The World in Brief

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner mercenary group’s boss, planned to abduct Russia’s top generals at the start of his mutiny, according to a Western official who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. The source claimed that the FSB, Russia’s main security agency, had discovered Mr Prigozhin’s plot, forcing him to begin his insurrection prematurely. Mr Prigozhin is now thought to be in Belarus.

Smoke from Canadian wildfires blackened skies in Ontario, Quebec and America’s Midwest, three weeks after a similar haze blanketed America’s north-east. On Wednesday four of five cities in the world with the worst air quality were Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis and Toronto. Elsewhere the effects of climate change were felt in a heatwave across America’s South. Dallas, Texas was due to see a high of 38°C.

Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, said the shooting of a teenager by the police in Nanterre, just west of Paris, was “inexcusable”. Two officers pulled over Naël M while he was driving his car on Tuesday; as he drove off, one fired at him. The killing triggered riots in France, particularly in Paris’s suburbs. Police have arrested 31 demonstrators.

Profits at China’s industrial firms fell by 18.8% year-on-year in the first five months of 2023, partly as a result of weakening demand. In May industrial earnings contracted by 12.6% from a year earlier. China’s post-covid economic recovery is stuttering on many fronts, including retail sales, exports and youth unemployment, which hit a record high of 20.8% in May.

Swedish police gave permission for a man to burn a Koran near Stockholm’s main mosque, five months after a similar demonstration derailed the country’s NATO application. Turkey delayed Sweden’s accession to the alliance after a far-right activist destroyed a Koran in front of its embassy. Last week Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, said that to enter NATO Sweden must stop “anti-Turkey” protests by Kurdish groups.

Azerbaijani forces killed four Armenian soldiers in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, according to separatist authorities. Armenia ruled Nagorno-Karabakh from the 1990s until a short war in 2020 saw Azerbaijan seize much of the province. With Russia, Armenia’s traditional patron, bogged down in Ukraine, America and the EU have tried to negotiate a more lasting peace. The feuding neighbours are currently holding talks in Washington.

South Koreans woke up a year or two younger after their country scrapped its traditional method of counting age. Under the old system, South Koreans were considered a year old when they were born. A year was added to citizens’ age every January 1st. Babies born on New Year’s Eve became two the following day. The government has now adopted the internationally accepted method.

Figure of the day: $2.8trn, the estimated amount poor countries will need to spend a year in order to reduce emissions and protect their economies. Read the full story.

Brazil’s supreme electoral court is expected to decide on Thursday whether Jair Bolsonaro, the country’s former president, abused his powers while a candidate for re-election last year. He is accused of misusing a meeting with foreign diplomats to publicly discredit Brazil’s electronic voting system. Judges will also consider evidence that Mr Bolsonaro’s allies had a plan for a military takeover should he lose. In January, supporters rioted and stormed official buildings after his left-wing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, took office.

Mr Bolsonaro denies the allegations but recently admitted that an eight-year ban on running for office looks probable. But even if he is unable to take part in the next elections, he will retain influence. After all, 25% of Brazilians describe themselves as bolsonaristas, according to a recent poll. His wife, Michelle, might run as a candidate and inherit his votes. Tarcísio Freitas, a former minister and current governor of São Paulo, could also be a successor.

The European Union’s 27 national leaders convene in Brussels from Thursday. Most years the bloc’s June summit is earmarked for discussing economic matters, for example to craft its budget or the governance of its single market. But this time they must deal with tricky geopolitical questions first.

Aid to Ukraine will be of top concern to most in the room, as will the recent chaos in Russia. Many leaders also want a clearer line on how the EU should deal with China, now generally perceived as being as much a hostile rival as a trade partner. And a recent shipwreck in the Mediterranean, which killed at least 80 people with some 500 still missing, will feature, not least among central European leaders. Poland and Hungary oppose an EU plan that would change the way the bloc deals with incoming migrants, either forcing them to take in those who land in other European countries or pay into an EU fund to help deal with migration.

On Thursday “Moms for Liberty” start their annual summit in Philadelphia. Born out of the pandemic anti-mask movement, the parents’ rights group now claims to have 120,000 members. They attend school-board meetings in 45 states in a bid to remove books which they say are replete with obscene images or references to queerness from libraries. They also want to do away with publicly funded schools and the Department of Education, favouring Christian schools instead. The organisation was recently labelled an “anti-government extremist” group by the Southern Poverty Law Centre, a civil-rights non-profit. That has not put off top Republicans from courting its members.

Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, will deliver keynote speeches at the event on Friday. Nikki Haley, another candidate who recently endorsed the group, is also expected to speak. Whipping up a maternal fervour may be helpful in the primaries. But come the general election in 2024, an allegiance to the group could prove a liability.

On Thursday Sweden’s central bank is expected to increase its benchmark interest rate again, from 3.5% to 3.75%. The string of rises started in May 2022, in a bid to tame inflation. Yet a year later the headline rate stood at 7.6%, much higher than the bank’s target of 2%.

Whether the interest-rate hikes will continue after the summer is unclear. With an average debt of around 200% of disposable income, Swedish households are much more heavily burdened than the European average, making them particularly vulnerable to rate rises. The currency, the krona, is weak, which is helping exports but making imports costlier. And there are concerns about Sweden’s financial stability, owing to a slump in the property market. House prices have fallen by around 15% from their peak last spring and could fall as much as 25% in all, according to the gloomiest forecast.

On Thursday Virgin Galactic will launch its first suborbital space flight with three paying customers among its six-person crew. During its 90-minute flight, the VSS Unity space plane will fly a parabolic arc that will briefly brush inside the American definition of space at 80km up. (It will not reach the international definition, known as the von Kármán line, at 100km). Three experts from Italy’s air force and national research council will run 13 experiments on board, including tests on the crew’s physiological responses to the flight. The air force is funding their trip.

Virgin Galactic, co-founded by Sir Richard Branson, a British billionaire, nearly 20 years ago, is not the first to reach this commercial milestone. Blue Origin, a competitor owned by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has been taking customers on suborbital flights since 2021. The price of its tickets is undisclosed, but it seems probable that deep pockets are required, whatever the provider. Virgin Galactic is now pitching their seats at $450,000.

Our baristas will serve you a new question each day this week. On Friday your challenge is to give us all five answers and, as important, tell us the connecting theme. Email your responses (and include mention of your home city and country) by 1700 GMT on Friday to [email protected]. We’ll pick randomly from those with the right answers and crown three winners on Saturday.

Thursday: Which 1955 Disney film features two dogs sharing a bowl of spaghetti?

Wednesday: Martha Corey, Alice Parker and Ann Pudeator were amongst those executed for which crime in Salem in 1692?