Ukraine Says Another Sweeping Cyberattack Underway as State Websites and Banks Hit

Residents carry Ukrainian national flag as they gather in the Olympic Stadium to mark the Unity Day, in Kyiv, Ukraine, February 16, 2022. (Reuters)
Residents carry Ukrainian national flag as they gather in the Olympic Stadium to mark the Unity Day, in Kyiv, Ukraine, February 16, 2022. (Reuters)
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Ukraine Says Another Sweeping Cyberattack Underway as State Websites and Banks Hit

Residents carry Ukrainian national flag as they gather in the Olympic Stadium to mark the Unity Day, in Kyiv, Ukraine, February 16, 2022. (Reuters)
Residents carry Ukrainian national flag as they gather in the Olympic Stadium to mark the Unity Day, in Kyiv, Ukraine, February 16, 2022. (Reuters)

The websites of Ukraine's government, foreign ministry and state security service were down on Wednesday in what the government said was the start of another massive denial of service (DDoS) attack that began at around 4 p.m. (1400 GMT).

Ukrainian authorities said this week they had seen online warnings that hackers were preparing to launch major attacks on government agencies, banks and the defense sector.

Ukraine has suffered a string of cyberattacks that Kyiv has blamed on Russia. Moscow, which is caught up in a mounting confrontation with the West over Ukraine, has denied any involvement.

"At about 4 pm, another mass DDoS attack on our state began. We have relevant data from a number of banks," said Mykhailo Fedorov, Minister of Digital Transformation, adding that the parliament website was also hit.

He did not mention which banks were affected and the central bank could not immediately be reached for comment.

The online networks of Ukraine's defense ministry and two banks were overwhelmed last week in a separate cyberattack. The US company Netscout Systems Inc later said the impact had been modest.

Internet blockage observatory NetBlocks posted a tweet on Thursday that showed a drop-off in connections to the Ukrainian government websites.

"We've observed that the current network disruption has partial impact on the network layer to multiple defense and ministerial websites in Ukraine," NetBlocks director Alp Toker told Reuters.

"The spread of outages is similar but distinct from the recent DDOS attack targeting defense and banking platforms, with the latter not impacted in this instance," he added.



Iran's Araghchi, Pakistan Army Chief Discuss Regional Developments as US-Iran Talks Stall

FILED - 16 March 2018, Austria, Vienna: FILE PHOTO - Abbas Araghchi, Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran, gives an interview in Vienna. Photo: Farshid-Motahari Bina/dpa
FILED - 16 March 2018, Austria, Vienna: FILE PHOTO - Abbas Araghchi, Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran, gives an interview in Vienna. Photo: Farshid-Motahari Bina/dpa
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Iran's Araghchi, Pakistan Army Chief Discuss Regional Developments as US-Iran Talks Stall

FILED - 16 March 2018, Austria, Vienna: FILE PHOTO - Abbas Araghchi, Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran, gives an interview in Vienna. Photo: Farshid-Motahari Bina/dpa
FILED - 16 March 2018, Austria, Vienna: FILE PHOTO - Abbas Araghchi, Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran, gives an interview in Vienna. Photo: Farshid-Motahari Bina/dpa

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Pakistan's ‌army ‌chief Asim ‌Munir ⁠discussed the latest regional ⁠developments in a phone ⁠call ‌during ‌Araghchi's visit to Beijing ‌on ‌Wednesday, Iranian media ‌reported, as US-Iran negotiations remain ⁠stalled ⁠with no agreement in sight.

The US-Iran war, which began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, has entered its seventh month, with Iranian retaliatory attacks targeting US forces and regional allies. The conflict has disrupted energy and maritime routes, while diplomatic efforts to reach a settlement remain ongoing.


Climate Change Likely to Have Helped Trigger Nepal Glacier Collapse

A man carrying his belongings walks past a damaged house in the aftermath of flash floods at Trishuli in Nepal's Nuwakot district on September 11, 2026. (Photo by Prakash MATHEMA / AFP)
A man carrying his belongings walks past a damaged house in the aftermath of flash floods at Trishuli in Nepal's Nuwakot district on September 11, 2026. (Photo by Prakash MATHEMA / AFP)
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Climate Change Likely to Have Helped Trigger Nepal Glacier Collapse

A man carrying his belongings walks past a damaged house in the aftermath of flash floods at Trishuli in Nepal's Nuwakot district on September 11, 2026. (Photo by Prakash MATHEMA / AFP)
A man carrying his belongings walks past a damaged house in the aftermath of flash floods at Trishuli in Nepal's Nuwakot district on September 11, 2026. (Photo by Prakash MATHEMA / AFP)

Climate change is highly likely to ‌have contributed to the catastrophic glacier collapse that flooded parts of Nepal and Tibet in late August, killing around 1,400 people and leaving thousands still missing, scientists said on Thursday.

Rapidly warming temperatures in the region have caused glaciers to thin and have melted ice and permafrost buried deep in the bedrock of the Himalayas, according to the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group of researchers, Reuters said.

* While it is difficult to ascertain the precise role played by climate change in the collapse of around 2 sq km (0.8 sq miles) of rock ‌wall and glacier ‌ice on the Langtang Lirung mountain last month, ‌soaring ⁠temperatures created the preconditions ⁠that made it more likely, researchers involved in the study said.

* "There's absolutely no doubt that human induced climate change played a role here in the preconditioning of the disaster through permafrost thawing, through thinning of the glaciers, through having more rainfall instead of snow," said Friederike Otto, a climatologist at Imperial College London.

* WWA uses ⁠peer-reviewed methods to assess the role played by global ‌warming in extreme weather events, ‌according to its website.

* The study said mean temperatures were around 5 ‌degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than normal in the Himalayan region in ‌August, with 1.5 C of the increase coming from climate change.

* Unusually high levels of snowfall in October and November of last year also added to the volume of meltwater once temperatures began to rise, which ‌could have helped trigger the glacier collapse, according to the study.

* Glaciers in the region have ⁠been thinning ⁠by about half a meter per year (about 1.6 feet) since the year 2000, changing stresses on the rock. Melting permafrost is also likely to have weakened the rock wall, the study said.

* A 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit the same mountain in 2015 could have played a role by weakening the underlying bedrock as well, but its precise impact is unclear.

* "We conclude that this was a geologically vulnerable slope, potentially weakened by the 2015 earthquake, but it was destabilized further by glacier and permafrost retreat and by the excessive meltwater and exceptional warmth in the final period before the collapse," said Walter Immerzeel, a mountain hydrologist from Utrecht University.


UN Urges Slowing AI Development

An employee replaces a component from the Alps supercomputer at the Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS) in Lugano, southern Switzerland, on August 27, 2026. (Photo by Til BUERGY / AFP)
An employee replaces a component from the Alps supercomputer at the Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS) in Lugano, southern Switzerland, on August 27, 2026. (Photo by Til BUERGY / AFP)
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UN Urges Slowing AI Development

An employee replaces a component from the Alps supercomputer at the Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS) in Lugano, southern Switzerland, on August 27, 2026. (Photo by Til BUERGY / AFP)
An employee replaces a component from the Alps supercomputer at the Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS) in Lugano, southern Switzerland, on August 27, 2026. (Photo by Til BUERGY / AFP)

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned world leaders that rapidly advancing artificial intelligence poses risks that cannot be ignored, affirming that global coordination is essential to “slow down AI.”

“We cannot afford to ignore concerns that have been raised, especially by those on the front lines of the development ⁠of AI,” said Guterres. “It’s the first responsibility of any government to protect its citizens – including from the threats of artificial intelligence.”

Speaking on Wednesday ahead of next week's UN General Assembly gathering in New York, Guterres underscored that AI will be “a major topic” in his discussions with world leaders coming to the city.

This comes amid rising calls for stricter control on the technology that is growing at lightning speed and not without dangerous precedents.

In her State of the Union address to the European Parliament on Wednesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for pacing the development of frontier AI models due to their disruptive potential, pledging closer safety cooperation with Canada, the UK and other like-minded countries.

She hailed AI's potential to benefit humanity, provided its risks and opportunities are properly balanced.

Last Saturday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei also called for a slowdown in the industry's development, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, xAI's Elon Musk and Hassabis all supporting the sentiment.

The calls have gone unanswered by the administration of US President Donald Trump.

Comparing AI development to the Cold War-era arms race between the US and Soviet Union, the UN Secretary-General called for cooperation between countries at the forefront of AI – including the US and China – to slow down AI development while risks continue to be assessed.

“The countries that have the highest capacity in the frontiers of AI – I think they should establish mechanisms of contact, have an exchange of information and (create) some common guardrails in order to avoid a race to the bottom that could one day lead to a gigantic disaster at the global level,” Guterres said.

With the scientific and diplomatic mechanisms now in place, the UN will continue to work to turn that cooperation into concrete action as AI becomes increasingly powerful.