While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Sept 27, 2025
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Scores of delegates exited the hall as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to the stage to address the UN General Assembly on Sept 26.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Message in backing Palestinian state: Killing Jews pays
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sharply denounced Western countries on Sept 26 for embracing Palestinian statehood, accusing them of sending the message that “murdering Jews pays off”.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly, the Israeli leader pushed back in his harshest terms yet against a flurry of diplomatic moves by leading US allies that deepened Israel’s international isolation over its conduct of a nearly two-year-old war against Hamas militants in Gaza.
“This week, the leaders of France, Britain, Australia, Canada and other countries unconditionally recognised a Palestinian state,” he said. “They did so after the horrors committed by Hamas on Oct 7 – horrors praised on that day by nearly 90 per cent of the Palestinian population.”
Scores of delegates exited the hall as Mr Netanyahu took to the stage while some attendees in the balcony gave him a standing ovation.
Russia’s 2025 offensives failed: Zelensky, army chief
PHOTO: PRESIDENT.GOV.UA
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his top military commander said on Sept 26 that Russian offensives had failed to meet their goals and Moscow was suffering heavy losses on the battlefield.
Mr Zelensky, speaking in his nightly video address, said Ukrainian forces had inflicted heavy casualties on Russian troops in a counter-offensive near Dobropillia in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
Top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi told reporters that “the Russians’ spring and summer campaign has effectively been disrupted.”
China drone maker DJI loses US Pentagon lawsuit
PHOTO: AFP
A US judge on Sept 26 rejected a bid by China-based DJI, the world’s largest drone maker, to be removed from the US Defence Department’s list of companies allegedly working with Beijing’s military.
In his ruling, US District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington, DC, said the Defence Department had substantial evidence supporting its finding that DJI, which sells more than half of all US commercial drones, contributes to the “Chinese defence industrial base”.
DJI had urged the court to order its removal from the Pentagon list designating it as a Chinese military company, saying it “is neither owned nor controlled by the Chinese military.”
‘Sadistic’ nursery worker jailed for abusing 21 babies
PHOTO: METROPOLITAN POLICE
A judge on Sept 26 jailed a nursery worker for eight years for a string of “gratuitous” and “sadistic” attacks on babies.
In one incident, Londoner Roksana Lecka, 22, kicked a little boy in the face several times.
Lecka, who blamed cannabis for her crimes, admitted seven counts of cruelty to a person under the age of 16 and was convicted after a trial of another 14 counts.
Malaysian footballers banned over forged documents
PHOTO: AFP
Fifa’s disciplinary committee has imposed sanctions on the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) and seven players, after the world governing body found that doctored documentation had been used so that they could play in an Asian Cup qualifier for Malaysia against Vietnam.
The seven footballers – Deportivo Alaves’ Facundo Garces, Gabriel Arrocha (Unionistas de Salamanca), Rodrigo Holgado (America de Cali), Imanol Machuca (Velez Sarsfield), Joao Figueiredo, Jon Irazabal and Hector Hevel (all Johor Darul Takzim) – were handed a 12-month suspension from all football-related activities.
Fifa said in a statement on Sept 26 that the FAM had submitted eligibility enquiries and used doctored documentation to be able to field the seven players, breaching Article 22 of the organisation’s disciplinary code that is concerned with forgery and falsification.
