Category News

Here’s where things stand on Wednesday, December 10 :

Fighting

• Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, said that Moscow’s forces were advancing along the entire front line in Ukraine and were also focused on Ukrainian troops in the surrounded town of Myrnohrad.
• Russia said air defence systems intercepted and destroyed 121 Ukrainian drones throughout Tuesday.
• A member of the United Kingdom’s armed forces was killed in Ukraine while observing Ukrainian forces test a new defensive capability, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said. The ministry said the British soldier was killed away from the front lines with Russian forces.
• Russia’s Syzran oil refinery on the Volga River halted oil processing on December 5 after being damaged by a Ukrainian drone attack, the Reuters news agency reported, citing two industry sources.

Ceasefire

• Ukraine and its European partners, Germany, France and the UK, will present the US with “refined documents” on a peace plan to end the war with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
• Finnish President Alexander Stubb said that allies of Ukraine worked on three separate documents, including a 20-point framework for peace, a set of security guarantees and a post-war reconstruction plan.
• At a United Nations Security Council meeting on Ukraine, Deputy US Ambassador Jennifer Locetta said the United States is working to bridge the divide in peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv. She said the aim is to secure a permanent ceasefire, and “a mutually agreed peace deal that leaves Ukraine sovereign and independent and with an opportunity for real prosperity”.
• Russia’s UN ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said, “What we have on the table are fairly realistic proposals for long-term, lasting settlement of Ukrainian conflict, something that our US colleagues are diligently working on.”
• Pope Leo said Europe must play a central role in efforts to end the war in Ukraine, warning that any peace plan sidelining the continent is “not realistic”, while urging leaders to seize what he described as a great opportunity to work together for a just peace.

Politics and diplomacy

• Zelenskyy said he was prepared to hold elections within three months if the US and Kyiv’s European allies could ensure the security of the vote. Wartime elections are forbidden by law in Ukraine, but Zelenskyy, whose term expired last year, is facing renewed pressure from US President Donald Trump to hold a vote.
• The Kremlin said that European claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to restore the Soviet Union were incorrect and that claims Putin plans to invade a NATO member were absolute rubbish.
• The European Union is very close to a solution for financing Ukraine in 2026 and 2027 that would have the support of at least a qualified majority of EU countries, European Council President Antonio Costa said.
• Japan has denied a media report that it had rebuffed an EU request to join plans to use frozen Russian state assets to fund Ukraine.

Regional security

• Three men went on trial in Germany, accused of following a former Ukrainian soldier on behalf of a Russian intelligence service as part of a possible assassination plot.

Sanctions

• US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said he discussed US sanctions on Russian oil giants Lukoil and Rosneft with Ukrainian Prime Minister Svyrydenko.

Hundreds of immigrant children in the United States have lingered in federal detention beyond a court-mandated limit, including some who were held more than five months, according to court filings.

The filings have alarmed legal advocates who say the government is failing to safeguard children.

The reports were submitted late on Monday in an ongoing civil lawsuit launched in 1985 that led to the creation of court-ordered supervision of standards in 1997. It eventually established a 20-day limit for children in custody.

The Trump administration is attempting to end the agreement.

Lawyers for detainees highlighted the US government’s own admissions that immigrant children were held for longer custody times, sometimes in hotels used for detention purposes.

They also argued that the children were subjected to contaminated food, a lack of access to medical care and insufficient legal counsel, citing reports from families and monitors at federal facilities.

A December 1 report from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) indicated that about 400 immigrant children were held in custody for more than the 20-day limit from August to September.

Legal advocates for the children told the court the problem was widespread and not specific to a region or facility.

The primary factors that prolonged their release were categorised into three groups: transportation delays, medical needs and legal processing.

The advocates contended that those reasons do not prove lawful justifications for the delays in their release. Through interviews with detained families, advocates identified five children held for 168 days. The report did not say how old those children were.

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Hotel use for temporary detention is allowed by the federal court for up to 72 hours, but lawyers questioned the government’s data, which they believe did not fully explain why children were held longer than three days in hotel rooms.

Conditions at the detention facilities continued to be an ongoing concern since the family detention site in Dilley, Texas, reopened this year.

Advocates documented injuries suffered by children and a lack of access to sufficient medical care. One child bleeding from an eye injury was not seen by medical staff for two days.

Another child’s foot was broken when a staff member dropped a volleyball net pole, according to the court filing.

“Medical staff told one family whose child got food poisoning to only return if the child vomited eight times,” the advocates wrote in their response.

“Children get diarrhea, heartburn, stomach aches, and they give them food that literally has worms in it,” one person with a family staying at the facility in Dilley wrote in a declaration submitted to the court.

Another wrote that they were given “broccoli and cauliflower that were moldy and had worms”.

Far-right Senator Flavio Bolsonaro has reaffirmed his commitment to running in Brazil’s 2026 presidential race, despite criticism that he appeared to be openly haggling over whether to remain a candidate.

On Tuesday, Bolsonaro met with reporters outside federal police headquarters in the capital Brasilia, where his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year sentence for attempting to foment a coup.

The younger Bolsonaro said he conveyed to his father that he would not shrink from the 2026 race.

“I told him this candidacy is irreversible,” Flavio said. “And in his own words, ‘We will not turn back.’ Now it is time to talk to people, so we can have the right people on our side.”

The senator also attempted to clear up the comments that sparked the initial controversy.

On Sunday, Flavio raised eyebrows when he told Brazilian media that he could exit the race — for the right “price”.

“There’s a possibility I won’t go all the way,” Flavio said at the time. “I have a price for that. I will negotiate.”

He declined to name what that price would be, but his comments were widely interpreted to be a reference to his father’s imprisonment.

In September, a panel on Brazil’s Supreme Court convicted Jair of five charges related to his attempts to overturn the 2022 presidential election, including one count of seeking the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law.

Jair lost the 2022 race to current Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a left-wing leader who has announced he will run for a fourth term in 2026.

In November, the Supreme Court panel ordered Jair to be taken into custody to begin his sentence, after the ex-president admitted to damaging his ankle monitor.

Separately, in 2023, Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal ruled that Jair should be barred from holding public office for eight years, as a penalty for misusing the presidential office to spread election falsehoods.

Since his detention, Jair has backed his eldest son’s candidacy in the 2026 race. Liberal Party (PL) president Valdemar Costa Neto also confirmed on Friday that Jair’s endorsement meant that Flavio would indeed lead the party’s ticket.

Flavio has since received other right-wing endorsements, including from Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, who was previously considered a frontrunner to represent the PL.

But Flavio’s comments on Sunday have thrown his nascent candidacy into doubt.

Critics, including from Lula’s Workers Party, have seized upon Flavio’s suggestion of a “price” to question his ethics and commitment.

“No one launches a candidacy one day, and the next day says, ‘Look, I can negotiate,’” Edinho Silva, the president of the Workers Party, told reporters. “It’s not just me. No one would take it seriously.”

But Flavio on Tuesday dismissed the attacks and reaffirmed he would stay in the race, while fighting for his father’s freedom.

Democrats are favoured to win Miami’s mayoral race for the first time in nearly 30 years, with the run-off closely watched as a test of voter sentiment in United States President Donald Trump’s Florida stronghold.

Although the election on Tuesday is technically nonpartisan – by law, candidates’ party affiliations do not appear on the ballot – it has drawn national attention.

Trump has endorsed former Miami City Manager Emilio Gonzalez, a Republican, while the Democratic National Committee is backing Eileen Higgins, 61, a former Miami-Dade County commissioner.

Higgins led a crowded field in last month’s first round, securing 36 percent of the vote, short of the majority needed to win outright, but well ahead of Gonzalez, a retired US Army colonel, who finished second with 20 percent. Another Democrat, former city commissioner Ken Russell, placed third with 18 percent .

If elected, Higgins would become the first Democrat to lead the city of 487,000 in nearly three decades, as well as the first woman and the first non-Hispanic mayor of Hispanic-majority Miami.

Democrats gain momentum before midterm elections

The race has attracted heavyweight support from both parties.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Senator Rick Scott have campaigned for Gonzalez, while prominent Democrats, including US Senator Ruben Gallego and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, have appeared on the trail for Higgins, who served on the county commission before advancing to the run-off.

A Democratic victory would add to the party’s momentum heading into the next midterm elections, following gains in November and a closer-than-expected loss last week in a special election for a Tennessee congressional district that Trump won by double digits.

The Miami contest is unfolding in an area that has shifted increasingly towards Republicans and where Trump has said he plans to build his presidential library.

Higgins, who has embraced the nickname “La Gringa”, says she speaks Spanish, and has represented the Cuban-American enclave of Little Havana, a conservative-leaning district.

Her campaign has focused on local issues, such as housing affordability, while also addressing national concerns, including immigration enforcement in a city with large Hispanic and foreign-born populations.

Gonzalez, meanwhile, has campaigned on repealing Miami’s homestead property tax and streamlining business permits.

A former director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services under President George W Bush, he has said he supports immigration arrests of those who commit crimes, describing broader enforcement questions as a “federal issue” during a recent debate.