromaidan Press on 13 October. She cautioned that the strikes may still have affected networks outside the company’s view.

At the Warsaw Security Forum, Lithuania’s prime minister suggested allies should ask Ukraine to strike more Russian data centers because that might help protect European elections from foreign interference. Bot networks are one tool of that interference, so whether the strikes mute them carries weight well beyond Ukraine.

No drop in the networks LetsData tracks

Drones hit Yandex data centers in Sasovo and Vladimir between 8 and 11 October. Ukrainian drone maker Fire Point said its FP-1 drones struck Yandex’s Kaluga site in between. On 12 October, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Warsaw Security Forum that once Ukraine’s response reached Yandex, social media had fewer bots.

LetsData checked X and Facebook, where bot networks usually stand out clearly, Iliuk said. Its analysts looked at networks attributed to Russia’s influence ecosystem. Among them are groups of X accounts spreading domains from what she called a new wave of Doppelgänger, a Russian campaign that clones real news sites.

Those networks look unaffected, Iliuk said. None of them has stopped posting or broken its usual rhythm, she added. Some are slightly less active, but LetsData’s analysts say that is typical for them. The networks run on a weekly cycle, and the check fell in the part of the week when they post less.

A network that jumped from Germany to Ukraine

LetsData worked with two samples. One covers accounts that systematically target Ukraine, Moldova, and Armenia. The other covers bot networks the company has followed for some time that keep changing their target audience, so they have no fixed country.

About two weeks ago, one network from that second sample wrote about elections in Germany and spread fake Die Welt sites, she said. It now posts about mobilization in Ukraine and shares a fake site of Ukrinform, Ukraine’s state news agency.

What the check can’t see

The company can compare only within networks whose usual behavior it knows, Iliuk said. Checking the whole internet is impossible because the scale is colossal, she said. A Cloudflare chart that circulated as evidence counted automated web requests from Yandex’s network, including its search crawlers, not social media posts, Cybernews reported.

So the networks LetsData follows show no impact, Iliuk said. That does not mean the strikes had no effect at all, she noted. They may have shown up in networks the company isn’t tracking now. LetsData will keep watching and report other signals if they appear.

Russia and four allies began five-day military drills in Belarus on 12 October, the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) said. The troops are rehearsing peacekeeping and a biological-threat response. Minsk insists the drills target no one, while Belarus’s army chief calls them deterrence against hostile states.

Russian troops crossed Belarus to advance on Kyiv in 2022, and it now hosts Russian units with Oreshnik missiles and equipment guiding attack drones into Ukraine. Every foreign deployment there worries Kyiv and neighboring NATO members, which blame Minsk and Moscow for border pressure.

Riot police and drone crews in a “peacekeeping” drill

Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan brought more than 1,500 troops and over 300 weapons and vehicles, including about 80 drones, The Moscow Times reported, citing the bloc. Armenia, the sixth member, is not among them. The peacekeeping drill runs in Vitsebsk Oblast, bordering Latvia and Lithuania, with Belarusian riot police and internal troops joining, the bloc’s command said.

Russia sent motorized rifle, reconnaissance, electronic warfare, and drone units from its Central Military District, the CSTO said. Russia, this year’s chair, prioritized peacekeeping readiness and the joint biological protection and medical unit, a bloc general said.

Belarus’s military insisted the drills are planned, yet its army chief called them “one of the measures of strategic deterrence against aggressively minded states” and claimed the West is “effectively preparing for a new hot war.”

Pressure on Belarus’s neighbors

In Latvia, armed, masked escorts from Belarus tried to force migrants across this month, the military said, and raiders stole border cameras hours later. Estonia’s police and border guard chief warned migration pressure could jump before winter, as Russia eases entry from countries like Ethiopia and Belarus passes migrants on to the EU. Lithuania posted up to 100 soldiers on its border with Russia’s Kaliningrad, and in September NATO’s Italian jets downed a drone that crossed in from Belarus. On 9 October, Minsk summoned Ukraine’s envoy over an alleged drone strike on a Belarusian truck in Russia, and Kyiv rejected the “absurd accusations” of “an accomplice in the crime of aggression against Ukraine.”

Belarus keeps its army on alert

In September, Belarusian armor drilled near the Suwałki Gap, NATO’s land link to the Baltic states, and Lukashenka said the whole army would be checked, up to mobilization. On 12 October, he ordered a snap check of a 6th Separate Guards Mechanized Brigade battalion, state news agency BelTA reported. European spy agencies also warn of more Russian assassination plots against defense executives.

Ukraine’s intelligence still rates the threat from Belarus as low, but each new contingent, missile unit, and airborne brigade there widens what Kyiv and NATO’s eastern flank must watch.

Nikol Pashinyan’s policies are increasingly at odds with Armenia’s national interests. Instead of strengthening its security, the country is facing new and increasingly serious threats. The defeat in the Second Karabakh War has plunged Armenian society into a state of deep frustration. The prime minister’s populism and his willingness to make unilateral concessions to Azerbaijan […]

The Trump administration is trying to turn a US-brokered opening between Armenia and Azerbaijan into something more tangible: a transport corridor linking Central Asia and the South Caucasus with Western markets -- and an investment opportunity for American companies.

The United States is set to unveil the next stage of TRIPP, a planned transport corridor through southern Armenia that Washington says could open new trade routes linking the South Caucasus and Central Asia with Western markets.

US Congressman Abraham Hamadeh says the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process is moving faster than many expected and predicts that a final peace agreement could be reached well before the end of President Donald Trump’s current term.

En la meseta de Aragatsotn, al pie del monte homónimo, se alza el yacimiento de Aruch, un lugar que fue mucho más que una fortaleza. Entre los siglos XII y XIII, sus muros albergaron una residencia de alto rango con pavimentos de losas y cisternas; pero con el tiempo, ese espacio señorial se fragmentó en […]

At the foot of Mount Aragatsotn, in the Armenian highlands, sits the site of Aruch — a castle that was never just a castle. Between the 12th and 13th centuries, it housed a high-status residence, complete with stone-slab floors and cisterns. Over time, though, that elite space was carved up into smaller rooms, and holes […]

On the margins of the 2026 SCO Summit in Bishkek, Armenia’s government once again demonstrated its foreign-policy indecisiveness and propensity to evade responsibility for making up its mind in favour of either the EU or the EAEU, whilst forgoing a nationwide referendum on the matter. From August 31 to September 1, 2026, the anniversary Summit […]