While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Oct 4
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US President Joe Biden speaking to the media before boarding Marine One en route to areas in Florida and Georgia affected by Hurricane Helene.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
US ‘discussing’ possible Israeli strikes on Iran oil facilities
President Joe Biden said he was discussing possible Israeli strikes on Iranian oil facilities, in comments that sent oil prices spiking on Oct 3, just a month before the US presidential election.
Mr Biden told reporters at the White House, however, that he was not expecting Israel to launch any retaliation for Tehran’s missile barrage on Israel before Thursday at least.
When asked by a reporter if he supported Israel striking Iran’s oil facilities, Mr Biden said “we’re discussing that. I think that would be a little... anyway.”
Oil prices jumped 5 per cent over concerns about the Middle East after Mr Biden spoke.
Yazidi woman freed from Gaza after decade in captivity
A 21-year-old woman kidnapped by Islamic State militants in Iraq more than a decade ago was freed from Gaza this week in an operation involving the United States and Israel, officials said.
The rescue also involved Jordan and Iraq, according to officials.
The woman is a member of the ancient Yazidi religious minority mostly found in Iraq and Syria which saw more than 5,000 members killed and thousands more kidnapped in an Islamic State campaign in 2014 that the UN has said constituted genocide.
More than 800 mpox deaths recorded across Africa
REUTERS
More than 800 people across Africa have died from mpox, the African Union’s disease control centre said on Oct 3, warning the epidemic “was not under control”.
Some 34,297 cases have been recorded across the continent since January, the AU’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said, adding that the figure included 38 cases in Ghana.
This brings to 16 the number of African countries where mpox has been officially detected in 2024, according to the health agency.
US disrupts Russian efforts to hack government agencies
Getty Images via AFP
The United States has seized 41 internet domains used by Russian intelligence agents and their proxies to hack into government agencies including the Pentagon and State Department, the Justice Department said on Oct 3.
The department in a statement said it had acted concurrently with a Microsoft effort to take down 66 internet domains used by the same actors. The seized domains were used by hackers linked to a unit of the Russian Federal Security Service.
“The Russian government ran this scheme to steal Americans’ sensitive information, using seemingly legitimate email accounts to trick victims into revealing account credentials,” said Deputy Attorney-General Lisa Monaco.
Ukraine urges court to make Russia dismantle Crimea bridge
REUTERS
Ukraine on Oct 3 urged the world’s oldest arbitration court to order Russia to dismantle its bridge built to connect Ukraine’s occupied Crimea peninsula to the Russian mainland.
The two bitter enemies clashed at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in panelled rooms in The Hague, far removed from the battlefields of eastern Ukraine.
For two weeks, lawyers for the rival powers have battled over access to coastal waters around Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, which Russia claimed in 2014 to have annexed.
