Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

Mining concessions have begun to encroach on protected areas and Indigenous and Afro-descendant territory, the result of a mining boom that began in 2022, according to a new investigation from community-based Indigenous group Wangki.Since 1994, Nicaragua has granted 213 mining concessions covering more than 2.4 million hectares (5.9 million acres), representing approximately 20% of the country’s total land area. A significant portion of that — 113 of the concessions — has only been granted in the last three years.The Nicaraguan government has signed trade agreements, passed new laws, and revised environmental regulations to help accelerate the expansion of the…

Noble Corporation, a U.S.-based offshore drilling giant, has fitted one of its drillships with new equipment, reflecting its confidence in a strengthening offshore drilling market and busier years ahead for the global rig fleet. Noble BlackHornet; Source: Noble Corporation Noble has confirmed the installation of a stemless gate valve (SGV) on the Noble BlackHornet drillship. This technology, developed with Kinetic Pressure Control, provides a dedicated means of sealing the wellbore during managed pressure drilling (MPD) operations. While emphasizing that innovation offshore often begins with solving a specific operational challenge, the rig owner highlighted: “The project underwent extensive technical evaluation as…

Your editorial rightly criticises the decision to cease funding the Lovell telescope from March 2028 (The Guardian view on the Lovell telescope: budget cuts to physics are bad science and worse politics, 31 July). There are additional reasons why this decision is so shortsighted. Modern astronomy is no longer simply physics. It brings together physics, chemistry, biology and computing to understand how the universe evolved and where we came from. The universe is an inexpensive laboratory in which we can study the interaction of physical, chemical and biological processes under conditions that can never be reproduced on Earth. Understanding how…

Russian anti-war politician Boris Nadezhdin – who was recently detained outside Moscow and blocked from running for parliament – said Monday he had left the country, in a video posted from Paris. Nadezhdin, 63, a ⁠former liberal lawmaker, was one of the few politicians who openly criticised President Vladimir Putin and Moscow’s Ukraine offensive to have stayed in the country. Almost all of Putin’s critics are in jail, in exile or dead. Nadezhdin had been seeking to stand in tightly controlled parliamentary elections in September. Read moreFrench court rejects pro-Kremlin commentator’s expulsion appeal As his campaign ramped up last month, authorities labelled…

Representative Max Miller, the Ohio Republican whose re-election campaign is in jeopardy amid allegations that he abused his ex-wife and toddler daughter, defiantly denied those claims on Sunday and refused to drop out of his race for a third term.In a livestream that lasted about 20 minutes, Mr. Miller appeared agitated and at times seemed to be laboring to read from a script as he categorically denied the accusations by his ex-wife, Emily Moreno.The lengthy public statement prompted Ms. Moreno’s father, Senator Bernie Moreno, also an Ohio Republican, to issue a public rebuke of Mr. Miller, saying for the first…

Cybersecurity startup Horizon3 has raised a $250 million Series E at a $2 billion valuation, more than tripling its valuation in 14 months. The San Francisco-based firm drew backing from returning investors NightDragon and NEA. The funding arrives as two major AI research labs disclosed last week that their models had breached systems outside their intended scope. Horizon3, which has spent six years building AI specifically designed to probe networks for vulnerabilities in a controlled, authorized manner, is riding growing enterprise demand. With AI-driven attacks accelerating, enterprises are rushing to stress-test their defenses at scale, a gap that traditional security…

OPINIONOnly 2% of cybersecurity professionals report feeling no stress about their job, according to Omdia and ISSA’s eighth annual Life and Times of Cybersecurity Professionals study. In addition, 68% say the work has become measurably harder over the past two years. The difference between those two figures is screaming that stress in this profession has moved from an occupational hazard to the default condition, and that shift changes what conclusions security leaders should draw from the gap.The common response to numbers like these is a workforce argument: too much pressure on too few people, addressed by hiring more of them…

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed Sunday that the U.S. joined Japan in coordinated foreign exchange intervention last Friday, calling it a move to counter “disorderly yen movements.” The USD/JPY pair almost hit 164 its weakest level since 1986 before snapping back to 156.5 on Monday. “We will not hesitate to participate in further joint intervention,” Bessent wrote on X, adding that the U.S. “strongly supports Japan’s decisive market and monetary steps to correct the substantial undervaluation of the yen.”For the crypto market, August 2024 marked a bloodbath caused by the unwind of the yen carry trade. When the Bank…

NASA delivered the NavCube3-mini payload on July 13 to Intuitive Machines for integration into Altus-1, the company’s first lunar relay satellite, marking an important milestone in the development of future lunar communications and navigation services. The lunar relays are designed to enable communications and navigation for astronauts and rovers operating at the agency’s future Moon Base. About half the size of a shoebox and weighing just 3.5 pounds, NavCube3-mini is a compact but powerful navigation receiver designed to use signals from Earth-based GPS and Galileo Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) at lunar distances. Operating on less than 20 watts of power, roughly the same as a laptop computer, it can determine a spacecraft’s precise position far beyond Earth orbit. The compact payload builds on a series of navigation technology advancements…

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Bangladesh plans to plant 250 million trees over the next five years to expand green cover, restore damaged ecosystems, and support its climate and biodiversity commitments, reports Mongabay’s Abu Siddique. The government expects ministries, the army, local authorities, schools, and development groups to carry out much of the work through their existing budgets. The largest allocation, 100 million saplings, is intended for 17 coastal districts. Officials say they hope new mangrove cover will reduce erosion and provide greater protection from cyclones…