PRESS REVIEW – Thursday, September 24: The Spanish press express outrage after the forced eviction of an elderly woman from her Madrid residence. Unrest in the Tigray region sparks fears of a new war between rebels and Ethiopia's central government. Australian authorities reveal that the national health insurance system Medicare was hacked by an AI agent. Finally, we look at Britain's rudest-sounding street names!
The eviction of Maricarmen, an 87-year-old pensioner, amid Spain's housing crisis has shocked the nation. El Mundo documents the eviction of Maricarmen in photos. She lived in the upmarket Madrid neighbourhood of Retiro for 70 years until Wednesday night. The elderly woman, who uses a wheelchair, was evicted in a stretcher from her home as hundreds of protesters gathered outside and some tried to prevent police from entering. Maricarmen spent years in a legal battle against a real estate firm that has raised her monthly rent 275 percent to €2,750, which she could no longer afford. La Vanguardia sees Maricarmen as a symbol of Spain's crippling housing shortage, for which Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has been accused of not doing enough. El Pais evokes the social and political shock sparked by this eviction. Right-wing daily ABC accepts that her case is a tragedy but notes that the law applies equally to everyone and cannot be adapted to individual cases. El Mundo, the conservative paper, laments the political exploitation of Maricarmen's case – and accuses Sanchez of ignoring the gravity of Spain's housing crisis.
A severe escalation in Ethiopia's Tigray region has sparked fears of another all-out war in the country. The New York Times reports that Tigrayan forces seized the airport in Mekelle, the capital city of Tigray, early on Wednesday and others in the northern region in what is seen as a direct challenge to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's central government. As the Times reminds us, hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the two-year war in 2020 between the central government and Tigrayan forces. It led to sexual assault accusations and mass starvation. The Economist notes that Eritrea fought alongside the Ethiopian army last time against the rebels. However, Abiy's decision to seek peace with the rebels left his partners angry – which is why this new escalation could reshape the war and loyalties to the central government. The magazine says that rebel groups appear to be trying to encircle Weldiya, a town on a main road linking Tigray to Addis Ababa. If this city falls, it could be a precursor to a rebel offensive on the capital itself.
We turn next to Australia, where Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has revealed that an AI agent hacked Australia's medical healthcare system back in June. There is cause for concern in the Australian press. The Sydney Morning Herald says the "modern cyber threat is no longer a person in a balaclava" and wonders how secure our data is in the new AI age. According to the website The Conversation, this appears to be the first time an AI agent breach of a government system has been made public. Medicare was unaware of the hack for three months – it only found out because OpenAI informed the government earlier this month. OpenAI itself only found out in August during a routine review of the model's activity. The Conversation says that such unauthorised intrusions raise thorny questions around the accountability of AI agents – but also that governments are reliant on the "goodwill of AI companies to disclose potentially illegal or harmful acts."
We end on something different – a survey of England's rudest-sounding street names! Metro reports that a survey has put together some of the rudest-sounding English towns, including Sluts Hole Lane in Norfolk, Sandy Balls in New Forest and the unfortunate-sounding Shitterton in Dorset. In one town called Minge Lane, local authorities have had to concrete the street name – because people kept stealing it!
You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.
