Top News Stories –

Paris attacks –
Paris has suffered a night of deadly attacks, described by President Francois Hollande as “unprecedented”. Shootings, bomb blasts and a hostage siege have left at least 127 people dead and some 180 wounded. At least 80 are in critical condition. Six places were targeted, almost simultaneously. France has declared a state of emergency, imposed border controls and deployed 1,500 extra troops. [BBC]
Chronology –

• 21:20 – First explosion near Stade de France
• 21:25 – Shooting at Le Carillon bar and Le Petit Cambodge restaurant, rue Bichat
• 21:29 – More shooting in same area, avenue de la Republique
• 21:30 – Second explosion near Stade de France
• 21:38 – Shooting at La Belle Equipe bar, rue de Charonne
• 21:43 – Explosion at boulevard Voltaire, near Bataclan concert hall
• 21:49 – Shooting at Bataclan, then explosions
• 21:53 – Third explosion at Stade de France
• 22:00 – Shooting at boulevard Beaumarchais, near Bataclan

In January the offices of Charlie Hebdo were attacked by gunmen in Paris and in August train passengers overcame a gunmen on a train in France.
Bataclan Theatre, Paris

Jihadi John ‘dead’: MI5 on alert amid fears of Isil revenge attack –
MI5 is on high alert amid fears that Isil fanatics are already plotting revenge attacks for the reported killing of Jihadi John in a drone strike in Raqqa, Syria. The communications of known sympathisers are being monitored closely as surveillance is stepped up to prevent a terrorist outrage in revenge for the operation which is now widely acknowledged to have resulted in the death of Mohammed Emwazi– who as Jihadi John – earned global notoriety. [Daily Telegraph] See Top Twitter Trends

Athletics doping: Russia provisionally suspended by IAAF –
Russia’s athletics federation has been provisionally suspended from international competition – including the Olympic Games – for its alleged involvement in widespread doping. The IAAF took action after the publication of an independent World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) report that alleged “state-sponsored doping”. Its council members voted 22-1 in favour of Russia being banned. “This is a wake-up call for all of us,” said IAAF president Lord Coe. [BBC] Lord Coe became IAAF president in August 2015.
Lord Coe

Video of the Day –

Otto the skateboarding bulldog – Guinness World Records

Top Twitter Trends –

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
  • The United States conducts airstrikes targeting Kuwaiti–British militant Jihadi John. Later, the U.S. says it is “reasonably certain” a drone strike in Syria killed Jihadi John, né Mohammed Emwazi. (BBC) (Reuters)
• Iraqi Civil War (2014–present)
  • November 2015 Sinjar offensive
    • Kurdish Peshmerga forces backed by U.S. airstrikes seize control of Sinjar in northern Iraq. Sinjar has been under Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant occupation since August 2014. (Reuters)
  • Multiple bombings in Baghdad targeting Iraqi Shiites kills at least 26 people. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claims responsibility. (AP via Yahoo)
• November 2015 Paris attacks
  • French police report multiple blasts and gunfire in Paris with at least 26 dead in a restaurant in the 10th arrondissement and an explosion near the Stade de France. (Daily Beast) (AP) (Washington Post)
  • Police report the hostage siege is over at the Eagles of Death Metal concert at the Bataclan theatre in the 11th arrondissement. Approximately 100 people are dead in the Bataclan. (The Daily Beast) (Deadline)
  • The President of France François Hollande declares a state of emergency across France. (The Guardian)
• 2015 Beirut bombings
  • A day of mourning is held in Lebanon following two suicide attacks in the capital Beirut which killed at least 43 people. (Al Jazeera)
• During an arrest attempt in Cairo, Egyptian security forces kill Aly Ashraf Hassanein al Gharabli, an ISIL-linked militant who masterminded the murder of Apache Corporation worker William Henderson in Egypt last year. (Fuel Fix)
• At least 22 people are killed this week in a string of raids on villages in the Central African Republic. The escalation of violence threatens to derail a visit by Pope Francis and crucial elections scheduled for December 27, 2015. (Reuters)

Arts and culture

• The Anne Frank Fonds in Basel, Switzerland, announces that Otto Frank, father of Anne Frank, is editor and legally the co-author of “The Diary of Anne Frank.” (New York Times)
• South Korean news agency Yonhap reports China’s mobile phone users are discarding 80 million devices annually, but almost none are being recycled. China’s recycling rate stands at 9-10 percent of the global recycling average. (UPI)

Disasters and accidents

• The bodies of eight babies are found wrapped in towels and inside plastic bags in an apartment in the town of Wallenfels in Germany’s state of Bavaria. Authorities are looking for the apartment’s most recent occupant, Andrea G, a 45-year-old woman.(CNN) (Irish Times) (Reuters)
• At least 18 people are injured, four critically, after a San Francisco (U.S.) double-decker tour bus loses control and crashes in traffic striking several vehicles and knocking over nearby construction scaffolding. (San Francisco Examiner) (Reuters)
• At least four people are dead and 33 injured in a landslide in China‘s Zhejiang province. (CRI)

International Relations

• Israeli–Palestinian conflict
  • The first major survey in five years of the attitudes of British Jews toward Israel shows deep support of Israel as the Jewish state but heavy criticism of its politics and on the issue of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict: 75% see the expansion of settlements as a major obstacle to peace; 73% believe Israel’s approach to peace is damaging its standing in the world; 70% back Israel’s demand that the Palestinians recognize it as a Jewish state; and, 59 percent, down from 72% in 2010, describe themselves asZionist. (The Guardian) (Haaretz)
• U.S. diplomats, amid growing international concern the violence could spiral into an ethnic conflict, push for peace talks in Burundi. The European Union advises non-essential staff to evacuate the Central African nation amid rising violence and an uptick in political rhetoric. The head of the opposition UPRONA group urges the United Nations to send peacekeepers quickly. Yesterday, the UN Security Council called on the Burundi Government to protect human rights and cooperate with regional African mediators to immediately convene “an inclusive and genuine inter-Burundian dialogue” to find a peaceful resolution of the crisis. (Al Jazeera) (Reuters) (UN)
• European migrant crisis
  • German Chancellor Angela Merkel asserts she still isn’t prepared to name an upper limit to the number of refugees who can come to Germany, despite mounting domestic political pressure. (AP)
  • Oxfam’s Belgrade Center for Human Rights reports migrants coming through Bulgaria have faced beatings, threats and other abuses by police, though the country’s own refugee agency said it had received no such complaints. (Reuters)
• Syrian Civil War peace process
  • U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry meets in Vienna, Austria, with the foreign ministers of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, as well as the U.N. special envoy for Syria, ahead of Saturday’s next round of international summits on the Syrian Civil War. The talks, aimed toward a cease-fire in Syria’s devastating war and a political transition to a post-war government, will include senior officials from 19 nations/groups and, as in October, Iran will participate. (AP)
• Metrojet Flight 9268
  • As a temporary security measure, effective Saturday, Russia bans incoming flights by Egypt’s state-owned airline, EgyptAir, two weeks after an apparent terrorist bomb downed a Russian jet in the Sinai. (Reuters)

Law and crime

• Police in the Dominican Republic raid a mansion owned by 30-year-old Francisco Flores de Freites, one of the two nephews of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro facing charges for allegedly trying to traffic 800 kg of cocaine into the U.S., and found more than 280 pounds of cocaine and 22 pounds of heroin hidden inside the nephew’s posh Casa de Campo property and a 135-foot yacht named “The Kingdom” docked behind it. (Fox News)

Politics and elections

• Myanmar general election, 2015
  • Aung San Suu Kyi‘s National League for Democracy (NLD) wins an absolute majority with 348 seats taken in the country’s parliament, 19 seats more than the required 329, marking Myanmar’s first democratically-elected government since the 1962 Burmese coup d’état. (The Economist) (The Guardian)
• Colombia plans to legalize medical marijuana in a further shift in drug policy after suspending aerial fumigation of illicit crops. A decree approving the therapeutic use of marijuana will be signed in the coming days. Growing, distributing and selling cannabis will remain illegal. (Reuters) (teleSUR)

Science and technology

• WT1190F, an artificial satellite orbiting the Earth since before June 2009, impacts the Earth south of Sri Lanka. (CBC)

Sport

• The International Association of Athletics Federations votes overwhelmingly to ban Russian athletes and the All-Russia Athletic Federation from international competitions following overwhelming evidence of widespread state sponsored doping in a World Anti-Doping Agency report. (Reuters via Sydney Morning Herald)
• Yelena Isinbayeva, a former Russian Olympic pole-vaulting champion calls on the IAAF not to punish honest athletes in response to doping allegations against Russia. (Reuters)

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