On mothers in rural Vietnam.
And what Congress did this week.
Hello! Another week passed in Washington, during which Congress did not pass a supplemental funding bill for Ukraine. If you want to know why, you can skip to my story. It’s also been an eventful week worldwide, with an assassination in Russia, a territorial dispute between Venezuela and Guyana, updates on the wars in Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan, and breakthroughs between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
But first, Kristi Eaton, a longtime journalist and fellow wanderer, wrote something for Lazo Magazine about a project she’s working on to help parents in Vietnam access more information about their children’s health. This isn’t part of our upcoming pluralism series, but I’m happy to have it. Here’s what she wrote:
When Ngoc Nguyen was pregnant with her first child in 2016, a doctor monitored her and the baby. Nevertheless, she worried about whether she was doing the right things for a healthy pregnancy.
“I read books, but a lot of information came in at once, so I felt more confused and stressed,” Ngoc said. “Luckily, with the support of the doctor and my family, I overcame this period.”
Three years later, Ngoc decided to help other parents who may have questions about childbirth, delivery, and raising young children.
Keep Reading Lazo Magazine.
What I’m writing:
• Ukraine funding is stalled in Congress as Republicans demand sweeping asylum and border policy changes in exchange for voting on a national security supplemental funding bill. I dug into the details of what the GOP is asking for and how these policies would affect asylum seekers. This story is unlocked and free to read.
My weekly news blurbs:
What I’m reading:
• Armenia and Azerbaijan say they will move towards normalizing relations and will exchange prisoners who were captured during the recent fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, the BBC reports.
• Almost 1.9 million people — over 80 percent of the population — have been displaced across the Gaza Strip since the war broke out on Oct. 7, according to an update by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
• The situation in Gaza is becoming “apocalyptic” with “no safe place to go,” Martin Griffiths, the top United Nations emergency relief official, warned in a social media post.
• The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim A. A. Khan, said in a video message that investigating Hamas and Israeli forces for possible war crimes is a “priority” for his office and that the investigation is “moving forward at pace.”
• Israel assembled a system of large pumps it could use to flood Hamas’ network of tunnels under the Gaza Strip with seawater, in a tactic that would not only push fighters out from underground but also threaten Gaza’s water supply, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Israel confirmed in a statement that it “approved the recommendation of the War Cabinet to allow a minimal supplement of fuel – necessary to prevent a humanitarian collapse and the outbreak of epidemics – into the southern Gaza Strip.”
• Israel said it had killed about half of Hamas’ mid-level battalion commanders and surrounded the house of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Khan Younis, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• The Palestinian Authority is working with the U.S. on a plan to run Gaza after the war ends, Bloomberg reports.
• The State Department imposed visa bans on Israeli settlers believed to be involved in attacks against Palestinians, demonstrating rising concern in the Biden administration about the escalating attacks by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, Axios reports.
• The corruption trial of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resumed, the Washington Post reports. Netanyahu allegedly used his political power and a “huge” financial arrangement to win favorable news coverage from the Walla news website.
• The U.S. and U.K. governments jointly accused Russian intelligence of orchestrating a campaign over the past eight years that targeted British journalists, lawmakers, civil society organizations, American spies, and energy networks. You can read the indictment here.
• Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko met with China’s leader Xi Jinping in Beijing for the second time this year, signifying attempts to increase economic ties with China amid Western sanctions, Reuters reports.
• Ukraine's allies have dramatically scaled back their pledges of new aid to the country, which have fallen to their lowest level since the start of the war, the German-based Kiel Institute's Ukraine aid tracker showed. CBS has more.
• Officials from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense presented a “list of armaments to meet the needs of the defense forces of Ukraine” during a closed-door session attended by government officials and defense executives in Washington, with the list including drones, Apache and Blackhawk helicopters, F-18 Hornet fighter jets, and air defense systems. Reuters has the story.
• A former Ukraine lawmaker who was charged with treason was assassinated near Moscow in an operation carried out by Ukrainian security service agents, the Financial Times reports.
• An Odesa local who had been allegedly spying for Russia was identified and arrested by the regional Prosecutor's Office in cooperation with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the Kyiv Independent reports.
• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán demanded in a letter to the President of the European Council that a decision on Ukraine gaining EU membership should not be made at the upcoming summit, Reuters reports.
• A Georgian parliamentary delegation visited Hungary to cinch Budapest's support for Georgia's inclusion in the list of candidates for European Union membership, EurasiaNet reports.
• Serbian firebrand President Aleksandar Vučić’s penchant for perpetually calling elections looks liable to come back and bite him, as a united opposition is mounting an unexpectedly stern challenge to his decade-long grip on power in a snap general election on December 17, Politico Europe reports.
• In fiery remarks during a visit to Ljubljana, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock urged Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to drop his vetoes on EU enlargement talks with Ukraine. She also lashed out at Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić for cozying up to Russia, Politico Europe reports.
• Britain signed a new treaty with Rwanda that it said would prevent the recent Supreme Court’s decision blocking its plan to deport asylum seekers to the East African country, Reuters reports. The country’s Supreme Court recently ruled the Rwanda scheme would violate international human rights laws enshrined in domestic statute.
• Thailand and Myanmar will create a task force to boost humanitarian aid to people displaced by fighting, Reuters reports.
• Peru’s top court ordered the immediate humanitarian release of imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori, 85, who was serving a 25-year sentence on charges of human rights abuses, the Associated Press reports.
• Venezuelans voted in a referendum to establish a new Venezuelan state in the highly-contested oil-rich territory of Essequibo, the BBC reports. The region is under dispute, with Venezuela maintaining that a decision made in 1899 by an international arbitral tribunal to award Essequibo to Britain, the colonial power that then ruled Guyana, was unfair.
• A military helicopter carrying seven people, including five senior officers, vanished Wednesday near Guyana’s border with Venezuela, as authorities say there is no indication it may have been hit amid rising tensions. The Associated Press has the story.
• U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a social media post that members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces “have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing in Sudan.”
• The U.S. expanded its visa restriction policy to include Ugandan and Zimbabwean officials believed to be repressing marginalized and vulnerable groups, including the LGBTQ+ community and civil society advocates, Reuters reports.
• The military governments of Mali and Niger will end their decades-long tax agreements with France in the next three months due to “France’s persistent hostile attitude,” Business Insider reports.
You can write to me for any reason: c.maza@protonmail.com