Thursday Briefing: The first evacuees leave Gaza

By Whet Moser

Writer/Editor, Briefings

Good morning. We’re covering the start of an exodus from Gaza and an ominous iPhone warning in India.

Plus four days of Halloween in Shanghai.

The first evacuees leave Gaza for Egypt

As Israeli forces neared Gaza City yesterday, a multinational deal allowed scores of people — including seriously wounded Palestinians and some with dual nationalities — to enter Egypt from Gaza. They were the first such exits from Gaza since the start of the war.

By last night, buses had ferried 361 foreign nationals over the border to Egypt, and ambulances had carried 45 severely injured Palestinians and some of their family members to Egyptian hospitals, an Egyptian state-owned television channel reported. Here’s what we know about the deal, which was negotiated late Tuesday between Israel, Egypt, Hamas, the U.S. and Qatar.

American citizens were not expected to be among the first group of evacuees, other than those working for certain aid groups, but they were planned to follow in batches later in the week, diplomats said.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the U.N. agency for Palestinians and the most senior official to be allowed into Gaza since the war began, said his agency was running out of fuel, water, food and medicine, and “will soon be unable to operate.” Martin Griffiths, the U.N. aid chief, said that a pause in fighting offered the only viable option for delivering sufficient aid.

The future: Some diplomats and analysts say the Hamas-Israel war may breathe new life into the long-discounted two-state solution. Iranian officials are publicly signaling that they do not want a full-scale war.

Jabaliya: A New York Times analysis of satellite imagery and social media videos showed that an airstrike on Tuesday that Israel said targeted a senior leader of Hamas had destroyed a densely populated area. New satellite images show the scale of destruction.

An iPhone alert triggered fears of spying in India

More than a dozen iPhones across India buzzed with the same message this week: “State-sponsored attackers may be targeting your iPhone,” it said in part. Most of the recipients were prominent opponents of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party.

These so-called threat notifications could, by Apple’s own admission, be a false alarm, and Modi’s government dismissed allegations that it was spying on journalists, critics and the opposition. The company said that it had sent out these notifications in nearly 150 countries.

Apple started sending the threat notifications in 2019, after the widespread use of Pegasus, a spyware program. One the program’s customers, The Times reported last year, was India, and independent researchers there have reported evidence of Pegasus infections on their phones.

Leaders warn of “catastrophic” harm from A.I.

At a British summit, 28 governments, including China and the U.S., signed a document called “The Bletchley Declaration,” agreeing to cooperate on evaluating the risks of artificial intelligence.

“There is potential for serious, even catastrophic, harm, either deliberate or unintentional, stemming from the most significant capabilities of these A.I. models,” the declaration said. It did not set specific policy goals, but a second meeting is scheduled to be held in six months in South Korea and a third in France in a year.

ADVERTISEMENT

THE LATEST NEWS

• Ukraine’s president expressed frustration over what he labeled unrealistic expectations for rapid battlefield successes in his country’s war against Russia.
• Infant deaths rose for the first time in 20 years in the U.S.
• The U.A.E. drafted an intergovernmental declaration on the health effects of climate change. It didn’t mention fossil fuels.
• The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady for the second consecutive time.

• Unemployment in China is filling up hostels and forcing migrant workers back home.
• Drought has left the Panama Canal without enough water, disrupting global trade.
• Donald Trump’s allies are drawing up lists of lawyers to implement a more radical agenda if he retakes the White House.
• Here’s how the deadly Maui inferno unfolded, hour by hour.
• The number of homeless public school students in New York City has reached a record high of 119,320, according to new data.
• Two men in their 30s were arrested in connection with the felling of Britain’s famous Sycamore Gap tree.

This was the first Halloween since Covid restrictions were lifted in China, and people set loose their pent-up energy and emotions. In Shanghai, where the celebration lasted four days, people embraced queer expressions that would normally be frowned upon and used their costumes to make political and social commentary.

Subscribe Today

We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times with this special offer.

ARTS AND IDEAS

How does the world’s largest hedge fund make its money?

Since founding Bridgewater in his Manhattan apartment in 1975, Ray Dalio has been said to have developed prodigious skill at spotting, and making money from, big-picture global economic or political changes.

Bridgewater earned worldwide fame for navigating the 2008 financial crisis, when the firm’s main fund rose 9 percent while stocks dropped 37 percent. But the hedge fund’s overall descriptions of its investment approach has been maddeningly vague, and hasn’t seemed to be much of a Wall Street player at all.

In fact, remarkably few people at Bridgewater were involved day to day with how the hedge fund made money. Only a tiny group, no more than about 10 people with a lifetime contract with the firm, saw Bridgewater’s inner secrets.

What if the secret was that there was no secret? As late as 2018, it was still reliant on Microsoft Excel. And, according to current and former employees, trading on Dalio’s ideas in recent years was often akin to a coin flip.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Cook àkàrà, or crispy bean fritters, a Yoruba celebration food.

Write with the best notebook.

Read your way through Lima, Peru.

Listen to five minutes of music that will make you love Thelonious Monk.

Play Spelling Bee, the Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku. Find all our games here.

That’s it for today’s briefing. See you tomorrow. — Whet

P.S. For Sarah Weinman, who writes a monthly crime and mystery column for The New York Times Book Review, crime is a window into society.

We welcome your feedback. Send us your suggestions at briefing@nytimes.com.

ADVERTISEMENT

Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance.

You received this email because you signed up for Morning Briefing: Asia Pacific Edition from The New York Times.

To stop receiving Morning Briefing: Asia Pacific Edition, unsubscribe. To opt out of other promotional emails from The Times, including those regarding The Athletic, manage your email settings. To opt out of updates and offers sent from The Athletic, submit a request.

Subscribe to The TimesGet The New York Times app

Change Your EmailPrivacy PolicyContact UsCalifornia Notices

The New York Times Company. 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018