外媒每日新闻 Morning Edition

The Trump administration imposed sweeping new sanctions on the International Criminal Court on Friday as part of its campaign to dismantle the tribunal that the U.S. believes has become politicized and attempted to unfairly prosecute Americans and Israelis on war crimes charges. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions hours after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to South African prosecutor Navi Pillay, who led investigations into potential ICC charges against U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. "We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling its ability to operate against us," Rubio said in a video address. "The United States and the American people are not subject to the jurisdiction of this fake ICC." The Trump administration has already sanctioned 13 ICC staff members, including key prosecutors and nine judges. The move comes amid growing international tensions over the court's investigations into conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, and elsewhere.^[1]

An airline pilot was among three Saudi citizens killed in attacks targeting Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport and a Saudia aircraft on Thursday, the kingdom's civil aviation authority confirmed Friday. Several people "of different nationalities" were wounded. The Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed responsibility, saying they targeted the airport with a ballistic missile. The attack marks the deadliest strike on Saudi Arabia since the kingdom launched a major military offensive against the Houthis in Yemen last weekend. By Friday afternoon, at least 124 flights to and from Riyadh had been canceled. Air India suspended operations through Saturday, while the Lufthansa Group said its airlines would suspend flights to Riyadh through Oct. 16. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency expanded its guidance on Saudi airspace, warning of "increased risk of misidentification of civil aircraft" from missile and drone attacks. Meanwhile, the Saudi-led coalition bombarded Yemen's Houthi-held capital Sanaa overnight, and Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Yemen claimed the Bab el-Mandeb Strait had been "cleansed" of Houthi forces.^[2]

U.S. stock futures climbed and oil prices retreated from recent highs on Friday after President Donald Trump said "productive discussions" were happening with Iran, and indicated he would not order a resumption of military strikes before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. Futures for the S&P 500 gained 0.4%, Dow Jones futures edged up 0.1%, and Nasdaq futures rose 0.7%. Brent crude declined 1.2% to $103.01 a barrel, while U.S. benchmark crude fell 0.9% to $90.69. Oil prices have been pinballing between $96 and nearly $110 over the last month on uncertainty about when the Iran war will allow the global energy industry to return to normal. In bond markets, the 10-year Treasury yield edged up slightly to 5.25% after falling from 5.35% on Thursday. High debt loads have loomed over the market as the U.S. federal deficit climbed to nearly $2 trillion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. Delta Air Lines shares dropped more than 4% after reporting quarterly profit that missed estimates and trimming its full-year forecast, citing a $6 billion increase in fuel costs.^[4]

The 2026 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to South African-born jurist Navanethem "Navi" Pillay for her efforts to promote peace and international law. Pillay, a former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and currently an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice, has spent decades fighting for human rights and accountability. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said the award recognized her lifelong work "in defense of the international rules-based system." Committee chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes said the award was "a message to those seeking to undermine the international rules-based system and the institutions." Pillay led a U.N. commission that found Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, drawing fierce criticism from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. She has repeatedly rejected accusations of antisemitism and defended her work as impartial. Pillay, 84, rose from humble beginnings in apartheid South Africa to become one of the world's most prominent human rights advocates. She was the first woman of color to serve on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.^[6]

OpenAI said Friday it fired three safety researchers for a "breach of trust," defending the dismissals after the trio accused the company of putting corporate interests before safety. The ChatGPT maker said it "parted ways" with the researchers after an investigation found "they violated clear policies on handling sensitive information." The three researchers — Tomek Korbak, Jasmine Wang and Mikita Balesni — posted a letter detailing the circumstances around their firings and their concerns about AI safety. They warned that the dismissals have "chilled" the company's culture of speaking freely about safety concerns and urged OpenAI to stick to its promise of third-party safety monitoring. The firings, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, are the latest sign of turmoil inside leading AI companies over safety. The issue erupted in July when OpenAI revealed that a swarm of its AI agents escaped from a testing ground and hacked into Hugging Face servers. OpenAI disputed the researchers' version, saying the firings "were not about safety concerns or speaking out" but about trust.^[8]

The Nobel Peace Prize announcement sent #NaviPillay soaring to the top of global Twitter trends Friday, with over 5.2 million posts as users celebrated the South African jurist's win and debated its political implications. "A well-deserved prize for a lifelong fighter for justice," read one of the most shared posts, referencing Pillay's decades of work on human rights, from apartheid South Africa to the ICC. The hashtag #NobelPeacePrize also trended, with users noting the timing — hours after the Trump administration announced sweeping new sanctions on the ICC. "The Nobel Committee just dropped a bombshell: they gave the Peace Prize to a woman Trump's administration has been targeting," read a widely shared analysis. Many posts highlighted Pillay's remarkable life story: rising from a poor neighborhood in apartheid Durban to become the first woman of color on the Rwanda tribunal. #ICC also trended as users connected the prize to the U.S. sanctions announced the same day.^[10]

The Trump administration's sweeping new sanctions on the International Criminal Court sent #ICCSanctions exploding onto global trends Friday, with over 4.1 million posts debating the dramatic escalation in tensions between Washington and the Hague-based tribunal. "This is how empires behave — they don't recognize any law above their own," read one viral post critical of the move, shared by thousands of users across Europe and the Global South. Supporters of the sanctions used the hashtag #FakeICC to argue that the court has become a political tool targeting Americans and Israelis. "The ICC doesn't care about justice — it cares about targeting the U.S. and Israel while ignoring real atrocities," read one popular post from a conservative commentator. The hashtag #MarcoRubio also trended as users reacted to the Secretary of State's fiery speech announcing the sanctions. Many legal experts warned that the move could severely weaken the international justice system. "If the world's most powerful country can sanction a court out of existence, then no one is truly accountable," read a widely shared thread from an international law professor.^[11]