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A glass door bears a commemorative seal marking 75 years at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, U.S., July 8, 2022. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights

A study has shed light on how the number of sexual partners British people have changes as they age, and new findings have surprised researchers.

While the frequency of sexual partners among heterosexual people declines steadily from age 40, the study found stark gender disparities within some age groups.

Researchers from the University of East Anglia (UEA), in collaboration with King’s College London and University College London, questioned more than 5,000 people aged 18 and older.

Women consistently reported having one sexual partner until the age of 50, after which there was a sharp decrease in the number of individuals reporting recent partners. This trend continued with age, with 79% of heterosexual women aged 70 and above saying they had no male partners in the last three weeks.

As men got older, they were also increasingly likely to report no recent partners, but the decline was less steep. Among men aged 70 and above who were heterosexual or had sex with women in the last three months, 50% said they hadn’t had a female partner in the most recent three weeks.

It is well established that sexual habits vary hugely throughout people’s lives. “Many, often interrelated, factors influence what people do, with whom, and how often,” said Prof Cath Mercer, a sexual health researcher at University College London.

The study explored the relationship between age and sex partner counts during the mpox outbreak in the UK. Researchers sought to better understand how sexual behaviours change with age, so that mathematical models of sexually transmitted infections can be made more accurate for future epidemics.

“People of all ages and sexualities can have different sex lives. We need to make sure that this is reflected when modelling what can happen in a public health context and when we’re planning healthcare services” said Prof Henry Potts, a health informatics researcher at UCL and co-author.

This research on sexual habits and age helps public health bodies tailor safe sex messages to the right demographics through different media channels that best reach these subgroups.

Mathematical models of disease transmission shouldn’t assume that having multiple partners just stops happening at a strict age threshold or that young people are necessarily most at risk. “Public health campaigns need to be evidence- rather than assumption-based to ensure that those who most need sexual health care can – and do – receive this,” added Mercer.

An individual employed by a Washington DC-based organization with international offices was targeted with powerful hacking software made by NSO Group, researchers have claimed, raising new concerns about the proliferation of spyware that can infect Apple devices.

The alleged attack was discovered by researchers at the Citizen Lab at the Munk School at the University of Toronto while they were checking the individual’s device.

Citizen Lab, which is on the forefront of finding sophisticated hacking attacks against members of civil society – including journalists, environmental rights defenders and diplomats, among others – did not provide any other details about the individual or where the person was when the alleged cyber-attack occurred. The individual has elected to remain anonymous.

Researchers said they discovered what is known as a “zero-click exploit”, a vulnerability that allows software sold by companies like NSO Group to infect a user’s mobile device through a previously unknown security flaw in a phone’s operating software, without the user having to click on a malicious link.

Apple released what is called a “patch” to fix the security flaw in its latest version of iOS (16.6.1). The company had no further comment.

NSO said in a statement that it was “unable to respond to any allegations that do not include any supporting research”.

The Israeli company has said it only sells its spyware – which can infect any phone – to government clients, for use in fighting serious crime and terrorism. But the Guardian and other media groups have documented dozens of cases of the spyware being misused by government clients in Mexico, Saudi Arabia, India, Rwanda and the UAE, among others.

Once a phone is infected, the user of the spyware – mostly likely a foreign government intelligence service or police – has total access to the phone, including encrypted conversations and messages over applications such as Signal or WhatsApp. It can also turn a person’s mobile into a listening device by manipulating its recorder.

The spate of attacks against journalists, diplomats, foreign government officials and activists, including against US citizens abroad, prompted the Biden administration in 2021 to place NSO on a blacklist. The company is also being sued by Apple and WhatsApp.

Bill Marczak, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, told Reuters he attributed the exploit to NSO Group’s Pegasus with “high confidence”, based on forensic evidence. He also said that he believed the operator of the spyware had likely made an error during installation of the spyware, which was how Citizen Lab found it.

Got a tip on this story? Please contact Stephanie.Kirchgaessner@theguardian.com

Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attends a meeting with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of the Eurasian Economic Union summit in Moscow, Russia May 25, 2023. Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo Acquire Licensing Rights

• The Russian foreign ministry has taken the step of summoning the ambassador from its long-standing ally, Armenia, in protest against several recent developments, signaling tensions that are putting strain on their close relations.
• In an official statement, the ministry pointed to what it described as a series of unfriendly actions by the Armenian leadership in recent days. 
• The joint military exercises in question are set to commence on Monday, involving around 175 Armenian troops and 85 U.S. troops, with a focus on peacekeeping operations.

The Russian foreign ministry on Friday summoned the ambassador from longtime ally Armenia to protest upcoming joint military exercises with the United States and other complaints, highlighting growing tensions that are straining traditionally close relations.

“The leadership of Armenia has taken a series of unfriendly steps in recent days,” the ministry said in a statement, citing the exercises that will begin Monday, Armenia’s provision of humanitarian aid to Ukraine and its moves to ratify the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court, which this year indicted President Vladimir Putin for war crimes connected to the deportation of children from Ukraine.

The ministry also complained of remarks by the chairman of Armenia’s parliament that it regarded as insulting to ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who is noted for her harsh comments about other countries.

About 175 Armenian troops and 85 from the United States will start exercises on Monday focusing on peacekeeping operations.

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Landlocked Armenia has close military ties with Russia, including hosting a Russian military base and participating in the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization alliance.

However, Armenia has become increasingly disillusioned with Russia since the 2020 war with Azerbaijan. The armistice that ended the war called for a Russian peacekeeping force to ensure passage on the road leading from Armenia to the Nagorno-Karabakh ethnic Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan.

But Azerbaijan has blocked that road, called the Lachin Corridor, since late December and Armenia repeatedly has complained that Russian peacekeepers are doing nothing to open it. The road’s blockage has led to significant food shortages in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia this year refused to allow CSTO exercises on its territory and it declined to send troops to bloc exercises in Belarus.

The self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh – internationally recognized as Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region – is facing probably the most difficult period in its 32-year history. Baku seems determined, one way or another, to establish full control over the territory where ethnic Armenians make up the majority of the population, although they refuse to reintegrate into Azerbaijan.

On September 2, 1991, a joint session of the Councils of People’s Deputies of the former Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast and Shahumyan region – at the time both territories being part of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic – proclaimed the Republic of Artsakh. To this day, not a single UN member, including Armenia, has recognized Artsakh (the Armenian name for Nagorno-Karabakh) as an independent state.

“After all, Karabakh is Azerbaijan. Does everyone recognize this? Everyone recognizes. Does anyone say it’s not? No”, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on July 23, talking about the humanitarian situation in the region that is still under the Armenian de facto control.

Reports suggest that a humanitarian disaster is unfolding in Nagorno-Karabakh. After establishing control over the Lachin Corridor – the only land link between Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh – in April 2023, Azerbaijan has cut off all shipments of food, fuel, and other critical supplies to the region from Armenia. As a result, according to local sources, the Karabakh Armenians are facing “mass starvation and total hunger”. Baku, however, denies such claims.

“The allegations on the humanitarian situation in the region are completely unfounded”, said Jeyhun Bayramov, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister, on July 25.

Baku offered to supply Nagorno-Karabakh via a crossing at the nearby Azerbaijani city of Aghdam. But the Armenians reportedly refuse take food from Azerbaijan, and have blocked the road leading from Aghdam to Nagorno-Karabakh’s capital of Stepanakert. The authorities in Baku insist that their refusal to accept aid from Azerbaijan demonstrates that the claims on the humanitarian situation are “political blackmail”.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, on the other hand, argues that Azerbaijan has “illegally blocked the Lachin Corridor”, and that it “should have no control” over the road. Various foreign powers, including Russia, have called on Baku to immediately re-open the Lachin corridor to humanitarian, commercial, and passenger traffic. Quite aware that no major global actor is willing to jeopardize its relations with energy-rich Azerbaijan over the Karabakh Armenians, Aliyev is unlikely to be ready to make any concessions to those he perceives as separatists.

“Why should goods to Karabakh be delivered from another country? This is illogical”, Azerbaijani leader stressed.

Baku sees the crisis in the region as an internal matter, and aims to absorb the ethnic Armenian-controlled territory into Azerbaijan. Karabakh Armenians, however, fear that that they have no future in Azerbaijan, emphasizing that “any status for Artsakh within Azerbaijan would be tantamount to ethnic cleansing”.

That is why they have repeatedly called for a UN-mandated peacekeeping mission to be deployed to the region as a “security guarantee”. In other words, the UN troops would likely replace some 2,000 Russian peacekeepers, who have been stationed in Karabakh since November 2020, which is when Armenia and Azerbaijan signed the Moscow-brokered ceasefire deal that ended the 44-day war the two nations fought over the mountainous region.

Under the 2020 agreement, Russia is supposed to ensure road transport between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, but the Kremlin proved unable to prevent Azerbaijan from blocking the Lachin Corridor. That is why many Armenians want the Russian troops out of the region, and that is one thing they have in common with Azerbaijanis. Baku is impatiently waiting for 2025, which is when the Russian peacekeepers’ mandate expires, and is unlikely to be willing to allow any other foreign mission in Karabakh.

Meanwhile, Baku is expected to continue pressuring Karabakh Armenians to either integrate into Azerbaijani society, or to leave the region. For Azerbaijani policy makers, the current crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh is a win-win situation. Some 120,000 Karabakh Armenians would not represent a serious threat to Azerbaijan – a country of around 10 million people – although there is no doubt that many in Baku would also be quite happy without them.

It is, therefore, not surprising that the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh’s president Arayik Harutyunyan resigned on September 1 as a result of what he described as “unstable geopolitical situation” and “Artsakh’s internal political and social environment”.

Along with his resignation, Harutyunyan also dismissed Gurgen Nersisyan as state minister, which is the second-highest-ranking executive position in Nagorno-Karabakh. In other words, they seem to have decided to abandon the sinking ship.

Although it is still unclear what effect the change in leadership will have on the situation in the region, there is no doubt that the conditions the Karabakh Armenians are living in will not improve in the foreseeable future, if it all. Sooner or later, Azerbaijan may attempt to break up the blockade of the Aghdam–Stepanakert road, even though such a move could lead to an escalation of the conflict.

But even with Armenia’s help, the self-proclaimed Artsakh Defense Army has zero chance against the Azerbaijani Armed Forces – one of the strongest militaries in the post-Soviet space. Quite aware of that, Pashinyan will almost certainly seek to avoid any large-scale confrontation with Azerbaijan. Instead, he may try to find a way to de facto abandon Nagorno-Karabakh, although in such a way that would allow him to safe face.

Image: EUMAs monitor within Armenia looking at Azerbaijan’s military checkpoint on the Lachin corridor and the blocked humanitarian convoy of trucks that was sent to Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) by EU Mission in Armenia (EUMA), an entity of the European-Commission