Hard Numbers: India and China reach border understanding, UN biodiversity summit gets underway, Russia plots an alternative to the dollar, UK allows Saudi dissident to sue Riyadh, Baseball World Series echoes history
3,500: India and China have reportedly reached a common understanding on patrols of their long-disputed border in the Himalayas. The two nuclear-armed Asian behemoths have clashed repeatedly over the 3,500-kilometer-long frontier since fighting a full-scale war in 1962. In 2020, two dozen troops, mostly from the Indian side, died in a skirmish there.
23,000: Some 23,000 delegates are gathered in the Colombian city of Cali this week for COP16, the 16th installment of the United Nations biodiversity summit. Although the attendance will be the largest ever, participants are concerned about the lack of progress on goals meant to halve the global destruction of natural habitats by the decade’s end. So far, only 31 of 195 nations have even filed biodiversity conservation plans.
58: Despite a gradual decline over the past two decades, some 58% of all global foreign currency reserves are still held in dollars, giving the US – and its sanctions regime – immense power over global financial transactions. At this week’s BRICS summit, Russia, which is under more US sanctions than any other country, is pitching a plan to boost the use of national digital currencies to get around the dollar’s dominance.
2: For at least the second time this year, a UK court has allowed a dissident from a Gulf monarchy to sue their home government for using spyware against them. Yahya Assiri, an opposition figure from Saudi Arabia, is suing the Kingdom for allegedly targeting his devices with the Pegasus surveillance software between 2018 and 2020. Earlier this year, an English court struck down Bahrain’s objections to a case brought by two dissidents who claimed the country had hacked their devices.
12: US baseball fans are about to go back to the future, as the Los Angeles Dodgers take on the New York Yankees in the World Series, Major League Baseball’s annual championship. The famously ferocious Dodgers vs. Yankees rivalry, which dates to the days when both teams were in New York, is the most common matchup in the 121-year history of the World Series. This will be the 12th time the two teams have seen each other there, but it hasn’t happened since 1981.