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UK astronaut Tim Peake calls wrong number from space –
British astronaut Tim Peake tweeted an apology on Christmas Day from the International Space Station after calling a wrong number. He wrote “I’d like to apologize to the lady I just called by mistake saying ‘Hello, is this planet Earth?’ — not a prank call — just a wrong number!” The 43-year-old former army helicopter pilot did not say who he was calling.
Timothy Peake

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The Talk

THE TALK (2015) from Joe Otting on Vimeo.

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Armed conflicts and attacks

• Syrian Civil War
  • Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War
    • Amnesty International reports at least 200 civilians have been killed in Russian air strikes in Syria, indicating “serious failures by Russia to respect international humanitarian law”. Moscow denies causing civilian deaths. (BBC)
• Boko Haram insurgency
  • An overnight raid by suspected Boko Haram militants on Niger‘s southern border town of Abadam, kills two Nigerien Army soldiers and three civilians. And, separately, a suicide-bomb attack on Lake Chad killed three of the attackers but no one else. A military convoy was also ambushed by militants in northern Cameroon, although there were no reported deaths. (Reuters)
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict (2015)
  • Two Palestinian attackers stab passers-by at the Old City’s Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem, Israel, killing two and injuring one; the attackers are shot and killed by two Israeli Border Police officers. (CNN) (The Jerusalem Post)
• 2015 PKK rebellion
  • Clashes continue between PKK militants and Turkish Army troops in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakır in southeastern Turkey. At least one Turkish soldier is killed and several are wounded in a bomb attack. (Reuters)
• Hacktivist collective Anonymous declares a cyber-war on Turkey, and claims responsibility for the major week-long cyber-attack between 14 and 21 December on Turkey, which it accuses of supporting the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and threatened additional attacks in case the alleged support continues. “We will continue attacking your internet, your root DNS, your banks and take your government sites down,” it said. “After the root DNS, we will start to hit your airports, military assets and private state connections. We will destroy your critical banking infrastructure,” the group added. (Hurriyet Daily News) (Independent)
• Terrorism in Australia
  • Australian police in Sydney arrest two men who, police say, were planning attacks on locations such as naval bases and police headquarters. New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner Catherine Burn said Wednesday’s activity brings the number of people arrested in connection with last year’s Operation Appleby to 13. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) (Reuters)

Arts and culture

• The governments of Somalia, Tajikistan and Brunei ban celebrations of Christmas, with punishments ranging up to a five-year jail term. Each country has a majority-Muslim population. (The Guardian)

Disasters and accidents

• Tornadoes of 2015
  • At least six people die and dozens injured as major storms, packed with tornadoes, move through the American South and Midwest. Three people died when a tornado hit northern Mississippi, one was killed in Arkansas and two more in Tennessee. Officials continue searching into the night for the missing. (CNN) (AP via The Washington Post) (Weather.com) (Reuters)

Health

• South Korean MERS outbreak
  • South Korea announces an end to the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak that has killed 36 people since May 2015. The virus infected 186 people, with nearly 17,000 people confined to their homes and thousands of schools temporarily closing at the peak of the largest MERS outbreak outside Saudi Arabia, where it first appeared in 2012. (AFP via FRANCE 24)

• Brazilian health officials announce 2,400 babies (up from 147 in 2014) have been born this year with microcephaly, a neurological disorder that can result in incomplete brain development which can be caused by the mosquito-borne Zika virus, and advise would-be parents, especially in the country’s northeast where most of the cases occurred, to avoid pregnancy. (CNN) (The Washington Post) (Medical Daily)

International relations

• Yemeni Crisis
  • The United Nations Security Council expressed “deep concern” at the number of violations of Yemen’s ceasefire. U.N. envoys warned that a fledgling peace process was hanging by a thread, and that Yemen faces permanent fragmentation if the conflict is not ended soon. (Reuters) (Time) (Saudi Gazette) (UN)

Law and crime

• The public interest non-profit Cause for Action files a Freedom of Information Act request for United States Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter’s personal emails following his disclosure of using that account for official government emails, this in the wake of the former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton email controversy and the Office of Personnel Management data breach. The U.S. Federal Records Act restricts use of personal email for official business. (Federal Times)
• A Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia report reveals that an agent with the Presidential Protective Service of the United States Secret Service had his weapon, shield, and other professional equipage stolen from his vehicle in broad daylight in downtown Washington, D.C. (CNN)
• Russia issues an international arrest warrant for former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky on charges of organizing the murder of Vladimir Petukhov, mayor of Nefteyugansk in 1998. (The Guardian)

Politics and elections

• Spanish general election, 2015
  • Pedro Sánchez, leader of Spain‘s Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) rejects a pact with the ruling People’s Party (PP). “We say ‘no’ to Rajoy and his policies,” Sánchez told a news conference after meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. (Reuters)
• Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili unexpectedly announces his resignation, without giving any specific reason for his decision. (Civil Georgia)
• Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović selects Israel-based Teva Pharmaceuticals executive Tihomir Orešković to be the new prime minister following the inconclusive November 8 election. The “technocrat” is the choice of conservatives and reformists, who have 78 parliamentary seats, enough for confirmation.

Science and technology

• The United States National Center for Health Statistics reports the rate of twin births has hit an historic high. Researchers say the increase in twin births may be affected by changes in reproductive technology, including in vitro fertilization, and by more women giving birth later in life–a time when the occurrence of twins is higher. (Science World Report) (Daily Mail)

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