2026/08/08 Daily Edition

Researchers say breakthrough offers hope for new medicines but also raises urgent biosecurity questions Scientists have made the first viruses designed by artificial intelligence in a milestone that raises hopes for new medicines but also concerns over how to ensure the technology remains safe. The viruses are specific kinds known as bacteriophages, which only infect bacteria and are used around the world to treat patients with persistent infections. In lab tests, a cocktail of the AI-designed viruses killed E coli bugs that were resistant to natural bacteriophages...

Russian missile strikes killed four people, including a child, ​in ‌the Kyiv region on Saturday, said local authorities. The attack came hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Belgrade on a landmark visit to Serbia, a country with close ties to Moscow. FRANCE 24's Emmanuelle Chaze reports from Kharkiv.

Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey signed a joint defence agreement in Mecca on Friday, aimed at strengthening collective deterrence. Under the pact, an armed attack on any one of the three countries would be considered an attack on all. Simon Moritz tells us more about what’s in the agreement.

Footage shows doctors in Japan clinging to an operating table to protect a patient from the violent tremor. The surgery was completed successfully.

A student killed his grandparents before opening fire at his high school and shooting himself, the authorities said. The episode revived a debate about gun laws.

Teenager killed his grandparents ⁠before opening fire at school near Bangkok, where more than 30 were wounded A Thai teenager killed his grandparents before opening fire at his school, where he shot five people dead and took his own life, police have said, in an attack that has shaken a country struggling to deal with gun violence. The 14-year-old wounded more than 30 people in the ⁠shooting at the prestigious Debsirin Nonthaburi school northwest of Bangkok. Nine people were in a critical condition, the Thai health department said...

As Abelardo de la Espriella takes office as president vowing a new military offensive, the country’s last leftwing rebels are getting ready to fight back As the boat approached the riverbank, camouflaged figures watched from the tree line. Behind them, in the dim understory of the jungle, a commander of the National Liberation Army (ELN) sat with his rifle on his lap, amid the buzz and whine of insects and the thwacks of machetes on bamboo as his troops set up camp, hidden from enemy drones...

David Owori, who played for the national team, died in hospital after he tried to stop robbers taking his phone The Ugandan football community is in mourning after the death of a player who was fatally injured during a robbery in the capital, Kampala, on Tuesday night. David Owori, who captained Sports Club Villa, a Uganda Premier League club, and represented the national team, was attacked after resisting an attempt to steal his mobile phone and other belongings near his home in Makindye division...

Eight people were killed when a 14-year-old opened fire at his home and school before shooting himself dead.

Russia continued its overnight attacks after President Volodymyr Zelensky warned of Ukraine's dwindling supplies of missile interceptors.

Tehran at War (Part 2/2). In Iran, the war with the United States is also fought through enormous, state-sponsored posters. Murals transform walls into billboards advertising the official narrative, designed to carry the government's voice far beyond its borders. FRANCE 24 examines this visual strategy, shaped during the Islamic Revolution and supercharged by artificial intelligence.

While many leaders compare the wildfire crisis to the second world war, governments fail to adopt the real lessons of pre-emptive wartime action As France and Spain battle historic wildfires, comparisons to the second world war abound. “One of the continent’s biggest evacuation efforts since World War II,” reports the Associated Press. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has called the wildfires his country’s “most difficult situation since the second world war”. The images crossing all our screens certainly feel war-like – emergency aircraft and black smoke fill the skies, frantic civilians seeking shelter, historic towns lying in ruins, charred forests and burned-out vehicles, exhausted and sweat-soaked emergency responders...