World News Quick Take

Former Federal Intelligence Service (BND) director August Hanning was arrested yesterday on suspicion of espionage, accused of seeking to pass sensitive information to overseas intelligence services, prosecutors said. Hanning, who ran the BND from 1998 to 2005, is suspected of charges including “attempted treason” and “espionage,” federal prosecutors said in a statement. Hanning’s former chief of staff, partially named as Manfred D., was also arrested on suspicion of “aiding and abetting attempted treason and treasonous espionage.” Manfred D. also served as the chief of staff for Hanning’s successors between 2012 and this year, and used that role to gain access to confidential information which he then passed on to Hanning “in exchange for remuneration,” prosecutors said. According to the broadcaster ARD, the information that Manfred D. passed on included material on the Iranian nuclear program and the Russian army.

Former Federal Intelligence Service director August Hanning arrives at the Bundestag in Berlin on Friday.

Photo: AP

AUSTRALIA

AI heads address lawmakers

OpenAI and Anthropic yesterday told parliament they would welcome laws requiring them to report data breaches carried out by their artificial intelligence (AI) agents, acknowledging the decision to notify authorities was at their discretion. The comments follow an outcry after ChatGPT maker OpenAI took three months to inform the government that one of its agents had breached the country’s main health portal. A growing number of Australians are also calling for tougher rules concerning AI data centers and AI copyright protection as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government works on new laws to govern the sector.

RUSSIA

Moscow denies plague reports

Authorities yesterday denied that special restrictions had been introduced over reports that a laboratory technician died of plague, even as Washington said it was closely monitoring events. Reports on Friday that pneumonic plague had killed 28-year-old Darya Shipilova, who had been working for the anti-plague institute in Siberia’s Irkutsk region, sparked alarm. The consumer and health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor said that a document circulating online indicating heightened sanitary-epidemiological measures and restrictions in the Irkutsk region was fake, adding in a message on Telegram that “the sanitary-epidemiological situation in the Irkutsk Region ... remains stable.” The news outlet People of Baikal, citing unnamed sources close to the regional security services, on Friday said the dead woman might have contracted pneumonic plague from a broken test tube. However, officials have said that postmortem tests had not detected the disease.

UNITED STATES

Trump orders firing squad

President Donald Trump has ordered the use of a firing squad to execute a former Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in a 2009 shooting spree the gunman later described as retaliation for US wars in the Muslim world, the Pentagon said on Monday. Putting former major Nidal Hasan to death by Army firing squad was approved by Trump at the recommendation of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell wrote on X. A military jury sentenced Hasan to death in August 2013, after finding him guilty of 45 counts of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder for opening fire in a medical facility at the Texas military base. The shooting came weeks before Hasan, now 56, was scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan.