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Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a voice message published on Monday that his Wagner group was not currently recruiting fighters but was likely to do so in future.

The future of Wagner and Prigozhin has been unclear since he led a short mutiny against the Russian defence establishment in late June and the Kremlin said he and some of his fighters - who have fought in some of the fiercest battles of the Ukraine war - would leave for Belarus.

The “trembita”, a traditional Ukrainian mountain horn, is also the name of a cruise missile developed by volunteers in Ukraine, who say it will be hundreds of times cheaper than Western equivalents.

“Rockets with warheads will have more expensive electronics so they can hit targets accurately,” explains Serhii, a volunteer with the Pars design bureau.

“But thousands of decoys will be very cheap: we want to overwhelm the Russians’ air defences so that our attack rockets hit their targets,” he says.

A group of volunteers from elsewhere in Ukraine watch a demonstration of the missile. They are interested in helping to make Trembitas in multiple locations.

“I’m very happy that this kind of production is developing in Ukraine,” says Yulia, a volunteer from the Kyiv region. “And I like how these weapons are all designed to let soldiers operate further away from the front line.”

The International Fencing Federation (FIE) also said it was reinstating Kharlan, allowing her to take part in the team competition at the world championships in Milan.

Emmanuel Katsiadakis, the Greek president of the FIE, said the decision had been taken "after consultation with the International Olympic Committee".

Kharlan, the first fencer to face a Russian or Belarusian since the former's invasion of Ukraine, won 15-7 against Russia's Anna Smirnova on Thursday.

The 32-year-old four-time Olympic medallist refused Smirnova's handshake afterwards, instead offering her sabre to tap blades, but FIE rules state that the two fencers must shake hands.

Smirnova staged a 45-minute protest and refused to leave the competition strip.

Kharlan was disqualified, claiming afterwards that Emmanuel Katsiadakis, the Greek president of the FIE, had even assured her that it was "possible" not to shake hands and offer a touch of her blade instead following her victory.

"I thought I had his word, to be safe, but apparently, no," Kharlan said.

In response to her disqualification, the International Olympic Committee called for Ukrainian athletes to be treated "sensitively".

Then on Friday, IOC President Thomas Bach, a former Olympic fencer himself, sent Kharlan a letter saying she would be guaranteed a place at next year's Olympics in Paris regardless of whether she gained the qualification points.

Saudi Arabia will host a Ukrainian-organized peace summit in early August seeking to find a way to start negotiations over Russia’s war on the country, an official said Saturday night. The kingdom and Kyiv did not immediately acknowledge the planned talks.

The summit will be held in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as no authorization had been given to publicly discuss the summit.

Those taking part in the summit will include Ukraine, as well as Brazil, India, South Africa and several other countries, the official said. A high-level official from U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration also is expected to attend, the official said. Planning for the event is being overseen by Kyiv and Russia is not invited, the official said.

A group of a hundred soldiers from the Russian Wagner group have moved closer to the Belarusian city of Grodno near the Polish border, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Saturday.

Poland, a former Warsaw Pact member which has been a full member of the U.S.-led NATO military alliance since 1999, has been concerned about the possible spillover of war on to its territory ever since Russian invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world, receiving close to $2 billion a year in official development assistance, according to the World Bank.

It is also a key security partner of Western countries such as France, the former colonial power, and the United States, which both use it as a base for their efforts to contain an Islamist insurgency in West and Central Africa's Sahel region.

Previously seen the most stable country among several unstable neighbours, Niger is the world's seventh-biggest producer of uranium.

Niger's foreign allies so far have refused to recognize the new military government led by General Abdourahamane Tiani, previously head of the presidential guard, who officers declared head of state on Friday.

Bazoum has not been heard from since early Thursday when he was confined within the presidential palace, although the European Union, France and others say they still recognize him as the legitimate president.

"In addition to the immediate cessation of budget support, all cooperation actions in the domain of security are suspended indefinitely with immediate effect," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement.

Ukrainian fencer Olha Kharlan was awarded a place in the 2024 Paris Olympics by the IOC on Friday after she was disqualified at the world championships for refusing to shake the hand of her Russian opponent.

Tesla has consistently exaggerated the driving range of its electric vehicles, reportedly leading car owners to think something was broken when actual driving range was much lower than advertised. When these owners scheduled service appointments to fix the problem, Tesla canceled the appointments because there was no way to improve the actual distance Tesla cars could drive between charges, according to an investigation by Reuters.

Israeli protesters blocked highways and gathered outside Tel Aviv's stock exchange and military headquarters on Tuesday in the latest countrywide demonstration against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned judicial overhaul.

Death toll in Kenya starvation cult case passes 400

"Total death Toll - 403," Coast Regional Commissioner Rhoda Onyancha told AFP in a message, following the latest round of exhumations in the Shakahola forest, where cult leader Paul Nthenge Mackenzie allegedly urged followers to starve to death.

"Exhumation continues tomorrow," Onyancha added, as investigators search for more graves in the forest, where the first victims -- some dead, others alive but weakened and emaciated -- were discovered on April 13.

According to government autopsies, starvation appears to have been the main cause of death, although some victims, including children, were strangled, beaten or suffocated.

An anticyclone – a high-pressure area – named Cerberus (named after the monster from Dante’s Inferno) coming from the south will cause temperatures to rise above 40°C across much of Italy. This comes after a spring and early summer full of storms and floods.

The highest temperature in European history was broken on 11 August 2021, when a temperature of 48.8°C was recorded in Floridia, an Italian town in the Sicilian province of Syracuse. That record may be broken again in the coming days.

"The North Atlantic just completely destroyed its June average temperature record, breaking the previous record by more than 0.4 °C (0.7 °F).

A stunningly sharp excess for such a large body of water."

https://berkeleyearth.org/june-2023-temperature-update/