(NEW YORK) — More than nine months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion into neighboring Ukraine, the two countries are engaged in a struggle for control of areas throughout eastern and southern Ukraine.
Putin’s forces in November pulled out of key positions, retreating from Kherson as Ukrainian troops led a counteroffensive targeting the city. Russian drones have continued bombarding civilian targets throughout Ukraine, knocking out critical power infrastructure as winter sets in.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Dec 26, 7:40 AM EST
Ukraine strikes bomber base in Russia, killing three
A Ukrainian drone attack on the Engels Air Force Base in southern Russia killed three, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said.
A spokesman for Ukrainian Air Force confirmed the attack, saying, “If the Russians thought the war would not touch them they were wrong.”
Russian air defence reportedly shot down a Ukrainian drone flying at low altitude, but falling debris caused the casualties in the overnight attack.
The Engels base lies just over 300 miles northeast of Ukraine’s border with Russia. The facility has been repeatedly used by Russia to carry out missile strikes on targets in Ukraine.
Ukrainian forces had attacked another Russian air base on Dec. 5, killing three and damaging two strategic bombers.
(HONG KONG) — China on Monday flew 71 warplanes into Taiwan’s air defense zone, as part of a drill that included 47 planes crossing the de-facto maritime border between the mainland and the island.
The 47 aircraft crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait, entering into Taiwan’s southwest air defense zone at about 6 a.m. local time, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said.
71 PLA aircraft and 7 PLAN vessels around Taiwan were detected in our surrounding region by 6 a.m.(UTC+8) today. R.O.C. Armed Forces have monitored the situation and tasked CAP aircraft, Navy vessels, and land-based missile systems to respond these activities. pic.twitter.com/DagRhnN69F
— 國防部 Ministry of National Defense, R.O.C. 🇹🇼 (@MoNDefense) December 26, 2022
President Joe Biden on Dec. 23 signed the National Defense Authorization Act for 2023, a bill that included funding for Taiwan, along with support for its “meaningful participation” in the international community.
Officials from China’s People Liberation Army said Monday’s military drills were in response to a “provocation” from the U.S. and Taiwan.
“This is a resolute response to the current US-Taiwan escalation and provocation,” the Chinese PLA Eastern Theater said in a statement.
The statement added, “The theater troops will take all necessary measures to resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Taiwan’s military forces “have monitored the situation” and tasked “aircraft, Navy vessels and land-based missile systems to respond [to] these activities,” officials said on Twitter.
(LONDON) — After two years off due to COVID-19, the British royal family returned this year with its traditional Christmas morning service at Sandringham Estate.
Joining the tradition this year were Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, the children of Prince William and Kate, the prince and princess of Wales.
Also in attendance were King Charles III, George, Louis and Charlotte’s grandfather, and Queen Camilla.
The last time the royal family stepped out for Christmas service at Sandringham was in 2019 with the late Queen Elizabeth II. This year marks the family’s first Christmas without her and the first Christmas for Charles as the sovereign. It’s also the first Christmas for William and Kate since taking on the titles of prince and princess of Wales.
While Elizabeth canceled Christmas service last year at Sandringham, Charles and Camilla attended Christmas mass in Windsor.
In the past, after Christmas service, the family would walk back to Sandringham, the queen’s estate in Norfolk, England, where they would have Christmas lunch and watch the queen deliver her annual Christmas message.
Then, in the evening, the family would usually get together for a Christmas dinner.
On Christmas Eve, the family typically holds its gift exchange, following the German tradition. The gifts are usually funny or homemade.
Earlier this month, Prince William and Kate shared their family’s Christmas card, which featured all of them in a casual photo taken in Norfolk, where they have a country home, Anmer Hall. Last week, the prince and princess of Wales and their children, George and Charlotte, also stepped out for Christmas carol service at Westminster Abbey.
Absent from this year’s Christmas tradition was Prince William’s brother, Prince Harry, and Harry’s wife, Meghan, the duke and duchess of Sussex.
Two weeks ago, that couple released the final three episodes of their six-part docuseries, Harry & Meghan, which focused on their decision to step down from their senior royal roles in 2020, with Harry alleging “institutional gaslighting” and Meghan saying she was “being fed to the wolves,” with stories about her being fed to the press on purpose.
Members of the royal family have not commented on Harry and Meghan’s docuseries and Buckingham Palace said it had no comment on the final three episodes.
Harry and Meghan currently live in California with their two young children, Archie and Lillibet.
(SAO PAULO) — Family members of Brazilian soccer superstar Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known as Pelé, gathered by his hospital bed on Christmas Eve as he faces health challenges.
The 82-year-old former forward was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2021. Earlier this week, the Albert Einstein hospital in São Paulo said in a statement the colon cancer had advanced and Pelé was in “elevated care” around kidney and heart “dysfunctions.”
His daughter Kely Nascimento posted an image on Instagram Saturday showing family members sleeping by his side in the hospital.
“We are still here in the fight and with faith. Another night together,” she captioned the image.
His son Edson Cholbi Nascimento, a coach and former player known as Edinho, also posted an image on Saturday from the hospital, showing the father and son holding hands.
“Father… my strength is yours,” he captioned the post.
Pelé, widely considered one of the best soccer players in history, holds the Guinness World Record for Most Career Goals, scoring 1,279 goals in 1,363 between Sept. 7, 1956 and Oct. 1, 1977, and the only football player to have won three World Cups.
Pelé announced his official retirement from soccer in 1974, however he decided to continue playing and joined the North American Soccer League’s New York Cosmos before retiring in 1977.
FIFA granted a joint award to Pelé and Argentina’s Diego Maradona in December 2000, naming them the Player of the Century. The International Olympic Committee named him the Athlete of the Century in 1999.
After retiring from soccer, he was appointed to be a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador in 1994, becoming the first athlete to receive that distinction. He was appointed a U.N. ambassador for ecology and the environment in 1992.
Pelé has been married three times and has seven children.
(PARIS) — Three people were killed and three others wounded, one critically, in a shooting in Paris on Friday, according to the city’s prosecutor, Laure Beccuau.
The motive for the shooting was not immediately clear, but a 69-year-old suspect from France was taken into custody, according to the prosecutor. The suspect was also wounded.
One man and two women were killed, according to authorities. All three who suffered injuries are men.
An investigation has been opened into murder and aggravated violence charges.
Beccuau confirmed the attacker was already known to the police, and had recently been released from prison. He was also banned from possessing a weapon, the prosecutor said.
The shooting took place at a Kurdish cultural center and two nearby businesses, according to 10th arrondissement Mayor Alexandra Cordebard, where the attack took place.
The prosecutor said a potential racist motive for the attack will be part of the investigation.
“Nothing allows at this stage to accredit any affiliation of this man to an extremist ideological movement,” the French prosecutor said in a statement.
“I extend my deepest condolences and solidarity to the relatives of the victims and to the hard-hit Kurdish community,” Cordebard said, in French, on Twitter.
The same suspect was under investigation for an attack at a migrant camp in Bercy — in the 12th arrondissement — where he allegedly slashed tents with a sword in December 2021, according to Beccuau. He was released on Dec. 12, 2022, after being held for a year, the maximum limit for a provisional detention, prosecutors said.
Authorities said the suspect was a shooter with a sports club and owned several weapons. Police believe he acted alone.
Police said they would increase security in Kurdish areas of Paris with protests breaking out in the wake of the shooting and demonstrators clashing with riot police. Protesters rallied against Turkey and shouted anti-Turkish slogans.
“I have asked all the gendarmerie teams to protect the places where the Kurdish communities meet and the diplomatic holds,” French authorities said in a statement.
Kurds make up about one-fifth of Turkey’s population and have waged an at times violent campaign for independence for nearly four decades, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
ABC News’ Ibtissem Guenfoud contributed to this report.
(PARIS) — Three people were killed and three others wounded, one critically, in a shooting in Paris on Friday, according to the city’s prosecutor, Laure Beccuau.
The motive for the shooting was not immediately clear, but a 69-year-old suspect was taken into custody, according to the prosecutor. The suspect was also wounded.
An investigation has been opened into murder and aggravated violence charges.
Beccuau confirmed the attacker was already known to the police, and had recently been released from prison.
The shooting took place at a Kurdish cultural center and the nearby businesses, according to 10th arrondissement Mayor Alexandra Cordebard, where the attack took place.
The prosecutor said a potential racist motive for the attack will be part of the investigation.
“I extend my deepest condolences and solidarity to the relatives of the victims and to the hard-hit Kurdish community,” Cordebard said, in French, on Twitter.
The same suspect was under investigation for an attack at a migrant camp in Bercy — in the 12th arrondissement — where he allegedly slashed tents with a sword in December 2021, according to Beccuau.
(NEW YORK) — The Taliban returned to power over Afghanistan issuing public promises to preserve its people’s basic freedoms. But just as swiftly as the group grasped control, it reneged on those guarantees — completely blocking female students’ access to education through a series of crackdowns culminating on Wednesday in a ban forbidding them from attending elementary school, setting the country’s women back decades.
The decision to prohibit Afghan girls from receiving even a basic level of education outside of the home comes just a day after the Taliban announced that women would no longer be allowed to attend public or private universities.
These latest limitations have sparked the condemnation of Western governments and human rights groups across the globe. Even countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE — which are frequently criticized over their unequal treatment of men and women — have urged the Taliban to reverse course.
On Thursday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that widespread criticism was important and that the U.S. was working with various partners to hold Afghanistan’s de facto rulers accountable, although he declined to preview any action.
“What you’ve already heard is a course of condemnation from around the world, and not only from us, but from countries — virtually every continent, including Muslim countries, which I think is in and of itself important and powerful,” Blinken told reporters. “And to be clear, and we are engaged with other countries on this right now. There are going to be costs if this is not reversed.”
But so far, Afghanistan’s leaders seem undeterred by any attempts to either persuade or pressure the government to keep its initial promises, and is reportedly already taking brutal steps to enforce its newly installed policies.
Almost immediately after the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops in August 2021, the Taliban imposed new limitations on female university students and shuttered lower level schools, saying it would reopen them to girls and women last March after the country’s security situation improved and measures could be implemented to fully segregate both sexes. When that deadline arrived, girls above the 6th grade where still not allowed to return.
At the time, the U.S. retaliated by canceling talks with the Taliban focused on economic issues, but those meetings resumed in late June.
On Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price called the crackdown “possibly even fatal” to any hopes the Taliban might have for improving their standing with the West. He also maintained that the group — which has not been recognized by any country as the lawful rulers of Afghanistan — is eagerly seeking legitimacy on the international stage and hopes to better relations with the U.S., saying the Taliban have made those desires “clear to us in private.”
“The level of our support and the nature of our relationship is wholly contingent on the actions that they take towards their own people and the actions that they take with regard to our primary interests,” Price said.
However, since its exit from the country, the Biden administration has given Afghanistan over $1.1 billion in humanitarian assistance and moved to unfreeze another $3.5 billion in Afghan central bank reserves. While the State Department says it has placed safeguards to prevent that money from falling into the hands of the Taliban, monitors from the United Nations report that members of the group are increasingly seeking to sway aid money and that accountability is difficult to achieve.
Price also argued the administration has “many tools in its toolbox” to punish the Taliban for its restrictions, but the group itself and many of its prominent members are already under strict sanctions. Imposing other economic punishments to the country runs the risk of worsening an already dire humanitarian crisis ravaging Afghanistan.
If women are not allowed to access education, both the State Department and human rights groups say Afghanistan’s economy is certain to suffer further blows.
“There are no two ways about it: women and girls must be allowed to work, access education and to move freely,” Vice President of International Programmes for the International Rescue Committee Elinor Raikes, said in a statement. “Many educated Afghans have already left the country over the last eighteen months. Afghanistan is in urgent need of a future generation of doctors, teachers, civil servants and much more.”
(NEW YORK) — Since the relaxation of its “zero COVID” restrictions earlier this month in the wake of unprecedented nationwide protests, China is facing its largest outbreak of the pandemic.
At the same time, mass testing has been dropped as Chinese authorities changed their criteria in counting cases and COVID-19 deaths, rendering elusive a clear picture of the state of coronavirus in China.
No longer including asymptomatic cases in their count, cases have been dropping officially in China, with only 2,966 symptomatic infections Wednesday. Cases peaked at some 40,000 daily cases earlier this month, but less than 10 official COVID deaths were reported since the beginning of December.
The congested streets, however, around the busy funeral homes in Beijing don’t seem to match the official toll.
Ambulances, hearses and vans lined the streets outside two of the main crematoriums in Beijing.
Workers at Beijing’s Dongjiao Funeral Parlor in the capital’s eastern suburbs told ABC News that their crematorium is operating around the clock.
The funeral home had run out of freezers to store the bodies, another worker surnamed Li told ABC News’ partners at TVBS News.
“New remains would be cremated right away,” Li said. “And if there are too many they have to be put on the floor to wait.”
Chinese health authorities in recent days clarified that they will now follow a strict criteria in classifying a case as a COVID-19 related death.
“Deaths caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure caused by the novel coronavirus are classified as deaths caused by COVID-19 infection,” Wang Guiqiang, director of the Infectious Diseases Department of Peking University First Hospital, told the media in a government press conference earlier this week. “Deaths caused by other diseases and basic diseases … are not classified as deaths caused by COVID-19.”
Despite the low official count, authorities have conceded that various sub-variants of Omicron are spreading rapidly across China. Shanghai-based medical expert Zhang Wenhong told an online forum over the weekend that the reproductive number around China stands at 16-18, meaning one positive patient can infect up to 18 others.
The streets around Beijing’s Chaoyang Hospital were quiet in below-freezing temperatures Thursday but inside ABC News observed packed halls in the emergency clinic with some patients on makeshift beds in the corridors. The fever clinic at the China-Japan Friendship Hospital in northeastern Beijing has been running 24 hours and ABC News saw the ward at near capacity, the majority of the patients being seniors.
Similar scenes are playing out across the country.
In the western metropolis of Chongqing, a nurse in the pediatric department of one of the city’s three main hospitals told ABC News that her department is at capacity, full of children with high fevers. The nurse, who declined to allow her name to used because she is not authorized to speak, said that parents are taking their children directly to the hospital because they have no fever medicine at home. Like many, they were caught off guard by China’s sudden shift in COVID policies to prepare.
Another doctor in Chongqing, also declining to use his name because of similar sensitivities, told ABC News that the fever clinic and respiratory medicine department at this hospital are inundated with many senior citizens having a “difficult time” and having to wait several hours just to get a numbered ticket to see a doctor. He added that many of the seniors “ have other illness” in addition to COVID.
China’s official vaccination rate is above 90% but the rate for boosted adults is only around 58%. Ahead of the relaxation of zero-COVID, China’s most vulnerable elderly population was already highly under-vaccinated. Over a third of over 80-year-olds were not fully vaccinated and 60% were not boosted.
Beijing has only allowed its population to use its homegrown vaccines which uses traditional vaccine technology and are less effective than the western-made mRNA vaccines like Pfizer’s and Moderna’s in preventing serious illness due to COVID. With Beijing’s mass-vaccination drive being almost two years ago, immunity protective from those vaccines are also waning.
The World Health Organization said Wednesday it was “very concerned” about severe coronavirus cases across China and warned the country’s lagging vaccination rate could result in large numbers of vulnerable people getting infected.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called for China to be transparent about the severity of COVID-19 across the country, in particular hospital and intensive care unit admissions, “in order to make a comprehensive risk assessment of the situation on the ground.”
A number of studies done in recent weeks point to an unavoidable toll caused by China’s ‘exit wave’ from zero-COVID. A study released by Hong Kong University last week warned that China would suffer nearly a million deaths if more isn’t done to slow the rapid release of COVID restrictions, the South China Morning Post reported.
Wu Zunyou, the chief epidemiologist for China’s CDC, said they are anticipating three waves over the few months. The current wave — hitting the major cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Guangzhou — will peak just before the Lunar New Year around early-to-mid January. These are the cities with the best healthcare and number of ICU beds. The next wave will be seeded by the Lunar New Year travel rush, when hundreds of thousands travel back to their hometowns, deeper into the less prosperous regions of the country. A third wave is expected when people head back to work in late February and early March.
China’s official state media has been focusing on re-opening the economy and stories of the recovered. Buried in the headlines have been an uptick of obituaries of prominent elderly Chinese citizens.
In just the last three days, there were obituaries for the artist who designed the mascots from the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, a former politician who served as the deputy director of China’s National Sport Commission in the years leading up to the 2008 Games, a prominent economist, the former head of China Film Archives and a legendary film makeup artist who designed the look of the iconic Monkey King television series that many Chinese grew up with.
None of the obituaries mentioned their cause of death. At most, some mentioned that they were seeking medical treatment.
However, the personal toll for some cannot be obscured.
On Wednesday evening, television actor Wang Jinsong posted a lament on his Weibo saying “This is the time of day I video chat with my mother. My mother has been taken away by the pandemic. That video call will no longer be connected through.”
(NEW YORK) — Brittney Griner late Wednesday posted an open letter thanking fans for their support and urging them to write to Paul Whelan, an American detained in Russia.
“Your letters were also bigger than uplifting me,” Griner said in a handwritten letter, which she posted to Instagram. “They showed me the power of collective hands.”
Griner said that words of hope from fans had kept her spirits up, helping “me not to lost hope at a time where I was full of regret and vulnerable in ways I could have never imagined.”
“Thank you, from the bottom of my heart,” she said. “Because of you I never lost hope.”
The WNBA star had been detained in Russia for about 10 months on charges related to illegal drugs. The U.S. swapped the WNBA star for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout on Dec. 8.
Griner on Wednesday thanked all the families who “supported the We are BG Campaign to bring me home,” adding that now “it’s our turn to support” other Americans wrongly detained in Russia.
Whelan, a former marine, has been held in Russia since 2018, when he was detained in Moscow by Russia’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service.
“I hope you’ll join me in writing to Paul Whelan and continuing to advocate for other Americans to be rescued and returned to their families,” Griner wrote.
She included a mailing address for Whelen, care of the Department of State in Washington.
Griner finished her letter: “Thank you again from the bottom of my heart. I hope your holiday season is full of joy and love.”
