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David Beckham dons Argentina shirt to play in Buenos Aires shanty-town –
David Beckham has delighted children in one of the poorest districts of Buenos Aires by pulling on an Argentine shirt and joining them for a kick around. The former England captain, who was famously given a red card during a bruising encounter with Argentina in the 1998 World Cup, was in Argentina to film a documentary about football around the world. Beneath a mural of Pope Francis, an Argentine football fanatic, Beckham darted about on the concrete with the evidently delighted children. Beckham posted a photo on Instagram of himself beaming, with the caption: “Smiles all around. The passion of these kids and people for the game in the country is truly amazing. #Love of the game.” [Daily Telegraph]
David Beckham on Instagram

Indonesia drugs: Crocodiles ‘to guard death row prisons’ –
The head of Indonesia’s anti-drugs agency has proposed building a prison island guarded by crocodiles to house death-row drug convicts. Budi Waseso said crocodiles often made better guards than humans – because they could not be bribed. He said he would visit different parts of the Indonesian archipelago in order to find the fiercest reptiles. Indonesia has some of the toughest drug laws in the world and ended a four-year moratorium on executions in 2013. “We will place as many crocodiles as we can there,” Mr Waseso was quoted as saying by local news website Tempo. “You can’t bribe crocodiles. You can’t convince them to let inmates escape.” The plan is still in the early stages, and neither the location nor the potential opening date of the jail have been decided, the AFP news agency reports. [BBC]

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Armed conflicts and attacks

• Amman shooting attack
  • A Jordanian policeman shoots dead two American instructors and a South African before being killed at a police training centre in Al-Muwaqqar, on the eastern outskirts of Amman. U.S. contractors are sent to the facility to assist Jordanian police trainers.(BBC)
• Boko Haram insurgency
  • The government of Chad declares a state of emergency in the Lake Chad area a day after a double suicide bombing that has killed two people. (AFP via Yahoo News)
• Syrian Civil War, Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War
  • Using social media, Russian investigative bloggers from the Conflict Intelligence Team photo-geolocate three Russian military personnel outside expected air support operations areas — evidence of what the group says may be a broader Russian military role in Syria.(Reuters)

Art and culture

• In the U.S., University of Missouri System president Tim Wolfe announces his resignation after mounting criticism of his handling of racial issues; the Board of Curators votes to accept his resignation. R. Bowen Loftin, chancellor of the flagship Columbia campus, announces he will step down from his post by the end of the year. (ESPN) (USA Today) (ABC News)
• Amedeo Modigliani‘s 1917 painting Nu couché sells at an auction at Christie’s for $170.4 million, the second highest price for a painting on record. (New York Times)

Business and economy

• The German airline Lufthansa suspends 929 flights leaving 113,000 passengers stranded as a result of a cabin crew strike. (AFP via Yahoo! finance)

Disasters and accidents

• 2015 North Indian Ocean cyclone season
  • Cyclone Megh
    • Cyclone Megh had sustained winds of 204 km/h (127 mph), the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane, when it hit the island of Socotra. According to AFP, Megh killed six, injured dozens with three reported missing and 5,000 people forced to leave their homes. (Reuters) (USA Today) (Al Jazeera) (AFP via Yahoo)
    • Megh is expected to cross the Yemen coast Tuesday at 9:00 a.m. Arabia Standard Time (6:00 a.m. UTC). In the Gulf of Aden, the storm has maximum sustained winds of 111 km/h (69 mph), gusting to 130 km/h (81 mph). Its strength will significantly erode once it makes landfall and continue to decay after it moves inland into the dry and rugged terrain of Western Yemen. It is not expected to track back over water. (United States Naval Observatory) (Regional Specialized Meteorological Center)

International relations

• European migrant crisis
  • Slovenia tightens controls over its Schengen border with Croatia due to concerns of an influx of migrants. (AFP via Yahoo News)
• Syrian Civil War
  • Human Rights Watch releases a report finding, because of a language barrier, integration issues, and financial difficulties, more than 400,000 Syrian refugee children in Turkey are not able to attend school despite the Turkish government allowing them access to the Turkish schooling system. (AP)

Law and crime

• Detainees at Australia‘s Christmas Island Immigration Reception and Processing Centre riot, following the death of an asylum seeker. (The Australian)
• Federal district court judge Richard Leon rules the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of U.S. phone records is unconstitutional. This ruling has limited impact since it applies to only one case, and the NSA is scheduled to replace this protocol with a more targeted system the end of this month. (Reuters) (Foreign Policy)
• In the United States, the University of Virginia fraternity that was the subject of a Rolling Stone article about a brutal campus rape, filed a $25 million defamation lawsuit against the magazine and the article’s writer. (NBC News) (The Washington Post)
• The U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans, Louisiana, in a 2-1 decision, upholds a lower court’s injunction that blocks implementation of an Executive order to shield from deportation millions of undocumented immigrants who entered the United States as children. The White House is considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. (Reuters) (The Washington Post)

Politics and elections

• The Catalan Parliament passes a resolution calling for the Catalonian region to secede from Spain. Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy says his government will seek to invalidate the motion with an appeal to the Constitutional Court in the coming days.(AP) (Reuters) (The Himalayan Times)
• Myanmar general election, 2015
  • Myanmar’s ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) concedes defeat in Sunday’s first free nationwide election in a quarter of a century. Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), which has won 49 of the first 54 declared seats for the 330-seat lower house, appears headed for a landslide victory that would ensure it forms the next government. (Reuters) (Tribble Agency)
  • United to End Genocide, an American-based human rights group, in the aftermath of the country’s historic election, warns that ethnic and religious tension in Myanmar could boil over and lead to violence. (The Washington Post)
• The United Kingdom House of Commons passes the Scotland Bill devolving powers to Scotland. (BBC)

Science and technology

• The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere reached a record high in 2014 and the relentless fueling of climate change is endangering the planet for future generations. (Scientific American) (USA Today)

Sport

• A World Anti-Doping Agency investigation into a Russian doping scandal recommends the suspension of Russian athletes from international competition and lifetime bans for five athletes, four coaches and an administrator. Among the athletes are London Olympic medalists Mariya Savinova-Farnosova and Ekaterina Poistogova. (AP via ABC News America)

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