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Appointments :
- In a historic first for the Anglican Church in the U.K. and Ireland, and a victory for the campaign for gender equality in the church, a woman was consecrated as a bishop at a service at the Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin.Rev Pat (Patricia) Storey, 53, was the rector of St Augustine's in Londonderry.She was elected in September by the Church of Ireland as the new bishop of Meath and Kildare.
Resignations/Retirements
Obituaries
- Paul Walker the star of the “Fast & Furious” movie series has died in a car crash north of Los Angeles
Awards
Sports
International
- China, which successfully launched its first ever mission to land an unmanned spacecraft on the Moon, has expressed interest in space cooperation with India which has sent its first interplanetary mission to Mars.The probe Chang’e-3 was launched into orbit on Monday night aboard an enhanced 56.4 meter high Long March-3B carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre.
- China announced the creation of an Air Defence identification Zone (ADIZ) over the Senkakau/Diayou islands in East China Sea. The Chinese notification said all planes passing through the ADIZ should give prior information to the Chinese authorities of their flight.More.
- Thailand’s embattled Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Monday rejected as unconstitutional the demand for her resignation by the opposition .
- India is once again among a small list of nations that qualifies for an exception from unilateral sanctions imposed by Washington on nations importing oil from Iran, U.S.In a formal notification regarding sanctions outlined in Section 1245 of the U.S.’ 2012 National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA), Mr. Kerry said that the exception granted to India, along with China, South Korea, Malaysia, South Africa, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Taiwan.
- British Prime Minister David Cameron met Chinese leaders on Monday as he called for the European Union to negotiate a free trade agreement with the world’s second-largest economy (CHINA)
- The International Criminal Court has rejected a bid by lawyers for Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta trial on charges that he orchestrated deadly violence after his country’s 2007 elections.
- The Chinese central bank said that bitcoins did not qualify as a currency. But it said private individuals still are allowed to trade them at their own risk. And barred from handling this virtual currency.
- US President Barack Obama is ordering the federal government to nearly triple to 20 percent its use of renewable sources for electricity by 2020
National
- President on a visit to Arunachal Pradesh.The President welcomed the current plans to unveil the first rail link to Itanagar in the next few months. On the energy front, hydropower development in the state could make Arunachal one of the richest states in the country, the President said. He noted that hydel projects of nearly 46,000 MW have already been allotted for development by central public sector undertakings and independent power producers.
Polity
Economics
Env & Ecology
- US President Barack Obama is ordering the federal government to nearly triple to 20 percent its use of renewable sources for electricity by 2020
- The assessment of the status of tigers, co predators and prey in Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu will begin from December 16.
- Spread over a vast expanse of over 1,400km, Sathyamangalam Wildlife Sanctuary, a significant wildlife corridor of Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve between Eastern and Western Ghats, has transformed into fourth Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu,in addition to the Anamalai, Mudumalai, and Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserves.
- Maharashtra will soon have its fifth tiger reserve in Nagzira following approval from the National Tiger Conservation Authority.There are already four tiger reserves in Melghat, Tadoba, Pench and Sahyadri located in western Maharashtra
Science & Tech
- The Strategic Forces Command (SFC) of the Army successfully test-fired the surface-to-surface Prithvi-II missile from the Integrated Test Range near Balasore, Odisha. The missile, which can travel 250 km-350 km, can carry a nuclear warhead weighing 350 kg. The SFC of the Services is in charge of the delivery systems, equipped with nuclear warheads.
- Nokia seems all set to launch its phablets, the Lumia 1520 and 1320
- Google India's mega online shopping festival, 'Great Online Shopping Festival' (GOSF), will be held between December 11 to 13. Intended to boost the adoption of online shopping in India, GOSF brings all the leading e-commerce players in India on a common platform.
- After facebook and google ,users can now access to feeds on Twitter with no data connection through the use of Singapore mobile solutions : u2opia is a USSD-based solution, which works on any mobile phone without an Internet connection. Mobile users who do not have 2G, 3G, GPRS, etc on their handsets will have to dial a standard code through which they be able to access Twitter feed
- Oxford scientists have developed a novel new malaria vaccine which can protect against the deadly mosquito-borne disease. It's the first time that a vaccine has been shown to have a protective effect through a sufficiently high immune response involving cells called CD8 T cells. CD8 T cells are important because they are the primary killer cells in the immune system. They can attack nearly all types of infected cells in this case liver cells infected with the malaria parasite. there are two arms to the body's immune system for fighting infection: antibodies and T cells. And this vaccine aims to stimulate an immune response involving T cells.
- The U.S. has approved a breakthrough therapy for treatment of chronic hepatitis C that is expected to offer a more palatable cure to millions of people infected with the liver-destroying viral disease. Sovaldi (sofosbuvir) is the first drug that has demonstrated safety and efficacy to treat certain types of HCV infection without the need for co-administration of interferon.Hepatitis C is a viral disease that causes inflammation of the liver that can lead to diminished liver function or liver failure.
