GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AP) — Belen Diaz was walking home from college one evening when a motorcycle carrying two men made a menacing U-turn.

Terrified that she was about to be robbed for the eighth time in three years, the teaching student banged on a cab window until the driver drove her home. Diaz got away safe, but there was an unrelated fatal shooting the next day outside her gated community of two-story homes on the edge of the Ecuadorian port city of Guayaquil.

Aug 14 (Reuters) - Russia is in the process of equipping its new nuclear submarines with hypersonic Zircon missiles, the head of Russia's largest shipbuilder told the RIA state news agency in an interview published on Monday.

"Multi-purpose nuclear submarines of the Yasen-M project will ... be equipped with the Zircon missile system on a regular basis," , Alexei Rakhmanov, chief executive officer of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), told RIA.

"Work in this direction is already underway."

MOSCOW, August 14. /TASS/: Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev underscored the absurdity of Finland’s accession to NATO by posting a joke on his Telegram channel featuring a question-and-answer dialogue between two imaginary Finns.

"Pekka, why has our country joined NATO?" one Finn, Matti, asks the other. "Because we are facing the Russian threat," Pekka answers. "But why are we facing the Russian threat?" Matti ponders. "Matti, that’s because we are joining NATO," Pekka concludes.

Medvedev illustrated his jocular post with a picture.

NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — Niger’s mutinous soldiers said they will prosecute deposed President Mohamed Bazoum for “high treason” and undermining state security, in an announcement hours after the junta said they were open to dialogue with West African nations to resolve the mounting regional crisis.

If found guilty, Bazoum could face the death penalty, according to Niger’s penal code.

TEHRAN, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian will pay a visit to Riyadh in the near future at the invitation of his Saudi counterpart, Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said Monday.

He made the remarks at a weekly press conference in the capital Tehran while commenting on the latest developments in relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

It is a reciprocal visit to Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud's visit to Tehran in June, Kanaani added.

WARSAW, Aug 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW), acting together with the police, has detained two Russians for allegedly disseminating propaganda for the Wagner Group, the interior minister has announced.

A Russian mercenary group, Wagner has been heavily involved in the fighting in Ukraine, but its future is uncertain after it was involved in an apparent rebellion against the Kremlin in June.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Far-right populist Javier Milei rocked Argentina’s political establishment Sunday by emerging as the biggest vote-getter in primary elections to choose presidential candidates for the October general election in a nation battered by economic woes.

Milei, an admirer of former U.S. President Donald Trump, says Argentina’s Central Bank should be abolished, thinks climate change is a lie, characterizes sex education as a ploy to destroy the family, believes the sale of human organs should be legal and wants to make it easier to own handguns.

KYIV, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Ukraine on Monday reported fierce fighting along its entire front line and "some success" in pushing back Moscow's troops in one part of the southeast where Ukrainian forces are trying to retake Russian-occupied territory.

Progress has been hampered by widespread Russian-laid minefields and strong fortifications, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said.

But the Ukrainian military had pushed forward around the village of Staromaiorske, around 60 miles southwest of Russian-held Donetsk, and was pressing on two fronts in the south, Maliar said.

MOSCOW, August 14. /TASS/: Moscow is open to equal defense cooperation with all nations seeking to protect their interests, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a video address to participants in the Army-2023 forum.

NEW YORK, Aug 14 (Reuters) - COVID infections and hospitalizations are on the rise in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Health officials are pointing at the EG.5 "Eris" coronavirus, a subvariant of the Omicron lineage that originally emerged November of 2021.

WHAT IS THE NEW 'ERIS' VARIANT?

The World Health Organization (WHO) classified EG.5, which has been nicknamed by some as "Eris", as a "variant of interest," indicating that it should be more closely watched than others because of mutations that might make it more contagious or severe.

RABAT, Aug 14 (NNN-XINHUA) — Moroccan navy has rescued 130 Senegalese migrants off the Atlantic coast near Dakhla city, the official MAP news agency reported.

A Moroccan navy patrol intercepted the boat while it was sailing from the port of Fass Boye in Senegal northbound toward Spain’s Canary Islands in the Atlantic, it added.

Also on Sunday, the Canary Islands announced that its rescue units intercepted a pneumatic boat and rescued 53 people on board off the coast of Fuerteventura.

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu is visiting Russia and Belarus in a show of support for those nations which the West has sought to isolate over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Li departed Monday on the six-day trip, during which he will deliver an address at the Moscow Conference on International Security and meet with defense leaders from Russia and other nations, the Defense Ministry said on its social media account, citing spokesperson Col. Wu Qian.