World
While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Sept 30, 2026
While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Sept 30, 2026.
FULL ARTICLE · The Straits Times World
Visa joins growing alarm over AI-powered risks
Visa has open-sourced part of its AI-powered cyber defence system after “humbling” lessons from vulnerabilities exposed by AI models, as the payments giant braces itself for autonomous cyberattacks and future quantum-computing threats.
Visa processes roughly a billion payments a day, worth around US$15 trillion (S$19.2 trillion) a year, making it a key part of the world’s financial plumbing system.
Its president of technology, Rajat Taneja, told Reuters the company had made its cyber defence system available as open-source software after weaknesses exposed by Anthropic’s Mythos AI model earlier in 2026 highlighted the scale of the challenge.
The vulnerabilities were “humbling”, Taneja said, adding that the attack by AI agents on the Hugging Face platform may also prove to be an early glimpse of a more serious future threat.
Hundreds detained over high school blockades in France
More than 400 people, most of them minors, were detained in France on Sept 29 over blockades and protests at high schools across the country, the interior minister said.
Since last week, students have staged protests outside hundreds of schools over grievances including timetables, class sizes and a shortage of teachers, as well as overheated classrooms during this year’s heatwaves.
“440 were detained across national territory,” Laurent Nunez said on BFMTV.
UN alarmed by reports that Myanmar air strike killed 50
The United Nations expressed alarm on Sept 29 at reports that an airstrike by the Myanmar military near the country’s border with Bangladesh had killed 50 people and wounded dozens more, many of them critically.
A UN spokesperson said continuing violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state underscored that conditions did not currently exist for the safe return of refugees and other displaced people to Myanmar.
“This latest airstrike brings that reality into sharp focus,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told a UN briefing in New York.
Trapped in inferno, Ukraine scientist climbed to safety
Ukrainian scientist Ihor Malchevsky focused solely on his family as he peered over the edge of his third-floor office window, thick black smoke billowing behind him after a Russian drone smashed into the historic building setting it ablaze.
“My thoughts were about just one thing: how to rescue myself from this situation,” said the 69-year-old on Sept 29, a day after Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences in central Kyiv was hit.
Malchevsky concentrated on his wife, two adult children and seven grandchildren. His fear of heights did not get in the way as he clambered onto a ledge outside the window to avoid the smoke and fierce flames.
England break down stubborn Czechs in Nations League
Anthony Gordon and Harry Kane were on target again as England saw off a 10-man Czech Republic 2-0 to get their Nations League campaign up and running on Sept 29, while Lamine Yamal scored twice as World Cup winners Spain beat Croatia.
Thomas Tuchel’s side lost an entertaining opener 3-2 against Spain at Wembley on Sept 26, while the Czechs were beaten by Croatia.
The home side kept England at bay in the first half at Prague’s Fortuna Arena despite being a man down, but Gordon broke the deadlock shortly after the break and Kane gave England a cushion.
SOURCE