Portal:Current events/2015 December 1

Current events of December 1, 2015 (2015-12-01) (Tuesday)

Armed conflict and attacks Azerbaijan law enforcement agencies launch a special operation against Islamists in Nardaran, a suburb in the capital Baku. (Tass) Syrian Civil War spillover in Lebanon The Lebanese Army and the al-Nusra Front conduct a prisoner exchange with Saja Dulaimi, former wife of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, being one of the prisoners released. The exchange was brokered by Qatar. (Al-Jazeera), (Reuters) Iraqi Civil War, Military intervention against ISIL, American-led intervention in Iraq The Iraqi government, via state TV, requests all civilians leave the ISIL-held city of Ramadi in Anbar province, after several days of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes against ISIL. Observers speculate this request precedes major ground operations to retake Ramadi, which fell to ISIL in May. (Deutsche Welle) U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said, in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, the Obama Administration is preparing to establish a new Special Operations task force of about 200 service members in Iraq to intensify pressure on Islamic State commanders and expand U.S. troops’ direct involvement in battling the militant group. There are now about 3,500 U.S. troops in Iraq, including some Special Operations forces who are advising Iraqi forces in northern and central Iraq. (The Washington Post), (The Hill) Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen A major push by Yemen-based Houthi forces into the kingdom's southern Najran Region kills dozens of Houthi fighters. The Houthi-run Saba News Agency says that Houthi fighters have seized three Saudi military outposts near the city of Najran, destroying several armored vehicles, including two U.S.-made M1 Abrams tanks and three Bradley vehicles. (Reuters) Allied Democratic Forces insurgency U. N. attack helicopters launch strikes against positions of Allied Democratic Forces. This comes a day after a series of clashes between rebels and soldiers in a town in eastern Congo killed at least 30 people. (AFP via Yahoo), (Reuters), (Press TV) A pipe bomb explodes on a Bayrampaşa overpass near the city's central metro station in suburban Istanbul, Turkey leaving five people injured. (The Guardian), (The Atlantic), (BBC) Arts and culture So called "White Student Unions" begin springing up at several Australian universities, including the University of Queensland, University of Southern Queensland, University of Technology Sydney, Macquarie University, Western Sydney University, University of New South Wales and the University of Western Australia. The groups say they are defending the interests of white students who they say are becoming marginalized from on-campus life and politics. (News Corp Australia) Business and economics Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg announces the plan to donate 99 percent of the company stock he and his wife Priscilla Chan own over their lifetimes, shares today worth about $45 billion, to "advance human potential and promote equality for all children." (The Washington Post) Disasters and accident Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 Indonesia releases a report into the crash of AirAsia Flight 8501 by the National Transportation Safety Committee. The report finds that crew error was responsible for the crash that claimed 162 lives. (Channel News Asia), (Sky News) Health and medicine The World Health Organization urges Ukraine's health ministry to declare a state of emergency due to a polio outbreak, a move meant to prompt more action from the government in Kiev. Half of Ukraine's children have not been vaccinated against polio, according to Dorit Nitzan, head of the WHO's office in Ukraine. (AP via US News & World Report) One of three people who contracted Legionnaires' disease in Hannibal, Missouri, dies, according to health officials. Hannibal is about 20 miles from Quincy, Illinois, where a Legionnaires' outbreak occurred earlier this year, contributing to 12 deaths and sickening dozens more. (AP via ABC News), (ABC 7 via WLS AM) An American E. coli scare results in the recall of hundreds of thousands of products in a dozen states and covering major supermarket chains including Walmart, Safeway and Albertsons. (CNN) The United States Centers for Disease Control announces the number of people newly diagnosed with diabetes declined in 2014 for the fifth consecutive year. Experts do not know whether efforts to prevent diabetes are finally started to work, or if the disease has simply peaked in the population. (NPR), (The New York Times) International relations European migrant crisis The U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement notifies all 50 states that if they deny services to any group of refugees, states may risk losing resettlement funding altogether. More than half of the nation’s governors have said they will not accept Syrian refugees in their states. (The Washington Post) Law and crime Death of Jennifer Laude A Philippine Olongapo City Regional Trial Court convicts U.S. Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton of homicide over the death of a transgender Filipina woman. (Rappler), (Buzzfeed), (BBC) Chicago, Illinois Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked for and received the resignation of that city’s police superintendant Garry McCarthy. Emanuel spoke of the loss of the public’s confidence in the city police and announced a task force on police accountability. The change comes in the wake of protests over the release of police footage showing the October 2014 shooting of Laquan McDonald. (CNN) The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request from Texas and other states for a 30-day extension to file legal briefs in support of the lawsuit to block the immigration plan. Instead, the justices accepted the Justice Department’s request for a shortened eight-day extension, meaning that if the court decides to take the case, a decision would probably come by late June. The court is not expected to decide until January whether to take the case. (The Washington Post) Science and technology A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on gender identity reports brains do not really fit into "male" or "female" categories. Tel Aviv University's Daphna Joel's research team, in analyzing the MRI scans of some 1,400 individuals, found only a very small number of the brains studied had features that were entirely male, female, or intermediate between the two. The vast majority had a mosaic. (The Washington Post), (The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), (Daphna Joel)