21 June 2023; MEMO: Morocco has pulled out of hosting the second Negev Forum scheduled for next month, the Times of Israel reported on Tuesday. The forum includes officials from Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Egypt and the US.

20 June 2023; MEMO: A member of an UN-mandated independent commission of inquiry said on Tuesday that increasing Jewish settler violence in the Occupied West Bank was a "major concern" and announced plans to investigate further, Reuters reports.

20 June 2023; MEMO: After Operation Peace Spring organised in October 2019, tens of thousands of Syrian migrants living in Turkiye returned to the northern districts of Tal Abyad and Ras Al-Ayn, Anadolu Agency reports.

The local councils in Tal Abyad and Ras Al-Ayn, which were cleared of terrorism, provided employment for approximately 10,000 people in various areas, including health and education.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Inmates had complained for weeks they were being threatened by gang members at a women’s prison in Honduras. The gang fulfilled those threats, slaughtering 41 women, many of them burned, shot or stabbed to death.

President Xiomara Castro said Tuesday’s riot at the prison in the town of Tamara, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) northwest of Honduras’ capital, was “planned by maras (street gangs) with the knowledge and acquiescence of security authorities.”

ZAGREB, June 21 (NNN-XINHUA) — A Hungarian military helicopter crashed in the Cikola Canyon in southern Croatia on Wednesday, killing two crew members and leaving another one missing, the Croatian Ministry of Defense said in a statement.

The search for the third person is still ongoing, according to the ministry.

Two Hungarian Air Force’s Airbus H145 helicopters were on a training flight when one of them crashed, the Defense Ministry said.

HELSINKI, June 20 (Xinhua) -- The new government of Finland, led by Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, took office on Tuesday.

The government consists of the prime minister and 18 ministers from the National Coalition Party, the Finns Party, the Swedish People's Party, and the Christian Democrats.

Orpo said in his speech during the government's welcome visit to the presidential palace that the Finnish people have "voted for change." The government parties are united in their view of the state of public finances, he said, adding: "We must tighten our belts."

BRASILIA, June 21 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Brazilian authorities said they confiscated nearly 29 tonnes of illegal shark fins bound for Asia, in what they described as possibly the largest such seizure ever.

Environmental protection agency Ibama estimated around 10,000 shortfin mako and blue sharks were killed to harvest the fins, which are considered a delicacy in Asia.

“It is possibly the largest seizure in history of this type of product,” Ibama environmental protection director Jair Schmitt said in a statement.

BANGKOK (AP) — Shares were mostly lower Wednesday in Asia after Wall Street benchmarks retreated following the S&P 500’s rise to its highest level since the spring of last year.

U.S. futures were little changed and oil prices rose.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 edged 0.1% higher to 33,427.14, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong sank 1.5% to 19,607.08. The Shanghai Composite index gave up 0.5% to 3,240.36 and the Kospi in Seoul slipped 0.4% to 2,594.19.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.2% to 7,345.30.

This week has few potentially market-moving events.

June 20 (Reuters) - The Pentagon found it had overestimated the amount of funding for ammunition, missiles and other equipment it sent to Ukraine by $6.2 billion due to an accounting error, a spokesperson said on Tuesday, more than double the amount previously disclosed.

The value of the accounting error was revised up from the $3 billion that was first reported by Reuters in May, the result of assigning a higher-than-warranted value on U.S. weaponry shipped to Ukraine.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — A Swedish appeals court on Wednesday increased a prison sentence for an Italian surgeon over experimental stem cell windpipe transplants on three patients who died.

Dr. Paolo Macchiarini made headlines in 2011 for carrying out the world’s first stem cell windpipe transplants at Sweden’s leading hospital and had been sentenced to no prison time by a lower court.

RAMALLAH, West Bank, June 21 (Reuters) - Israeli settlers rampaged through Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, torching buildings and cars in apparent retaliation for the killing by Hamas of four Israelis near a settlement the day before, residents and officials said.

One Palestinian was shot dead during the rampage, Palestinian health officials said.

In TurmusAyya, a prosperous town near Ramallah popular with wealthy Palestinians, footage showed cars ablaze with thick clouds of black smoke swirling above and Palestinian youths throwing stones.

LONDON, June 21. /TASS/: Ukraine will be ready to begin talks on joining the EU in the near future, Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said in London on Wednesday, speaking at the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2023.

"Ukraine should become a ember of the European Union as soon as possible," he said, stressing that in spite of the conflict with Russia, Ukraine had made progress on all criteria.