Reuters World News - OpenAI agent hack, Trump-Xi talks and Tigray

Episode Date: September 24, 2026

An OpenAI agent broke into Australia's government health portal marking the first known instance of an AI hack of a government website. US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping sit down for high-stakes talks. A federal judge orders the White House to restore access to CNN, MS NOW and Politico. And Tigrayan forces say they've launched a war against Ethiopia's government, shattering a four-year peace deal. Podcasts, breaking news, and video analysis from the source. ⁠⁠⁠Download the Reuters app now.⁠⁠⁠ Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm Kim Vinal in Wanganui, New Zealand. It's Thursday, September 24th. Today, Australia says Open AI agents breached one of its websites the first time AI has taken aim at a government. Trump and Xi sit down for talks in Washington, D.C. And war erupts in Ethiopia's Tigray region. This is Reuters World News, bringing you every... Everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. Australia says an open AI agent breached a government health website and gained unauthorised access to files in what could be the first known instance of an AI agent hacking government sites.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says no personal information is believed to have been accessed, although investigations are ongoing. He also says he spoke directly to CEO Sam Altman to express his deep concern, revealing it wasn't the government who figured out something had gone wrong. And I also expressed my disappointment that it took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred and the nature of the way that that notification occurred as well was unacceptable. The breach, which happened back in June, is one of the highest profile. file incidents of rogue AI agents breaking into systems outside the US. And it follows several other breaches that have already raised alarm bells globally. So we don't know exactly why these agents took the kind of decision pass that they did.

But in many of these cases, and we've seen this in other incidents involving open AI agents, they are being asked to complete relatively complicated. or difficult research tasks. And oftentimes they can't find the answer that easily. And so as a result, they start trying to take shortcuts. And that may be what happened here, right? We've heard from the Australian government that these AI agents were involved in looking for statistics, that they targeted kind of statistical websites that may have been in the

service of trying to answer these difficult questions. that OpenAI was putting them through. Tech and cybersecurity correspondent, Rafael Satter, says there are key differences in this hack compared to others. So in the hugging face incident, which is probably the best known, we saw a swarm of AI agents worked together to break into a company's network. This, at least from the initial indications that we have, suggests a more desultry attempt to kind of poke at a government website, right?

So, I mean, picture the difference between a burglar who breaks into a bank and somebody who jiggles the car door, right, to see if it's unlocked, right? But on the other hand, these are government websites, right? So that's fairly serious stuff, and this is what a lot of governments consider critical infrastructure. OpenAI says it found no evidence patient records were accessed, but acknowledged its models had visited several Australian government websites, while looking up answers and took actions they did not intend. Albanese revealed the breach just hours after the CEOs of Anthropic and Open AI

appeared before the UN Security Council issuing warnings about the technology they are developing. We should begin with narrow agreements that every member can support, such as a ban on using AI to make biological weapons or permitting your AI technologies to be used to make biological weapons. Anthropics Dario Amode speaking virtually at the summit there. Both leaders said increasingly powerful AI systems could pose serious risks if governments fail to work together. AI will be on the agenda when the leaders of China and the US sit down for talks today in Washington.

US President Donald Trump welcomed. Chinese president Xi Jinping on his arrival at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. Xi will spend three days in the U.S. White House reporter Trevor Hunnicott says there are four T's on the agenda, trade, technology, Tehran and Taiwan. China's been able to turbocharge its exports, its manufacturing. It's selling to the whole world, to Latin America, to Asia, to Europe, and yes to the United States, even though Trump has put these tariffs on Chinese imports.

And so that's really allowed Xi to kind of come into this meeting with a very strong hand because his economy's strong and his power is secure. There's been one early win. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson announcing the pair have agreed to extend their trade truce through to January. It had been due to expire in November. Trevor says Xi is expected to press Trump to halt sales of arms. to Taiwan, but both sides have played down any hopes of a major breakthrough. One thing we'll be watching for is just what the tone is like from these leaders.

You know, which Trump do we get for this meeting? She tends to be a little bit more predictable at these meetings. He tends, you know, especially in his in kind of public. But behind closed doors, he has, you know, sometimes made very aggressive arguments with Trump, you know, the example being Taiwan at that last meeting. And we'll usually find out about that in the statements that the Chinese government releases after their meeting because they usually quote Xi directly. And so we get to hear exactly what Xi Jinping told Donald Trump. And, you know, as reporters, that's just a catnip for us because it's like being a fly on the wall.

Those talks will also be closely watched by the markets. For more on how investors are reading this, here's Mike Dolan of our sister podcast MorningBid. So the big set piece of the week that many in the market, markets had been watching is the Trump's G meeting today. I think the expectations around it are being scaled back almost by the hour. We got an indication last night that there would be an extension of the trade truce between the two, but only to January. And I think that will disappoint markets considerably. Also, there's a lot less of the corporate deals and side deals that many people had expected around this summit as previous ones. But in the backdrop, the markets are perhaps more concerned about another. extraordinary sell-off in government debt markets all around the world. And that story is probably dominating the mood and Wall Street. MorningBid is available wherever you get your podcasts. Some more UN news now.

Venezuela's interim leader, Delci Rodriguez, has told the General Assembly that the country will hold elections as part of a transition to, quote, full democracy. She did not, however, give a timeline. A court victory for three of the US's biggest news organizations. A federal judge has ordered President Donald Trump to restore White House access to journalists from CNN, MS Now and Politico, ruling that the ban was likely unconstitutional. Trump banned them six days ago, accusing them of reporting fiction and lies.

Harvey Weinstein has been sentenced to 15. years in prison in New York for sexually assaulting former production assistant Miriam Haley in 2006. The sentence follows his 2025 retrial conviction after his original New York conviction was overturned. More than 100 women have accused Weinstein of misconduct over the years, allegations he has denied. War has broken out in Ethiopia. Tigray enforcers have launched a major offensive against the government, seizing airports and clashing with federal troops across multiple regions. It shatters a peace deal that ended a conflict just four years ago, which killed hundreds of thousands of people.

And this time there are concerns that this won't stay contained within the country's borders. Aaron Ross has more. Ethiopia watchers have been warning and dreading this scenario for well over a year as the peace deal that ended the previous conflict in 2022 broke down. Just earlier this week, on Sunday, the TPLF announced that they had formed an alliance with six other armed groups across Ethiopia aimed at overthrowing the federal government. So each side says that they're acting in self-defense. But what we have and what's been confirmed by sources on all sides is that there was combat, both within Tigray and in the two-day bring regions yesterday. And then regionally, you also have lots of unanswered questions.

there's a fear among diplomats, among analysts, that this new conflict could in some ways connect and join with the conflict in neighboring Sudan, where you've obviously had civil war since 2023, which has turned into what the UN is called the world's worst and largest humanitarian crisis. And in that conflict in Sudan, there have been a lot of external actors who have been trying to influence it in various ways. and there's a fear that this conflict in Ethiopia could also see lots of actors from both neighboring countries and from further afield trying to influence events. For more on any of the stories from today, as well as more analysis on the news shaping our world, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app.

There's a link in the description to download it and start getting pure news straight from the source. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast. player. If you're listening on a smart speaker, just ask for the latest news from Reuters seven days a week. We'll be back later with an update.