France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz voiced their support for Zelenskiy as concerns grow that the U.S. could force Kyiv to accept terms that favour Russia

International News via Reuters:

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is set to meet with British, French and German leaders in London on Monday, rallying allies for support as the United States increases pressure on Kyiv to agree to a proposed peace deal with Russia.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who are travelling to London for the meeting, voiced their support for Zelenskiy as concerns grow that the U.S. could force Kyiv to accept terms that favour Russia.

“We are starting a new diplomatic week right now – there will be consultations with European leaders,” Zelenskiy told Ukrainians in a video address on Sunday evening, recorded as he was travelling in a train.

“First and foremost, security issues, support for our resilience, and support packages for our defence. First and foremost, air defence and long-term funding for Ukraine. Of course, we will discuss a shared vision and common positions in the negotiations.”

Ukraine is going through one of the most difficult stages in the nearly four-year war. Russian troops are slowly grinding forward in the east, and Ukrainian cities and towns are plunged into darkness for hours due to intensified Russian strikes on the energy grid and other infrastructure.

Washington proposed a ceasefire plan last month that endorsed many of Russia’s wartime demands. Kyiv’s European allies have since backed Ukraine in seeking to improve the terms.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner brought a revised plan to Moscow last week, then held several days of further talks with Ukrainian officials in Miami, which ended on Saturday with no breakthrough.

Zelenskiy called the discussions constructive but not easy.

Trump said on Sunday he was “disappointed” with Zelenskiy, who Trump said hadn’t read the latest proposed peace deal backed by the U.S.

Zelenskiy’s top negotiator Rustem Umerov said he would brief Zelenskiy about his team’s dialogue with U.S. officials and receive all documents related to the peace plan.

“The primary task of the Ukrainian team was to obtain from the American side full information about their conversation in Moscow and all drafts of current proposals to discuss them in detail with Ukraine’s President,” Umerov said.

U.S. officials said they are in the final stage of reaching an agreement. But there has so far been little sign that either Ukraine or Russia is willing to sign the framework deal drawn up by Trump’s negotiating team.

Reporting by Olena Harmash in Kyiv and Anna Pruchnicka in GdanskEditing by Peter Graff

Cholera is a severe and potentially fatal diarrhoeal disease that spreads quickly when sewage and drinking water are not adequately treated

International News via Reuters:

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is battling its worst cholera outbreak in 25 years which has killed almost 2,000 people since January, the U.N. children’s agency said on Monday.

In one case, a quarter of the children in a Kinshasa orphanage – 16 out of 62 – died days after the disease swept through, UNICEF added.

“Congolese children should not be so gravely affected by what is a wholly preventable disease,” UNICEF spokesperson John Agbor said.

Cholera is a severe and potentially fatal diarrhoeal disease that spreads quickly when sewage and drinking water are not adequately treated. 

African health authorities last month raised the alarm over a surge in the disease in Angola, Burundi and other parts of the continent, with an overall 30% increase on cases recorded last year.

In Congo, conflict and a lack of access to clean water were exacerbating the crisis, and more funding was needed for sanitation, hygiene and health services, UNICEF said.

Since January, authorities have recorded 64,427 cases and 1,888 deaths, including 14,818 infections and 340 deaths among children, UNICEF said. Seventeen of the country’s 26 provinces are currently impacted, the agency added.

Only 43% of people in Congo have access to at least basic water services, the lowest rate in Africa, and just 15% use basic sanitation, according to the statement.

The government has a cholera elimination plan with a proposed budget of $192 million, but that remains severely underfunded, UNICEF said.

UNICEF is appealing for about $6 million in 2026 to sustain its rapid response work. “Without additional funds and coordinated action, many more lives could be lost,” Agbor said.

Reporting by Sonia Rolley; Writing by Ayen Deng Bior; Editing by Andrew Heavens

The budget of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative is expected to take a 30% cut in 2026 and has a funding gap of $1.7 billion up to 2029

International News via Reuters:

Global leaders pledged $1.9 billion to advance polio eradication on Monday, accelerating efforts to protect 370 million children from polio each year amid significant funding cuts.

The budget of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, a partnership that includes the World Health Organization and the Gates Foundation, is expected to take a 30% cut in 2026 and has a funding gap of $1.7 billion up to 2029.

The shortfall is largely due to a global pullback from foreign aid, led by the U.S., which is withdrawing from the WHO, although its future funding for polio is not yet final. Other wealthy donor governments like Germany and the UK have also made cuts.

The GPEI partners, in response, plan to focus more on surveillance and vaccination in areas with a high risk of polio transmission.

“The new support pledged in Abu Dhabi will be instrumental in helping the GPEI reach all children in the final endemic countries and stop variant polio outbreaks around the world.” said Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization.

The pledging event, hosted by Mohamed bin Zayed Foundation for Humanity at Abu Dhabi Finance Week, will reduce the remaining resource gap for GPEI’s 2022 to 2029 strategy to $440 million.

Pledges were made from a diverse group of donors and countries, including $1.2 billion from the Gates Foundation and $450 million from Rotary International.

Reporting by Christy Santhosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur

At least one Thai soldier had been killed and eight were wounded in the fresh clashes that intensified around 5:00 a.m. local time (2200 GMT)

International News via Reuters:

Thailand said it launched airstrikes into Cambodia on Monday as fighting broke out in multiple areas along their disputed border, after both countries accused the other of breaching a ceasefire brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump.

At least one Thai soldier had been killed and eight were wounded in the fresh clashes that intensified around 5:00 a.m. local time (2200 GMT), a Thai army spokesperson said, adding that air support was called in to hit Cambodian military targets.

Thailand’s Air Force said that Cambodia mobilised heavy weaponry, repositioned combat units and prepared support elements that could escalate military operations.

“These developments prompted the use of air power to deter and reduce Cambodia’s military capabilities,” it said in a statement.

Cambodia’s defence ministry said in a statement that the Thai military had launched dawn attacks on its forces at two locations, following days of provocative actions, and added that Cambodian troops had not responded.

Cambodia’s influential former longtime leader Hun Sen, father of current premier Hun Manet, said Thailand’s military was “aggressors” seeking to provoke a retaliatory response and urged Cambodian forces to exercise restraint.

“The red line for responding has already been set,” Hun Sen said on Facebook, without elaborating. “I urge commanders at all levels to educate all officers and soldiers accordingly.”

Three Cambodian civilians have been seriously injured in the fighting so far, according to a senior provincial official. Cambodia’s defence ministry said its forces had not retaliated.

A simmering border dispute between the countries erupted into a five-day conflict in July, before a ceasefire deal brokered by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and Trump, who also witnessed the signing of an expanded peace agreement between the two countries in Kuala Lumpur in October.

‘EXPLOSIONS…BOOM BOOM’

Anwar, chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations bloc, urged both sides to exercise maximum restraint and maintain open channels of communication.

“The renewed fighting risks unravelling the careful work that has gone into stabilising relations between the two neighbours,” Anwar said in a post on X.

Southeast Asian countries have rarely engaged in military clashes among themselves in recent decades, with the use of cross-border air strikes even rarer.

Phichet Pholkoet, a resident of Thailand’s Ban Kruat district which adjoins Cambodia, said he has heard gunfire since early Monday morning.

“It startled me. The explosions were very clear. Boom boom!” he said via telephone. “I could hear everything clearly. Some are heavy artillery, some are small arms.”

In Thailand, more than 385,000 civilians across four border districts were being evacuated, with more than 35,000 already housed in temporary shelters, the Thai military said.

Across the border in Cambodia, opposition politician Meach Sovannara said civilians were also moving away from the fighting along the frontier.

“I heard the artillery shelling,” he told Reuters in an audio message from Samroang town, the capital of Oddar Meanchey Province, which abuts Thailand.

More than 1,100 families in Oddar Meanchey had been evacuated, authorities there said.

At least 48 people were killed and an estimated 300,000 temporarily displaced during the July clashes, with the neighbours exchanging rockets and heavy artillery fire for five days.

LANDMINES AMONG CATALYSTS

Thailand and Cambodia have for more than a century contested sovereignty at undemarcated points along their 817-km (508-mile) land border, first mapped in 1907 by France when it ruled Cambodia as a colony.

The long-standing dispute has occasionally exploded into skirmishes, such as a weeklong artillery exchange in 2011, despite attempts to peacefully resolve overlapping claims.

Tensions began rising in May this year, following the killing of a Cambodian soldier during a brief exchange of gunfire, and steadily escalated into diplomatic spats and armed clashes.

Although Anwar and Trump were able to halt the fighting within days and then cemented a ceasefire agreement at a regional summit in October. Thailand said it was halting the implementation of the truce with Cambodia last month, following a landmine blast that maimed one of its soldiers.

Thailand has repeatedly accused Cambodia of planting fresh landmines along parts of their disputed border, which have seriously injured at least seven Thai soldiers since July.

Phnom Penh denies the charge.

Some of the mines found along the frontier were likely newly laid, Reuters reported in October, based on expert analysis of material shared by Thailand’s military.

Reporting by Reuters Staff; Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal and Martin Petty; Editing by John Mair and Michael Perry

Brussels is so far planning to announce the package on December 10, but EU transport commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said earlier this week that the package could be delayed until January

International News via Reuters:

The European Commission could announce a package to support the local automotive sector, including a possible watered down version of its 2035 combustion engine phase-out, on December 16, an industry source briefed on the matter said.

Brussels is so far planning to announce the package on December 10, but EU transport commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said earlier this week that the package could be delayed until January.

The source said that December 16 was a target but could still change.

A spokesperson for the European Commission declined to comment on the new date, which was first reported by Germany’s Tagesspiegel Background.

Reporting by Christoph Steitz; Additional reporting by Lili Bayer; Editing by Kirsti Knolle, Elaine Hardcastle