More than 1,000 aftershocks shake
Alaska after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake knocked out power, ripped open roads and splintered buildings in
Anchorage.
(CNN)(Reuters)
Qatar announces that it is withdrawing from
OPEC in January 2019, after almost 60 years of membership, to focus on
natural gas production.
(The Guardian)
The
United States Postal Service announces it will suspend regular mail deliveries, retail services and administrative office activity on December 5 as part of President Trump's declared national day of mourning.
(CNN)
The alleged boss of the
Cosa Nostra mafia clan is arrested along with 45 suspected accomplices in the
province of Palermo,
Italy. They are accused of aggravated extortion.
(Euronews)
Following large protests against French President
Emmanuel Macron's planned increases on
fuel taxes, French Prime Minister
Édouard Philippe announces that these plans will be suspended for at least six months.
(Bloomberg)
In
ice hockey, the
National Hockey League announces that its board of governors unanimously approved a
new franchise for
Seattle. The new team will start play in the 2021–22 season, bringing the league's membership to 32 teams.
(ESPN)
The deputy governor of
Sweden's central bank, the
Riksbank, says that the country is likely to become a
cashless society within the next three to five years.
(Reuters)
Disasters and accidents
Two people died while 18 others are injured when a tank truck caught fire and exploded in the city of
Rieti,
Italy.
(Sky Tg24)
A search and rescue operation is underway for 7 servicemen after an incident involving a
US Marine CorpF/A-18 fighter jet and a
KC-130 refueling aircraft off the coast of
Japan.
(BBC)
A car bomb explodes near a police post in
Chabahar,
Iran. Two police officers are pronounced dead and around 40 people were wounded in the attack. Islamic militant group
Ansar Al-Furqan claims responsibility. Iran accuses the perpetrators of being "foreign-backed terrorists".
(Middle East Eye)
The French police union Vigi calls on police officers to begin an indefinite strike on December 8 and join anti-government protesters, noting that "a majority of the French continue to back the movement".
(Sputnik News)
American attorney
Robert Mueller is set to reveal more details about the Special Counsel investigation as he faces court deadlines in the cases of
two men who worked closely with
Donald Trump.
(Huffington Post)
Jamaican reggae artist
Buju Banton (Mark Anthony Myrie) is released from a U.S. prison and deported back to
Jamaica, after serving 7 years of a 10-year drug charge conviction.
(Tampa Bay Times)
Huawei CFO
Meng Wanzhou attends a bail hearing in
Vancouver while she awaits extradition to the United States. She is charged by Canadian and American prosecutors with conspiracy to defraud multiple financial institutions in order to commit evasion of
United States sanctions against Iran so as to conduct business with
Iran.
(Reuters)
125,000 people demonstrate across
France, according to the
Minister of the Interior, with about 89,000 police officers on duty. 1,385 people are detained. Tear gas and pepper spray are used against the protesters and 135 people are injured.
(Al Jazeera)(CBC)
Thirty-three people are hospitalized in
Pavia,
Lombardy,
Italy, after
pepper spray was fired inside the gym of a school. This is the second pepper spray-related incident in the country in three days. On 8 December, six people died when someone fired the spray inside a nightclub, causing a
stampede.
(Il Messaggero)
Russell Bishop is convicted of
the murder of Karen Hadaway and Nicola Fellows. He had been tried and found not guilty of the crimes in 1987, but the acquittal was quashed as new evidence in the form of DNA was now available. Bishop had been convicted in December 1990 of the abduction, indecent assault and attempted murder of a seven-year-old girl in February of that year.
(The Guardian)
Nissan, the company's former chairman
Carlos Ghosn, and an aide are indicted on charges that Ghosn underreported about ¥5 billion ($44.5 million) of his income. Ghosn's arrest warrant is renewed.
(Kyodo News)
French PresidentEmmanuel Macron addresses the country following the yellow vests protests. While refusing to reinstate a
wealth tax or back down on the current reform agenda, he promises an increase to the
minimum wage and to remove some taxes on low income earners.
(Reuters)
A gunman kills two people and injures 14 others in a mass shooting in
Strasbourg,
France, during the annual
Christmas market. The shooter flees the scene but is identified by police as a known extremist. The incident is being treated as an act of terrorism.
(BBC)(The Daily Telegraph)(The Guardian)
Disasters and accidents
Five
U.S. Marines who were missing after two aircraft collided mid-air off the coast of
Japan on December 6 are declared dead.
(The Japan Times)
The lawyers of
Bill Cosby file a list of nearly a dozen alleged trial errors as they appeal his sexual assault conviction and three-to-10-year prison term.
(CBS News)
Meng Wanzhou, CFO of Huawei who was arrested in Canada for an
extradition request from the United States for alleged US sanction violation against Iran, is granted bail with restrictions by a
Canadian judge.
(CBC)
International Crisis Group confirm one of it's worker Michael Kovrig is detained in People's Republic of China. Kovrig is a former Canadian diplomat and his detainment come after the China warned Canada of severe consequences if Meng was not released.
(reuters)
Two police officers are injured after a man throws a
grenade at them at a shopping centre in
Nazran,
Ingushetia,
Russia. The attacker and his accomplice are later shot dead.
(Xinhuanet)
Michael Cohen, the former lawyer of
U.S. PresidentDonald Trump, is sentenced to three years in prison for making illegal hush money payments to two women with whom Trump allegedly had affairs, and a concurrent sentence of two months for making false statements to
Congress about a possible Trump Tower deal in
Russia.
(South China Morning Post)
Two Israeli soldiers are killed and two others seriously wounded after a shooting at a bus stop in the Jewish settlement of
Giv'at Asaf,
West Bank.
(CNN)
A knife-wielding Palestinian assailant is shot dead in
Jerusalem's Old City, after lightly injuring two police officers by stabbing them.
(Al Jazeera)
Chérif Chekatt, the perpetrator of an attack in
Strasbourg, France, two days ago, which killed two and wounded 14, is found and killed by French police.
(BBC)
A Frenchman originally from
Afghanistan who was wounded and left brain-dead from the attack dies from his injuries.
(Euronews)
A UN-brokered
ceasefire is agreed upon between the two warring factions in
Al Hudaydah,
Yemen. Troops from both sides will withdraw from the port city within three weeks to allow humanitarian aid coming into the country, which has been plagued by war and
famine.
(The Guardian)
Arts and culture
YouTube Rewind 2018 becomes the most disliked YouTube video of all time, with well over 10 million dislikes, achieving the feat in a mere seven days.
(Indystar)
Chinese state media reports a second
Canadian national, Michael Spavor, has been detained on suspicion of endangering state security, while the China foreign ministry say two Canadian nationals are detained in the country. The Spavor investigation follows the detention of former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig on December 10 and Canada's December 1 arrest of
Huawei executive
Meng Wanzhou.
(Reuters)(Reuters)
A tribunal in
Colombia disqualifies the Brazilian multinational corporation
Odebrecht from operating in the country for 10 years amid ongoing investigations against the company for inciting corruption.
(El Tiempo)
Iranian political activist
Vahid Sayadi Nasiri, who was jailed for his messages on social media, dies after spending 60 days on
hunger strike. He was accused of insulting Supreme Leader
Ali Khamenei.
(BBC)
Fake bomb threats are sent to dozens of businesses around Canada and the U.S., demanding
ransoms in
bitcoin. Some of the threats forced evacuations.
(The Independent)
It is reported that a German journalist was kidnapped and imprisoned by the Venezuelan government three weeks ago, with diplomats from both nations denied to see him.
(BBC)
Virgin Galactic's
SpaceShipTwo successfully completes its fourth powered test flight with
VSS Unity and reaches space at an altitude of 82.7 km (51.4 mi) but does not breach the 100 km (62 mi)
Karman Line.
(BBC)
Indian soldiers and counterinsurgency police exchange gunfire with militants in the southern district of
Pulwama, resulting in the deaths of one soldier and three militants. The soldiers then opened fire on a crowd of anti-government protesters who gathered after the battle, killing seven civilians and injuring 40 others.
(The Independent)
Disasters and accidents
20 people died and 14 others are injured when a truck carrying mourners returning from a funeral ritual plunged around 400 metres (1,300 feet) onto a river bank in central
Nepal.
(Times Now)
Two
Scandinavian women on a backpacking holiday were found dead in
Morocco with cuts to their necks. The bodies were found in an isolated area in the
Atlas mountains, near the tourist village of
Imlil, Marrakesh-Safi. 13 men are arrested with links to a Jihadist group.
(The Guardian)
The Pentagon reports it has begun withdrawing U.S. troops from
Syria, with a spokesperson saying that the
coalition has liberated
ISIL-held territory but also that the campaign is not over.
(Reuters)
In a third trial, former
Blackwaterprivate military contractor Nicholas Slatten is convicted on one count of first-degree murder over the 2007 mass shooting.
(NBC News)
Myanmar's
military announces it will resume "clearance operations" in
Rakhine State after a recent spike in attacks by unidentified assailants. In the past week, two
Rakhine fishermen and a teenager were found murdered after they were reported missing, while two
Maramagyi villagers were kidnapped and stabbed but managed to escape their abductors.
(AFP via South China Morning Post)(Radio Free Asia)
Gatwick Airport in
West Sussex,
England, is shut down intermittently since Wednesday night, after drones are seen flying over the airfield. Police believe it is "a deliberate act to disrupt the airport". Hundreds of thousands of passengers are affected.
(The Argus)(CNN)
Ten years after the collapse of
Belgian financial group
Fortis in the
financial crisis of 2007–2008, the prosecutor in
Brussels decides to drop the case against seven former directors. The prosecution argues that it found insufficient evidence that they knowingly misled shareholders with over-optimistic company information.
(Reuters)
Denmark passes a law that requires new citizens to shake hands with a Danish official at their
naturalization ceremony. It is widely believed that the law was made to spite potential Muslim immigrants, who usually refuse to shake hands with people of the opposite gender. Several Danish municipalities are openly looking for loopholes in the law.
(The New York Times)
Protests break out across
Sudan over rising prices of bread and fuel, resulting in at least eight deaths.
(Al-Jazeera)
The CENI electoral commission delays the election to 30 December after 80% of the voting machines in the capital were destroyed in a suspected arson last week.
(NPR)
Ecuadorian drug trafficker and
FARC dissidentWalter Arizala is killed in a joint police and military operation near
Tumaco. Arízala was wanted for the murder of two Ecuadorian journalists earlier in the year.
(BBC)
At least 23 people are killed and 14 injured in
Dang Deukhuri District,
Nepal, when a bus carrying students and their teachers returning from a botanical trip runs off a road and plunges 700 meters into a ravine.
(BBC)
The death toll following the tsunami caused by the
Anak Krakatau volcano has risen to at least 429, according to
Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency. Also, 1,459 people are injured, while 150 are still missing.
(BBC)
The Afghan health ministry says that yesterday's attack by a suicide bomber and three gunmen on a government building in
Kabul killed at least 43 people. No group has claimed responsibility.
(CBS News)(Daily Sabah)
A man stabs a local government official and a police officer to death in the streets of
Longyan,
China, then hijacks a bus and drove it into pedestrians, killing eight people and wounding 22 others. Authorities said the perpetrator "took revenge on society" after a dispute with local officials about his father's veteran benefits.
(CNN)
Thailand approves marijuana for medical use and research. The country voted to amend the Narcotic Act of 1979 prior to the
New Year’s holiday.
(BBC)(CNBC)
After a 53-day trek,
American professional endurance athlete
Colin O'Brady allegedly becomes the first person to cross
Antarctica alone and unaided; his claim of being unaided has been disputed, and the first person to really cross Antarctica alone and unaided was
Børge Ousland in 1996 and 1997.
(BBC)
Street battles between anti-government protesters and riot police in
Sudan leave at least 19 people dead, including two
policemen, as well as hundreds injured.
Amnesty International puts the death toll at 37.
(Al Jazeera)
Argentina lifts a travel ban on Canadian singer
Justin Bieber, who had been previously banned from the country for his role in the beating of a photographer in November 2013. A Document of Resolution was signed last week, officially ending Bieber's ban, so Bieber may now freely return to the country.
(Daily Mail)
The DRC government gives the European Union 48 hours to recall its envoy in the country after the EU imposed sanctions on 14 Congolese officials.
(Vanguard News Nigeria)
An explosion caused by a roadside bomb hits a tourist bus in
Cairo,
Egypt, near the
Giza pyramid complex. Three Vietnamese tourists and an Egyptian tour guide are killed, while 12 others are injured.
(BBC)
The three men suspected of causing an explosion at a shop in
Leicester in February are convicted of
murder. The explosion destroyed the shop and the
flat above it, killing five people. The three men were also convicted of conspiracy with one of the victims to commit
insurance fraud.
(The Guardian)
In response to a roadside bombing that killed three Vietnamese tourists and an Egyptian tour guide the previous day, Egyptian police kill 40 suspected militants.
(The New York Times)
Yemen's
Shiite rebels say they have given control of the port of
Hodeida to the coast guard and local administrators. The Yemeni government disputes this claim.
(AP via Seattle Times)
Voters in
Bangladesh head to the polls to elect 299
representatives to parliament. Seventeen people were killed in deadly clashes between supporters and opponents of the country's ruling party.
(BBC)
Three people are injured after being stabbed in an attack at
Manchester Victoria station. The attacker shouted "Allah" during the attack. The attack is being treated as a terror-related incident, police have confirmed, and due to concerns over his mental health, the suspect is being held under the Mental Health Act.
(BBC)
An explosion caused by a gas leak devastated a block of flats in
Magnitogorsk,
Russia, killing 14 people while 27 others are missing.
(BBC)
International relations
Russia's
FSB state security agency says it has arrested a U.S. citizen "caught spying" in
Moscow. According to former
CIA officials the arrest was done as a retaliation for the arrest of alleged Russian spy
Maria Butina.
(BBC)(Daily Beast)