Wednesday November 26, 2025 {HMC} The U.S.-backed 28-point peace plan to end the war in Ukraine, which became public last week, drew from a Russian-authored paper submitted to the Trump administration in October, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

The Russians shared the paper, which outlined Moscow’s conditions for ending the war, with senior U.S. officials in mid-October, following a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Washington, the sources said.
The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here.

The paper, a non-official communication known in diplomatic parlance as a “non-paper,” contained language that the Russian government had previously put forward at the negotiating table, including concessions that Ukraine had rejected such as ceding a significant chunk of its territory in the east.’

This is the first confirmation that the document – whose existence was initially reported by Reuters in October – was a key input in the 28-point peace plan.
The U.S. State Department and the Russian and Ukrainian embassies in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

The White House did not comment directly on the non-paper but cited Trump’s comments that he was optimistic about the 28-point plan’s progress.
Advertisement · Scroll to continue

“In the hopes of finalizing this Peace Plan, I have directed my Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with President Putin in Moscow and, at the same time, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll will be meeting with the Ukrainians,” Trump wrote.
It is unclear why and how the Trump administration had come to rely on the Russian document to help shape its own peace plan. Some senior U.S. officials who reviewed it, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, believed the demands made by Moscow would likely be rejected outright by the Ukrainians, the sources said.
SKEPTICISM OVER RUSSIAN INFLUENCE

After the paper’s submission, Rubio held a call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during which the paper was discussed, the sources said.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva this week, Rubio acknowledged receiving “numerous written non-papers and things of this nature,” without elaborating.
Since the peace plan was first reported by Axios last week, skepticism has mounted among U.S. officials and lawmakers, many of whom see the plan as a list of Russian positions and not a serious proposal.

The United States has put pressure on Ukraine, nonetheless, warning it could curb its military assistance, opens new tab if Ukraine did not sign.

The plan was composed at least in part during a meeting between Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev, the head of one of Russia’s sovereign wealth funds, in Miami last month. Few inside the State Department and White House were briefed on that encounter, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that Witkoff had offered advice to high-ranking Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov regarding how Putin should speak to Trump. According to call transcripts obtained by the news agency, Ushakov and Witkoff alluded to a possible “20-point plan” as early as October 14. The scope of that plan apparently widened during subsequent conversations with Dmitriev, it added.

The U.S. proposal, which caught officials in Washington and Europe off-guard, triggered a flurry of diplomacy across three continents. The original plan has changed dramatically since then: Nine of the original 28 points have been cut following talks between senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials, according to ABC News.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators said on Saturday that Rubio had told them the 28-point plan was not a U.S. plan but instead a Russian wish list, although the White House and State Department vigorously denied that Rubio had characterized it as such.

In the discussions that followed, a senior U.S. delegation that included Rubio agreed to excise or modify some of the most pro-Russian parts of the plan during meetings in Geneva with European and Ukrainian officials.

Driscoll is currently meeting with a Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi. A Ukrainian delegation is also in the UAE for talks with the U.S. team, according to a U.S. official.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian officials said they supported the modified peace deal framework that had emerged from the latest talks, but stressed that the most sensitive issues – territorial concessions are especially contentious – needed to be fixed at a potential meeting between Zelenskiy and Trump.

Source Reuters

Wednesday November 26, 2025 {HMC} Parts of Thailand are battling record floods, which have killed at least 33 people and prompted authorities to deploy military ships and helicopters to support relief efforts.

The deluge has hit ten provinces across the country’s south over the past week, with the city of Hat Yai, a business hub bordering Malaysia, recording its heaviest rainfall in 300 years – 335mm in a single day.

Photos show vehicles and houses submerged in the city, while desperate residents await rescue on their rooftops.

Relentless rains have also ravaged neighbouring countries. In Vietnam, the death toll has risen to 98 in a week, while in Malaysia, more than 19,000 people have been forced from their homes.

More than 2 million people in Thailand have been affected by the floods, but just 13,000 have been moved to shelters.

The vast majority are cut off and unable to get help, according to Reuters news agency.

The Thai military, which has been put in charge of tackling the crisis, said it is preparing to dispatch an aircraft carrier and a flotilla of 14 boats loaded with relief supplies, along with field kitchens that are said to be able to deliver 3,000 meals a day.

Medical teams on board the aircraft carrier will convert it into a “floating hospital” if required, the navy said.

Boats, high-clearance trucks, and jet skis have also been deployed to evacuate residents, said the governor of Songkhla province, where Hat Yai is located.

The cabinet on Tuesday declared Songkhla a disaster zone, freeing up funds for relief.

However, many people remain stranded amid the rising waters.

A volunteer rescue group, the Matchima Rescue Center, told Reuters it had been inundated with thousands of calls in the last three days, with people asking to be evacuated.

People have also posted urgent calls for help on Matchima’s Facebook page. “Many people are trapped… Please help,” one user wrote. “It’s very difficult right now. The water has reached the second floor, where there are children, the elderly, the sick, and the disabled!!!”

Another wrote that his household had been waiting for help for three days: “Every second is crucial now… Please help share. My [phone’s] battery is at 40%. Thank you everyone.”

Some also wrote about not having had any food and water for days.

A clip that has gone viral on social media shows three young boys hanging from power lines, trying to inch their way to safety while brown murky waters continue to rise below them.

In Malaysia, more than 19,000 people have been evacuated to safety, with 126 evacuation centres set up in the northern border areas.

In the states of Kelantan and Perlis, rescue teams waded through knee-deep floodwaters to evacuate residents in areas where rising waters had cut off access to roads.

Source BBC NEWS

Wednesday November 26, 2025 {HMC} U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered a broad review of all refugees who entered under former President Joe Biden, an internal U.S. government memo seen by Reuters said, an unprecedented move that could reopen cases of thousands who sought U.S. protection.

The order would apply to about 233,000 refugees who entered between January 20, 2021 and February 20, 2025, according to the memo signed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joe Edlow. It also orders a halt to all processing of applications for permanent residence for refugees who entered under Biden.

USCIS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump, a Republican, froze refugee admissions into the U.S. from around the world when he took office in January as part of his wide-ranging crackdown on legal and illegal immigration. Trump’s hardline approach is a sharp reversal of the more liberal policies of his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, whose administration welcomed more than 100,000 refugees in fiscal 2024.

The USCIS memo, dated November 21, said the agency will terminate the refugee status of people already in the U.S. if they are found to not meet refugee criteria. The memo claims the Biden administration potentially prioritized expediency, quantity, and admissions over quality interviews and detailed screening and vetting.

“Given these concerns, USCIS has determined that a comprehensive review and a re-interview of all refugees admitted from January 20, 2021, to February 20, 2025, is warranted,” the memo stated. “When appropriate, USCIS will also review and re-interview refugees admitted outside this timeframe.”

Trump in late October set the refugee admissions cap for fiscal 2026 at a record-low 7,500, saying his administration would focus on bringing in white South Africans of Afrikaner ethnicity.

Democrats and refugee advocates have criticized the sharp downsizing of the refugee program, saying the administration has blocked refugees who are vetted, face persecution in their home countries, and who would contribute to the U.S. economically.

Mark Hetfield, president of HIAS, formerly known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, called the new vetting program outlined in the USCIS memo “unnecessary, cruel and wasteful.”

“Refugees have already been more vetted than any other group of immigrants,” Hetfield said.

The USCIS memo cites Trump’s January 20 executive order halting U.S. refugee resettlement, which said admissions must prioritize national security and that the U.S. should “admit only those refugees who can fully and appropriately assimilate into the United States.”

Weeks after pausing refugee admissions, Trump launched the effort to bring in white South Africans. Trump said they faced persecution in majority-Black South Africa, claims South Africa’s government has rejected.

Reporting by Ted Hesson and Kristina Cooke; Editing by Scott Malone and Richard Chang

Source Reuters