DENMARK
Bee species drop by 25%
The number of wild bee species recorded by an international database of life on Earth has declined by one-quarter since 1990, a global analysis of bee declines found. Researchers analyzed bee records from museums, universities and citizen scientists collated by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, a global, government-funded network providing open-access data on biodiversity. They found that about 25 percent fewer species were reported between 2006 and 2015 than before the 1990s. Although this does not mean these species are extinct, it might indicate that some have become so scarce that they are no longer regularly observed in the wild. “With citizen science and the ability to share data, records are going up exponentially, but the number of species reported in these records is going down,” said Eduardo Zattara, the lead author and a biologist from the Universidad Nacional del Comahue and Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council. “It’s not a bee cataclysm yet, but what we can say is that wild bees are not exactly thriving.”
UNITED STATES
Nukes ‘priority for NK’
The top intelligence officer for North Korea on Friday said that the country sees diplomacy only as a means to advance its nuclear weapons development, even as President Joe Biden’s administration said that it would look for ways to bring Pyongyang back to talks. National Intelligence Officer for North Korea Sydney Seiler told the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank that Pyongyang’s weapons development had been a consistent policy for 30 years. “Every engagement in diplomacy has been designed to further the nuclear program, not to find a way out... I just urge people not to let the tactical ambiguity obstruct the strategic clarity about North Korea that we have,” he said. “So we should not be overly encouraged if suddenly [North Korea leader Kim Jong-un] proposes dialogue tomorrow, nor should we be overly surprised, or discouraged, if there’s an [intercontinental ballistic missile] launch by Sunday.”
UNITED STATES
Taliban pact to be reviewed
President Joe Biden’s administration on Friday said that it would review a landmark deal with the Taliban. Washington struck a deal with the Taliban in Qatar last year, to begin withdrawing its troops in return for security guarantees from the militants and a commitment to begin peace talks with the Afghan government, but violence across Afghanistan has surged despite the two sides engaging in those talks since September last year. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan spoke with his Afghan counterpart, Hamdullah Mohib, and “made clear the United States’ intention to review” the deal, US National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne said.
BRAZIL
Rio calls off carnival
Rio de Janeiro has canceled its famous carnival this year due to a deadly revival of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, city Mayor Eduardo Paes announced. Rio’s samba schools, which organize the parades, had hoped to hold the signature event in July after it was postponed from its usual slot in February or March, but this depended on a national vaccination campaign being well under way. Brazil’s inoculation drive only started on Monday with an initial 6 million doses available for the country’s 212 million inhabitants. Brazil has been in the grips of a second wave of infections since November last year, with more than 1,000 daily deaths and an overall of more than 215,000 deaths.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
CYBERCRIME, TRAFFICKING: A ‘pattern of state failures’ allowed the billion-dollar industry to flourish, including failures to investigate human rights abuses, it said Human rights group Amnesty International yesterday accused Cambodia’s government of “deliberately ignoring” abuses by cybercrime gangs that have trafficked people from across the world, including children, into slavery at brutal scam compounds. The London-based group said in a report that it had identified 53 scam centers and dozens more suspected sites across the country, including in the Southeast Asian nation’s capital, Phnom Penh. The prison-like compounds were ringed by high fences with razor wire, guarded by armed men and staffed by trafficking victims forced to defraud people across the globe, with those inside subjected to punishments including shocks from electric batons, confinement
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