While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Nov 7, 2025
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Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev (centre) meeting US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick (left) and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington on Nov 6, ahead of talks with US President Donald Trump.
PHOTO: X/@SECRUBIO
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Kazakhstan to join Trump’s Abraham Accords
Kazakhstan said on Nov 6 it expects to join the Abraham Accords between Israel and mainly Muslim nations, in a largely symbolic move aimed at boosting US President Donald Trump’s push for Middle East peace.
The central Asian republic has had diplomatic ties with Israel for decades, unlike the four Arab states that normalised relations with Israel under the original accords signed in Mr Trump’s first term.
But with Mr Trump aiming to shore up his fragile Gaza ceasefire deal, Washington is pushing to get as much support as possible behind a wider peace initiative.
The announcement that Kazakhstan will join is expected to come when Mr Trump hosts Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and the leaders of the other four central Asian republics at the White House later on Nov 6, a US official said.
Teacher shot by six-year-old student awarded $13m
PHOTOS: X, REUTERS
A Virginia school teacher who was shot by her six-year-old student in 2023 was awarded US$10 million (S$13 million) in damages by a jury on Nov 6, concluding a negligence lawsuit she brought against a school administrator.
Ms Abigail Zwerner alleged that an assistant principal at the Newport News elementary school where she used to teach ignored multiple reports that a firearm was on school property and likely in the possession of the boy who shot her in January 2023.
Police said the boy had taken the 9mm handgun from his home and carried it to school in his backpack.
British grandmother leaves death row to return home
PHOTO: EPA
Two British drug convicts including a grandmother on death row left a Bail jail on Nov 6, an Indonesian ministry official told AFP, as part of a deal to send them home.
Indonesia has some of the world’s toughest drug laws, but has moved to release more than half a dozen high-profile detainees in the last year, including a Filipina mother on death row.
Lindsay Sandiford, 69, was sentenced to death on the tourist island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs.
UN chief scolds nations for failing climate goals
PHOTO: REUTERS
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres tore into nations for their failure to limit warming to 1.5 deg C, as Brazil hosted world leaders for a summit ahead of the COP30 climate conference in the rainforest city of Belem.
Scientists have confirmed the world is set to cross the 1.5 deg C warming threshold around 2030, risking extreme warming with irreversible consequences.
“Too many corporations are making record profits from climate devastation, with billions spent on lobbying, deceiving the public and obstructing progress,” Mr Guterres said in his speech.
Lake where dolphins died was hotter than a jacuzzi
PHOTO: AFP
When dolphins began washing up dead by the dozens on Lake Tefe in Brazil’s Amazonas state, hydrologist Ayan Fleischmann was sent to find out why.
What he and his colleagues discovered was startling: a brutal drought and extreme heat wave that began in September 2023 had transformed the lake into a steaming cauldron, its waters reaching 41 deg C – hotter than most spa baths.
Their findings, published on Nov 6 in the journal Science, spotlight the impacts of planetary warming on tropical regions and aquatic ecosystems, and come as the UN’s COP30 climate talks kick off in Brazil.
