While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Sept 25, 2025
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called at the UN for global rules to curb the use of artificial intelligence in weapons, while describing breakneck innovation in the military use of drones.
PHOTO: EPA
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Stop Russia or face most destructive arms race ever
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged world powers to help stop Russia’s war in his country in a speech to the United Nations on Sept 24, warning of a dangerous arms race that he said the fighting was helping unleash.
He called for global rules to curb the use of artificial intelligence in weapons, while describing breakneck innovation in the military use of drones.
He also accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of seeking to expand his war beyond Ukraine.
“Stopping Russia now is cheaper than wondering who will be the first to create a simple drone carrying a nuclear warhead,” he told the 193-member United Nations General Assembly.
Yemen drone attack wounds 22 in Israeli resort
Israel’s military said a drone launched from Yemen struck the southern resort town of Eilat on Sept 24, with rescuers reporting nearly two dozen wounded.
A military statement said the drone “fell in the area of Eilat” on the Red Sea coast after air defences had failed to intercept it, in the second such incident within days.
Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency medical service said its teams had treated 22 casualties, including two men, aged 26 and 60, who were in serious condition with shrapnel wounds.
China plans 7-10% greenhouse gas cut by 2035
PHOTO: AFP
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sept 24 told the United Nations that by 2035, his country plans to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 7-10 per cent below its peak, and called out “some countries” for moving against the global clean energy transition.
Mr Xi addressed a climate leaders’ summit hosted by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a live video message from Beijing, announcing China’s national climate plan ahead of the COP30 climate summit in Brazil in November.
Alongside the economy-wide emission-reduction goal, Mr Xi said that within 10 years, China plans to increase its installed capacity of wind and solar power to over six times its 2020 levels. It also plans to boost its share of non-fossil fuels in domestic energy consumption to over 30 per cent.
Chinese landscape architect dies in Brazil plane crash
PHOTO: REUTERS
Chinese landscape architect Yu Kongjian died in a plane crash late on Sept 23 in the vast Brazilian wetlands of Mato Grosso do Sul state, Brazilian authorities said on Sept 24.
Mr Yu, 62, gained global relevance as a landscape architect and urban planner after the Chinese government adopted his concept of “sponge cities”, using nature-based solutions to absorb and retain water instead of concrete infrastructure to channel it away.
The concept has since been adopted in hundreds of places in China as well as urban areas from the US to Russia.
Two killed in shooting at US immigration office
A gunman who wrote “ANTI-ICE” on an unused bullet killed two detainees and wounded another on Sept 24 at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Dallas before taking their own life, officials said.
FBI director Kash Patel posted a photo on X of what he said were the suspect’s unspent shell casings that showed one with the words “ANTI-ICE” written along the side.
“While the investigation is ongoing, an initial review of the evidence shows an ideological motive behind this attack,” Mr Patel wrote.
