Top News Stories –

Hamilton is Sports Personality of the year –
Lewis Hamilton, winner of the 2014 Formula One world championship is voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year by the British public. Cyclist Sir Chris Hoy is given a Lifetime Achievement award and Christiano Ronaldo wins the overseas award at the ceremony held in Glasgow, Scotland.
Lewis Hamilton

Petsmart sells for $8.7bn –
The pet supply company PetSmart has signed a deal to sell itself to an investment group led by BC Partners for about $8.7 billion in the largest buyout of a US company in 2014.

Penultimate climate ultimatum –
United Nations members have reached an agreement on how countries should tackle climate change by setting national pledges for a summit due to be held in Paris in 2015. The document was signed after a two week meeting took place in Lima, Peru, hosted by Peru’s environment minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal. Environmental groups criticised the document, saying the proposals were nowhere near drastic enough.

Video of the Day –

Lewis Hamilton v Ken Block

List of the day –

Winners of BBC Sports Personality of the Year

1950s

1954 Sir Chris Chataway

1955 Gordon Pirie

1956 Jim Laker

1957 Dai Rees

1958 Ian Black

1959 John Surtees

1960s

1960 David Broome

1961 Sir Stirling Moss

1962 Anita Lonsbrough

1963 Dorothy Hyman

1964 Mary Rand

1965 Tommy Simpson

1966 Bobby Moore

1967 Sir Henry Cooper

1968 David Hemery

1969 Ann Jones

1970s

1970 Sir Henry Cooper

1971 HRH Princess Anne

1972 Dame Mary Peters

1973 Sir Jackie Stewart

1974 Brendan Foster

1975 David Steele

1976 John Curry

1977 Virginia Wade

1978 Steve Ovett

1979 Lord Sebastian Coe

1980s

1980 Robin Cousins

1981 Sir Ian Botham

1982 Daley Thompson

1983 Steve Cram

1984 Torvill and Dean

1985 Barry McGuigan

1986 Nigel Mansell

1987 Fatima Whitbread

1988 Steve Davis

1989 Sir Nick Faldo

1990s

1990 Paul Gascoigne

1991 Liz McColgan

1992 Nigel Mansell

1993 Linford Christie

1994 Damon Hill

1995 Jonathan Edwards

1996 Damon Hill

1997 Greg Rusedski

1998 Michael Owen

1999 Lennox Lewis

2000s

2000 Sir Steve Redgrave

2001 David Beckham

2002 Paula Radcliffe

2003 Jonny Wilkinson

2004 Dame Kelly Holmes

2005 Andrew Flintoff

2006 Zara Phillips

2007 Joe Calzaghe

2008 Sir Chris Hoy

2009 Ryan Giggs

2010s

2010 AP McCoy

2011 Mark Cavendish

2012 Sir Bradley Wiggins

2013 Andy Murray

2014 Lewis Hamilton

Top Twitter Trends –

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Syrian Civil War:
  • A battle between Bashar al-Assad loyalist forces and Islamist rebels in Aleppo Governorate leave 34 rebels dead and 3 loyalist fighters captured. (EFE via Fox News)

Arts and culture

• Miss World 2014 crowns Rolene Strauss, Miss South Africa, in London. (CNN)
• Archaeologists reconstruct two giant statues of Amenhotep III, toppled by an earthquake at the Nile River in 1200 BC. The team’s restoration project re-erected surviving fragments at the northern gate of the king’s funerary temple. (AFP via Daily Mail)

Business and economy

• European private equity firm BC Partners agrees to buy American pet supplies retail chain PetSmart for $8.7 billion.(New York Times)

Disasters and accidents

• Eleven Egyptian fishermen drown after their boat sinks in the Gulf of Suez. (AP)
• The death toll from a landslide in central Java in Indonesia rises to 24 with scores still missing. (Reuters via NBC News)
• The death toll of a capsized ferry MV Mutambala on December 12 in Lake Tanganyika, Democratic Republic of the Congo rises to 129 with authorities continuing to search for bodies or survivors. (BBC)

Environment

• Angalifu, a male of the critically endangered northern white rhinoceros, dies at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. The remaining rhinoceroses are one female at the Zoo (Nola), three at a zoo in the Czech Republic, and one male at a Kenyan preserve (Sudan). (Huffington Post)

International relations

• The United Nations adopts a format for national pledges to tackle climate change after meetings extend into the weekend at the conference held in Lima, Peru. (BBC)

Law and crime

• Turkish police arrest 24 journalists, all of whom are supporters of Fethullah Gülen who is a rival of current Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and is currently in self-imposed exile in the United States. (Voice of America)

Politics and elections

• Japanese general election, 2014
  • Japanese citizens vote in a general election. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe‘s Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner win 325 seats out of 475 and thus a new term. (BBC)
• Laurent Lamothe resigns as Prime Minister of Haiti along with several ministers following violent protests and a commission’s call for him to step down. The protesters have been demanding the holding of early elections. (TownHall)

Sports

• In the NBA, Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers moves to third on the all-time point scorer list overtaking Michael Jordan. (AFP via SportsFan)

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