Our daily journey around the world

🇸🇦☪️ Nearly 2 million Muslims have begun the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca (located in Saudi Arabia). The annual pilgrimage to the city is one of the five pillars of Islam, with all Muslims required to make the five-day journey at least once in their lives if physically and financially able to do so. Saudi officials estimate a record-high 2.5+ million pilgrims will ultimately participate in this year’s Hajj, which is the first without any restrictions since before the Covid pandemic.

🇷🇺 Russian President Vladimir Putin made his first public address since the Wagner Group’s armed rebellion ended. In a speech yesterday, Putin thanked the Wagner soldiers who halted their advance on Moscow, but said any attempt to provoke unrest in Russia was “doomed to fail.” Earlier that day, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led the rebellion, categorized his armed uprising as a “demonstration of protest” against Russian generals rather than an attempt to topple Russia’s government. While Saturday’s ceasefire agreement included full amnesty for Prigozhin and his troops, Russian state media reports the Wagner chief is still under criminal investigation.

🇫🇮 Finland is almost done building the world’s first permanent storage site for spent nuclear fuel. Over the past 19 years, Finnish nuclear giant Posiva has spent $1.1 billion constructing a custom bunker buried more than 1,300 feet underground. The bunker, which will become operational starting next year, is designed to house all ~7,200 tons of spent uranium created by Finland’s five nuclear reactors over their entire lifetime. Several other countries – including the US, UK, Sweden, France, and Canada – are also considering similar underground bunkers to store nuclear waste.