Russian authorities say the 28-year-old laboratory worker died last Friday from pneumonia of an as-yet unestablished origin, in a case that has prompted international concern

International News via Reuters:

Russia’s health regulator said on Wednesday there were no risks of an epidemic breaking out in Siberia after a plague institute worker there died, as the World Health Organization pressed Moscow for more information about her cause of death.  

Russian authorities say the 28-year-old laboratory worker died last Friday from pneumonia of an as-yet unestablished origin, in a case that has prompted international concern, including from US President Donald Trump. Around 200 people were initially placed in quarantine.

Asked on Wednesday whether the death was caused by a bioweapon, Trump told reporters: “Well, we don’t think so. We’re going to find out soon enough, but we don’t think so.”

He said Russia was not saying much about the situation but “they do say they have it very much under control,” adding he had set up a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“They’re sharing (information) a little bit with our people. We expect them to share it a lot with our people,” said Trump, speaking in the Oval Office.

Global health officials – as well as the world’s media – have been particularly alert to pneumonia cases of undetermined cause since the COVID-19 pandemic, which began with a cluster of fast-spreading fatal respiratory illness in China.

However, the cause of individual pneumonia cases can often not be determined.

US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Erica ‌Schwartz said at an event the agency was prepared to monitor and screen travelers although the risk to the US was extremely low.

The WHO initially said it estimated the risk of the Russia case to the public as low, based on what had been made known, but told a press conference on Wednesday it could not make a fuller risk assessment due to insufficient information from the Russian authorities. 

Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s health watchdog, said on Wednesday it was winding down precautionary measures it had put in place after concluding there was no risk of an epidemic and that it had shared its latest information with the WHO. 

No cases of plague had been detected among anyone who had come into contact with the deceased worker, Darya Shipilova, it said, and 90% of those placed in quarantine had been released after nearly 5,000 lab tests had failed to detect any dangerous pathogens.  

It said Shipilova had been vaccinated and had therefore been “immune to the dangerous infections with which she worked”. It did not say, however, what had caused the pneumonia which killed her or how she fell ill.  

WHO CALLS FOR MORE INFORMATION

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the WHO in Geneva, said on Wednesday his organisation needed more information from Russia to understand what had happened.

“We would like more information to understand which laboratory tests were conducted, which pathogens were evaluated, and if this individual didn’t die from plague, then how did she die?” Maria Van Kerkhove, director of the WHO’s department of epidemic and pandemic management, told a virtual press conference.  

Tedros said the WHO had offered assistance to Russia and also repeated a request for Russia to verify “media reports of a second employee with pneumonia of undetermined cause”. 

KREMLIN CRITICISES ‘FALSE INFORMATION’ IN MEDIA

The Kremlin said Russia had properly informed the WHO about the incident in line with established procedures.

When asked about the WHO’s request to respond to reports about a second person in Siberia allegedly falling ill, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged caution when it came to using media reports as a reference for what was happening. 

“There is a great deal of media coverage, and the vast majority of what the media are reporting about this situation is false information,” said Peskov. 

He advised the media and others to rely on information provided by the health regulator. It did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Wednesday about the WHO’s questions. 

EXACT CAUSE OF DEATH REMAINS UNKNOWN 

Some Western media outlets have reported — citing unnamed “Russian media” — that a second person in Siberia had died, saying they had died of plague. 

Reuters was unable to find any such stories in Russian media or any evidence that a second person in Siberia had died although some bloggers on social media were making — without evidence — such assertions.

After the press conference, the WHO sent Reuters a link to a story about a potential second case by the Russian media organization starhit.ru, a celebrity gossip outlet, and a follow-up from British newspaper the Daily Mail.

Tedros said it was important to be transparent based on the lessons from COVID, adding, “We don’t have any mandate actually to see whether this media is credible or not.”

Russia has not formally responded to the reports about a second person dying, Tedros said, adding that he had heard only informally that Russia had denied those reports.  

Tedros’ call for more information echoed that of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has also said Moscow needs to share more information about the incident. 

Pneumonia, a lung infection, can have a variety of causes including plague as well as other bacterial infections or viral respiratory diseases, such as flu or COVID-19.

Reporting by Jennifer Rigby in London, Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru, Andrew Osborn, Anastasia Lyrchikova and Dmitry Antonov in Moscow and Bo Erickson in Washington; Writing by Andrew OsbornEditing by Toby Chopra, Alison Williams, Philippa Fletcher, Gareth Jones

Lecornu said the move “will automatically lower prices at the pump by an estimated amount ranging from 0.12 to 0.18 euros per liter of diesel.”

International News via Reuters:

France will release 10 million barrels of diesel from its strategic stocks to try to ease tight supplies amid surging energy prices stemming from the wars in Iran and in Ukraine, French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Wednesday, confirming a report by Franceinfo radio.

“Last Friday, President (Emmanuel) Macron convened an emergency meeting of the G7, which decided to mobilize strategic reserves in a coordinated manner. As part of this effort, we will make 10 million barrels of diesel from our reserves available to distributors in France,” Lecornu said in a national address.

Lecornu said the move “will automatically lower prices at the pump by an estimated amount ranging from 0.12 to 0.18 euros per liter of diesel.”

Reporting by Inti Landauro, Michel Rose, Editing by Dominique Vidalon

Protests showed no sign of easing, with more than 500 schools closed a day after demonstrations swept across the country, and unions representing high-school students, teachers and other workers planning more marches for Thursday

International News via Reuters:

The French government said on Wednesday it was pausing the use of stun grenades in its policing of student protests, after a 15-year-old boy’s hand was blown off during a clash with riot police, fuelling protesters’ accusations of police brutality.

Protests showed no sign of easing, with more than 500 schools closed a day after demonstrations swept across the country, and unions representing high-school students, teachers and other workers planning more marches for Thursday.

The wave of protests has been going on for more than two weeks and has exposed widespread public anger six months ahead of an election to replace President Emmanuel Macron.

At Lycee Lamartine, a high school in central Paris, protesters sang the Marseillaise, chanted slogans and performed Mexican waves as they blockaded the entrance to the school.

“We saw there were lots of crumbling walls, a shortage of teachers in public schools, absent teachers,” said Gabriel Fillieule, who used to attend a public school but now goes to a private one. He and others said they were protesting to demand better learning conditions for all.

POLICE’S USE OF FORCE BEING INVESTIGATED

While most of Wednesday’s blockades were peaceful, police used tear gas and pushed back protesters in a street barricaded by rubbish bins outside Sciences Po university in central Paris.

Rights groups, labour unions, students and some opposition politicians have accused the police of using disproportionate force to quell the wave of protests.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said he had ordered the suspension of the use of stun grenades following an incident in the northern city of Lens on Monday in which there was a “strong possibility” the firing of a stun grenade had caused a teenager to lose his hand.

“I am suspending their use for the high-school students’ movement until light has been shed on what happened in this case,” said the minister, who added that 18 incidents in total had been referred to the police inspectorate for investigation.

Protesters have said they blame poor learning conditions for a sharp drop in French teenagers’ scores in reading and maths over the past decade.

French 15-year-olds scored 43 points lower in reading in 2025 than in 2015, according to the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment, the biggest drop among the OECD countries. Their maths scores also dropped the most.

But the government, under pressure to tame public debt amid weak growth, has little spare cash to address students’ complaints of teacher shortages, ageing school buildings and inequalities between schools in affluent and poor areas.

TWENTY-FOUR HIGH SCHOOLS DAMAGED BY FIRE OR VANDALISM

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu has acknowledged the “legitimate” demands of France’s students but also described the unrest as the most violent student demonstrations in decades.

Education Minister Edouard Geffray told parliament that 24 high schools had been damaged by fire or vandalism to the extent that they would remain closed for weeks, meaning some 30,000 students would receive no in-person teaching until they reopened.

He estimated it would cost €20 million to €30 million ($22 million to $34 million) to fix the damage.

Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, the frontrunner according to opinion polls, said those who damaged schools should pay for the repairs rather than taxpayers.

The government has adopted a similar stance and has a bill going through parliament that aims to set up such a system.

UNREST ELSEWHERE

Elsewhere in Europe, where budgets have been under pressure as governments respond to successive cost-of-living and energy crises, students in parts of Belgium staged similar protests.

In the Belgian city of Liege in the southern French-speaking Wallonia region, at least 107 people have been arrested in connection with student protests this month, the Belga news agency reported.

Teachers are also on strike.

In Portugal, the main teachers’ union FENPROF launched an indefinite strike in mid-September over working conditions, with teachers refusing to do any unpaid work beyond the 35 hours a week mandated by law.

And in Spain, teachers’ unions have been protesting conditions in state schools. Teachers in Madrid plan a strike on October 14 to press demands including a reduction in hours, smaller class sizes and higher salaries.

($1 = 0.8952 euros)

Reporting by Paris bureau; additional reporting by Amina Ismail in Brussels and Charlie Devereux in Madrid; Writing by Richard Lough and Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Hugh Lawson

Soai, 76, is Japanese, and Kagan, 95, is French, and their work built on a discovery by the 19th-century French chemist Louis Pasteur

International News via Reuters:

Scientists Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for solving a long-standing riddle of asymmetric “mirror image” molecules, a discovery hugely important for pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Soai, 76, is Japanese, and Kagan, 95, is French, and their work built on a discovery by the 19th-century French chemist Louis Pasteur.

“This is the most exciting day in my life, I am very glad to share this prize with Professor Henri Kagan,” Soai said, speaking by phone to the Nobel Prize press conference, adding he had been out grocery shopping when he received the news.

Reuters was unable to reach Kagan, the third-oldest person to be awarded a Nobel Prize, but his daughter, Veronique Le Deunff, said she was “very happy” and that “the creativity and originality of his work have opened up new avenues for research”.

French President Emmanuel Macron congratulated the laureates on X, calling it an immense honour for the country. “A recognition suited to a lifetime of research,” he said.

In fact, Kagan’s work has long been seen as influential on the field and the then-French research minister complained to the Nobel Foundation in 2001 when Kagan was left out that year. The prize instead went to two American and one Japanese scientist for work in the same field.

In a congratulatory phone call, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told Soai: “As a Japanese, I’m very proud of you.”

‘RIGHT-HANDED’ AND ‘LEFT-HANDED’ MOLECULES

Many of the molecules essential to life exist in two forms that are mirror images of each other, like left and right hands. Yet living organisms almost exclusively use only one version, a phenomenon known as “homochirality” – from the Greek word for hand – that has puzzled chemists for more than a century.

This year’s prize was awarded for discoveries that showed how chemical reactions can be driven to favour a single molecular mirror image, work that has been key for chemists who design reactions for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals.

“The left-handed version of the drug can have one effect, and the right-handed version can have another effect, and then we need methods for selectively preparing them,” Peter Somfai, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said.

“In developing such methods the findings of this year’s laureates are important. They provided powerful tools for that.”

BUILDING ON WORK BY LOUIS PASTEUR

The first link in the chain in solving the problem was work by Pasteur, who died a few years before the Nobel Prizes were first awarded in 1901.

He was looking at tartaric acid, important in the production of wine, and noticed that bacteria only ferment one of the two forms of tartaric acid – that which is naturally found in grapes. With the other there is no fermentation.

That proved that some substances occur in two forms and that they have different properties, sometimes very damaging to health.

How to create the right form of a chiral substance was a problem not solved until Kagan and Soai were able to produce asymmetric reactions, creating an excess of one form.

“This is probably the coolest experiment in organic chemistry,” said Somfai.

The importance of the work is illustrated by the case of the thalidomide scandal in the early 1960s, when thousands of children were affected by birth defects caused by a sedative, thalidomide.

When researchers analysed what had happened, they realised that it was the active substance’s mirror image that caused the harm.

AWARD CEREMONY IN STOCKHOLM IN DECEMBER

The chemistry Nobel, always the third prize to be awarded during Nobel week, followed those for medicine and physics announced on Monday and Tuesday.

Established in the will of Swedish inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel, the prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace have been awarded since 1901, with a few interruptions mostly due to the world wars.

Nobel, a chemist by trade, amassed huge wealth in the 19th century from inventions primarily tied to warfare, most notably dynamite. The economics prize is a later addition funded by the Swedish central bank.

Sometimes overshadowed by more famous laureates in the fields of physics, literature and peace, the chemistry awards have still recognised many influential discoveries such as nuclear fission and genetic sequencing techniques.

Last year’s chemistry award went to scientists Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi for the development of so-called metal-organic frameworks, molecular constructions that can help tackle challenges such as climate change and lack of fresh water.

The laureates will receive their medals from Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf at a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death. The awards are followed by a lavish banquet at Stockholm City Hall.

They also share 12 million Swedish crowns ($1.2 million).

($1 = 10.0309 Swedish crowns)

Reporting by Johan Ahlander, Niklas Pollard, and Marie Mannes in Stockholm; additional reporting by Simon Johnson, Greta Rosen Fondahn and Anna Ringstrom in Stockholm, Terje Solsvik in Oslo, Elizabeth Pineau in Paris and Nobuhiro Kubo in Tokyo; Editing by Alex Richardson and Toby Chopra

Attacks, attempted attacks and harassment activity including drone overflights, surveillance and hailing using VHF radio by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have persisted in the strait

International News via Reuters:

Attacks on tankers sailing through the Strait of Hormuz hit their highest last week of any week since the Iran war began, according to maritime security sources tracking incidents, amid a bigger export push by Gulf producers.

Attacks, attempted attacks and harassment activity including drone overflights, surveillance and hailing using VHF radio by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have persisted in the strait, the US Navy-led Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC) said in a note on Sunday.

“These actions continue to demonstrate Iran’s intent to assert presence along key transit lanes and maintain pressure on transiting vessels,” the JMIC said.

In the week of September 28-October 5, there had been at least 12 attacks on oil, liquefied natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas tankers around the Strait of Hormuz, according to data from three maritime security sources who analysed incidents based on information received from the area.

That was the highest number of attacks in a single week since the US war with Iran began on February 28, the sources said.

Separate data collated by the UN’s shipping agency, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), showed nine incidents involving vessels in the same week.

The UN body tends to take longer to verify and officially record incidents, maritime sources say.

The closest week in terms of comparable incidents was the week of July 13 when there were eight incidents, separate IMO data showed.

Gulf oil exporters topped pre-war levels for about half of September, shipping data showed on Monday, though attacks on tankers and logistical constraints cloud the outlook for sustained higher flows.

India’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that 12 crew members were injured after an unknown projectile struck Panama-flagged oil tanker On Peace while it was passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

Reporting by Jonathan Saul; Additional reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis; Editing by Jan Harvey