A special mission that includes two Saudi astronauts, one of whom is a woman, will leave Florida for the first time on May 8, heading to the International Space Station , according to officials at Axiom Space and the US Space Agency ( NASA ) announced Thursday.

Rayana Barnawi, a researcher working on breast cancer, will become the first Saudi woman to go into space. She is accompanied by astronaut Ali Al-Qarni.

The mission also includes Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who has flown three times to the International Space Station, and John Shoffner, an American contractor who will lead the flight.

The mission, called Axiom Mission 2, will depart on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 22:43 on May 8 (2:43 GMT on May 9) from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. .

She will use the Dragon capsule from SpaceX to reach the International Space Station, where she will spend 10 days.

This mission is the second to the international station organized by the American company "Axiom Space".

A first mission called "Axiom Mission 1" carried three businessmen and a former astronaut for two weeks to the International Station in April 2022.

This journey into space, with the participation of a Saudi woman, is part of the Kingdom's conservative strategy to improve its image.

But it is not the first task for Saudi Arabia. In 1985, Saudi Prince Sultan bin Salman participated in an American mission.

The United Arab Emirates also participated in space missions. And last month, the Emirati pioneer, Sultan Al Neyadi, set off for the international station for a six-month stay.

On Thursday, Ismail Haniyeh , head of the Hamas political bureau, warned the occupation government against continuing its aggression against Al-Aqsa Mosque, considering it a threat not only to Palestine but to all Arab and Islamic countries.

Haniyeh condemned, during a meeting with the secretaries-general of the Palestinian resistance factions, today in Beirut, the continuous Israeli aggression against the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, considering it an unprecedented crime and an aggression against the Islamic nation and its sanctities.

He held the occupation government fully responsible for the brutal aggression against the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and the worshipers and seclusion in it, stressing that our Palestinian people and the resistance factions will not stand idly by in front of this brutal aggression. like he said.

He called on the international community, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the League of Arab States to assume their responsibilities and take urgent action to save Jerusalem from Judaization and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque from division, and to curb the occupation government and prevent it from continuing its aggression against our land, people, and sanctities. like he said.

He also called on the living forces in the Arab and Islamic nation and the free people of the world to move urgently in support of Jerusalem and Palestine and to defend and protect the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, calling on everyone to shoulder their responsibilities towards the first two qiblahs.

He also called on all Palestinian resistance factions to unify their ranks and escalate their resistance in the face of the occupation, saying: "The priority today is to resist the occupation, and national unity and resistance are the way to achieve victory and defeat the Zionist project." According to him.

And he stressed "continuing the path of resistance and defending Al-Aqsa Mosque by all available means," saying: "We will not allow the occupation government to implement its plans to Judaize Jerusalem and divide Al-Aqsa Mosque."

On Thursday evening, Israeli security authorities ordered heavy strikes against the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon in response to the rocket fire.

According to the Israeli Army Radio, the decision to respond has been taken, but the extent of its scope will be linked to the decision of the cabinet, the Cabinet.

According to the radio, the leaders of the security services instructed to direct these strikes and a harsh response against the "Hamas" movement in Gaza, in addition to directing a deliberate and limited response towards Lebanon.

Prior to the cabinet meeting, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held an expanded hearing in the presence of senior ministers and security officials.

Netanyahu and his ministers heard a glimpse of what the response might be.

In the context, the leaders of the Israeli opposition announced their support for a harsh response against the rocket fire.

According to media reports, the United States prevented an agreement on a statement condemning Israel on behalf of the UN Security Council on Thursday regarding the occupation authorities' consecutive incursions into Al-Aqsa Council in occupied Jerusalem.

The Security Council held a closed session "on the escalation in Jerusalem, Gaza and Lebanon ," and according to Israeli media, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan , was in contact with the US mission to the United Nations, and asked the US administration to prevent the publication of a press statement on behalf of the Security Council on this subject. .

The UN Security Council held an emergency session today, Thursday, to discuss the Israeli violations of Al-Aqsa Mosque, at the joint request of Palestine and Jordan, and with the support of the UAE and China.

The request came after the brutal attack by the occupation forces on the worshipers and seclusion in Al-Qibli Mosque, forcing them to leave it by force, in preparation for the storming of settlers in large numbers to perform Talmudic rituals and slaughter offerings inside Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Since the beginning of this year, the Council held its monthly sessions on time, but it held emergency sessions and closed consultations, due to the continuous violations by the occupation forces of Jerusalem and the sanctity of worshipers, in addition to the increase in settlement activity.

It is noteworthy that the occupation forces stormed, on Tuesday night, Wednesday, and last night, the Al-Aqsa Mosque after the Tarawih and Fajr prayers, and brutally assaulted the worshipers and seclusion in the Al-Qibli prayer hall and forcibly removed them from it, injuring and arresting hundreds of them, in preparation for the settler groups’ storming, which sparked local, Arab and international reactions. Rejecting and condemning these incursions.

France called for "respecting the historical status quo in the holy places in Jerusalem," after the Israeli occupation forces stormed the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and attacked worshipers.

The French Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued today, Thursday, that "France expresses its concern about the acts of violence that took place in the past two nights in the Holy Mosque and inside the Al-Qibli Mosque."

And she added: "France calls for respect for the historical status quo in the holy sites in Jerusalem and to refrain from taking any action that would exacerbate the violence."

On Thursday, the Australian authorities arrested two people they were chasing after they were spotted Thursday at a train station in the north of Brisbane , carrying a small platypus with them.

Thursday, a 26-year-old man was spotted with a woman on a local train with a wild mammal, a platypus, wrapped in a bath towel.

On Saturday, the man appears in court on charges of alleged violations of animal protection laws. He is accused of taking the animal from its natural habitat in a waterway in north Queensland, taking it on a train and then in a mall.

"The duo were spotted showing the animal to people in the mall," Queensland Police said in a statement, noting that the animal had been "re-released into the Kabultur River" but "the authorities have not yet located it."

Queensland laws prohibit the removal of platypus from nature, or a fine of up to 430,000 Australian dollars (about 300,000 US dollars).

The platypus is a nocturnal animal, and is one of the rare mammals that lay eggs, and can currently only be spotted in eastern Australia. It feeds on worms, insects and small molluscs.

Secretary of the Fatah Central Committee Lieutenant General Jibril Rajoub affirmed today, Thursday, the government's commitment to the agreements it signed and meeting all the teachers' demands, and that the Fatah movement in all its frameworks is the guarantor of that, but the " teachers' movement " announced the continuation of the strike and its protest activities since next Sunday.

Rajoub said during a press conference held at the headquarters of the Radio and Television Corporation in Ramallah, "The Fatah movement has reviewed all the agreements, and the government will abide by what was agreed upon. The first item in ensuring the government's commitment is the dignity of the teacher," calling on teachers to return to their schools starting from Next Sunday, to continue their march and perform their message.

Rajoub explained that "the government will pay 5% of the teachers' dues and 10% will be placed on the salary slip, and all legal and administrative financial measures taken against striking teachers will be reviewed and cancelled."

Rajoub added, "Professionalization of education will also be approved, and there will be procedures for an elected general union of teachers, starting from the beginning of the next academic year, according to the regulations of popular organizations in the PLO."

Rajoub said: "This announcement is happening for the first time, there is no justification for the continuation of the protests, and our position must be convincing, and we will not allow the overthrow of the authority, nor the fall of the education system, and we will work to review the status of education and the teacher."

Rajoub pointed out that there is mismanagement in the file of the teachers' strike, as well as a lack of trust. There are just demands and trade union agendas that we agree with, and there are agendas that want to politicize the issue, stressing the need to remove the teacher and the educational process from political tensions.

For his part, teacher Faisal Jadallah from the Nablus Education Directorate, and one of the observers of the agreement concluded with the teachers last year, said in an interview with Al-Quds, “The Rajoub speech carries a high positivity, especially since there is a commitment to last year’s initiative, and the entry of the Central Committee of the Fatah movement. It has a positive impact, and it is assumed that the movement’s statements are more studied and that we do not rush to give positions, and that we study all proposals more deeply, although the teacher has the right to reject and accept what he wants.

Jadallah indicated that Rajoub's speech talked about commitment to last year's initiative, regarding the democratization of the union and the new setting a time limit for that. There was talk about the professionalization of education, which is a demand for teachers to involve it in drafting laws that lead to professionalization. The speech also carried a clear retreat from all penalties. There is a positive discourse regarding the teacher’s appreciation and the language in which the teacher is spoken to, noting that the teachers are ready for any program to compensate the students.

With regard to the 15%, Jadallah confirmed that placing the 10% on the salary slip that Rajoub spoke of was conditional on the stability of the PA’s financial situation, and teachers want to know whether setting the percentage means spending it in the 2023 budget or not?

In turn, Omar Assaf, a member of the mediation initiative that led to the signing of the agreement last year, told Al-Quds: "We expected Rajoub to take a step forward, but his speech did not bring anything new except for guarantees, so the teacher's response was expected."

Assaf continued, "We respect what the teachers decide, as they are stakeholders, and we refer to the initiative, but Rajoub's speech did not implement the initiative that was concluded last year."

Meanwhile, the "teachers' movement" confirmed, in a statement, that the previously announced activities will continue as they are, the first of which is the morning strike with proof of presence, fingerprint, and signature, with leaving at any time the teacher wants for all stages, especially the guidance.

The movement spoke of what it called a "conspiracy" aimed at breaking the teacher in the most brutal and brutal way, through the repeated video that does not bring anything new and has been repeating itself for two months, and that its aim is for teachers to get bored and gradually break according to the government's vision, while the movement referred to recent meetings between Amin The secret of the central committee of the Fatah movement, Jibril Rajoub, with some teachers, principals, governors, and the Minister of Interior.

And he continued, "We have to say to the government and to Mr. Jibril Rajoub: Your meetings, meetings, and speech did not bring anything new, and therefore there is no change in our position as teachers gathered around our movement, as we will continue to abide by its activities."

The "movement" stressed that it was not an obstacle to solutions and welcomed the rationality of them, and looked wisely at some of the theses that reached it, indicating that the "mobility" is not a cause of the problem, but rather the government's intransigence and its desire to break the landmark.

Throughout the days of the strike, teachers carried out sit-ins in front of the headquarters of the education directorates in the West Bank in response to the "teachers' movement", amid the teachers' insistence on demanding their rights until the implementation of an agreement concluded, in May 2022, between the Palestinian government, the General Union of Palestinian Teachers and the "teachers' movement". sponsored by many institutions and personalities, and the strike stopped after that, but protests and strikes have returned since February 5, 2023, to demand the implementation of this initiative.

The agreement included 5 clauses: returning discounts to teachers, professionalizing education, issuing a teacher protection law, working to “democratize the union”, and depositing a 15% bonus for the nature of work on the salary slip, starting from the first month of the new year 2023.

Al-Quds University , represented by its president, Prof. Dr. Imad Abu Kishek and Jerusalemite businessman Samir Adel Awaida signed a cooperation and financing agreement to establish a solar power plant at the university, within the framework of Mr. Awaida's project to develop solar energy in the city of Jerusalem.

The agreement stipulates that Mr. Aweidah will provide an amount of one and a half million dollars as a total value for the establishment of a solar power plant at Al-Quds University, the largest Palestinian institution in the city of Jerusalem.

Prof. Dr. thanked Abu Kishk Al-Sayed Awaida for this generous donation, which comes within a comprehensive development vision through which Al-Quds University seeks to promote and invest in clean energy alternatives to achieve pioneering leaps in the level of infrastructure, university services, and its academic and development aspirations.

Prof. Dr. confirmed Abu Kishk stressed the importance of this project for the Holy City, as it will push it to develop in the field of energy, economy and development, which is what the university seeks to achieve based on its social vision aimed at promoting leadership and investment in it as a way to advance the city's economy and improve its conditions in all fields.

The two parties discussed the stages of the project prior to its launch, and the development and promotion of partnership in order to improve the field of energy in Palestine, its holy city and its economy in particular.

Al-Quds University seeks to achieve empowerment and development in the Holy City through its various partnerships, centers and development projects in Jerusalem, in order to develop the city services and economically and achieve financial stability by creating job opportunities and supporting special projects for the people of Jerusalem.

Mr. Samir Aweidah is considered one of the Palestinian businessmen active in charitable work, especially related to the city of Jerusalem, where he was born in 1934, studied in its schools, and his family was forcibly displaced by the occupation authorities. He graduated from the National College in Ramallah, and worked in the Jordanian Ministry of Social Affairs. Then he moved to work in the field of translation and editing in Saudi Arabia, and in the news department at the Kuwaiti Broadcasting House, and then as a sales manager at Youssef Ahmed Al-Ghanim Company. Then, in the early seventies of the last century, he established the “Gulf Development and Reconstruction Company - Inma”, and he remained Chairman of its board of directors until end of 2011.

The United Nations forces operating in southern Lebanon ( UNIFIL ) warned today (Thursday) that the "current situation is very dangerous" on the Lebanese- Israeli border after mutual shelling, calling on Lebanon and Israel to "restraint and avoid escalation."

The Lebanese official National News Agency stated that the deputy director of the UNIFIL media office, Candice Ardel, said in a statement that "several missiles were fired from southern Lebanon towards Israel this afternoon, and the Israeli army informed UNIFIL that it activated the Iron Dome defense system in response."

The statement indicated that "the head of the UNIFIL mission and its commander, Major General Aroldo Lazaro, are in contact with the authorities on both sides of the (blue line)" border.

"The current situation is very dangerous, and UNIFIL urges restraint and avoiding further escalation," Ardel added.

A state of high tension prevails on both sides of the Lebanese-Israeli border after rockets were fired from southern Lebanon at Israel, which the latter responded with artillery shelling.

Today, Israeli artillery fired several shells towards the outskirts of the town of Qlaila in the western sector of southern Lebanon, after firing rockets at northern Israel, according to security sources and eyewitnesses from the border area.

Official security sources in the Internal Security Forces and the Lebanese Army Intelligence told Xinhua that the bombing of southern Lebanon came after several missile bursts were fired this afternoon towards northern Israel.

According to the sources, the Israeli artillery shelling stopped without any reports of injuries or losses.

She explained that the rockets were fired at Israel from the town of Qulaileh, noting that it was carried out in two batches, about seven minutes apart, as the number of rockets exceeded 25.

The sources recorded an intense flight of Israeli reconnaissance drones over the western and eastern sectors of southern Lebanon.

It indicated that large forces from the Lebanese army, reinforced with armored vehicles, closed the area from which the rockets were launched in the Qulaileh axis, and began a wide search campaign in search of the missile launchers and launchers.

A state of extreme tension prevails on both sides of the Lebanese-Israeli border, as a large-scale alert was recorded for the Lebanese army, which worked to conduct intensive armored patrols on the border line, in coordination with the United Nations forces operating in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL).

The mutual shelling comes on the heels of an outbreak of escalating tension over the past two days and clashes between the Israeli police and Palestinian worshipers at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Zhang Yimin , the founder of the Chinese “ByteDance” group that owns the “ TikTok ” application, decreased by $ 17 billion last year, according to a new classification published Thursday.

The reasons for the losses are unknown, but Zhang is still the second richest businessman in the world under the age of 40, with an estimated fortune of $37 billion, according to statistics published by the Chinese company Hurun.

He is preceded in this classification by Mark Zuckerberg, the head of the giant American Meta check that owns Facebook and Instagram, whose fortune Huron estimated at $ 68 billion.

According to the ranking, Zuckerberg also lost nearly $8 billion in money last year.

Zhang co-founded ByteDance in Beijing in 2012, but resigned from the group in 2021 amid restrictions imposed by Chinese authorities on technology companies.

Zhang is a Chinese national who currently resides in Singapore.

ByteDance's success in China's highly competitive internet sector is largely due to the popular short-video app Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.

The app is the most valuable startup in the world, with a market value of $200 billion, according to Huron.

Its international version, TikTok, is very popular with teenagers around the world, but concerns about national security have made its future uncertain in several countries.

Critics of the app say TikTok allows Chinese authorities access to global user data, allegations the company has vehemently denied.

However, the US, Canadian, British and Australian governments, as well as the European Commission, recently banned their officials from downloading the TikTok app on their work phones.

Washington threatened the application with a complete ban, with TikTok President Xu Zi Zhu referred to a recent hearing before the US Congress to defend the application.

On Tuesday, TikTok was fined 12.7 million pounds ($15.8 billion) by the British regulator for the digital sector over its use of children's personal data.

The World Health Organization warned Wednesday that dengue fever and other diseases caused by mosquito- borne viruses are spreading faster and more widely due to climate change, raising fears of a worldwide outbreak.

World Health Organization experts sounded the alarm about rising cases of dengue fever and chikungunya, and said they expected the Zika virus to spread again in the world.

These three diseases are spread by arthropod viruses (viruses transmitted by arthropods), which are transmitted to humans by mosquitoes of the genus Aedes, called tiger mosquitoes.

"Climate change has played a major role in facilitating the spread of mosquito vectors," Raman Velayudhan, coordinator of the WHO's Dengue Fever and Virus Initiative, told a news conference.

With his colleague Diana Rojas-Alvarez, who is in charge of controlling chikungunya and Zika viruses, Velayudan called for swift action to curb the spread of mosquitoes, in the face of the risk of the disease spreading outside the areas of historical transmission.

Velayudhan urged countries to "exercise caution" in detecting the spread of the disease "to avoid any major outbreak".

Dengue remains endemic in 100 countries, but poses a threat to 29 others.

Velayudhan said the number of cases has skyrocketed in recent years, from nearly half a million in 2000 to 5.2 million in 2019, the worst year on record.

Cases were not properly reported during the Covid pandemic, but numbers remained high.

Meanwhile, infections of chikungunya, which have so far been reported in 115 countries since it was discovered in the 1950s, are on the rise in the Americas region, Rojas-Alvarez said.

Since January, about 135,000 cases have been reported in this region, compared to 50,000 in the first half of 2022.

Perhaps the most worrisome thing is the geographical expansion of these two diseases, from the Americas in the south to the northern hemisphere, including some European countries.

"With climate change, mosquitoes have multiplied and the spread of these diseases has expanded ... in latitude and longitude," Rojas-Alvarez said, describing the situation as "alarming".

And she warned that this strong outbreak in the Americas "could be an indication of what the next summer season might be like in the northern hemisphere."

Both diseases often cause mild symptoms (fever, body aches, and rash).

Most people who contract chikungunya only feel symptoms for a week, but 40% feel the effects for months or even years.

Rojas warned Alvarez that chikungunya could lead to permanent disability.

The Director-General of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva , expected Thursday, with the start of the spring meetings of her institution, that the global economy would go through one of the weakest periods of growth in recent decades, so that the rate would not exceed 3% in 2023.

"Despite the strength of labor markets and consumer spending in most advanced economies, as well as the recovery associated with the reopening of China, we expect growth of less than 3% in 2023," Georgieva said in a speech attended by a large number of diplomats in Washington.

And the International Monetary Fund had expected, in its previous update of the World Economic Report at the end of January, that growth would be around 2.9 percent in 2023, which is a slightly better rate than the first estimates it announced last October.

Although good growth is expected for the economies of the major emerging countries, particularly China and India, it will be weaker than what the International Monetary Fund had hoped for in the advanced economies.

Georgieva added that this trend is expected to continue. "We expect growth of about 3 percent over the next five years, which is our weakest medium-term forecast since 1990," she said.

The Director-General stressed that under these circumstances, continued monetary tightening in order to curb inflation, which remains "high", must remain the priority, despite the risks of financial sector disruption.

And she considered that the risks remain "limited" and that central banks can prevent them by "using their financial policies to ensure the stability" of the sector.

But Georgieva is also worried about the state of public finances in most countries, with their public debt soaring as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and then the fallout from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The challenges to be faced are significant, particularly to enable the ecological transition in emerging countries, which are estimated to need about $1,000 billion annually over the next few years.

This will require that "our wealthiest members help fill in the gaps" in fundraising.

Low-income countries also face difficulties in accessing the debt market, due to the high costs associated with raising interest rates by major central banks.

Many of these countries are facing financial difficulties. The total amount of money provided by the International Monetary Fund has increased sharply to $300 billion in recent months.

And Georgieva stressed that this may continue, because "about 15% of low-income countries already suffer from debt problems, and 45% are about to face debt problems."

Today, Thursday, the Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hussein Al-Sheikh , called on the United States of America and the countries of the world to intervene directly and effectively to stop the Israeli crimes against the holy sites, especially the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, and not to suffice with statements of condemnation and denunciation.

The Sheikh added that what is happening against the holy sites and worshipers has crossed all red lines, and is pushing the situation to an explosion.

On Thursday evening, the Lebanese Hezbollah denied its connection to the rocket fire from southern Lebanon towards the Galilee .

Reuters quoted a leading source in the party as saying that he had nothing to do with the missile launch.

3 Lebanese security officials told Reuters that Palestinian factions were behind the rocket fire.

The national forces in the Ramallah and Al-Bireh governorate organized, this evening, Thursday, a stand condemning the continuous Israeli aggression against the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque , and the continued targeting of prisoners, headed by the sick prisoners, especially the prisoners Walid Daqqa and Asif Al-Rifai, who suffer from a difficult health condition.

Wasel Abu Youssef , a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said in his speech that the aim of the stand is to convey a message to the world that the Palestinian people in their various places of residence will not allow the continuation of what is happening in the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, and that the national forces will play their role in defending the mosque. As well as for the prisoners who are unique to the occupation.

Abu Youssef added that what is happening in Al-Aqsa Mosque threatens to ignite a religious war, in the event that the aggression that targets the mosque, its corridors and the worshipers inside continues.

For his part, Secretary of the "Fatah" movement in Ramallah and Al-Bireh , Mowaffaq Sahwil , said that today's stand, in which the people of the movement participate, aims to deliver a message to the world that the Palestinian people will not stand idly by in the face of the occupation's measures, and that the "Fatah" movement will continue its work for Defending and protecting Al-Aqsa Mosque with all its might.

In turn, the head of the Prisoners' Club, Qaddoura Fares , said that the stand came to express the anger of the Palestinian people at the brutality and filth of the occupation that exceeded all limits, and "to confirm our commitment to the cause of our prisoners, headed by the sick prisoners, especially Walid Daqqa and Assem Al-Rifai. The prisoner Daqqa is in the hospital, and this is evidence of His health is not stable and is a major concern due to his cancer.

Medieval monks could not have imagined, when describing a lunar eclipse , that they were writing down for future generations the impact of giant volcanic eruptions that occurred a few months ago and may have been among the causes of climate cooling that occurred at that time, according to a recent study.

The phenomenon of eclipse occurs when the moon falls on one line with the sun and the earth, and then the earth blocks the sun's light from it. The color of the astronomical body becomes reddish after losing its white luster.

In 1884, the French astronomer Camille Flammarion noticed that this red color had become darker. He spoke at the time of a possible link to the catastrophic eruption of the Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia the previous year, which spewed a huge amount of dust into the sky.

This link has been proven in recent decades, after major volcanic eruptions, including the Mount Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines in 1991, as explained to Agence France-Presse, researcher at the University of Geneva, Sebastien Guyet, the main author of the study, the results of which were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

This expert in the sciences of climatology in antiquity, with a passion for the medieval era, knew that monks recorded celestial phenomena, including lunar eclipses. He notes that they were "particularly interested in its color, as they were based on the text of the Book of Revelation (about the end of the world), which talks about a blood-red moon."

“I was listening to Pink Floyd's album Dark Side of the Moon when I realized that the darkest lunar eclipses occurred about a year after major volcanic eruptions,” says Sebastien Guillet.

It has been proven that the twelfth and thirteenth centuries witnessed intense volcanic activity, with strong and close eruption incidents, including what happened at the level of the Samalas volcano in Indonesia in 1257.

These accidents left traces in the ice core, which contains volcanic particles that fell to the ground. But apart from what happened at Samalas, the chronology of these phenomena remains roughly.

However, a comprehensive reading of texts written by monks from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, especially in Europe but also in the Middle East and Asia, made it possible to determine the time of these phenomena with greater accuracy.

Of a total of 51 lunar eclipses reported between the years 1100 and 1300, historians note at least five phenomena in which the astronomical body appeared abnormally dark.

A Japanese writer on December 2, 1229 described the scene saying, "There really was reason to be afraid."

Scientists compared the exact days of these events with information from the ice core, and compared these results with contemporary data. They deduced the history of volcanic eruptions that occurred a few months ago, which the monks were not aware of because they were so far away.

"This innovative approach succeeded in determining the date of the volcanic eruption, by year and sometimes by month," said Ann Lawrence Mathers, a historian at the University of Reading in Britain, in a commentary accompanying the study.

According to the paleoclimatologist, "the monks used to see the moon dark because it was obstructed by aerosols pushed into the stratosphere," at an altitude of more than 10 kilometers.

Only the most powerful volcanic eruptions throw to such great heights plumes of ash that turn into mist upon entering the atmosphere.

The researcher confirms that six giant eruptions occurred within two hundred years, which is exceptional.

Recent research has speculated that this intense volcanic activity may have contributed to the emergence of the "Little Ice Age", which affected part of the Northern Hemisphere from the 13th to the 19th centuries.

The volcanic aerosols reduced radiation from the sun and cooled temperatures on Earth.

"Strong tropical eruptions can cause a global cooling of about 1 degree Celsius in a few years," says geomorphologist Marcus Stoffel, one of the study's authors.

An analysis of tree rings, which are indicators of temperature changes, confirmed this cold wave, which particularly affected crops.

"The monks have not seen such a cold summer for a long time, with the impression that they constantly see clouds of mist," says Sebastien Guillet.

"However, there is no consensus yet among scientists" about the causes of this ice age, "and we still have a lot to learn from these eruptions," according to Guyet, who says, "It is better to start from their exact history to understand whether or not they had impact on climate and societies.

On Thursday evening, Israeli security sources accused Palestinian factions of being behind the rocket fire from southern Lebanon towards the Galilee , north of occupied Palestine.

According to the Hebrew channel Reshet Kan, security estimates indicate that Palestinian cells were behind the rocket launch from Tire and its surroundings in southern Lebanon.

She pointed out that the rockets that were fired were of the Grad and Katyusha models, which are owned by Palestinian factions active in Lebanon, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

She pointed out that the bombing took place at a time when Ismail Haniyeh, head of the "Hamas" movement, was in Beirut.

While Ron Ben-Yishai, a military analyst, told the Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, that the bombing comes within the framework of Iran's attempts to ignite several fronts in coordination with Hamas, and it also came in coordination with Hezbollah , and that the important party to this plan is Saleh al-Arouri, a deputy to the "Hamas" movement.

Ben Yishai believed that as long as the Israeli response policy continues as it is, with major concessions to Hamas in Gaza in exchange for relative peace in the Gaza Strip, deterrence will erode.

The Agricultural Development Association ( Agricultural Relief ) launched an agricultural project in the village of Marda in Salfit Governorate, with the participation of the working group that includes the Palestinian Hydrologists Foundation, the Psychological and Social Counseling Center for Women and the representative of the Spanish Association for Cooperation for Peace (ACPP).

The project was launched in the presence and participation of representatives of the working group, the Salfit Agriculture Directorate and the Agricultural Relief staff, in addition to the farmers and the head and members of the village council.

During the project, work will be done to rehabilitate 60 dunums of agricultural land through automated work, build retaining walls with a length of 1,800 square meters serving 60 dunums, install a metal fence for 40 dunums, distribute inputs to create 20 home gardens, distribute seedlings to farmers, and implement specialized workshops with 5 From the groups of society (farmers, youth, women, children, and people with special needs).

A community protection committee of at least 15 people will also be formed, a central workshop will be held for all groups, and a vote will be held on the most important risks and disasters in the town through the community protection committee, and specialized training will be implemented for members of the community protection committee and a community initiative will be implemented to reduce one of the risks that will be identified by the protection committee.

These activities come through the project "Local Strategy to Link Integrated Protection of the Rights and Dignity of the Palestinian Population Under Occupation in accordance with International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law, with a Special Focus on Gender Equality, Child Protection and Disaster Reduction" funded by the Province of Valencia and the Government of Cantabria.

It was also announced that an agricultural road would be built and rehabilitated in the village of Iskaka in Salfit Governorate, with a length of 1,500 meters, located in areas classified (C). This road will serve hundreds of agricultural dunums and facilitate farmers' access to their lands threatened with confiscation for the benefit of settlement projects.

Today, Thursday, the occupation forces closed the entrances to the town of Qusra, southeast of Nablus .

The mayor of Qusra, Hani Odeh, stated that the occupation bulldozers began, since morning, to close the main entrance to the town and the secondary entrances to the east of the town with earth mounds and rocks, which led to the closure of the entire eastern region, and forced the citizens to pass through alternative and long sub-roads.

He stressed that this closure comes within the framework of the policy of collective punishment under the pretext of targeting a car of settlers while it was passing on the main street near the entrance to the town.

Qatar Central Bank announced today (Thursday) the issuance of treasury bills and Islamic sukuk with a total value of 5 billion riyals (about $1.37 billion) for terms ranging from one week to nine months.

The bank said in a statement on its website that it issued treasury bills and Islamic sukuk today, amounting to 5 billion riyals, while the value of bids submitted amounted to 9.7 billion riyals (one dollar equals approximately 3.64 riyals).

The issuances were distributed by one billion riyals for one week at an interest rate of 5.2550 percent, one billion riyals for one month at an interest rate of 5.3125 percent, one billion riyals for three months at an interest rate of 5.3950 percent, one billion riyals for six months at an interest rate of 5.4525 percent, and one billion riyals for nine months at an interest rate of 5.5 percent. , according to the statement.

Treasury bills are one of the government debt tools and are issued to its bearer for different terms, and it is one of the monetary policy tools for managing domestic liquidity, according to the Central Bank.

They are characterized as low-risk financial instruments, in the sense that they are easy to dispose of without the holder being exposed to any capital losses, because the permission is usually sold at a discount, i.e. at a price less than its face value, and when the maturity date comes, the government is obligated to pay the face value of the permission.

Since October of last year, the value of the bank’s issuances of treasury bills and Islamic sukuk with maturities ranging from one to nine months amounted to a total of 16.8 billion riyals, with an interest rate ranging from 3.8950 percent to 5.5 percent.

Of this total, the value of issuances this year amounted to a total of 7.5 billion riyals, with an interest rate ranging between 5.0625 percent and 5.5 percent, according to the bank's data.

The United Nations Interim Force in South Lebanon ( UNIFIL ) called on Thursday to avoid escalation, following the firing of missiles from the south towards Israel , which responded by bombing the firing positions, describing the current situation as "extremely dangerous."

"The current situation is very dangerous, and UNIFIL urges restraint and avoiding further escalation," it said in a statement.

Hair not only covers a person's head, but also expresses what is inside it, and the image that he wants to give of himself, as each style of it has its connotations, whether it is long or short, styled, dyed, or left as it is, according to what an exhibition in Paris shows.

Fashion historian and curator of the "Woper's Hair" exhibition, which opened Wednesday at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris, Denis Bruna, said that humans have been cutting, styling, shaving, and so on... in order to tame the animal and brutal side within.

Through more than 600 objects - including photographs, wigs, tools, hair clothing or advertising campaigns - the exhibition examines the history of hairdressing and its expressions of ideas of femininity, masculinity or neglect.

In the Middle Ages, women were required to wear the veil until the fifteenth century, in accordance with the commandment of St. Paul. Little by little, they dispensed with it in favor of extravagant hairstyles, despite their diversity according to the time and place.

There is a text, for example, that deals with an English woman who kept her hairstyle in the eighties of the eighteenth century for nine weeks, as she slept sitting up to avoid ruining it as much as possible. When she undoed her hairdo, all kinds of insects and lice were nesting in her hair.

Until the beginning of the twentieth century, women did not leave their homes uncovered, that is, without a hat, especially if their hair was loose, as leaving hair in this way was confined to very special places and cases, as evidenced by a drawing of the Empress of Austria Sisi in which she appears with loose hair, It was reserved exclusively for the personal office of the Emperor.

As for taking care of the cleanliness of the hair, it is a very recent phenomenon. In the fifties of the twentieth century, shampoo was distributed to boys in France, to teach them how to use it to wash their hair.

And he began urging people to use concealing the grayness of their hair a hundred years ago with a campaign for the company "L'Oreal", in which it described itself as the only line of defense against the "spectre of aging". For example, a poster dating back to the 1920s read, "She's very old. She's barely 35, but her hair is already turning grey."

However, hair dyeing did not spread until decades later. However, it is the famous women who in recent years have been claiming the right not to continue dyeing their hair. French writer and journalist Sophie Fontanelle has released a book about her transition to white hair, while actresses Andie MacDowell and Jodie Foster proudly showed off their white hair on the red carpet at Cannes in 2021.

Actress Helen Mirren, 77, has become the standard bearer for a new battle to keep her hair long (and white) into old age.

"The fashion for long hair dates back to the 1960s and has become synonymous with protest, freedom and youth," Donny Bruna explained.

The exhibition also raises the veil on how men and women arrange their body hair, which is a semi-taboo subject and there is not enough information about it due to the lack of visual and written testimonies.

Bruna explained that hair and body hair in Western culture "had a very bad meaning, as until the end of the eighteenth century, there was a conviction that they were a kind of secretions such as sweat and urine."

In contrast to English or German, there are two words in the Romance languages to distinguish hair, which is exclusive to humans, from the hair of animals.

In 1766, the Duke of Orleans shaved his entire body before his marriage so as not to frighten his young wife...

Between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, there were public baths in Paris in which women could wash themselves and remove their body hair, so did they?

Four years after an exhibition in Paris on Tut on Amun , the French capital is witnessing a new cultural event linked to ancient Egypt, through a huge exhibition that will be the highlight of the sarcophagus of Ramesses II, one of the most prominent pharaonic faces.

This exhibition, which opens Friday and continues until the sixth of September at "La Grande Hall de la Villette", is, according to what his scientific advisor, Egyptologist Benedict Loayer, describes as an "extraordinary", "extremely rare" and "amazing" event. Paris "will be the only European city to host this exhibition, and most importantly, it will be the only city to display the sarcophagus of Ramses II, thanks to the unprecedented cooperation between France and Egypt," she told AFP.

An exhibition on Tutankhamun in Paris in 2019 attracted more than 1.4 million visitors, and it is expected that the interest will be similar to the new exhibition dealing with the life of Ramesses II, who is often called the “King of Kings” and sometimes the “King of the Sun”: he is one of the pharaohs of the family. Nineteen.

She explained to Waye that he was "the pharaoh who ruled for the longest period (66 years), and one of whose wives was the most beautiful woman in the world (Nefertari, which literally means 'the most beautiful'), and his family was the largest (the number of his sons was at least 50 and his daughters 60)." "In short, he was an extraordinary king," she added.

The last "visit" of Ramesses II to France dates back to 1976. On that day, French scientists were assigned the task of saving the mummy, which was invaded by mold and fungus. The Egyptologist indicated that the relations between the two countries have been strengthened since then.

The exhibition will be held in Paris after two stops in the United States and Australia, and the organizers in the French capital have provided all means for it, from background music, elegant scenography, and an abundance of pieces such as statues and ornaments... and thus allow an immersion in more than three thousand years of history.

Visitors will be able to view a total of more than 180 original pieces, some of which have never been shown outside Egypt.

Even a three-dimensional animated show transports the visitor to one of the greatest battles that Ramses II was capable of, which is the Battle of Kadesh (in present-day southern Syria) between Egypt and the Hittite Empire.

The visit to the tomb of Ramesses II constitutes the most important aspect of the exhibition, bearing in mind that the area of the original tomb was 820 square meters and was completely looted during the reign of Ramses IX.

The organizers of the exhibition equipped the pavilion in which the tomb was held with valuable pieces (such as masks, ornaments, etc.) belonging to other tombs, especially those that were reserved for Egyptian princesses, including, for example, a mask from the coffin of King Amenmobi.

The most important piece is the painted wooden sarcophagus of Ramesses II, but it is empty, as the law prohibits the removal of royal mummies from Egypt.

"This represents an exceptional opportunity for children, as well as for audiences of all ages. It is an indescribable impact," French Culture Minister Rima Abdel Malek told AFP on Monday, during the unveiling of the coffin in the presence of the Egyptian ambassador.

The coffin lid, which is not the original, depicts the king with his arms crossed, holding a scepter and whip, and with a braided false beard.
The Egyptologist said, "When the tomb was confirmed to have been looted, it seemed urgent to put the mummy in safety. It remained for nearly a century in the tomb of Pharaoh Seti I," who is the father of Ramesses II.
The mummy was not placed until after a long time in the displayed coffin, in which it remained for more than 2,800 years. "Ramses II conquered time. He, like Tutankhamun, became immortal," Loayer said.

The unprecedented case against Donald Trump before a court in New York must clear a number of legal hurdles if it is to lead to the first criminal conviction of a former US president, legal experts said Wednesday.

Some of them considered this indictment text to be "less important" than other investigations threatening the former president, which raised doubts about its coherence.

As expected, the former president's defenders carried on the indictment issued Tuesday during Trump's unprecedented appearance in a Manhattan court.

Attorney Joe Tacopina expressed "satisfaction" upon reading the indictment, which he saw as "does not include any new material element," expecting, in an interview with NBC, that the case would "fade" quickly.

In a move that rarely happens, the opponents of the Republican billionaire expressed their dissatisfaction with the text of an accusation that could eventually serve his candidacy for the presidency in 2024.

"This document makes me sad," his former national security adviser, John Bolton, who has become a staunch critic, told CNN. "It came out even weaker than I had feared."

In the same context, the former deputy director of the Federal Police, Andrew McCabe, who was dismissed by Trump days before his retirement, said he was "disappointed" about the 34 charges brought against the former president on Tuesday related to "falsifying accounting documents."

The 45th President of the United States has been accused of manipulating his company's accounts to hide a $130,000 payment to a porn star to buy her silence before the 2016 election.

In New York State, forging accounting documents is generally considered a petty offense, but it becomes a misdemeanor punishable by up to four years in prison if it is committed to "conceal" another misdemeanor.

At a news conference, Democratic Attorney General Alvin Bragg confirmed that was the case in this case but did not go into detail about what this other offense might be, talking about possible violations of campaign finance laws or tax evasion.

"The New York judiciary, unlike the federal judiciary, allows inaccurate indictments," John Coffey, a law professor at Columbia University, told AFP.

For his part, his colleague William Banks from Syracuse University considered the accusation file "risky on several levels," pointing to the problem of the credibility of the main witness in the prosecution, Donald Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.

This man paid actress Stormy Daniels out of his own pocket to not reveal a sexual relationship that she confirms she had with Trump in 2006.

Michael Cohen, who later received the amount from the Trump Organization, confirms today that he acted at the behest of Donald Trump. But the former president's lawyers accuse him of "pathologically lying" and state that he was convicted of tax evasion by the federal judiciary.

Richard Hasen, professor of law at the University of California, confirms on the website of Slate magazine that the prosecutions against Trump in New York are "a legal and political mistake."

This well-known expert in electoral law states that the federal judiciary failed in 2012 to convict John Edwards, the candidate for the Democratic primary in 2008, when his mistress received about half a million dollars during the campaign to hide her pregnancy.

Richard Hasen fears that a similar failure "will give credence to Trump's accusations that he has been subjected to a 'crushing campaign'."

The danger is that other investigations threatening the former real estate mogul will be discredited.

"This case is insignificant compared to other cases," says William Banks, considering that the "most threatening" investigation for him is in the state of Georgia, where a prosecutor is looking into pressure exerted by Trump on election officials after his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.

"There is a recording in which we hear him calling for votes (...), which he will find difficult to deny," the expert said.

For its part, the federal judiciary is investigating its role in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and its management of the White House archives.

On the other hand, former prosecutor Barbara McQuaid considered, unlike other experts, that the New York file is “solid” because it is “primarily based on documents,” especially checks signed by Trump to return the amount paid to Michael Cohen.

"Unlike witnesses, documents do not lie and are not forgotten," she added.
And if the case reaches a jury in 2024, Trump will face a major handicap represented by his weak popularity in Manhattan, the stronghold of the Democrats. Aware of this danger, he had previously requested that the trial be moved to Staten Island, a more conservative area.

On Thursday, the Kremlin ruled out the possibility of Chinese mediation to stop the fighting in Ukraine, saying that Russia had no choice but to continue its offensive.

"Of course, China has a huge and effective potential when it comes to mediation services," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"But the situation with Ukraine is complex and there is no prospect of a political settlement. At the moment, we have no other solution than to continue the special military operation," he added, using Russian euphemisms to describe the invasion of Ukraine.

Peskov was responding to questions about possible Chinese mediation after French President Emmanuel Macron said in Beijing that he was counting on his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, who is close to President Vladimir Putin, to "bring Russia back to its senses."

During a summit in Moscow in March, Putin and Xi expressed their consensus and presented themselves as strategic allies determined to resist American hegemony.

For its part, China drafted a peace plan for Ukraine, but this plan is still very vague and theoretical, as Beijing stresses contradictory principles such as respecting the territorial integrity of countries, thus Ukraine, and defending Russia's diplomatic and security interests.

Although China officially affirms its neutrality, Xi Jinping never condemned the Russian attack and never spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky .

Ukraine has confirmed several times that peace comes through the withdrawal of Russian forces from all of its territory. For its part, Moscow demands, as a minimum, that Kiev give up the five regions that Putin announced its annexation.

Today, Thursday, the Captive Club confirmed that the prisoner, Khader Adnan , entered the third month of his hunger strike, demanding his freedom, amid a serious and continuous deterioration in his health condition.

The Occupation Prisons Administration continues to abuse him, as he is in the so-called (Ramle Clinic Prison), despite his serious health condition.

It is noteworthy that the prisoner Adnan was arrested (12) times, and he spent a total of about eight years in the occupation prisons, most of which were under administrative detention, and this is the sixth strike that he has carried out over the years of his detention.

Today, Thursday, 4 Israelis were wounded by a barrage of rockets fired from southern Lebanon towards the Galilee , north of occupied Palestine.

According to the Israeli Red Magen David Adom, two Israelis were slightly wounded by shrapnel from the missiles, and others were terrified.

According to an Israeli military spokesman, 34 missiles were launched from southern Lebanon, 25 of them were intercepted, and 5 landed in separate areas.

According to the Hebrew website Ynet, the bombing caused damage and fires that were brought under control.

According to the site, the rockets that were launched were Grad and Katyusha models.

The Israeli army decided to close the airspace in northern occupied Palestine.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will hold a security meeting in the presence of his army minister , Yoav Gallant , and the cabinet will hold this evening.

The American “Axios” website revealed, on Thursday, that four Israeli officials said that a statement made by General Mark Milley , Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a hearing in the House of Representatives last week about the Iranian nuclear program, alarmed Israeli defense and intelligence officials to the extent that they protested and demanded Clarifications from the Biden administration.

According to Axios, Milley said, in testimony before the House Appropriations Committee on Defense, that the United States "remains committed in terms of policy that Iran will not have an operational nuclear weapon." The four sources said that the word "field" created an impression among Israeli officials that the United States had changed its policy towards Iran and would tolerate Tehran's possession of a nuclear weapons program.

Milley said that it would take Iran only two weeks to produce enough uranium to make a nuclear weapon, adding that it would then take "several months only to produce an actual nuclear weapon."

Israeli officials confirmed to the site that they were "also concerned" by Milley's assessment of the time Iran would need to produce a nuclear weapon when it possesses a sufficient amount of enriched uranium up to 90% purity, and said that Milley's timetable is "several months" and that this schedule was not much shorter. Not only Israeli intelligence, but also an American estimate that was not shared with Israel, believing that it would take Iran one to two years to build a nuclear weapon.

The site says that "several days later, at a meeting of the House Armed Services Committee, Milley stressed that the United States is committed to ensuring that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon," and that Milley did not use the word "field" this time, but repeated the claim that Iran It would take "several months to produce an actual nuclear weapon" if it enriched enough uranium to 90%.

"U.S. policy remains the same," Joseph Holstead, a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Axios, saying Milley's use of the word "field" in the past was military jargon.

The new approach of the Biden administration, according to "Axios", shows how concerned the United States is about the recent developments in Iran's nuclear program, while the United States did not rule out diplomacy as a means to reach an agreement to return to the 2015 nuclear deal.

According to "Axios", the Israeli officials considered that Milley's statement before the House Armed Forces Committee came as the clarification they had hoped for, and the site attributed to a second senior Israeli official as saying, "We asked the Biden administration to fix it. And they did."

According to Western figures, Iran has now possessed up to 87.5 kilograms of enriched uranium at a rate of 60%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency report issued in late February.

If the steadfastness of the Russian economy in the face of the sanctions imposed on it more than a year ago surprised many observers, Moscow is facing a difficult situation and an uncertain future, despite its adaptation to the severe sanctions imposed on it in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeated for a year that international sanctions are useless and reflect negatively on Westerners more than on his country, stressing "strengthening economic sovereignty" and creating "more opportunities" for Russia.

However, he suddenly changed his tone at the end of March, warning of the "negative" consequences of the sanctions "in the medium term", in the first position of its kind since launching the attack on Ukraine in late February 2022.

Putin said that "returning to a path of growth should not make us complacent," acknowledging that there were still "problems" that needed to be "solved."

Are these statements an indication of the deterioration of the economic situation, or just a warning to companies after he urged them in mid-March to "not miss new growth opportunities"?

Arnaud Dubien, director of the French-Russian Observatory in Moscow, said Putin's position "is simply realistic."

"It is a mobilization message addressed to the companies and ministries concerned: 'The situation is better than expected, but do not be complacent, and continue to search for alternative (solutions')," he told AFP.

Alexandra Prokopenko, a researcher who previously worked at the Russian Central Bank, said, "He tells them what it means: 'You and your business are safe in Russia only under my authority, there is no return to before February 2022 +'."

The Russian economy is currently facing several problems, with the severe decline in gas exports, shrinking labor force, shortages in some production chains, the drop in the value of the ruble, the halt of the tourism sector, and others.

Dubien pointed out that "the sectors most affected by the sanctions, such as the automotive sector, are those that were most open to international investments and cooperation."

In the latest example, AvtoVAZ announced that supplies from some of its foreign suppliers had stopped, which would make it "impossible ... to continue production of integrated cars from the second half of May."

Russia can no longer practically obtain Western technologies and is forced to head towards Asia, which necessitates additional waiting times.

Prokopenko pointed out that companies related to the military industries sector are the ones that "manage their affairs better," referring to the sectors of "optics, medicine, metal equipment, and so on."

The government acknowledges this imbalance, affirming its intention to enhance exchanges with Asian countries, led by China and India, to compensate for the loss of the European market.

However, "the situation remains difficult," Sergey Tsyplakov, professor of economics at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, told AFP, referring to "financial infrastructures" among the victims of the sanctions.

And VTB Bank, the second largest Russian bank, announced, on Wednesday, losses amounting to seven billion euros in 2022, due to the sanctions, notably its exclusion from the international payment system SWIFT.

In light of the current situation, many observers believe that the real challenge for the Russian economy will come in the coming months.
"There is no indication that in 2023 Russia will receive additional revenues, as in the past year, through oil and gas revenues," Prokopenko told AFP, which increased significantly in 2022 with higher energy prices.

According to the International Energy Agency, Russian oil revenues declined by 42% in February at an annual rate, and the reorientation of the gas market to the Asian region takes a long time for logistical reasons.

However, Moscow urgently needs to keep its fuel revenues at a high level to continue financing its offensive in Ukraine, at a time when about a third of the annual federal budget is allocated to military and security expenditures, according to official figures.
Putin warned Tuesday that "the sanctions will last a long time."

Prokopenko believed that "it takes a long time to adapt, find new partners and establish good relations," considering that the future is "hazy."

For his part, Dubian said that "sanctions are not without pain, but macroeconomic balances are not in danger at the present time," adding that "Russia can finance its war effort for an additional three or four years ... but it has lost the equivalent of a decade of development since 2014." Now you may lose a second contract."

Russia announced Thursday that it had repulsed a group of Ukrainian "saboteurs" who tried to infiltrate its territory through the Bryansk border region , where a Ukrainian pilot was arrested on Wednesday.

And the governor of the region, Alexander Bogomaz, stated via the Telegram application that "the border guard force of the Russian Federal Security Service in the Bryansk region thwarted an attempt to incursion into Russian territory by a Ukrainian reconnaissance and sabotage group of twenty members near the village of Sluchovsk."

"Units of the Russian armed forces and units of border guards opened fire on the enemy," he added.

In recent weeks, the Russian authorities have reported several attempts of incursions by "saboteurs" from Ukraine into the border regions, which are regularly subjected to artillery fire or drone attacks.

On Wednesday, the Russian security services announced the arrest of a Ukrainian pilot after his small plane crashed near a village in the Bryansk region.

In early March, the Russian authorities announced an incursion into the Bryansk region by a group coming from Ukraine, which, according to the security services, opened fire on a car, killing two civilians and injuring a child.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the security forces to "do everything possible to ensure the safety of the population," both in Russia and in the occupied Ukrainian regions, where several pro-Russian officials have been killed in the past months.

Ukraine does not acknowledge its responsibility for "sabotage" operations in Russian territory, and Kiev, in particular, denied any involvement in the bombing that caused severe damage to the Crimean bridge last fall.

But in early March, hundreds of people took part in Kiev at the funeral of fighters from a self-propelled volunteer battalion killed during a "sabotage" mission in Russia.