# Thursday 1st October 2026. Saudi Arabia flight stabbing. Iraq US forces. Uganda king. Nigeria fake agency. Russia threats. France...

An episode of [Simple English News Daily](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1505603790), 30 Sep 2026, 7:30.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/op3.dev/e/adbarker.com/stream/K1GF85x83ZWP88Cz18NfA8bx/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75466745/ben_1st_october_update.mp3

World news in 7 minutes. Thursday 1st October 2026. Today: Saudi Arabia flight stabbing. Iraq US forces. Uganda king. Nigeria fake agency. Russia threats. France student protests. UK-China spying. Romania PM vote. Brazil beef. US execution paused. And Mexico agent chihuahua. With Ben Mallett Become a SEND7 supporter! • Ad-free listening • Bonus quiz episode every Friday • Daily transcripts (written by us, not AI!) • Vocabulary lists • Wednesday worksheets • Ask questions in Ask Me Anything episodes • 10% of our profit goes to Effective Altruism charities. You can become a supporter at send7.supercast.com For more information about SEND7 visit send7.org/contact or send an email to podcast@send7.org

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Good morning, this is Send7. World news in 7 minutes.
[0:06] Speaker 1: I'm Ben Mallett. Today is Thursday, the 1st of October, 2026.
[0:11] Speaker 1: Starting in Asia. In Saudi Arabia, a flight was forced
[0:24] Speaker 1: to change course after a stabbing on board the plane
[0:29] Speaker 1: Reports from passengers say that one of the plane's pilots
[0:34] Speaker 1: stabbed their co-pilot before attempting to crash the plane. The
[0:39] Speaker 1: flight was travelling from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates
[0:44] Speaker 1: to Israel. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised passengers who
[0:50] Speaker 1: managed to overpower the pilot before the plane safely diverted
[0:56] Speaker 1: to Saudi Arabia. The plane was carrying around 150 Israeli passengers,
[1:03] Speaker 1: according to Israeli media. Both pilots are now in hospital
[1:08] Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia, and the passengers have since arrived in
[1:12] Speaker 1: Israel on another flight. One mother of a passenger described
[1:17] Speaker 1: the incident.
[1:19] Speaker 2: The plane started to lose control. So all the people,
[1:23] Speaker 2: they scream, they think they are going. After a few minutes,
[1:27] Speaker 2: two other pilots, they took the control. He took a
[1:32] Speaker 2: knife and tried to kill the pilot. They take his
[1:37] Speaker 2: hand and put him on the floor.
[1:41] Speaker 1: In Iraq, all remaining armed forces from the United States
[1:46] Speaker 1: have left the country. Soldiers from the US first entered
[1:50] Speaker 1: Iraq in 2003 to remove Iraq's dictator Saddam Hussein. US
[1:56] Speaker 1: armed forces left Iraq in 2011, before returning in 2014
[2:02] Speaker 1: to help combat the forces of the Islamic State group.
[2:08] Speaker 1: This exit of US forces from Iraq was agreed in
[2:12] Speaker 1: 2024 by President Joe Biden. More than 4,500 US soldiers
[2:19] Speaker 1: have died in Iraq since 2003. The Iraq Body Count
[2:24] Speaker 1: Project estimates that more than 200,000 Iraqi civilians have died.
[2:33] Speaker 1: Africa In Uganda, a former television presenter has been crowned
[2:39] Speaker 1: king of the Tauro Kingdom. Edward Rukidi Kijinangoma is the
[2:44] Speaker 1: 13th monarch of the Baturo people. The previous king, who
[2:49] Speaker 1: was Kijinangoma's cousin, died in August from cancer at the
[2:54] Speaker 1: age of 34. In Nigeria, a man has been accused
[3:00] Speaker 1: of creating an illegal government agency and taking the funding
[3:05] Speaker 1: for himself. Adoniyi Adeyemi, posed as the Director General of
[3:10] Speaker 1: the made-up Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council since 2024. The
[3:17] Speaker 1: agency received a budget of $ 1 million this year before
[3:22] Speaker 1: being exposed. Europe. Russia's government has threatened NATO and European
[3:31] Speaker 1: allies of Ukraine. Yesterday, A spokesperson from Russia's foreign ministry
[3:37] Speaker 1: said that factories in Europe which produce weapons for Ukraine
[3:42] Speaker 1: could be legitimate military targets. A document sent to NATO
[3:48] Speaker 1: leaders also threatened the use of nuclear weapons against decision-making
[3:54] Speaker 1: centres of NATO members. According to Russia, this nuclear threat
[3:59] Speaker 1: is a response to perceived action by NATO to isolate
[4:04] Speaker 1: Russia's Kaliningrad region, which sits between Poland and Lithuania. In France,
[4:11] Speaker 1: student protests have continued in suburbs of Paris, Lyon and Lille.
[4:18] Speaker 1: 76 people have been injured in the protests, which have
[4:22] Speaker 1: led to clashes between students and police. France's government is
[4:27] Speaker 1: expected today to release its budget for 2027, which could
[4:32] Speaker 1: see cuts to public spending. The United Kingdom has accused
[4:37] Speaker 1: China of using academics to improve their spying technology. The
[4:43] Speaker 1: UK spy agency MI5 issued an alert yesterday saying that
[4:48] Speaker 1: more than 100 UK-based academics had contributed to research which
[4:54] Speaker 1: has likely been given to China's Ministry of State Security.
[4:59] Speaker 1: MI5 says that UK research on topics such as AI
[5:04] Speaker 1: and cyber security has been funded by Chinese organisations linked
[5:10] Speaker 1: with China's government. China has rejected accusations of spying. Romania's
[5:17] Speaker 1: Prime Minister-designate lost a vote of confidence yesterday. Siegfried Muresan
[5:25] Speaker 1: won 182 votes in Parliament against the 233 he needed
[5:30] Speaker 1: to become Prime Minister. Muresan is the third failed candidate
[5:34] Speaker 1: to be Prime Minister in the last five months. The
[5:41] Speaker 1: Americas Brazil has reached its annual quota of beef exports
[5:47] Speaker 1: to China. Brazil is allowed to export 1.1 million metric
[5:52] Speaker 1: tonnes of beef to China before an additional tariff of
[5:56] Speaker 1: 55% is applied to beef exports. Brazil is the world's
[6:02] Speaker 1: largest beef exporter and China is the largest buyer of
[6:07] Speaker 1: Brazilian beef. In the United States... The execution of a
[6:13] Speaker 1: female prisoner was paused hours before it was due to
[6:17] Speaker 1: take place. Krista Pike would have been the first woman
[6:22] Speaker 1: executed in Tennessee for more than 200 years. Judges from
[6:27] Speaker 1: the Sixth Circuit Appeals Court ordered a pause on the execution,
[6:33] Speaker 1: saying they needed more time to consider the legal arguments.
[6:38] Speaker 1: Pike has been on death row since being found guilty
[6:42] Speaker 1: of murder in 1996. And Mexico's National Guard has its
[6:48] Speaker 1: newest recruit, a Chihuahua. Commando is a 13-month-old puppy and
[6:55] Speaker 1: weighs only 7 kilograms. Commando is one of 350 trained
[7:01] Speaker 1: dogs in the National Guard and will be used for
[7:05] Speaker 1: search and rescue operations. That's your world news in seven minutes.
[7:11] Speaker 1: If you enjoy this podcast, please leave a rating and
[7:15] Speaker 1: review in your podcast app. I'm Ben Mallett. Tomorrow you
[7:19] Speaker 1: will be with Stephen Devincenzi. Have a great day.

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