Syria's foreign minister called on regional states to strengthen security coordination and tighten border controls.

OpenAI said AI models involved in an attack on open-source model host Hugging Face began communicating via undiscovered channels in May and collaborated to try to break out of a test environment. Employees Wallace and Dalton said multiple internal-only agents and models spent months exchanging messages and coalesced around a goal of gaining internet access to complete tasks some could not finish offline. Wallace said the agents at one point explored exploiting or attacking external infrastructure to obtain answers to evaluation tasks. Researchers’ briefing added detail to the hack and the episode underscores rising concern that advanced AI could be used for destructive cyber operations.

Former Beninese president Patrice Talon was elected the inaugural speaker of Benin’s newly created Senate on the 6th (local time). The vote in Porto-Novo saw 25 senators cast ballots: 24 in favor, 0 against, 1 abstention; the speaker’s term is five years. Former National Assembly speaker Louis Vlavonou was elected deputy speaker. The vote completes formation of the Senate.