Reuters World News Summary

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy suspended Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) chief Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend, and top state prosecutor Iryna Venediktova, citing dozens of cases of collaboration by members of their agencies in Russian-occupied Ukraine. Increasingly bitter race to replace UK PM Johnson narrows to four Britain's former finance minister Rishi Sunak held onto his lead in the race to become Britain's next prime minister on Monday as another hopeful was knocked out, leaving four candidates in an increasingly bitter contest to replace Boris Johnson.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Ukraine president suspends two top allies, citing Russian spy infiltration

Nearly five months after Moscow's invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy suspended the country's security chief and top prosecutor, saying they failed to purge Russian spies from their organizations. One of those sidelined in the biggest government overhaul of the war, SBU security service chief Ivan Bakanov, was a childhood friend of Zelenskiy.

Thirteen inmates killed in fight in Ecuador prison - AFP

Thirteen inmates were killed in a fight in an Ecuador prison, according to an AFP tweet, citing officials on Monday.

Mexico minimizes U.S. role in drug kingpin's capture

Mexico's president on Monday downplayed the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)'s role in last week's capture of drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, exposing tensions over security cooperation despite the major cross-border win. The head of the DEA had hailed the arrest as the product of joint cooperation, but President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador repeatedly sought to paint a different picture.

Allies seek to follow U.S. lead on Xinjiang forced labor ban - U.S. official

U.S. allies appear committed to following Washington's lead banning forced labor goods from China's Xinjiang region, a senior U.S. official told Reuters on Monday, warning companies they could not maintain "deliberate ignorance" about their supply chains. The United States' Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) took effect https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-is-rallying-allies-against-xinjiang-forced-labor-ban-takes-effect-2022-06-21 last month to cut U.S. imports of products from Xinjiang, where Washington accuses China of committing genocide against ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslims, and herding them into camps.

Britain braces for record temperatures as heatwave ripples across Europe

Britain was heading for its highest temperatures on record and firefighters battled blazes across southern Europe as a heatwave sent people hunting for shade and compounded fears about climate change. In Spain, a wildfire raced across a field and engulfed a excavator near the northern town of Tabara, forcing the driver to run for his life as flames burned the clothes off his back.

Bolsonaro attacks Brazil's election system in briefing for diplomats

President Jair Bolsonaro invited the diplomatic corps on Monday to hear his charges that Brazil's election system was open to fraud ahead of October elections in which he is trailing in a bid for a second term. "The system is completely vulnerable," he told some 40 diplomats invited to his residence in an unprecedented briefing three months before a general election.

Sidelining of spy chief spotlights Ukraine's battle to purge Russian agents

The sidelining of Ukraine's domestic spy chief on Sunday laid bare Kyiv's battle far from the frontlines to purge its powerful security agencies of collaborators and Russian agents. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy suspended Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) chief Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend, and top state prosecutor Iryna Venediktova, citing dozens of cases of collaboration by members of their agencies in Russian-occupied Ukraine.

Increasingly bitter race to replace UK PM Johnson narrows to four

Britain's former finance minister Rishi Sunak held onto his lead in the race to become Britain's next prime minister on Monday as another hopeful was knocked out, leaving four candidates in an increasingly bitter contest to replace Boris Johnson. Sunak got 115 votes in the third ballot of Conservative lawmakers on Monday, ahead of former defence minister Penny Mordaunt on 82 and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on 71.

Putin visits Iran for first trip outside former U.S.S.R. since Ukraine war

Russian President Vladimir Putin visits Tehran on Tuesday for a meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the first trip by the Kremlin chief outside the former Soviet Union since the invasion of Ukraine. Putin casts the West's attempt to cripple Russia's economy with the most severe sanctions in recent history as a declaration of economic war and says Russia is turning away from the West to China, India and Iran.

Amid COVID shutdowns, Chinese women flock to skateboarding

Feeling cooped up by the Chinese capital's partial COVID-19 lockdown earlier this year, which shut gyms, parks and other venues, Beijing resident Mina Zhao came across surfskating on social media and decided to give it a try. Zhao, 40, who loves to ski, was an instant devotee, getting her husband and son involved in surfskating and even introducing it to dozens of fellow mothers who have gone on to buy their own boards.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)