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Highlights

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday, more Americans blame President Trump than congressional Democrats for the partial U.S. government shutdown, as the closure stretched into its sixth day with no end in sight.

The Trump administration has decided it cannot authorize new flood insurance policies, potentially putting thousands of home sales in limbo. They cited the partial shutdown of the federal government due to a budget impasse in Congress. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which oversees a federal program that insures about 5 million homes and businesses, posted a notice on its website that the program will not be able to “issue new contracts for flood insurance during a lapse in authority unless Congress passes legislation.”

U.S. border

On the long journey from Central America to U.S. soil, many migrants have taken solace in their religion. Several 'caravans' of mostly Honduran migrants who made the trek this year faced arduous conditions, braving fierce heat by day and searching for a safe place to sleep at night. Many regard their faith as their compass.

Between heavy sobs, Catarina Alonzo explained that when her husband left Guatemala to try to reach the United States, they hoped taking their 8-year-old son would make it easier for the pair to get in. Instead, the boy fell ill and died. Detained on the U.S. border, Felipe Gomez Alonzo died late on Christmas Eve in a New Mexico hospital a few weeks after setting off with his father, becoming the second Guatemalan child to die this month while in U.S. custody.

World

The personal information of nearly 1,000 North Koreans who defected to South Korea has been leaked after unknown hackers got access to a resettlement agency’s database, the South Korean Unification Ministry said. “The malware was planted through emails sent by an internal address,” a ministry official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

As moves toward peace pick up in Afghanistan, the Taliban are trying to show they have changed since the brutal days of the 1990s when they banned music and girls’ education and carried out public executions in Kabul’s football stadium.

A Spanish charity rescue ship docked in Algeciras port in southern Spain, bringing ashore more than 300 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean Sea one week ago. Several European countries, including Malta and Italy, had refused entry to the Proactiva Open Arms vessel although a mother and her newborn baby were taken by helicopter to Malta.

From Breakingviews: China and the United States’ global Cold War has an increasingly important theatre: Africa. On different metrics Uncle Sam and the Middle Kingdom can claim to be the continent’s biggest player. In 2019, China will pull ahead, writes Ed Cropley, former Reuters Africa bureau chief and Breakingviews Africa columnist.

.@Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo have been imprisoned in Myanmar for 382 days. Follow updates on the case: https://reut.rs/2Qc7QFT

6:40 AM - 28 Dec 2018