Portal:Current events/2014 December 19

Current events of December 19, 2014 (2014-12-19) (Friday)

Armed conflicts and attacks War in North-West Pakistan The Pakistan Armed Forces conduct operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, killing seventy-seven militants. (AP via Houston Chronicle) Sony Pictures Entertainment hack Paramount Pictures orders theater chains, including those in Cleveland, Atlanta, and New Orleans, not to re-release the 2004 film Team America: World Police, which depicts a fictional mission to kill Kim Jong-il. (Mercury News)(The Times-Picayune) Staples reports that 1.16 million customer payment cards may have been affected in a data breach under investigation since October. (Fortune) Disasters and accidents A Vietnam official states that twelve Vietnamese workers have been rescued three days after being trapped in a collapsed tunnel at a construction site of a hydropower plant located in Central Highlands. (AP via Salon)(Reuters) The Indonesian volcano Gamalama erupts injuring four people and leaving one person missing. (AP via Business Standard) Health The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) links prepackaged caramel apples to the listeria outbreak in ten US states that caused twenty-eight illnesses and four (or five) deaths. (USA Today) The CDC reports that for the US flu season cases are early and pervasive being widespread in 29 states, especially the South and Midwest. (AP) International relations International sanctions during the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine US President Barack Obama imposes additional sanctions on Russian-controlled Crimea by an executive order forbidding exports of US goods and services to the region. (Channel NewsAsia) Law and crime Cairns child killings Queensland police announce the finding that eight children were stabbed to death in a home in Cairns, Australia. (The Guardian) Sun Hung Kai Properties Trial: A Hong Kong jury convicts former Hong Kong Chief Secretary Rafael Hui of bribery charges in relation to misconduct in office. (RTHK English) A Hong Kong jury acquits Sun Hung Kai Properties Hong Kong tycoon Raymond Kwok of all charges, while convicting his brother Thomas of conspiracy to commit office misconduct. (Reuters) (RTHK English) LGBT rights in China In China, a court rules in favor of a gay man who sued a Chongqing electroconvulsive therapy clinic that practises conversion therapy. (The Daily Beast) Politics and elections A South Korean court orders the dissolution of the Unified Progressive Party citing pro-North Korean stances. (AP via Miami Herald) Governor of Vermont Peter Shumlin abandons plans for the first single-payer health care system in the United States, citing transparency problems and heavy tax increases. (Washington Post) Science and technology Scientists withdraw the January 29, 2014 claim that there is a simple way to convert normal cells into stem cells, which can be used for any part of the body. Nature had in July retracted its two previous articles after the disgraced lead researcher, Japanese Haruko Obokata, was found to have plagiarized and fabricated parts of the papers. (Reuters via FOX News)