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World Monthly Headline News June 2023
Story by Aaron Johnson

After narrowly thwarting a civil war, Vladimir Putin escaped an attempted assassination thanks to Russian secret service members, RadarOnline.com has learned. Since Putin ordered the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin leader grew increasingly paranoid about being assassinated. The 70-year-old's greatest fear manifested into reality on Friday — and security service guards were said to be responsible for saving the ruthless leader's life. According to the Kremlin's security agency, Federal Protection Service (FSO) members thwarted a plan to kill Putin. The failed assassination attempt allegedly centered on an unnamed bridge that Putin and his motorcade were expected to travel over.
Story by nmusumeci@insider.com (Natalie Musumeci)

The Chinese spy balloon that flew over the United States earlier this year before it was shot down by the military was rife with ready-made American technology, according to reports.

The high-altitude balloon was loaded with American tech that assisted it in gathering photos, videos, and other information, The Wall Street Journal first reported, citing US officials with knowledge of the preliminary findings from an FBI-involved investigation.

NBC News, citing three US officials familiar with the findings of that investigation, reported that the Biden administration believed the balloon may have been filled with American-made parts shortly after it was detected.
Story by Matthew Chance

Documents shared exclusively with CNN suggest that Russian Gen. Sergey Surovikin was a secret VIP member of the Wagner private military company. The documents, obtained by the Russian investigative Dossier Center, showed that Surovikin had a personal registration number with Wagner. Surovikin is listed along with at least 30 other senior Russian military and intelligence officials, who the Dossier Center said are also VIP Wagner members.
MSN

Russia’s most senior generals have seemingly dropped out of public view following a failed mercenary mutiny aimed at toppling the top brass. The news comes amid a drive by President Vladimir Putin to try reassert his authority.

Second Russian general vanishes after failed Wagner coup
Armed forces chief of staff General Valery Gerasimov has not appeared in public or on state TV since the aborted mutiny on Saturday, when mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin demanded Gerasimov be handed over. Unconfirmed reports say at least one person has been arrested following the Wagner Group uprising.
Story by Paul Withers

The Russian commander who has mysteriously vanished since the attempted Wagner Group coup against Vladimir Putin was a secret VIP member of the private military group, it has been claimed. Gen. Sergey Surovikin is a decorated commander in Russia who has become known as "General Armageddon" for his ruthless tactics in bombing cities in Syria.

But he has not been seen in public since last Saturday when he was seen in a video pleading for Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin to stop his insurrection. Surovikin's whereabouts are unknown, with some reports suggesting he may have been arrested by Russian officials and thrown in jail. Now stunning documents, which CNN has said were exclusively shared with the network and were obtained by the Russian investigative Dossier Center, have seemingly revealed an incredible new development.
By Patrick Hilsman

A Russian politician on Thursday backed up the claim that Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was asked to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defense prior to the mercenary group's revolt.
Days before Wagner forces marched on Moscow all "groups and units that perform combat tasks" were ordered to sign a contract with the Defense Ministry, Russia's State Duma Defense Committee Andrey Kartapolov said, according to Russian state-run outlets TASS and RIA Novosti.
Story by Reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the finances of Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin's catering firm would be investigated after his mutiny, saying Wagner and its founder had received almost $2 billion from Russia in the past year.

Putin initially vowed to crush the mutiny, comparing it to the wartime turmoil that ushered in the revolutions of 1917 and then a civil war, but hours later a deal was clinched to allow Prigozhin and some of his fighters to go to Belarus.

Speaking to soldiers from the Russian army at a meeting in the Kremlin, Putin said he had always respected Wagner's fighters, but that the fact was the group had been "fully financed" from the state budget. He said it had received 86 billion roubles ($1 billion) from the defence ministry between May 2022 and May 2023.
By The Associated Press

Russian government troops withdrew from the streets of Moscow and people flocked to parks and cafes Sunday following a short-lived revolt by mercenary forces that weakened President Vladimir Putin and raised questions about his ability to wage war in Ukraine. The march on the capital by Wagner troops led by Yevgeny Prigozhin and the late-night deal that eventually halted it severely dented Putin’s reputation as a leader who is willing to ruthlessly punish anyone who challenges his authority. That may open the door for others who are unhappy with Putin’s two-decade grip on power, especially after his ill-fated invasion of Ukraine.

Under terms of the agreement, Prigozhin will go into exile in Belarus but will not face prosecution and his forces won’t either. Neither Putin nor Prigozhin has been heard from since the deal, reportedly brokered by Belarussian President Aleksander Lukashenko, was announced Saturday night. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the weekend’s events as “extraordinary,” recalling that 16 months ago Putin appeared poised to seize the capital of Ukraine and now he has had to defend Moscow from forces led by his onetime protege.
Story by Simon Sharwood

Hides itself from popular Asian AV, also uses games to do its dirty work
Malware intended to spread on USB drives is unintentionally infecting networked storage devices, according to infosec vendor Checkpoint.…

The software nasty comes from a group called Camaro Dragon that Checkpoint's researchers on Thursday suggested conduct campaigns similar to those run by China's Mustang Panda and LuminousMoth attack gangs.

Checkpoint regards Camaro Dragon as most interested in Asian targets – its code includes features designed to hide it from SmadAV, an antivirus solution popular in the region. Even so, the firm first spotted the gang's activities in Europe!
Story by Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

Hollywood filmmaker James Cameron said he received the information within 24 hours of the disappearance of the submersible Titan that it had imploded when it lost communication with its mothership. "We got confirmation within an hour that there had been a loud bang at the same time that the sub comms were lost," Mr Cameron, who directed the 1997 movie Titanic, said.

"A loud bang on the hydrophone. Loss of transponder. Loss of comms. I knew what happened. The sub imploded," he said, adding that he told colleagues in an email on Monday, "We've lost some friends," and, "It's on the bottom in pieces right now”.
Grace Hauck, Jorge L. Ortiz, Jeanine Santucci | USA TODAY

The debris found Thursday near the Titanic wreckage site is from the outside of the submersible that has been missing for four days, the Coast Guard said in a news briefing, making it clear the five people on board have perished. "The debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber," said Rear Adm. John Mauger, commander of the First Coast Guard District. He said the debris was found at the bottom of the sea floor and the families of the victims have been notified.

OceanGate, the company that operates the missing vessel – and whose CEO, Stockton Rush, was on the trip – issued a statement saying, “We grieve the loss of life’’ of those aboard. Search and rescue crews remotely operating an underwater vehicle discovered the debris near the Titanic, the U.S. Coast Guard said earlier Thursday, the day the small vessel was expected to run out of oxygen.
Story by Alla Shcherbak

The threat to free democratic principles is real, as Russian agents have been extremely active in Europe over the past year,” he explained.

“Russia is expected to become more aggressive and will employ various methods to undermine countries abroad. This includes the activities of intelligence officers with false passports, as well as an increase in hacker attacks, up to sabotage."

Russian agents employ all the "classic methods" of intelligence work, reminiscent of those seen in movies. Haldenwang added.
Story by Olawale Ogunjim

The Mayan tribe has been identified as one of the oldest civilizations with easily accessible artifacts and sites. Some of Harrison Ford’s bounty hunting archaeologist series—Indiana Jones—featured stories on historic Mayan sites. Archaeologists have found some of the preserved Mayan historic sites to be as old as 3000 BC. However, something notable about Mayan civilization is that it has probably been underestimated, thus far, with respect to its level of advancement.

For a people that existed in the Neolithic period, when fire was probably seen as a luxury, some of the Mayan achievements have left researchers awestruck. For example, scientists recently discovered a network of 417 ancient Mayan cities. The interesting part of that discovery is that these ancient cities are connected by several miles of underground highway. So, while we are struggling to get a hack of the subway system in the 21st century, Mayans built no-traffic tunnels to connect multiple cities over 5,000 years ago.
Story by Jon Gefner

In a move that raised global tensions, a Chinese Navy vessel cruised within 150 yards of an American destroyer, causing a near collision in the Taiwan Strait. This provocative June 4th encounter comes on the heels of a Chinese fighter jet executing an "unnecessarily aggressive maneuver" near a U.S. surveillance plane just ten days earlier.

Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass explained to MSNBC that "Beijing is telling the U.S.: ‘We are willing to die to the last Chinese for Taiwan. You Americans are not.’” By raising the risk quotient, Haass said China aims to dissuade the United States from pursuing its interests in the Indo-Pacific region. "What the Chinese believe is that by… raising the possibility of something that could escalate…they can get us to pull back.”
Story by Anusuya Lahiri

China's famed Huaqiangbei electronics area in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen shows startling revelations regarding the availability of Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) AI chips. The U.S. embargo has led to an underground market with vendors dodging scrutiny from either U.S. or Chinese authorities, Reuters reports.

The SEG Plaza skyscraper's first ten floors are crammed with shops selling everything from camera parts to drones. Two Chinese vendors in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen claimed they could provide small numbers of A100 artificial intelligence chips made by Nvidia, pricing them at double the usual price to $20,000 apiece.
Story by htan@insider.com (Huileng Tan)

Russia has been using China's yuan to get around sanctions — but at least one major Chinese bank has restricted transfers from Russia over fears of secondary sanctions from the West. The Bank of China, a major Chinese lender, has started restricting transactions using the yuan between Russian clients and lenders in the US, the European Union, Switzerland, and the UK, Russia's privately owned RBC business-news outlet reported on Sunday, citing representatives from Modulbank and Finam.

The restrictions affect transfers involving the Bank of China as the correspondent, or intermediary, bank moving money from Russia to third-party countries. "The decision was not made by China, but rather by the EU and the US. That is how they are trying to ramp up the sanction pressure by choking off alternative channels in the form of yuan," Pavel Semyonov, the chairman of the board of Modulbank, told RBC, per a Novaya Gazeta Europe translation. Semyonov told RBC that Russian clients could still make yuan transfers within the Bank of China network.
At least 91 were wounded as Israeli soldiers stormed the Jenin camp, backed by the rare use of helicopter gunships.
Aljazeera

Mourners laid their loved ones to rest hours after the Israeli military used helicopter gunships during a large-scale incursion into the occupied West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp, killing five Palestinians and wounding at least 91. The fiercest clashes in years began early Monday after Israeli soldiers stormed the camp, firing live ammunition, stun grenades and toxic gas, according to the Wafa news agency. Combat helicopters were used for the first time in decades after the ensuing hours-long fighting.
Story by David Edwards

Activists are calling on Australia to ban Donald Trump Jr. ahead of a visit next month. Trump was expected to visit the country on June 11 during a trip sponsored by "Turning Point Australia," a group affiliated with Charlie Kirk's "Turning Point USA." By Monday, nearly 15,000 people had signed a petition calling for the former president's son to be banned from the country. If Trump does visit Australia, he can expect protests at his event.

"Donald Trump Junior is a far-right agitator who spreads bigotry wherever he goes," Omar Hassan of the Campaign Against Racism & Fascism said in a statement. "His visit is likely to be a magnet for far-right and neo-nazi groups across Melbourne, so we will be there in numbers to send the message that people here reject and despise everything they stand for."
By Emmet Lyons, Tucker Reals

A search and rescue mission was underway Monday for a submarine that went missing in the North Atlantic on an expedition to explore the wreckage of the Titanic. Lt. Jordan Hart of the U.S. Coast Guard in Boston told CBS News that personnel were "currently undergoing a search and rescue operation" when asked about the rescue efforts off the coast of Newfoundland.

OceanGate Expeditions, a company that deploys manned submersibles for deep sea expeditions, confirmed in a statement that its sub was the subject of the rescue operation, adding that it was "exploring and mobilizing all options to bring the crew back safely." The company did not say how many people were on board the missing vessel or whether any of them were paying tourists, whom it does take as passengers on its expeditions.
By MATTHEW LEE

BEIJING (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met on Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping and said they agreed to “stabilize” badly deteriorated U.S.-China ties, but America’s top diplomat left Beijing with his biggest ask rebuffed: better communications between their militaries.

After meeting Xi, Blinken said China is not ready to resume military-to-military contacts, something the U.S. considers crucial to avoid miscalculation and conflict, particularly over Taiwan.

Yet Blinken and Xi pronounced themselves satisfied with progress made during the two days of talks, without pointing to specific areas of agreement beyond a mutual decision to return to a broad agenda for cooperation and competition endorsed last year year by Xi and President Joe Biden at a summit in Bali.

And, it remained unclear if those understandings can resolve their most important disagreements, many of which have international implications. Still, both men said they were pleased with the outcome of the highest-level U.S. visit to China in five years.
Story by Mark Almond

With Nato’s vital summit in Vilnius looming, Turkey’s President Erdoğan is distracting Western attention from the brutal war in Ukraine by manufacturing a crisis over admitting Sweden into the alliance. It’s an issue that has already begun to paralyse European security, leaving Stockholm vulnerable and playing directly into the bloodied hands of Vladimir Putin.

Everyone – including officials in Ankara – can see that Sweden meets the criteria for joining Nato. The problem is that Erdoğan, emboldened by an unprecedented third election victory, is more intent than ever on pursuing policies that challenge not only the West, but the very democratic and human rights principles that the alliance is there to defend. This is a man who prosecutes his rivals and gets them banned from politics. Now, though, he’s taking this brand of authoritarianism to a new level, demanding that Sweden extradite named opponents before it can join.

We can debate the rights and wrongs of Sweden’s asylum policy for Kurds. But can any advocate of the rule of law agree to let a foreign government decide whom it should expel from its territory?
By Elizabeth Piper and William James

LONDON, June 15 (Reuters) - Boris Johnson deliberately misled the British parliament in an unprecedented way over rule-breaking parties at his office during COVID-19 lockdowns, a committee said on Thursday in a damning verdict that further tarnished the former prime minister

Almost a year ago, Johnson was talking about remaining prime minister into the 2030s. But the privileges committee - the main disciplinary body for lawmakers - said on Thursday he should now be stripped of having automatic access to parliament.

The committee also accused Johnson of being "complicit in a campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation" towards them.
Story by Douglas Charles

Spectators at the recent Torbay Airshow near Paignton, Devon in England got to see a bonus aircraft when a UFO appeared to join the Royal Air Force (RAF) Red Arrows. One man who was in attendance at the airshow, John Mooner, managed to snap a quick photo of the unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP).

“I was very excited to see the Red Arrows and I sat there in anticipation waiting patiently for their arrival,” Mooner told Devon Live. “Moments later I finally heard them approaching from behind and I looked up and saw them fly directly overhead.

“The main event had now begun and I was really determined to capture an anomalous object near them like I have captured many times in the past. I immediately started taking photographs while enjoying their colorful aerobatic display.” It was at that point he says he saw the UFO.
By Stefano Pozzebon, Sahar Akbarzai and Heather Chen, CNN

CNN — Eating cassava flour helped save the lives of four children found alive in the Amazon jungle more than a month after their plane crashed, according to a Colombian military special forces official. The children ate “three kilograms (six pounds) of farina,” a coarse cassava flour commonly used by indigenous tribes in the Amazon region, said spokesperson Pedro Arnulfo Sánchez Suárez.

“Days after the crash, they ate the farina which they had carried there… but they (eventually) ran out of food and decided to look for a place where they could stay alive,” Suárez said. “They were malnourished but fully conscious and lucid when we found them,” he added. “Their indigenous origins allowed them to acquire a certain immunity against diseases in the jungle and having knowledge of the jungle itself – knowing what to eat and what not to eat – as well as finding water kept them alive – which would not have been possible (if they) were not used to that type of hostile environment.”
Sturgeon was the face of Scotland’s independence movement for eight years until her sudden resignation in February.
By Leila Sackur

LONDON — Nicola Sturgeon, the former leader of Scotland’s ruling Scottish Nationalist Party was arrested on Sunday on allegations of financial misconduct in the party. Sturgeon became the latest high-profile member of the SNP to be taken in for questioning over allegations that £600,000 ($750,000) raised to campaign for Scottish independence had been diverted elsewhere.

“A 52-year-old woman has today, Sunday, 11 June, 2023, been arrested as a suspect in connection with the ongoing investigation into the funding and finances of the Scottish National Party," Police Scotland said in a statement. “The woman is being questioned by Police Scotland detectives,” the statement added. A police spokesman later confirmed to NBC News that “a Nicola Sturgeon ... has been arrested.” He also gave a date of birth that corresponded with that of the former first minister.
Story by Віра Олійник

The mysterious user seems to have been able to put blockchain and Bitcoin technologies to work against the Russian terrorist state.

The hacker gained access to hundreds of crypto wallets that likely belong to Russian security agencies, cryptocurrency industry news site CoinDesk clarified, citing Chainalysis, a cryptocurrency monitoring company that works closely with the U.S. government.

Chainalysis analysts believe that the hacker used the transaction documentation feature of the Bitcoin blockchain to identify 986 wallets controlled by Russia’s foreign military intelligence agency (GRU), the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), and the Federal Security Service (FSB).
Story by Thom Taylor

The question, “Does a $129,000 ticket for 20 mph over the speed limit seem excessive?” is pejorative. Of course, it’s excessive. Nonetheless, police officers in Finland deemed it reasonable based on how the country accesses fines for speeding tickets. Still, if you’re driving in Finland, this is your warning.

A 76-year-old businessman was going 50 mph in a 30 mph speed zone. Yes, that definitely warrants a speeding ticket. But how warranted is the $129,675 fine plus a 10-day driving suspension? And how often do these extreme speeding ticket fines actually ever get paid?
Story by jma@insider.com (Jason Ma)

Russia's central bank sounded alarms on the economy Friday as the falling ruble and a record labor shortage add inflationary pressures. Policymakers kept the benchmark interest rate steady at 7.5%, where it has been since September, but signaled an increase may be coming soon.

"The option of hiking the rate was considered, but by consensus we decided to hold the rate, but tighten the signal," Governor Elvira Nabiullina said at a news conference, according to Reuters, adding that "the likelihood of a rate hike has increased." In fact, central bankers discussed a hike of 25-75 basis points, she said. That's as data out Wednesday showed weekly consumer prices jumped sharply.
Story by hbrueck@businessinsider.com (Hilary Brueck,Azmi Haroun)

Switzerland hasn't had a mass shooting since 2001, when a man stormed the local parliament in Zug, killing 14 people and then himself. The country has about 2 million privately owned guns in a nation of 8.3 million people. In 2016, the country had 47 attempted homicides with firearms. The country's overall murder rate is near zero.

The National Rifle Association often points to Switzerland to argue that more rules on gun ownership aren't necessary. In 2016, the NRA said on its blog that the European country had one of the lowest murder rates in the world while still having millions of privately owned guns and a few hunting weapons that don't even require a permit.
But the Swiss have some specific rules and regulations for gun use.
Dylan Stableford, Rebecca Corey and Caitlin Dickson

Smoke from Canadian wildfires continues to trigger air quality alerts in U.S. states, with health officials warning people, especially those in sensitive groups, such as children, the elderly or with respiratory conditions, to limit their time outdoors.
Security council meeting discusses disaster as US, UK and French representatives call for an investigation
Patrick Wintour

Russia’s UN envoy was accused of floundering in a “mud of lies” after he claimed at an emergency session of the security council that Ukraine destroyed Kakhovka dam in a “war crime”.

Sergiy Kyslytsya, the Ukraine envoy to the UN, said it was typical of Russia to blame the victim for its own crimes, pointing out Russia has been in control of the dam for more than a year and it was physically impossible to blow it up by shelling. He said the dam was mined by the Russian occupiers and they blew it up. He accused Russia of “floundering again in the mud of lies”.

“By resorting to scorched earth tactics, or in this case to flooded earth tactics, the Russian occupiers have effectively recognised that the captured territory does not belong to them, and they are not able to hold these lands,” Kyslytsya said.

Neither the French, US or British representatives at the UN directly said there was evidence of Russian responsibility, but called for an investigation and insisted their support for Ukraine was unwavering.
Story by Dan Robinson

Disgruntled customers claim throttling happens any time of the day or night
Starlink users in the UK claim their download speeds appear to be getting capped at about 50Mbit/sec if they try to retrieve large files from the web. Some reckon this amounts to mis-selling, saying they are not being provided with the advertised speed for the service.…

In a Reddit thread highlighted by a reader, British customers of the Starlink satellite broadband service complained the speed of their connection was being limited if they were downloading anything for more than 10–15 minutes.

"My speedtest.net is over 200Mb here in rural Aberdeenshire but right enough the throughput reduces to slightly over 50Mb when downloading large files even though it starts off well over 150Mb for the first 10 minutes or so," one poster gripes.
Story by Alexander Motyl

Russia’s destruction of Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam is, above all, a sign of desperation from President Putin. The Russians know they’re losing the war. They know they won’t be able to withstand the forthcoming Ukrainian counter-offensive.

And they are now engaging in a watery version of a scorched earth policy that, they hope, will stall the offensive by diverting Kyiv’s attention and resources from killing Russian soldiers to saving Ukrainian civilians.
That may work for a few days, but its major effect will be to harden Ukrainian resolve to drive the genocidaires from their land. Make no mistake about it. The destruction is unquestionably Russia’s doing.
Story by rpickrell@businessinsider.com (Ryan Pickrell)

The Allied invasion of Normandy, France on June 6, 1944 was the largest amphibious invasion in history. The scale of the assault was unlike anything the world had seen before or will most likely ever see again.

By that summer, the Allies had managed to slow the forward march of the powerful German war machine. The invasion was an opportunity to begin driving the Nazis back.

The invasion is unquestionably one of the greatest undertakings in military history. By the numbers, here's what it took to pull this off.
Story by Abby Jackson

Arelatively uncharted island entirely made of trash, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is an enigma. Still, reducing its size is an even bigger mystery.

The Ocean Cleanup is an organization using high-tech tools to remove trillions of pieces of plastic pollution and other trash that make up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch — but what happens to this waste once it gets collected from the ocean?

How big is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is a floating vortex of debris in the North Pacific Ocean. It spans 1.6 million square kilometers (or over 600,000 square miles) from California to Japan with Hawaii in the middle.

The trash found in the GPGP varies in type and size, but the majority of it is made of plastic. Microplastics — tiny pieces of plastic — make up only 8% of the GPGP’s total mass, but they have an outsized effect. Of the estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic floating in the GPGP, 94% are microplastics.
Yesterday 1:00 PM

Researchers have uncovered evidence that members of a mysterious archaic human species buried their dead and carved symbols on cave walls long before the earliest evidence of burials by modern humans. The brains belonging to the extinct species, known as Homo naledi, were around one-third the size of a modern human brain.

The revelations could change the understanding of human evolution, because until now such behaviors only have been associated with larger-brained Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. The findings are detailed in three studies that have been accepted for publication in the journal eLife, and preprints of the papers are available on BioRxiv.
Story by nrennolds@insider.com (Nathan Rennolds)

Russian President Vladimir Putin was likely never the elite Soviet spy that the world has been led to believe, an investigaton by the German news outlet Der Spiegel has revealed. Stories of Putin's exploits as an intelligence officer during the 1980s vary, and it is an era somewhat shrouded in mystery, as he has never commented on the period himself.

But many stories have painted him as a heroic figure, who, among other things, single-handedly defended the KGB's offices from looters and carried out top-secret secret missions such as meeting with members of the Red Army Faction, a terrorist group that wreaked havoc in West Germany and committed a series of kidnappings and assassinations.
NBC News

Authorities have released new details about the potential cause of a train derailment in India that killed hundreds of people, saying preliminary findings indicate that a signaling issue led to the crash. NBC News’ Jesse Kirsch has the latest.
Story by jma@insider.com (Jason Ma)

The Russian economy isn't just suffering from a record labor shortage, it's also losing some of its best and brightest workers. Alexandra Prokopenko, a former adviser at Russia's central bank, told NPR last week that many educated and skilled workers have fled the country.

As a result, Russian firms are scaling back or shutting down, she said, citing a recent estimate that 1.3 million young workers left the labor force last year alone. "I don't think Russian authorities will admit it, but we've seen a massive brain drain," Prokopenko told NPR.
Story by Sushmitha Ramakrishnan, Deutsche Welle

Crucial science topics will no longer be taught to a large swath of Indian students, according to new government guidance.Most young learners in India will no longer be exposed to key science topics in school textbooks -- unless they voluntarily major in science in higher classes.

On June 1, India cut a slew of foundational topics from tenth grade textbooks, including the periodic table of elements, Darwin's theory of evolution, the Pythagorean theorem, sources of energy, sustainable management of natural resources and contribution of agriculture to the national economy, among others.

A small section explaining Michael Faraday's contributions to scientific understanding of electricity and magnetism has also been removed. Even as thousands of scientists across the country protested the decision to slash evolution last month, it did not deter India's National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) -- the public body that designs curriculum and textbooks -- from expanding its list of omitted topics.
By Hilary Whiteman, CNN

Brisbane, Australia CNN — Australia’s most decorated soldier lost a multi-million dollar defamation case against three newspapers who accused him of committing war crimes in Afghanistan – including the murder of unarmed prisoners – as a judge ruled their reports met the standards of truth.

The ruling, delivered by Federal Court Justice Anthony Besanko on Thursday, brings a dramatic end to a long-running trial and delivers another blow to the reputation of the nation’s military, already damaged by revelations that emerged during 100 days of testimony.

Besanko found Thursday that The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Canberra Times established substantial truth in a number of claims about Ben Roberts-Smith, but not all of them. In some cases, he found the papers established contextual truth, which is also a defense under Australia’s Defamation Act. In others, he found that the papers had not established the truth.
Hindustan Times

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu will not attend a key NATO foreign ministers meeting in Oslo this week. Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said that Ankara's absence means no immediate progress on Stockholm's application for NATO membership. Recently, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Turkey to immediately finalise Sweden's accession to the bloc. Watch this video to know more.
By Wendell Roelf

CAPE TOWN, June 1 (Reuters) - Foreign ministers from the BRICS countries are meeting in South Africa from Thursday as the five-nation bloc seeks to forge itself into a counterweight to Western geopolitical dominance in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The talks are a prelude to an August summit in Johannesburg that has already created controversy because of the possible attendance of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the target of an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant.  It accused him in March of the war crime of forcibly deporting children from Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine. Moscow denies the allegations. South Africa had already invited Putin in January.

Moscow’s Defense Ministry said Thursday it had repelled an incursion attempt by “Ukrainian terrorist formations” into Russia’s Ukraine-bordering Belgorod region. “Russia’s Armed Forces together with units of the border service…foiled a fresh attempt by the Kyiv regime to conduct a terrorist attack against the civilian population of the city of Shebekino,” the ministry’s spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a daily briefing.

Konashenkov claimed that two Ukraine-linked military units attempted to cross the border into Russia near the village of Novaya Tavolzhanka early Thursday morning. To prevent the incursion, the Russian army allegedly conducted mass strikes, killing more than 30 members of the Ukraine-linked units.
By ISABEL DEBRE

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Jordan’s highly anticipated royal wedding day got underway on Thursday with the surprise announcement that Britain’s Prince William and his wife Kate had arrived to witness the nuptials of Crown Prince Hussein and his Saudi Arabian bride. The attendance of the British royals had been kept under wraps, and was only confirmed by Jordanian state media a few hours before the start of the palace ceremony.

The wedding of Jordan’s 28-year-old heir to the throne and Rajwa Alseif, a 29-year-old architect linked to her own country’s monarch, emphasizes continuity in an Arab state prized for its longstanding stability. The festivities, which are to start Thursday afternoon, also introduce Hussein to a wider global audience.
Elliot Smith

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday that all NATO allies agree that Russia cannot prevent Ukraine’s eventual membership of the military alliance. Speaking to reporters ahead of an informal meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Oslo, Stoltenberg said all allies agreed that “NATO’s door is open for new members.”

“All allies also agree that Ukraine will become a member of the alliance, and all allies agree that it is for the NATO allies and Ukraine to decide when Ukraine becomes a member,” he said. “It is not for Moscow to have a veto against NATO enlargement, but most importantly, all allies agree that the most urgent and important task now is to ensure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation. President [Vladimir] Putin and Russia must not win this war.”
Story by Julian Jessop

The looming anniversary of the 2016 vote to leave the European Union is already prompting a flurry of assessments on the impact of Brexit on the British economy. These evaluations range from the sensible and balanced, through to the silly or even hysterical. It is unfortunate, but perhaps not surprising, that the latter seem to be the most popular.

Take the services sector. If one thinks back to all the apocalyptic claims made by Remainers, our services industry should be a smoking ruin by now. Instead, the opposite is true: it has been a success story, and that will only become more obvious. For a start, the UK’s exports of services have performed strongly over the last year.
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