Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

This week on the Newscast, we’re joined by Dilafruz Khonikboyeva, the founder of the Home Planet Fund, an independent, Indigenous-led nonprofit that provides funding for local and Indigenous communities and conservation projects around the world.Khonikboyeva, who is also the organization’s executive director, speaks about the ethos of the Home Planet Fund and how it works. But I must emphasize that in my conversation with Khonikboyeva, what stands out most to me isn’t just the fund’s focus on Indigenous-led conversation and investing in local knowledge. It’s the well of experience Khonikboyeva brings to it that, growing up in Tajikistan under Soviet…

Sir Ed Davey’s speech at the Liberal Democrat party conference was a calculated appeal to voters who recoil from a rightwing bloc associated with Brexit, nationalism and reactionary politics. That’s not a bad place to start. But he wants this message not to be lost in the headlines about his party’s £17bn tax giveaway aimed at disillusioned Conservative voters. To walk that line, his address sought to present Reform UK’s politics as an existential threat to Britain, appealing directly to left-leaning tactical voters. At the same time, he told moderate Tories that only a vote for the Lib Dems can…

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Trump said: “We going to have a tremendous relationship, a secure relationship.””This is tremendous for Europe and for the United States, for everybody, and for Greenland it’s going to be incredible.”Meanwhile, Frederiksen described the signing of the deal as a “milestone in our long-standing co-operation”. “Seventy-five years ago we entered into an agreement about the defence of Greenland. Today, we’re signing an even bigger and better agreement – a deal that can last forever.”The Danish prime minister stressed that the agreement “respects sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark, as well as Greenland’s…

Michael Marra, the new leader of Scottish Labour, was among those backing the motion although he said it was more about SNP internal politics and less about practical action to make people’s lives better. His amendment, which was passed, retained Swinney’s statement but added that efforts should be stepped up to tackle child poverty.During the debate, Marra said there had “always been a route to another referendum”. That route was to “build a consensus – the settled will of the Scottish people – and make it overwhelming”.But he said he believed Scotland “can be a fairer and stronger nation without…

US President Donald Trump has said Andy Burnham is a man he can do business with, after the two leaders met in person for the first time.Trump said UK-US relations are “more up now” that Burnham is in power, following their meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.Speaking to reporters, Burnham said he had “established a good connection” with Trump and they had “taken that further today” following discussions on issues such as trade and immigration.But the US president made clear his opposition to the UK’s “terrible” deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to…

Three of Britain’s top corruption prosecutors started working for Alejandro Betancourt, the Venezuelan billionaire who recently signed a major oil deal with Donald Trump, when Swiss authorities were seeking his extradition on suspicion of money-laundering.Sara Chouraqui, Elizabeth Collery and Victoria Jacobson all moved from the UK’s Serious Fraud Office to Betancourt’s North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) in March. At the time, their counterparts in Zurich were still requesting Betancourt’s extradition from the UK, where he was bound by bail conditions. Betancourt, 46, was barred in late 2025 by a London magistrates’ court from international travel, limiting him to shuttling…

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is mostly known for its global dominance over petroleum production and oil reserves — not necessarily cars and auto manufacturing, and certainly not electric vehicle production. So it was a little surprising on Monday when a Saudi startup called Ceer unveiled a pair of hyper-angular, spaceship-like EVs, with plans to launch an additional five models by 2030.The Exobot (yes, that’s the real name) sedan and SUV are expected to go on sale in Saudi Arabia starting in 2027. The ultra-futuristic designs scream Tron, Blade Runner, and every other sci-fi movie you’ve seen — and then…

A Chinese-speaking threat actor has been exploiting vulnerabilities in ZyXEL GS1900 Smart Managed Switches and WordPress to steal sensitive data from 996 devices and more than 18,500 records stored in backend databases. The adversary targeted multiple technologies, including PAN-OS Global Protect, FlowiseAI, Nuclio, Proxmox, Ubiquity, with exploits for known security issues. Scans and attacks attributed to the adversary originate from the same IP address and have been recorded since early June 2026, and have been attributed to a threat actor related to the Red Heron group, linked to exploiting a critical flaw in the Gitea self-hosted Git service. The activity…

Crypto lender Arch Lending plans to expand into loans backed by tokenized equities as the market for onchain stocks expands and lenders begin exploring new uses for the assets as collateral.Arch co-founder and chief revenue officer Himanshu Sahay told Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction podcast that the lender plans to enter the market “pretty soon,” pointing to a need for credit against tokenized stocks.Sahay said tokenized equities have grown rapidly over the past year, but lending against the assets remains limited, and predicted that more lenders will enter the market.He pointed to tokenized equities issued by firms including Superstate, Robinhood and Securitize, predicting…

A single-celled blob living in a California hot spring has smashed a heat tolerance record for an entire domain of life. The newly described “fire amoeba” can grow at 63° Celsius (145° Fahrenheit), a temperature that’s fatal to all other known eukaryotes, researchers report September 22 in Cell. Eukaryotes include all life-forms with nuclei and organelles, such as plants, fungi and animals. Little was known about the genetic adaptations of microbial eukaryotes that live in extreme environments. From 2023 to 2025, microbiologist Beryl Rappaport and her colleagues brought water samples from geothermal hot springs in California’s Lassen Volcanic National Park…