BIG Wrap

(Al Jazeera Media Network) Egypt, Eritrea, Somalia, and Sudan have called for political and peaceful solutions amid escalating conflicts across the region, including Sudan’s civil war and major fighting in Ethiopia. The leaders of the four countries – Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, and Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who heads Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council – issued a joint declaration on Sunday following a meeting...

(CNN) Russian authorities are responding to an incident in which a suspected dangerous infection was released as a result of a laboratory accident in Siberia and a researcher died. The incident occurred at the Anti-Plague Research Institute in Shelekhov, near Irkutsk, according to Russian state media TASS. It is unclear exactly what was released, according to the state agency that handles infectious disease, Rospotrebnadzor. One person – a laboratory worker – is said to have died...

(The New York Times) In October 2024, about a week after a Chi Phi fraternity party at Cornell University, the sophomore who would come to be known as Jane Doe was milling around an online forum about Greek life when she encountered a post that stopped her cold. “Are Chi Phi brothers Crips or Bloods because I hear they have been doing hell Gang Banging?” someone had written. “They do drugs and gang r*ped a sophomore,”...

(Al Jazeera Media Network) The United States is deploying a third aircraft carrier strike group to waters in the Middle East close to Iran, a US official has told Al Jazeera, as the war enters its eighth month and both sides weigh escalation and diplomatic engagement. Thousands more troops are also on their way to the region, just a month before November US midterm elections, which could see US President Donald Trump’s Republican Party hit...

(Al Jazeera Media Network) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has praised the captain of a Flydubai jet as “a true hero” for saving the 174 people on board after he was stabbed by his co-pilot in what Israeli officials said was an attempt to bring down the plane. Netanyahu’s comments on Wednesday came as Israel’s government said it would check the identities of all pilots flying into the country. Flydubai suspended flights to and from...

(Al Jazeera Media Network) Russia has warned NATO it is prepared to use its entire arsenal, including nuclear weapons, if the Western alliance attempts to cut off the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, according to a diplomatic document sent to member states. The diplomatic memo sent on Wednesday claimed Moscow has “information that NATO is preparing an air and naval blockade of Kaliningrad”. NATO’s response came through its Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who said that NATO is a...

(CNN) An OpenAI agent hacked into an Australian national healthcare database in the first known case of AI hacking a government network, the country’s prime minister said Wednesday. “The AI agent accessed both public and non-public files” of the country’s Medicare statistics database, and even wrote files into it, Anthony Albanese told reporters on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York. The disclosure is the latest example of AI agents going...

(Al Jazeera Media Network) An air strike carried out by Myanmar’s military has killed at least 33 people in territory controlled by rebel factions. The attack near a market in the north of the Rakhine state in the west of the country on Monday wounded 36 other people, rescue and rebel group officials reported. The strikes are the latest in a series of assaults against pro-democracy and ethnic armed groups by the military government, which...

(Al Jazeera Media Network) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has criticized the opposition leaders who began co-ordinating to replace his government ahead of the October 27 Knesset elections. The five politicians met at opposition leader Yair Lapid’s home in Tel Aviv on Saturday to co-ordinate their strategy before the elections, Israel’s Channel 12 reported. In his first response to the agreement, Netanyahu claimed Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot would seek to form a government with Yair Lapid,...

(CNN) British police on Sunday arrested five men on suspicion of terror and explosives offences close to an airbase in England that is used by US long-range bombers in the war against Iran. Army bomb disposal units are at the scene while dozens of houses nearby have been evacuated as a precaution with the investigation ongoing. The arrests were made after information was received from residents in the area soon after midnight, according to Richard Ocone,...