Portal:Current events/2011 December 13
December 13, 2011 (Tuesday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- A gunman opens fire and throws explosives into a crowd in an attack in the Belgian city of Liège. (Le Soir) (BBC)
- At least 5,000 people are now estimated to have been killed in Syria's uprising, amid continuing violence. (Daily Nation Kenya)
- Three Thai soldiers are killed by a land mine near the border with Cambodia. (UPI)
Arts and culture
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 becomes the fastest selling entertainment product of all time passing $1bn in sales in 16 days. (The Guardian)
Disasters
- A school bus crashes in Jiangsu, China, killing 15 children. (The New York Times) (Xinhua)
- The Bridge to Russky Island, a giant cable-stayed bridge currently under construction south of Vladivostok, Russia, catches fire due to safety violations during welding. (Russia Today)
Law and crime
- Pakistan police rescues 50 boys from a dungeon in Karachi, Pakistan. Police reports say that the dungeon was equipped with shackles and hooks. The prisoners say they were beaten and threatened and that, if they had tried to escape, they would have been forced to join Jihad militants. (The Telegraph)
Politics
- Political tension continues in Papua New Guinea with former Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare expected to be sworn in again following a ruling by the Supreme Court and incumbent PM Peter O'Neill refusing to stand aside. (BBC)
- Iran has turned down the United States request to return a RQ-170 that was captured recently by Iranian forces after it crash landed in the country. Iranian officials report that they are extracting data from the aircraft. Iranian officials stated the drone was brought down by a cyber attack. (Voice of America)
- The United States House of Representatives passes a bill extending a payroll tax extension containing another bill expediting the Keystone XL pipeline between Canada and Texas. (Reuters)
Science
- According to researchers, in two separate experiments carried out at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, indications of the Higgs boson may have been detected. (CBC) (BBC)