Top News Stories –

Vicky Pattison wins I’m A Celebrity 2015 –
Vicky Pattison has been crowned queen of the jungle on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! The Geordie Shore star beat Union J’s George Shelley into second place. TOWIE star Ferne McCann finished third. On being crowned jungle queen, she said: “It doesn’t sound right. I think you have made a mistake!” The 28-year-old has been the favourite for most of the series, winning over viewers with her gutsy attitude and funny one-liners. [BBC Newsbeat]
Vicky Pattison

Finland is considering giving every citizen €800 a month –
Authorities in Finland are considering giving every citizen a tax-free payout of €800 (£576) each month. Under proposals being draw up by the Finnish Social Insurance Institution (Kela), this national basic income would replace all other benefit payments, and would be paid to all adults regardless of whether or not they receive any other income. Unemployment in Finland is currently at record levels, and the basic income is intended to encourage more people back to work. At present, many unemployed people would be worse off if they took on low-paid temporary jobs due to loss of welfare payments. [Daily Telegraph]

Fifa: FBI probing Sepp Blatter role in $100m bribery scandal –
The FBI is investigating the role played by Fifa president Sepp Blatter in a $100m (£66.2m) bribes scandal, a BBC investigation has discovered. Sports marketing company ISL paid a total of $100m to officials including former Fifa president Joao Havelange and ex-Fifa executive Ricardo Teixeira. In return, ISL was granted lucrative television and marketing rights throughout the 1990s. Blatter denied knowing about the bribes and took no action. He even allowed Teixeira to take part in the notorious vote for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. [BBC]
Sepp Blatter

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Volvo Trucks – Look Who’s Driving feat. 4-year-old Sophie

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Armed conflicts and attacks

• Yemeni Civil War (2015)
  • Jaafar Mohammed Saad, the governor of Yemen‘s southern Aden Governorate, along with six guards, are killed by a suicide bomber in the port city of Aden. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claims responsibility for the attack. (Reuters), (BBC)
• Syrian Civil War, Military intervention against ISIL
  • A series of air strikes in Syria’s Raqqa province, believed to be carried out by U.S.-led coalition warplanes, leaves at least 32 Islamic State fighters killed and 40 more wounded. The final toll could rise as casualty figures were collected from a single hospital. The jets hit IS headquarters and bases to the north, east, and southeast of provincial capital Raqqa city. (Reuters) (AFP via Dawn)
• Iraqi Civil War (2014–present)
  • Iraq‘s government gives Turkey 48 hours to withdraw its forces from northern Iraq or face “all available options”, including recourse to the UN Security Council. (AFP via Yahoo)

Business and economy

• The Bank for International Settlements, in Basel, cautions that the regulatory push to get all derivatives trading into central clearing systems may be creating a new group of Too Big to Fail financial institutions. This time, however, they will be international.(Reuters)
• Basic income
  • Finland‘s government plans to give all its citizens, rich or poor, a monthly payment of €800, with no strings attached. The Finnish government says it wants to launch a “universal basic income experiment” in 2017 to test the feasibility of this program, which would replace the country’s current benefits system. (The Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo)

Disasters and accidents

• 2015 South Indian floods
  • Chennai International Airport is set to reopen as flood waters recede. The death toll currently stands at at least 280 people. (Indian Broadcast News live), (AAP via Special Broadcasting Service)
• Storm Desmond
  • The strongest windstorm of the season so far continues to bring flooding and high winds to the United Kingdom. (BBC)
  • Flooding and landslides on the West Coast Main Line between Preston and Carlisle result in the suspension of all services between northern England and Scotland via the West Coast. (The Manchester Evening News)
• A collision between a train and a minibus in Jakarta kills 14 people. (Channel News Asia)
• Pollution in China
  • Elementary and middle schools in the Chinese capital Beijing suspend outdoor activities due to heavy smog. (Bloomberg vs The Straits Times)

Health and medicine

• Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter announces that his latest medical tests show he is cancer-free. Carter, 91, announced in August that a melanoma for which he had been treated had returned. (The Atlantic Journal-Constitution), (NPR)

International relations

• Turkey–Ukraine relations
  • Turkish and Ukrainian firms talk out a cooperation deal to help modernize their country’s militaries in the wake of military actions by Russia. (Defense News)
• Germany‘s vice-chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, accuses Saudi Arabia of financing Islamic extremism in the West and warns that it must stop. He tells German media, “We have to make clear to the Saudis that the time of looking away is over, Wahhabi mosques all over the world are financed by Saudi Arabia. Many Islamists who are a threat to public safety come from these communities in Germany”. His comments come days after Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service released a report saying Saudi Arabia was “destabilizing” the Arab world. (The Telegraph)

Law and crime

• Clashes erupt in Athens between left-wing demonstrators and Greek police with at least eighteen people arrested. (Reuters)

Politics and elections

• 2015 San Bernardino shooting
  • President Barack Obama called the San Bernardino shootings “an act of terrorism designed to kill innocent people”. (LA Times)
• Venezuelan parliamentary election, 2015
  • Venezuelan opposition leaders say their Democratic Unity Roundtable has won control of the 167-seat legislature from the ruling Socialists for the first time since 1998. There is no confirmation on Sunday’s election from the national electoral board. An opposition victory would be a major setback for the socialist revolution started 17 years ago by the late Hugo Chávez. (AP) (Reuters) (AP)
• Armenian constitutional referendum, 2015
  • Voters in Armenia go to the polls to vote in a referendum to change from a presidential to a parliamentary form of government. (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)
• French regional elections, 2015
  • Voters in France begin voting in the first round of regional elections just three weeks after the deadly Islamic State militant attacks in Paris. Exit polls show strong gains for the far-right National Front which is leading in six regions and reshape the political landscape after decades of domination by the centre-left and the centre-right coalitions. Midday voter participation is 16.27 percent, marginally higher than five years ago. There are 44.6 million eligible voters. (Reuters), (France 24), (France24)
• Libyan Civil War
  • Rival governments in eastern and western Libya reach the initial phase of an agreement designed to foster elections that would bring about a single ruling entity in the North African country. The deal must be endorsed by the internationally-recognized government in Tobruk and the General National Congress in Tripoli. (UPI)

Science and technology

• Following the previous explosion of Orbital Sciences‘ Cygnus CRS Orb-3 on October 28, 2014, an unmanned Atlas V 401 rocket carrying Orbital ATK‘s Cygnus CRS Orb-4 resupply mission to NASA‘s International Space Station launches from Cape Canaveral in the U.S. state of Florida. The mission includes 7,380 pounds of cargo. (Spaceflight Now)
• Scientists warn a new strain of the Panama Disease fungus, which in the 1950s nearly wiped out the most popular banana in the world, the Gros Michel, is threatening today’s favorite, the Cavendish, according to a new study published in PLOS Pathogens. This untreatable fungal disease, called Tropical Race 4, has been active for decades in Southeast Asia. It recently has spread to other parts of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Australia, and is expected to make its way to Latin America, where the vast majority of the world’s exported bananas are grown. (Tech Times) (The Sydney Morning Herald)

Sports

• MLS Cup 2015
  • The Portland Timbers win the championship game of the 2015 Major League Soccer season, winning 2–1 at Columbus Crew SC. (Daily Mail)

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