While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Dec 13
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses US senators at the Capitol in Washington.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Aid appeal fails to break Republican border deal demands
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky came to Congress on Dec 12 to appeal for more aid to resist Russia’s invasion, and Republican leaders told him to first wait for an elusive US deal on immigration.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said he told Mr Zelensky that Republicans “stand with him and against Putin’s brutal invasion” but won’t send more aid until Democrats accept “a transformative change” in US immigration and border policies.
Republican demands for tough measures to stem a surge in migration across the US-Mexico border have delayed new Ukraine assistance for months.
The Senate Armed Services Committee’s top-ranking Republican, Mr Roger Wicker of Mississippi, said after a private session Mr Zelensky held with senators that he would prefer to send the aid in December but congressional approval will likely slip to early January as the border talks continue.
US says Ukraine war has cost Russia 315,000 casualties
REUTERS
A declassified US intelligence report assessed that the Ukraine war has cost Russia 315,000 dead and injured troops, or nearly 90 per cent of the personnel it had when the conflict began, a source familiar with the intelligence said on Dec 12.
The report also assessed that Moscow’s losses in personnel and armoured vehicles to Ukraine’s military have set back Russia’s military modernisation by 18 years, the source said.
The source said the recently declassified US intelligence report assessed that Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 with 360,000 personnel.
Israel ‘losing support,’ Biden says, in Netanyahu rebuff
AFP
A divide between Israel and the United States, its closest ally, burst into the open on Dec 12, as President Joe Biden warned that Israeli leaders were losing international support for their war in the Gaza Strip and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected out of hand the American vision for a post-war Middle East.
With civilians in Gaza being killed at a historic rate in the Israel assault, Mr Biden warned in an address in Washington that the international community was turning against the Israeli government.
“They’re starting to lose that support,” Mr Biden said, arguing that Mr Netanyahu needed to make changes to his government, the most far right in Israel’s history.
Embattled Harvard University president to stay in post
Harvard University’s president, under fire over testimony she gave about anti-Semitism on campus, will remain in her job after a meeting of the institution’s governing body issued a statement backing her on Dec 12.
Professor Claudine Gay has been engulfed by criticism after she declined to unequivocally say whether calling for genocide of Jews violated Harvard’s code of conduct as she testified before Congress alongside the heads of MIT and Pennsylvania universities.
“It depends on the context,” she told lawmakers in one tense exchange.
Hong Kong actress Kathy Chow dies at age 57
Hong Kong actress Kathy Chow Hoi-mei has died at the age of 57.
Ms Chow, who was known for her roles in broadcaster TVB’s television dramas in the 1980s and 1990s, died on Dec 11 following the “unsuccessful treatment” of her illness, according to her studio.
The studio shared news of her death on Chinese social media platform Weibo on Dec 12.
