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A magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck southern Iran early Friday near the Islamic Republic’s only nuclear power plant. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
“No damage has been reported to us so far based on the checks by the Red Crescent Society, village councilors and officials in the area,” Jahangir Dehqan, the head of the provincial emergency department, told the semi-official news agency ISNA.
The quake hit Iran’s Bushehr province at 5:23 a.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It put the magnitude at 5.1 and the depth of the earthquake at 38 kilometers (24 miles).
Iranian state media did not immediately report on the quake. However, the Bushehr nuclear power plant was designed to withstand much stronger earthquakes.
A magnitude 5 earthquake can cause considerable damage. The quake was relatively shallow, only 38 km (23 miles) deep, which would have amplified the shaking.
Iran sits on major fault lines and is prone to near-daily earthquakes. In 2003, a 6.6-magnitude quake flattened the historic city of Bam, killing 26,000 people. Bam is near the Bushehr nuclear plant, which wasn’t damaged at that time.
This is a breaking story; check back for more details.
Billboard charting quartet, “Sons of Serendip,” won the hearts of fans and judges alike as finalists on the NBC program, “America’s Got Talent” with their interpretations of pop music, arranged with a unique blend of vocals, harp, piano and cello. The group has released three successful albums, “Sons of Serendip, Christmas: Beyond the Lights and Life and Love.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Thursday lawmakers will vote in early January on a measure seeking authorization to send troops to Libya in support of the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli.
Erdogan said parliament would take up the measure on January 8 or 9 after returning from a recess. His party holds a majority, so approval is likely despite the main opposition party voicing its objections to military involvement in Libya.
Erdogan said the move follows a request for help by Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj. The two leaders signed a security agreement last month in Istanbul.
Sarraj’s Government of National Accord is defending against an offensive led by Gen. Khalifa Hifter, the de facto leader of eastern Libya, who wants to seize control of Tripoli.
The GNA and its rival government in eastern Libya are backed by various militias and foreign governments. The country has been mired in instability since the 2011 ousting and killing of longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi.
The United Nations says the war in Afghanistan has caused more than 100,000 civilian casualties in the past ten years, urging all warring sides to take “genuine and concrete” steps toward ending the 18-year-old hostilities.
The announcement comes as Taliban insurgents in a pre-dawn attack Thursday in the northern Balkh province reportedly killed at least 10 Afghan soldiers.
Tadamichi Yamamoto, the head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) lamented in a statement the war continues to take an appalling toll on civilians.
“I recognize with extreme sadness that civilian casualties recently surpassed 100,000 in the past 10 years alone, from the time the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) began systematic documentation of civilian casualties in 2009 to the present,” said Yamamoto.
He urged all stakeholders to seek ways to reduce levels of violence to prevent civilian casualties, saying it will also help create an environment to further efforts aimed at starting intra-Afghan negotiations to find a political settlement to the war.
“The United Nations maintains that intra-Afghan talks which include women and youth are essential for an Afghan-owned peace process and are fundamental to all ongoing peace efforts,” Yamamoto stressed.
The Afghan Defense Ministry said Thursday’s insurgent raid in Balkh targeted a military base and confirmed the death of only six soldiers, saying three others were wounded in it.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid in a statement noted the attack began with a suicide car bombing before a group of insurgents stormed and captured the base in a district also named Balkh. He claimed the fighting left 12 Afghan soldiers dead and eight others wounded, though insurgents often issue inflated claims.
On Monday, Taliban insurgents also assaulted an army base in another district of Balkh, killing at least 15 Afghan soldiers and wounding several others.
Insurgents have lately intensified battlefield attacks in northern Afghan provinces where violence usually subsides during this time of the year because of extremely harsh weather conditions.
On Monday, the Taliban detonated a roadside bomb near a joint U.S. and Afghan military convoy in the volatile northern Kunduz province, killing an American soldier and his Afghan partner.
The latest U.S. fatality brought the number of American service members killed in Afghanistan this year to at least 19.
The Taliban controls or contests about half of Afghanistan and continues to plot attacks on local and U.S.-led foreign troops in the country. Insurgent attacks have killed some 50,000 Afghan security forces since late 2014, according to Afghan officials.
Peace talks
The United States is trying to negotiate an agreement with the Taliban to end the war, America’s longest overseas military intervention. U.S. negotiators are pressing Taliban interlocutors to reduce violence and enter into intra-Afghan negotiations to find a permanent end to decades of hostilities.
But the Taliban wants Washington to sign an agreement on the withdrawal of all U.S. and coalition troops from Afghanistan before the insurgent group commits itself to a nationwide cease-fire and participate in intra-Afghan negotiations.
But the dialogue has suffered setbacks in recent weeks due to the Taliban’s refusal to reduce violence.
The negotiation process had resumed earlier this month after a suspension of three months before the United States paused it again citing a major Taliban attack on the largest American military base in Afghanistan.
A U.S.-led military coalition invaded the country in 2001 to outset the Taliban regime at the time for sheltering the al-Qaida terrorist network blamed for the terrorist attacks on the United States in September of that year.
The war has since reportedly killed more than 150,000 people, including local security forces, civilians, insurgents and foreign troops. Some 2,300 U.S. soldiers also among those killed.
The conflict has cost the Untied States around a trillion dollars. More than 12,000 American troops and around 8,000 forces from NATO allies are still stationed in Afghanistan, conducting counterterrorism operations in addition to advising and assisting Afghan forces in battles against the Taliban.
The latest military clashes between Pakistan and India along the disputed Kashmir border are said to have inflicted several casualties on both sides.
The Pakistani army accused Indian forces of starting the skirmishes several days ago and confirmed the killing of two of its soldiers in Dewa Sector on the Line of Control (LoC), which divides Kashmir between the two nuclear-armed rival nations.
Military spokesman Major-General Asif Ghafoor claimed that Pakistani troops retaliated and killed three Indian soldiers.
The Indian military, however, has confirmed the death of one of its officers and a civilian in what it alleged was “unprovoked” fire by Pakistan across the Kashmir frontier, Indian media reported.
Letter to UN
Earlier this month, Pakistan wrote a letter to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to share Islamabad’s concerns over New Delhi’s alleged massive military mobilization, deployment of medium-range missiles in Kashmir and partially removing the border fence.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi in his letter warned New Delhi was apparently preparing to stage a cross-border attack on his country. While there has been no reaction from India to the Pakistani assertions, the Indian military chief last week said the situation along the Kashmir LoC “can escalate any time.”
India and Pakistan regularly accuse each other of violating a 2003 cease-fire in the disputed Himalayan region, though officials on both sides admit the mutual truce has been rendered ineffective in recent years.
Bilateral tensions have dangerously escalated since early August when the Indian government unilaterally canceled the semiautonomous status of its portion of Kashmir and divided it into two federally administered union territories.
Pakistan has rejected the move and downgraded diplomatic ties with India, saying Kashmir is an internationally recognized disputed territory under U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Kashmir wars
India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir and came close to a fourth war in February when a suicide bombing in Kashmir, allegedly planned by a Pakistani militant group, killed 40 Indian soldiers.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi again alleged Thursday that India’s escalatory actions in Kashmir are meant to divert international attention from “extreme measures” imposed by New Delhi to suppress reaction and dissent in the only Muslim majority Indian region.
Indian authorities have placed Kashmir under a communication blackout, effectively cutting millions of Kashmiris off from the rest of the world for months, though some of those restrictions have been eased in recent weeks.
An Iranian military fighter jet crashed on Wednesday near a dormant volcano in the northwest of the country and its pilot was missing, official media reported.
State news agency IRNA said the jet went down at 9:00 a.m. (0530 GMT) near Mount Sabalan, in the Lesser Caucasus range, and was a MiG-29 on a test flight after being overhauled.
Amateur video footage published on the social media accounts of various media outlets in Iran appeared to show smoke rising above snow-capped peaks.
Fars news agency said the plane had been found but there was no trace of its pilot and that he could have ejected from the aircraft.
A search and rescue operation was underway for the pilot, who the army identified as Colonel Mohammadreza Rahmani, one of its most experienced fliers.
“Following the crash of a military plane in Ardabil [province], helicopter and rescue groups have been sent to the region,” Iran’s Red Crescent said in a statement on its website.
The official website of the army said search and rescue efforts had been hampered by bad weather, with snow making areas impassable.
Iran’s third highest peak, Mount Sabalan, features a crater that turns into a lake at certain times of the year.
For many international students studying in the United States, returning to their home country for the winter holidays is not an option.
Students cite the cost of flights, and worries about renewing visas as the main reasons for not traveling. And some who live very far say it wouldn’t be worth the trip to go back just for a week or two.
“Right now I’m with my aunt in Georgia — Atlanta — this is my first time with her for the holidays,” said Calvina Hoff, a student at Livingstone College in North Carolina.
Calvina has spent three Christmas seasons in the United States with different family members from Liberia — aunts and uncles with whom she hadn’t celebrated back home.
Other students like Miriam Komuhendo, originally from Uganda but a first-year grad student at American University, have family visiting them from overseas.
“My sister came over to visit so we’re probably going to cook together have something to eat, maybe find the tree to decorate and put presents under it,” Miriam said.
“So we’re just going to see how it goes.”
But many international students don’t have family in the United States and will not have family from overseas coming to visit them.
Especially in a city like Washington, international students have found a large diaspora community that helps them feel at home.
“I’m staying with a family — they’re also from Brazil, but they’ve been living here for a really long time,” said Rebeca Oliveira Esteves, a student at American University originally from Brazil.
“They have a tradition of hosting a Christmas celebration with people who do not have their family here. Everyone can bring something to eat or to drink,” she noted.
“We kind of like built this family together … we all see ourselves as one family,” Nigerian student Augustine Achu explained, describing the community in Massachusetts where he’ll celebrate his holidays.
“They’re from the same tribe as me. We all come from the same state. That’s what I meant by relatives, not like they’re like family members, but here in the U.S. we kind of built this family together,” said Achu.
All of the students say the holidays are a time of nostalgia, when it’s comforting to be around people from the same cultural backgrounds as them. And although these students have found at least a slice of home in the United States, they all say they miss the celebrations back home, and their mothers’ cooking.
Christmas festivities turned tense in Hong Kong late Wednesday when police fired tear gas and used pepper spray on anti-government protesters and made arrests amid a second day of hostile confrontations.
The latest clash came as the semi-autonomous city’s Beijing-appointed leader, Carrie Lam, condemned what she called “reckless and selfish rioters” for ruining the celebrations. The Hong Kong CEO said the government would “make sure those who break the law suffer the consequences.”
Plain clothed police officers arrest protesters in a mall during Christmas Eve in Hong Kong, Dec. 24, 2019.
The clashes occurred as activists held flash mob protests in malls and shopping districts across Hong Kong on Christmas Day. Police also stopped and searched many young people dressed in black — the signature dress code of activists who have been involved in the anti-government movement since it started in June.
In Mongkok, a bustling downtown shopping district, riot police armed with shields exchanged insults with protesters, shoppers and passersby before firing multiple rounds of tear gas at them and making arrests. Officers were heard calling protesters “trash.” It was not clear if police were provoked.
Scores of people had gathered on the streets in the area, some waving U.S. and Hong Kong independence flags.
One man was pepper-sprayed after arguing with police. He was wrestled to the ground and arrested on suspicion of assaulting an officer, reported public broadcaster RTHK. Police used pepper spray again later as a crowd of onlookers heckled officers, it said.
An outdoor food stall was engulfed in the noxious gas as staff threw away fish balls, tofu and snacks that had been contaminated.
Debris burns on a street during a rally in Hong Kong, Dec. 25, 2019.
Hundreds of riot police officers and police vehicles remained in the area as of late evening, as protesters continued to shout slogans to condemn the police. Journalists and passersby were stopped and searched.
There were also arrests and tense confrontations between police and protesters in upmarket shopping malls in the out-of-town Shatin and Kowloon Bay districts, after activists marched, some singing the protest’s unofficial anthem, “Glory to Hong Kong.” Many shops closed early.
Police were hostile to journalists, shoving some with shields and shooing them away. A number of journalists became drenched in pepper spray when police shot the irritant at them, reported RTHK.
Large numbers of riot police were standing guard in Tsim Sha Tsui, an area with luxury hotels and shops popular with tourists, stopping and searching mostly young people. On Christmas Eve, police shot multiple rounds of tear gas in the area, engulfing the tourist spot adorned with decorations.
Residents dressed for Christmas festivities react to tear gas as police confront protesters on Christmas Eve in Hong Kong, Dec. 24, 2019.
At an upscale shopping mall, Times Square in Causeway Bay, some protesters dressed as snowmen, reindeer and Santa Claus, amusing passersby.
Large crowds had gathered in shopping malls since Christmas Eve in response to online calls to “go shopping” to voice their discontent with the government and to demand greater democracy.
Wednesday’s scenes of chaos were already less intense than those on Christmas Eve, when tear gas and rubber bullets were fired in several locations and police severely beat activists in confrontations. Protesters blocked roads, vandalized businesses seen as pro-government and threw sporadic fuel bombs.
The anti-government movement in Hong Kong, sparked by a controversial extradition law, shows no signs of abating. Protesters say they will not give up unless the government meets their political demands, which include universal suffrage and an independent investigation into police brutality.
The Christmas unrest broke out after a few weeks of relative calm in a city that has been roiled by the civil unrest that had seen more than 6,000 people arrested, some as young as 12. The brief period of calm came after violent clashes at two universities and after the pro-democracy camp last month won a landslide victory in local district elections, which yielded no direct political power.
Police said 105 people were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly taking part in an illegal assembly. They said the crowd, including teenagers as young as 13, shouted slogans, occupied pedestrian walkways and caused inconvenience to the public.
A protester who gave his surname as Chan said police were overreacting to what were meant to be peaceful Christmas protests and their actions intimidated members of the public and instigated conflicts.
“The presence of so many riot police officers is itself a provocative gesture. Nothing would have happened if they weren’t there, and now they’re putting all the blame on protesters,” he said.
Helicopters on Wednesday dropped water on the outskirts of the Chilean port city of Valparaiso to extinguish a fire that destroyed about 150 homes.
Dozens of people living in the city’s Rocuant and San Roque hills sifted through the ruins of their homes after the fire, fanned by strong winds, swept through their neighborhoods on Tuesday. Residents had been evacuated and there were no reports of casualties.
Some 150 homes were destroyed, according to a preliminary count announced by Interior Minister Gonzalo Blumel said. He said authorities believe arson caused the blaze and urged people to report any suspicious activity.
“We’re not certain, but everything indicates that yesterday’s fire was intentional, and began in an area quite close to the homes,” said Ezio Passadore, emergency manager for Valparaiso.
The fire was doused in urban areas but remains “active” in the woods, said Ricardo Toro, head of Chile’s national emergency office.
Many homes in the low-income neighborhoods where the fire occurred don’t have running water and get their supply from tankers a couple of times a week.
Wildfires have affected parts of Valparaiso several times in the last month as Chile contends with its worst drought on record.
A Russian court on Tuesday extended the pre-trial detention of an American being held on espionage charges.
Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who holds US, British, Canadian and Irish citizenship, has been jailed in Russia since he was arrested at a Moscow hotel on December 28 last year.
The Moscow court extended his detention until March 29, 2020 but did not clarify why it was doing so.
Just before the ruling, Whelan tried to read a statement but was stopped by security guards. Instead, it pressed the two pieces of paper to the wall of his glass cage that contained the statement he wanted to read. It proclaimed his innocence and asked U.S. President Donald Trump and other world leaders to “please act” on his behalf.
An American diplomat visited Whelan in prison Monday and called on Russian authorities to allow the prisoner to speak to his family.
“It’s two days before Christmas,” Bart Gorman, the U.S. Charge d’Affaires, said. “A holiday Paul Whelan will spend alone in Lefortovo [Prison]. In the past 12 months, Paul has not heard his parents’ voices. Bring Paul some Christmas cheer and let him call home.”
The U.S. Embassy in Moscow and the State Department have been increasingly critical of Moscow, demanding it provide evidence against him and accusing Russia of hindering consular access to him.
Depending on which country they’re from, the kids may ask about Father Christmas, Papa Noel, Saint Nick or Santa Claus.
But those who believe all want to know one thing: where in the world the jolly old man and his sleigh full of gifts are on Christmas Eve.
For the 64th time, a wildly popular program run by the U.S. and Canadian militaries is providing real-time updates on Santa’s progress to millions around the globe.
And this year, the North American Aerospace Defense Command is offering even more high-tech ways for children and parents to follow along.
Operation NORAD Tracks Santa has evolved from a misdirected telephone call in 1955, to a trailer parked outside the command’s former lair deep inside Cheyenne Mountain, to NORAD ’s modern-day headquarters at Colorado’s Peterson Air Force Base.
Along the way, the tens of thousands of telephone calls fielded by NORAD volunteers each year have been augmented by an explosion of technology that lets millions track St. Nick’s journey from the North Pole to the Pacific and Asia, from Europe to the Americas.
This year’s portals include Alexa, OnStar, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and 3-D apps developed for mobile devices by Cesium, a Philadelphia-based IT and defense contractor. The apps integrate geospatial and satellite-positioning technology with high-resolution graphics that display the actual positions of the stars, sun and moon and the shadows they cast at any point in Santa’s journey.
It takes a village of dozens of tech firms — including Google, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and Bing Maps — to deliver the immersive effect for global Santa trackers, with some 15 million visits to the website alone last year.
And it takes a village of 1,500 volunteers to field emails and the 140,000 or so telephone calls to 1-877-HI-NORAD (1-877-446-6723). They staff phone banks equipped with monitors inside a building at Peterson, which offers a view of snow-capped Pikes Peak to the west.
More volunteers and firms donate food, water and coffee to those on Santa Watch.
“Hi Santa Trackers! Lots of kids are waiting to ask you about Santa,” a sign reads.
Volunteers are equipped with an Operations Center Playbook that helps ensure each and every caller can go to sleep happy and satisfied on Christmas Eve.
Longtime Santa trackers are familiar with the NORAD-Santa story.
In 1955, Air Force Col. Harry Shoup — the commander on duty one night at NORAD’s predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command — fielded a call from a child who dialed a misprinted telephone number in a newspaper department store ad, thinking she was calling Santa.
A fast-thinking Shoup quickly assured his caller that he was. And a tradition was born.
Today, most early calls come from Japan and Europe. The volume soars in the U.S. and Canada, said program manager Preston Schlachter. United Kingdom callers ask about Father Christmas. Those in France generally seek Papa Noel’s whereabouts.
For team members, once “Big Red” — Santa’s code name — is airborne, Schlachter said, “it’s off to the races.”
“I’ve never had a block of time move so quickly,” he said.
