While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Aug 10, 2025
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A Ukrainian artillery unit fires an M109 howitzer on Russian positions in eastern Ukraine.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
Europe, Ukraine press US ahead of Trump-Putin talks
European officials presented their own Ukraine peace proposals to the United States on Aug 9 as President Donald Trump prepared for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on ending the war.
Mr Trump announced on Aug 8 that he would meet Mr Putin in Alaska on Aug 15, saying the parties, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, were close to a deal that could resolve the three-and-a-half-year conflict.
Details of the potential deal have yet to be announced, but Mr Trump said it would involve “some swopping of territories to the betterment of both”. It could require Ukraine to surrender significant parts of its territory - an outcome Kyiv and its European allies say would only encourage Russian aggression.
US Vice-President J.D. Vance met Ukrainian and European allies in Britain on Aug 9 to discuss Mr Trump’s push for peace.
UK police arrest hundreds at rally for banned group
PHOTO: EPA
Police in London arrested at least 466 people on Aug 9 for supporting Palestine Action, at the latest and largest protest backing the group since the government banned it in July under anti-terror laws.
The Metropolitan Police said it made the hundreds of arrests, thought to be one of the highest ever at a single protest in the UK capital, for “supporting a proscribed organisation”.
The government outlawed Palestine Action in early July, days after it took responsibility for a break-in at an air force base in southern England that caused an estimated £7 million (S$12 million) of damage to two aircraft.
UN plastic pollution treaty talks floundering
PHOTO: EPA
Talks on forging a groundbreaking treaty to combat the scourge of plastic pollution were floundering on Aug 9, with progress slow and countries wildly at odds on what the proposed agreement should cover.
The negotiations, which opened on Aug 5, have four working days left to strike a legally-binding instrument that would tackle the growing problem choking the environment.
But in a blunt mid-way assessment, the talks chairman warned the 184 countries gathered at the United Nations in Geneva that progress so far was well off track.
Four astronauts home from International Space Station
An international crew of four astronauts is back home on Earth on Aug 9 after nearly five months aboard the International Space Station, returning safely in a SpaceX capsule.
The spacecraft carrying US astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov splashed down off California’s coast at 8.44am local time (11.34pm in Singapore).
Their return marks the end of the 10th crew rotation mission to the space station under Nasa’s Commercial Crew Programme, which was created to succeed the Space Shuttle era by partnering with private industry.
Salah criticises Uefa tribute to ‘Palestinian Pele’
Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah on Aug 9 criticised Uefa’s tribute to the late Suleiman Al-Obeid, known as the “Palestinian Pele,” after European soccer’s governing body failed to reference the circumstances surrounding his death this week.
The Palestine Football Association said that Al-Obeid, 41, was killed by an Israeli strike targeting civilians waiting for humanitarian aid in the southern Gaza Strip on Aug 6.
In a brief post on the social media platform X, Uefa called the former national team member “a talent who gave hope to countless children, even in the darkest of times”.
