The dark is rising from the BBC World Service.

The powers of the dark are reaching out now steadily and stealthily all over this world.

Find out more at the end of this podcast.

This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Valerie Sanderson and at 14 hours GMT on Monday 19 December, these are our main stories.

Adelaise agreed on protecting nature at a UN biodeiversity summit, COP15 in Canada.

President Vladimir Putin is visiting Belarus amid fears that Russia may once again use the country

to launch an attack on Ukraine.

Elon Musk should step aside as boss of Twitter, according to users of a poll he put out himself

on the social media site.

Also in this podcast in South Africa, President Cyril Ramaposa is re-elected as leader of the

governing ANC party.

And the Netherlands expected but controversial apology for the country's historic involvement

in slavery.

It's been called an historic deal to protect nature and was agreed at the UN biodeiversity summit

at COP15 in Canada, a meeting described as humanity's last chance to preserve species on Earth.

The plan was adopted this morning in Montreal to cheers and applause.

I do not see objection. The package is adopted.

Our environment correspondent Victoria Gill told me more.

So fundamentally we have a framework to protect nature, a global agreement that the world has

got behind to protect nature and that's being described. There are a lot of press releases

doing around this morning that use the word historic.

...