Israel-bound flight diverted after fight between pilots

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Investing with Schwab is like spending a Saturday at a great farmers market. You can fill your reusable tote with a bit of everything. Maybe you go for some free range self-directed investing. Or perhaps you pick up a few farm fresh trades while you peruse. You can even get help from a dedicated advisor. That's full service wealth management. Mix, match and change your mind whenever you want. Because at Schwab, you can invest your way. No matter your goals or appetite for investing, Schwab has everything you need all in one place. Visit Schwab.com to learn more. If you are currently overpaying on software to run your business, remember this number. 10,000. That's the number of new businesses that join Odo per month. Join Odo today at Odo.com. That's OD.O..com. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson and on Wednesday,

1:02the 30th of September, these are our main stories. An Israel-bound passenger jet sends out a high jack alert as one pilot reportedly stabs the other before being overpowered. Russia pounds energy facilities in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev and surrounding areas. We hear how children in Gaza are coping in the territory, which is still under near daily attack. Also in this podcast, researchers say they persuaded a Chinese AI system to give them the recipe for bio weapons and we Africans would develop Africa. Whether they like it or they don't like it, we are moving. Africa's richest man leads a consortium to build an oil refinery on Kenya's coast, which he says will put Africa in charge of its own destiny. A passenger plane flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv, carrying about 170 people had to divert to Saudi Arabia after the pilot was reportedly stabbed. Israeli and Saudi fighter jets were scrambled

2:04when the plane transmitted a code used to indicate a hijacking. Israeli media is reporting that the co-pilot is thought to have stabbed the pilot and attempted to crash the plane. Yes, bin Abu Qasis was waiting at Tel Aviv Airport for her daughter Miriam, who was on the flight. The plane started to lose control. So all the people, the scream, the things they are going. And after a few minutes to add up the pilot, they took the control. And he was really the runaway to the guy. He took a knife, the take his hand and put it on the plane. There was a lot of blood around. She said it's crazy, crazy time. It's very hard to explain what happened there. But it was big stress. Omar Ghehtali was also on the flight. I spoke with several people who were in the cockpit and there are quite a few versions. It's unclear how the cockpit door was opened.

3:07Whether someone from the crew opened it, so help could come, or if it was forced open, it is unclear. What is clear is that there were two pilots in the front, one stabbed the other. And there were two spare pilots who were supposed to operate the next flight. The relief pilots are European, one of them British, who entered and pulled the aircraft up, pulled the yoke, stabilized the plane and landed us in Saudi Arabia. Our global affairs reporter, Sebastien Asher, told us what was going on. Sebastien Asher told us what we know so far. Everyone's trying to piece together the narrative of the moment from all the elements, but of course, passenger testimony being verified is going to be key to it. This was something which was set off when there was a code emergency warning from this flight, which one there was trouble on board and the other, but it was a hijack code. So there was an immediate response, both from the Saudis and the Israelis. This was over Saudi airspace to scramble jets to try and deal with that.

4:11As you were saying in your introduction, it was brought down safely in a Saudi airport, a book airport. There is some damage to the back of the plane, but it's visible. It also plunged at one point by about 10,000 feet. So this was an extraordinary instant, whatever the reason, whatever motivation behind it, one of the videos that we've just verified at the BBC shows two bodies lying on the floor. Now, not bodies, dead people bodies of people who have been wounded. They appear to be the pilot, potentially the co-pilot. There is blood spattered around them. We've heard from the airport authorities that both the pilot and the co-pilot are in hospital and being treated. So we know that a very serious instant happened. We know that there have been no actual deaths. We don't think from what we know so far that it involved other people directly in the confrontation, but we don't know 100% how it was subdued. Report we heard there from that passenger has been backed up by other reports that we heard that other crew managed to get into the cabin

5:14and resolve the situation and then the plane was able to be flown to a safe landing. And that is an extraordinary thing in itself, because you're not supposed to be able to get from the main body of the aircraft into the cockpit, in this instance, if what we're hearing is correct. Well, this is the crew. This is the crew. Now, I'm not an expert in aviation, but one assumes that the crew has the ability to do that. If there's something going on inside of a cockpit, obviously, passengers themselves wouldn't be able to do that. And there are some passengers who have talked about that they were involved in this as well, which may be the case. There's one still of the passenger with blood on his t-shirt. There's video also of the landing where the passengers who would be almost all Israeli. I mean, I flown that flight between Dubai and Israel. It's a very popular flight for Israelis who go to visit the UAE ever since it joined the Abraham Accords. And they are giving an Israeli prayer of thanksgiving as they land. So, you know, we still don't know exactly what happened. We haven't had any really strong official statement from the Israeli authorities so far,

6:18but what we're hearing both in the Israeli media, from Israeli officials speaking, anonymously to agencies, is that they believe that it may well have been a terror attempt, that whoever was in the cockpit who tried to take control, that may have been what their motor was. This will play out in an already feeble atmosphere in Israel, where elections due to take place in a month's time. Sebastian Asher. President Zelensky says at least five people have been killed and 14 injured across Ukraine in the latest Russian overnight attacks. They involved both drones and ballistic missiles, which the Ukrainian air defenses tried to shoot down. They were killed. Lillian Bavings is business editor at the Kiev Independent. At last, we are. Everyone's been pretty exhausted here, and I'm keep after another sleepless night. It's been, you know, sleepless nights for the last several weeks, largely, along with constant daytime attacks. We were just actually talking in the newsroom about how this air raid alert,

7:19this last one lasted 12 hours. So the attack continued well until late morning and we have a brief pause right now, but I imagine a tax will start again as they have been. That's an extraordinary length of time, 12 hours of air raid alerts. I mean, how on earth does life continue with that going on? It's very challenging. You know, even as a newsroom at the organization, we've had to shift how we work, you know, where we work. It's very disruptive. It's very disruptive to daily life, of course, to businesses that, you know, rely on being able to stay open so that they have customers and things like that. You know, I think as everyone has here for the last almost five years of war, you know, people have kind of found ways around it, found ways to continue living, to kind of, you know, as one of my colleagues put it recently, kind of stretch the limit of what we consider normal constantly and in doing so, continuing to live life, which is, you know, what we all want to do. But it has been complicated and certainly people are exhausted, certainly people are stressed,

8:22and certainly you see that more and more people are making the decision to relocate temporarily out of Kiev to say for parts of the country in the West or abroad. Billion Bivings in Kiev speaking to Karen Gianoni. Vitaly Shevchenko from BBC Monitoring told me where the Russians had hid. It was energy infrastructure. First of all, in fact, the Ukrainian Prime Minister, Serhii Kuretsky, says that this was the worst attack on Ukrainian energy infrastructure since the end of the previous heating season. So he says that Russia's really launched its campaign against Ukrainian electricity, heating and water supplies. Electricity supplies have been restored to about 8,000 households in the Ukrainian capital. The Russian Defence Minister says that it hit the Trabilska power station outside of Kiev, the largest supplier of electricity to the Ukrainian capital.

9:26The Ukrainians, they knew that this coming winter is going to be really, really tough. It looks like it's going to be much tough on them, the previous winter when the Russians also attacked energy infrastructure, but this time around, they're also hitting supply chains, warehouses, supermarkets. And over the past month and a half, they've also knocked out a key sector of the Ukrainian economy steel making, which used, before the war, a used account for 10% of GDP and employed half a million people. So things are looking pretty grim for Ukrainians. Vitaly Shevchenko. Nearly a year after a ceasefire was supposed to end the fighting in Gaza, Israeli forces still conduct near daily strikes against what it says, a Hamas targets. For ordinary Palestinians in Gaza, life is precarious. The Hamas run health ministry says more than 1400 people have been killed since last October.

10:27And doctors say that Israel is restricting vital medical supplies to patients in hospitals. Israel denies this. BBC's Emma Anada reports now on how the children, in particular, are coping. Six-year-old Erasil is getting ready for skin graft surgery. Earlier, she had seizures caused by a straplough fragment in her brain, which her doctors cannot remove. On July 30, Erasil was sleeping with her family in their tent, an al-Mawasi camp in southern Gaza, when witnesses say they were hit by an Israeli air strike. She was injured along with her mother and brother. Her nine-year-old sister, Rathil, was killed. Rathil's father, Mahmoud, watches over her in the hospital bed, the distress palpable on both their faces. I asked them, where is Rathil? Nobody answered. I asked my wife's cousins, where is Rathil? They said, in the morgue. I couldn't hold myself together. They used to play together all the time.

11:30It's only been two or three days since she started eating again. I'm afraid that if my daughter stays in Gaza, she'll die. Rathil has had more than 20 operations in order to clean wounds that keep getting infected. MSF's doctor, Awani El-Jaffa Raoui, at Nasser Hospital, is looking after her. Her current wounds have multi-drug resistant bacteria, so the solution is to try and clean the wounds every day or every other day, washing them in the operation room and trying as much as possible to control the infections. Dr. Al-Jaffa Raoui explains the long-term consequences of the failure of key antibiotics he is seeing on his ward. In the long run, people's immunity weakens. A patient would need to undergo surgery every day or every other day. Over the coming years, you will see the number of amputees, rice daily, even if the war stops. No. What if it's ill-harmed? Israel says it allows medicines to enter Gaza without restriction,

12:31including antibiotics, but multiple humanitarian organizations and medical staff across Gaza have told the BBC that there are major shortages of essential drugs. Other factors that risk people's health are also at play. Raths and other pests have spread. Neighborhood volunteer Mahmoud sprays pesticides around the rubble where he lives. The kids have developed severe allergies from these rodents and insects. They started bringing us diseases we had never heard of before. Honestly, we are sick of this life. For children in Gaza, bond barbed-mount is an ever-present threat. On September 1, the Israel Defense Forces carried out a series of airstrikes during a raid near a school. At least four people were killed, including two children. The idea says that it was part of an operation to capture the head of Hamas' internal security service. Doat Kudde is a teacher at the school. What war is over? There were over 200 children in mykendar garden right now.

13:33We were all evacuated from the building under bond barbed-mount. September 1 was also 14-year-old Lara's birthday. She was supposed to go to school that day, but didn't, because her mother wanted to celebrate with her at home. There is school tomorrow. Are you going to go? No. Seriously, you don't want to go? No. Why? Just because. Lara's face is tearing up. She has already lost her father who was killed while trying to get food for the family a year ago. Her mother tries to comfort her. I mean, it'll be a day or two and after that things come down. Yes. What do you mean? Yes. Why are you crying? I'm fed up. What are you fed up with? Life. UNICEF says that almost every child in Gaza requires urgent mental health and psychosocial support. Back at Narsal Hospital, Rasiel, while waiting for a medical evacuation, has a new doll.

14:34She's named her after her dead sister, Ratil. The idea says that they have no record of a strike that hit her family and regrets any harm to civilians. A few days ago, Rasiel's father called the BBC to say they've been given permission to leave Gaza for treatment. But for the thousands of other children who are injured and traumatized, the wait for essential medicines or even a medical evacuation continues. That report by Emre Nada. Still to come in this podcast. Backpack tends to be an introverted bear. He's got quiet strengths about him. That's one reason I like him. 89 Backpack wins the annual Fat Bear Week in Cat My National Park in Alaska. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day.

15:35But what policy changes should investors be watching? Washington-wise is an original podcast from Charles Schwab that unpacks the stories making news in Washington right now, and how they may affect your finances and portfolio. Listen at Schwab.com slash Washington-wise. That's Schwab.com slash Washington-wise. It felt like everything I believed in was suddenly collapsing. This is the story of an Islamic boarding school in Indonesia with a dark secret of the school's head teacher. This was someone I respected above anyone else and the investigation led by students he's trying to silence. This is the media I'll be destroyed. This is World of Secrets Catching My Teacher. Listen on BBC.com, the BBC app or wherever you get your BBC podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast. Over the last few weeks the media has been dominated by

16:40warnings about the dangers posed by artificial intelligence. On Tuesday President Trump signed an agreement with top tech leaders saying they would implement safeguards as a form of protection from AI's potential risks. And now the Chinese AI Company moonshot has announced that it's conducting an internal review after it discovered that an AI tool had told researchers how to make bio-weapons. Our senior technology reporter Chris Valance told me more. There is an AI security company called Mine Guard and they figured out a way to persuade two versions of moonshots, Kimi model, to disregard its own safety guardrails and pretty much discuss any topic they wanted it to. Some examples of the kind of things that discussed were biological weapons, chemical weapons and ways in which you might carry out assassinations to name but a few. This kind of disregarding of its own safety rules is called jail breaking. And the interesting

17:43thing about that is if you look up for example last year's report by the UK's AI Security Institute, they say they were able to jail break pretty much every model that they tested and that will include some of the big name models. So jail breaking is something that the industry is very aware of. It's a risk that the industry takes very seriously because obviously they don't want people doing bad things with their models persuading them to do things. The safety rules are meant to stop. But it's a problem that people find they're certainly making it harder to jail break these models but they find it very hard to remove the risk completely. What has been moonshots response? Well moonshots says it's still in discussions with mine guard over what they found. It says it's conducting an internal review as well. It also says it welcomes third party input to help make the model safer and it says in an email it sent to mine guard which it shared part of that with us. It said that in its experience the model generally refused these kinds of requests.

18:48Chris Valens. After more than two decades of American military presence in Iraq the last US troops to be stationed there have now withdrawn. Iraq hailed the end of the US-led anti-Jihadist mission as the start of a new chapter. Here's Major General Tassine Al-Kafaji from Iraq's Defence Ministry. And you're today is the completion of sovereignty for Iraq. Today is the end of the International Coalition's mission and the start of a new era. A near of bilateral relations between us and the countries that supported Iraq in its war against the Islamic State terrorist organization. This new era depends on investment, army training, building a strong economy and securing the borders. Today our security forces are able to carry out difficult operations operations to preserve what we achieve through victory over Islamic State. Karen Gianoni spoke to Toby Dodge, Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and author of Iraq from war to a new authoritarianism.

19:52What did he make of the last few hundred US soldiers leaving the country? I don't actually think it's a particularly big story in terms of the ramifications that it has for Iraq. Iraq security services have been functioning pretty well for the last five, six years. Islamic radicalism is at a historic low level. So the Iraqi system for all its multiple weaknesses and flaws is self-sustaining. And whether the Americans go or not has got not got much to do with the future trajectory of the country. Right. So when we compare it say to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, we saw such a dramatic turn of events after that that the Taliban sweeping back to power. That's an excellent comparison and is radically different. I think if you look at Alizeidi, the current prime minister, he's been in the United States twice in July and in September, both in New York and Washington. He's got good relations with President Trump.

20:52So the current Iraqi government are attempting to build as close relations with the United States as possible. They're offering oil deals, the large United States companies. So the departure of a few hundred I think is probably at about 500 troops here or there doesn't make a difference. Now that's not to say that Iraq hasn't got profound problems. It's a deeply corrupt country. It's population high unemployment. I think 700,000 young people joining the job market each year without jobs to go to. So there are profound problems but I don't think American troops or a good or a bad relationship with the United States is going to make any difference. Right. And you're not fearing any kind of security vacuum has happened in 2011 when the US and the two situations are not comparable. Now there is a profound war going on. The war that the United States started with Iran in February. That's still very much ongoing. What the Iraqi government have tried to do is work very hard not to get drawn in. There have been periodic uses of Iraqi territory to strike

21:56the Arab Gulf states and other set of American allies. But the Iraqi government themselves really don't want anything to do with this conflict or are attempting to keep out. You mentioned Iran and I wonder will there be those who portray this US withdrawal as a defeat for the US and I'm thinking of Iran trying to frame it in that way? Yeah, I think the Iraqi government's relations with Iran have been superb since 2003. The Iranian government have courted a nine-tiered made sure that there's no one in the Iraqi government that isn't directly and very closely aligned to them. But the idea that a few hundred American troops can do anything about that I think is part of the sky. I think what Trump and his America first agenda is done is looked at the small amount of American troops on the ground. I think we can project as much influence or as little influences we want into Baghdad without our troops and I think in this thing alone is probably right.

22:56Professor Toby Dodge. Work is starting on constructing a $16 billion oil refinery in Kenya near the port of Lamu. When active the site is expected to have a capacity of some 700,000 barrels of crude oil a day. But many residents of Lamu, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site, oppose the construction saying the refinery is set to be built on land that they and their families have lived and farmed on for generations. Walid Ali is co-founder of Community-based organization Save Lamu. Our community concern as a civil society is an environmental issue because we are very much concerned there will be an environmental impact and yet the investors they have not yet doing any environmental comprehensive social assessment. So we are very scared as a civil society there will be neglecting of the environmental law in Kenya.

23:57Najiri and billionaire Ali Kodan Gautay, who is bankruptling the project, says it will go ahead whatever the protesters say. Nobody wants Africa to develop. That's why we Africans would develop Africa whether they like it or they don't like it we are moving. It's a moving trade. Either you join it or you'll be crushed a long way. We don't have a problem with that. Enkechi Ogbono, the BBC's Africa Business Reporter in Nairobi, is following the story. This project aims to be a game changer for energy security in the East African region. President William Ruto has said repeatedly that this is not a Kenyan project that it belongs to the entire East African community. It also hopes to encourage energy stability as well and ensure steady supply of fuel following the fallout of the US Israel war with Iran and how fuel prices soared high in the region but in most African countries. But as we heard in that clip many,

24:58many protests against it. Yes, yesterday in Lamu there were protests against the construction of the project's residents believe land has been grabbed and threshold land in this case. They also have environmental concerns and they actually approached Kenya's high court to suspend the beginning of the construction but the court had said the status quo would continue although there is a hearing on the 14th of October for the case. And Lamu, it's a UNESCO heritage site, yes it is. It's in the coastal part of Kenya in the north, eastern part of the country. It has beautiful beaches, it has huge tourist potential and it generates a lot of visitors every year. So residents are really very worried about this also. They say the population is about 160,000 people in the entire county and they are worried what this new construction would do to already scarce resources in the region. Aliko Dangoté is Africa's richest man. Is the entire project

26:08funded essentially by African business? Well, he's spearheading the project but it is believed that there is some funding from the Africa Finance Corporation, the AFC. It's also believed that Aliko is also going to work with regional governments from the neighboring Ethiopia and South Sudan and Uganda as well and there is also going to be a pipeline that would provide the crude oil from South Sudan along the Ethiopia and Zania corridor. Enkechi Ogbona. It's that time of the year when we get to find out the winner of the 2026 fat bear week in Katmai National Park in Alaska. He is 89 backpack and his name comes from his habit as a cab of climbing onto the back of his mother holly who was a fat bear week winner back in 2019. Sixteen bears took part in the contest and more than two million votes were cast from 100 countries around the world. US National Park Service

27:11described the competition as a battle of size, skill, snack acquisition and strategic loathing. Matt Johnson is one of the park rangers at Katmai National Park. This contest has been going for 14 years and the web cams have been set up in the park for the same amount of time and a lot of people tune in from wherever they are in the world and people do to wash the bears. They're just sort of charming and fun. There's something new every day. Two finalists in the competition ended up being 89 backpack and also 910. Backpack tends to be an introverted bear. He's got quiet strengths about him. That's one reason I like him. Also 910 adopted a cub into her family and she's had a strong story as well. Both bears were looming very large for this contest and it ended up being number 89, Vogan as a champion.

28:12The key to survival for these bears and getting through the winter is the park's healthy ecosystem. Katmai National Park is a large park. It's the size of use so many and Yellowstone combined over four million acres and there's clean water that comes down from the mountains. There's a strong salmon run and also these brown bears are one of the largest populations left on the planet. And here in Alaska and Caminastial Park that ecosystem is intact and the bears are taking advantage of that. That's the reason they're getting fat and they're surviving for another year. Matt Johnson from Katmai National Park in Alaska. And that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch you can email us at globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also now watch our episodes in full.

29:13Just search for the Global News Podcast on YouTube. This edition was mixed by Chris Ablaquois and the producer was Judy Frankle, the editor is Karen Martin. I'm Alex Ritson, until next time, goodbye.