World News – Page 2

December 8, 2025

Conjoined twin dies after separation surgery

Papua New Guinea conjoined twins. Audrey Taula / Life Flight and NEST retrieval team

Rare conjoined twins from Papua New Guinea had a seven-hour operation in Australia to surgically separate them on Sunday, but only one of the boys survived.

Tom and Sawong were rushed into emergency surgery at Sydney Children’s Hospital after Tom began to rapidly deteriorate.

The two-month-olds were medivacced from Port Moresby to Sydney on Thursday following medical advice that they undergo surgery as soon as possible.

A spokesperson for the family, Jurgen Ruh, said Sawong was in a stable condition and the parents were grieving the loss of his brother Tom.

“One body with two souls went into the operating theatre, and after seven hours of procedures we had two bodies and two souls,” Ruh said.

“Sadly we lost Tom but are happy to report that we still have two souls and Sawong has survived the operation.”

Ruh previously told RNZ Pacific the boys’ parents had been through a “rollercoaster” of emotions since the twins were born in a remote village in Morobe province on 9 October.

“They have accepted that they will lose Tom (the weaker twin) and there’s been many tears shed along the way,” he said previously.

The twins were fused at the lower abdomen but have their own limbs and genitals, however they share a single liver, bladder and parts of their gastrointestinal tract.

They also had spina bifida – a neural tube defect that affects the development of a newborn’s spine and spinal cord.

Tom had a congenital heart defect, only one kidney and malformed lungs.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

December 8, 2025

Firefighter killed by falling tree during bushfire prevention work in New South Wales

Source: Radio New Zealand

The Bulahdelah fire has burnt through 3,400 hectares of the Myall Lakes National Park. ABC News: Ross McLoughlin

A firefighter from the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has died after being crushed by a tree during bushfire prevention work north of Newcastle.

The Bulahdelah fire, which has destroyed four homes and is burning on both sides of the Pacific Highway between Crawford River and Nerong, has scorched more than 3,400 hectares of the Myall Lakes National Park.

Emergency service crews were called to a property on Little Nugra Road at Nerong, about 90 kilometres north of Newcastle, at about 10:45pm on Sunday after reports a man had been struck by a tree.

NSW Ambulance paramedics treated him, but he died at the scene.

NSW Premier Chris Minns confirmed the man who died was a NPWS firefighter.

Authorities have established a crime scene and WorkSafe has been notified.

– ABC

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

December 8, 2025

Ukraine peace talks in Miami end with lingering questions over security guarantees and territory

Source: Radio New Zealand

By Max Saltman, Jennifer Hansler and Billy Stockwell, CNN

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky attends a joint press conference with Turkey’s President following their meeting at the Presidential Complex in Ankara on November 19, 2025 AFP

Talks between US and Ukrainian negotiators over a proposed peace deal with Russia ended in Miami this weekend, with few new developments and lingering questions over security guarantees and territorial issues, according to Ukrainian officials.

As the talks concluded, the Kremlin welcomed US President Donald Trump’s new security strategy, saying it dropped the language of past US administrations describing Russia as a threat.

The marathon Miami meeting began on Thursday between US special envoy Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Ukrainian officials Rustem Umerov and Andriy Hnatov.

After three days of talks, “difficult issues remain,” Ukrainian Ambassador to the US Olga Stefanishyna said Saturday, “but both sides continue working to shape realistic and acceptable solutions.”

“The main challenges at this stage concern questions of territory and guarantees, and we are actively seeking optimal formats for addressing them,” Stefanishyna said. “More details will be provided once all information is compiled.”

Territory and security guarantees are long-standing sticking points for any possible deal. Ukraine maintains that a just end to the war would include reliable security guarantees and would not force it to surrender more territory to Russia.

As the meetings kicked off earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters in India that his country intends to seize Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region by any means.

In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin, accompanied by Kremlin economic envoy Kirill Dmitriev and Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov, meets with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner at the Kremlin in Moscow on December 2, 2025. (Photo by Alexander KAZAKOV / POOL / AFP)

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, accompanied by economic envoy Kirill Dmitriev and aide Yuri Ushakov, meets with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner at the Kremlin on December 2, 2025 AFP

The Miami talks had been preceded by a visit to Moscow by Kushner and Witkoff. Trump said Wednesday the US delegation had a “very good meeting” with Putin, and that they believed the Russian president “would like to see the war ended” – though the talks failed to yield a breakthrough.

In a social media post on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he had a “long” and “constructive” phone conversation with Witkoff and Kushner, as well as his Ukrainian delegation in Miami.

“We covered many aspects and went through key points that could ensure an end to the bloodshed and eliminate the threat of a new Russian full-scale invasion,” Zelensky said. “We agreed on the next steps and formats for talks with the United States.”

Also discussed on the call was “the risk of Russia failing to honour its promises, as has happened repeatedly in the past,” he said.

Zelensky said that Hnatov and Umerov are expected to deliver him a “detailed in person report” on the negotiations.

“Not everything can be discussed over the phone,” Zelensky said. “So we need to work closely with our teams on ideas and proposals.”

Peace and its conditions will also be the subject of a meeting on Monday between Zelensky and French, British and German leaders in London.

The discussion will cover “the situation and the ongoing negotiations within the framework of the American mediation,” French President Emmanuel Macron said Saturday.

Kremlin welcomes removal of ‘threat’ label

Separately, the Kremlin has welcomed the new US national security strategy, released on Friday, which sets out the Trump administration’s realignment of US foreign policy and takes an an unprecedentedly confrontational posture toward Europe.

Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Trump administration’s document has dropped language describing Russia as a threat, state-owned news agency TASS reported.

“We considered this a positive step,” Peskov told the news agency.

“Overall, these messages are certainly in contrast with approaches of previous administrations.”

The strategy document says European nations regard Russia as “an existential threat,” but paints the US as having a significant role in diplomacy to re-establish “conditions of stability within Europe and strategic stability with Russia.”

A 2022 Biden-era national security strategy said Russia posed “an immediate threat to the free and open international system, recklessly flouting the basic laws of the international order today, as its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine has shown.”

The Trump administration’s new document also reiterates its push for “ending the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance.”

-CNN

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

December 8, 2025

For better brain health, it’s never too late to get active

Source: Radio New Zealand

Scientists have hailed the benefits of exercising early in life to lower the risk of your brain degenerating later. But new research suggests that even when you’re 45 or older, it’s not too late to try.

Having the highest levels of physical activity in midlife (45 to 64) and late life (65 to 88) was associated with a 41 percent and 45 percent lower risk of dementia, respectively, according to a study published in the journal JAMA Network Open on 19 November.

“This study shifts the conversation from ‘exercise is good for the brain’ to ‘there may be key windows when exercise matters most for brain health,'” says Dr Sanjula Singh, an instructor in neurology at Harvard Medical School.

A grey haired man is helped on an exercise machine. — Strength training a couple of times per week is recommended by the World Health Organisation.

Getty Images / Unsplash +

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With an estimated 57 million people worldwide having dementia and nearly triple that number expected by 2050, the authors “wanted to investigate whether the impact of physical activity on dementia risk differed or stayed consistent across the adult life course,” says Phillip Hwang, lead study author and assistant professor in the department of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health.

A downside of this study is that it can’t suggest how much exercise to do due to the measurement the researchers used, Hwang says.

It was “a composite measure based on the number of hours a person spends sleeping, in sedentary behaviour, and doing light, moderate and heavy activities in a day,” he added. “However, finding ways to be more active and moving around is important.”

Hwang’s findings are also affirmed by other studies that suggest more specific guidance.

A 2022 study found that people who walked just 3,800 steps per day lowered their risk of dementia by 25 percent, and, generally, the more steps participants walked, the greater the benefits were. Using a bike instead of a car, bus or train for transportation has been linked with a 19 percent lower risk of dementia and a 22 percent reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

“Given what is already known about the benefits of physical activity on other conditions — such as the heart, mood, stress, etc., which are also related to the brain and cognition — there are lots of other reasons as well to be more active,” Hwang says.

Adults need at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise per week, according to the World Health Organisation.

Such exercise could be, for example, 150 minutes of brisk walking, 75 minutes of vigorous running or cycling, and strength training a couple of times per week, Singh says.

She is part of the team that developed the Brain Care Score, a 21-point assessment of how a person fares on physical, lifestyle, social and emotional factors that they can change to protect their brain health.

If you’re new to exercise, begin with slower or shorter workouts, then gradually increase intensity, said Dr Raphael Wald, a neuropsychologist with Marcus Neuroscience Institute at Baptist Health South Florida.

“Starting too aggressively can lead to orthopaedic injuries, which may then limit your ability to exercise at all,” Wald adds.

Build consistent habits that can help ensure you stay active daily, Wald said, such as walking for 20 minutes before work or taking a short movement break during lunch.

Tracking activity and dementia risk

The new study’s findings are based on 1,526 participants in early adult life — ages 26 to 44 — nearly 2,000 middle-aged adults, and nearly 900 (mostly white) older adults who were part of the long-term Framingham Heart Study.

Physical activity levels in early adult life weren’t associated with dementia risk in either direction, the authors found.

They also discovered that even for older adults who had the strongest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease — the APOE ε4 gene — high physical activity was still linked with a 66 percent lower risk of dementia.

The study has important limitations, according to the experts.

“People who are more active may also engage in other healthy behaviours, have better baseline health, or differ in ways the researchers couldn’t fully measure,” Singh says.

The team acknowledged that it didn’t have details on middle- and older-age adults’ physical activity levels in their early adult lives or how habits changed over time, which could also influence risk for dementia.

Participants may also misjudge their levels, so studies with tracker wearables would be a more objective way to measure exercise, Singh said.

Midlife and late life, possibly being extra critical for brain health, may be explained by a few factors, according to the experts.

“Exercise plays a major role in maintaining vascular health,” Wald says.

“The most common vascular risk factors — high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, thyroid disease and high cholesterol — tend to emerge in midlife and later adulthood. It makes sense that exercise during these periods would have the greatest impact on reducing dementia risk.”

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand