Carrie Fisher of Star Wars fame dies after heart attack

Carrie Fisher, who rose to fame as Princess Leia in the "Star Wars" films and later endured drug addiction and stormy romances with show business heavyweights, died on Tuesday, People magazine reported, citing the family's publicist.
“It is with a very deep sadness that Billie Lourd confirms that her beloved mother Carrie Fisher passed away at 8:55 this morning,” the statement from family spokesman Simon Halls read. Fisher was 60 years old.

Russian Military plane crashes into Black Sea near Sochi

Members of famed Alexandrov Ensemble army choir among 92 aboard plane that crashed off Sochi coast, officials say.

 

A Russian military plane with 92 people on board, including a famed army choir, has crashed into the Black Sea shortly after taking off, the Russian defence ministry said.
Local news agencies, citing the defence ministry, said the Tu-154 plane had departed from the southern Russian city of Adler on Sunday moring and was heading towards Latakia in Syria.
A list of passengers and crew published by the ministry showed that 64 members of the renowned Alexandrov Ensemble, the army's official choir, and its conductor Valery Khalilov were on board the plane.
Members of the choir were travelling to Syria to celebrate the New Year with Russian troops. The defence mininstry said a widely revered Russian charity doctor was also on board the plane in addition to a Russian army general and five colonels.
The Russian defence ministry said there was no sign of survivors.

"The site of the Tu-154 plane crash has been identified," news agencies quoted the ministry as saying, adding that four bodies had been recovered from the water.

The Russian defence ministry said that the Alexandrov Ensemble was to perform at the Khmeimim airbase, Russia's main base of operations for its military campaign in support of the Syrian government.
Russia has been supporting its longtime ally Syria with a bombing campaign against rebel groups for more than a year.
Viktor Ozerov, head of the defence affairs committee at the upper house of Russian parliament, said in remarks carried by the state news agency RIA Novosti that he "totally excludes terrorism" as a possible cause of the crash.

Bodies and debris found

Nine Russian reporters had also been on board as well as military servicemen.
Major-General Igor Konashenkov, a ministry spokesman, said fragments of the plane had been found at a depth of about 70 metres in the Black Sea about 1.5 km off the coast near the city of Sochi.
"The search operation is continuing," said Konashenkov. "Four ships, five helicopters and a drone are working in the area," he said.
Other news agencies reported that parts of the plane and undercarriage, and also an oil slick were found over an area covering several kilometres in the Black Sea.

Rescuers carry fragments and remains, found at the site of the Tu-154 plane crash near Sochi, [EPA]

Al Jazeera's Natasha Ghoneim, reporting from Moscow, said the plane disappeared from radar only minutes after takeoff.
"Reports here in Moscow are saying that the passengers included journalists and military personnel, in addition to members of the famous Alexandrov Ensemble," she said.
The plane was carrying 82 passengers and 10 crew members, Interfax news agency reported.
Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed "profound condolences" to the loved ones of the victims of the crash and declared Monday as a national day of mourning.
"Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to form and head a state commission to investigative the crash of the Tu-154 plane in Sochi," the Kremlin said in a statement.
The Tu-154 is a Soviet-designed three-engine airliner.
In April 2010, many high-ranking Polish officials, including then president Lech Kaczynski, were killed when a Tu-154 airliner went down in thick fog while approaching the Smolensk airport in western Russia.

Exclusive: Trump team seeks names of officials working to counter violent extremism

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's transition team has asked two Cabinet departments for the names of government officials working on programs to counter violent extremism, according to a document seen by Reuters and U.S. officials.
The requests to the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security involve a set of programs that seek to prevent violence by extremists of any stripe, including recruitment by militant Islamist groups within the United States and abroad.
Reuters could not determine why the Trump team asked for these names. The Trump team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has frequently criticized President Barack Obama for not doing enough to battle Islamic militants and for his refusal to use the term "radical Islam" to describe Islamic State and other militant groups.
Some career officials said they feared the incoming administration may be looking to undo the work that the Obama administration has done on countering violent extremism.
"They're picking a few issues to ask for people's names," said one government official who spoke on condition of anonymity, reflecting wider fears that those who worked on such issues could be marginalized by the new administration.
Earlier this month, Trump representatives had asked the U.S. Energy Department for the names of staffers who worked on climate change policy. The White House expressed concern that it may have been an attempt to target civil servants, including scientists and lawyers. The Energy Department balked at providing names and a Trump spokesman disavowed the request.
The State Department declined to comment on specific requests from the Trump transition team. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
In a Dec. 9 email seen by Reuters, Trump representatives at the State Department sought a list of positions in the counterterrorism bureau's office of countering violent extremism.
"Please indicate names of people serving in those roles and status (political or career)," the email said, referring to political appointees and career civil servants.
Three U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a similar request had been made to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In that case, the Trump transition team asked for the names of members of an interagency task force on countering violent extremism that the Obama administration established in January, the officials said.
According to a Jan. 8 DHS statement, the task force falls under the leadership of DHS and the Department of Justice, and includes officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Counterterrorism Center and other government agencies.
Several of Trump's top national security advisers have cast the fight against Islamic militants as an existential conflict between civilizations, according to a review of their writings and public remarks.
Retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, Trump's pick for White House national security adviser, said in a post on Twitter earlier this year, "Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL."

Some counterterrorism experts say that such rhetoric can be used by militant groups to recruit, and will alienate Muslim communities whose help is needed to prevent violence.
A U.S. official said their guess was that the Trump team will likely rebrand Obama's generic fight against violent extremism into a specific battle against Islamic radicalization
State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Thursday that the department would be cautious about providing names of employees associated with specific issues, but left open the possibility of providing names on an organizational basis.
It was unclear whether the State Department shared the names of the officials in the office on countering violent extremism or whether Homeland Security officials provided names.
"Without getting into the specifics of information either requested by the transition team or provided by the Department, I can tell you that ... I know of no requests that have been denied," a senior State Department official said.

Defying pressure, U.S. lets U.N. denounce Israeli settlements

The United States on Friday allowed the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement building, defying heavy pressure from long-time ally Israel and President-elect Donald Trump for Washington to wield its veto.A U.S. abstention paved the way for the 15-member council to approve the resolution, with 14 votes in favor, prompting applause in the council chamber. The action by President Barack Obama's administration follows growing U.S. frustration over the unrelenting construction of Jewish settlements on land Palestinians want for a future independent state.
"Israel rejects this shameful anti-Israel resolution at the U.N. and will not abide by its terms," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has encouraged the expansion of Jewish settlements in territory captured by Israel in a 1967 war with its Arab neighbors, said in a statement.
The U.S. action just weeks before Obama ends eight years as president broke with the long-standing American approach of shielding Israel, which receives more than $3 billion in annual U.S. military aid, from such action. The United States, Russia, France, Britain and China have veto power on the council.
The resolution, put forward by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal a day after Egypt withdrew it under pressure from Israel and Trump, was the first adopted by the council on Israel and the Palestinians in nearly eight years.
The U.S. abstention was seen as a parting shot by Obama, who has had an acrimonious relationship with Netanyahu and whose efforts to forge a peace agreement based on a "two-state" solution of creating a Palestinian state existing peacefully alongside Israel have proven futile.

Obama also faced pressure from U.S. lawmakers, fellow Democrats as well as Republicans, to veto the measure, and was hit with bipartisan criticism after the vote.
Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, took the extraordinary step by a U.S. president-elect of personally intervening in a sensitive foreign policy matter before taking office, speaking by telephone with Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi before Egypt, another major U.S. aid recipient, dropped the resolution.
Trump wrote on Twitter after the vote, "As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th."
"There is one president at a time," Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security adviser, told reporters, dismissing Trump's criticism.
Outgoing U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the resolution. Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin called on Israel to "respect international law."

But Netanyahu said, "At a time when the Security Council does nothing to stop the slaughter of half a million people in Syria, it disgracefully gangs up on the one true democracy in the Middle East, Israel, and calls the Western Wall 'occupied territory.'"
Israel for decades has pursued a policy of constructing Jewish settlements on territory captured by Israel in a 1967 war with its Arab neighbors including the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Most countries view Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as illegal and an obstacle to peace. Israel disagrees.
'NO LEGAL VALIDITY'
The resolution demanded that Israel "immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem" and said the establishment of settlements by Israel has "no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law."
The White House said that in the absence of any meaningful peace process, Obama made the decision to abstain. The last round of U.S.-led peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians collapsed in 2014. The Palestinians want an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
"We could not in good conscience veto a resolution that expressed concerns about the very trends that are eroding the foundation for a two-state solution," Rhodes said.
American U.N ambassador Samantha Power said the United States did not veto it because the resolution "reflects the facts on the ground and is consistent with U.S. policy across Republican and Democratic administrations."
Successive U.S. administrations of both parties have criticized settlement activity but have done little to slow their growth.
The Obama administration has called settlement expansion an "illegitimate" policy that has undermined chances of a peace deal.
The Security Council last adopted a resolution critical of settlements in 1979, with the United States also abstaining.

The passage of Friday's resolution changes nothing on the ground between Israel and the Palestinians and likely will be all but ignored by the incoming Trump administration.
But it was more than merely symbolic. It formally enshrined the international community’s disapproval of Israeli settlement building and could spur further Palestinian moves against Israel in international forums.

PALESTINIAN SAYS U.N. MOVE 'BIG BLOW' TO ISRAEL POLICY
Trump is likely to be a more staunch supporter of Netanyahu's right-wing policies. He has picked a hardline pro-Israel ambassador and vowed to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in what would be a major reversal of long-standing American policy.
The U.N. action was "a big blow to Israeli policy, a unanimous international condemnation of settlements and a strong support for the two-state solution," a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement published by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
"This is a day of victory for international law, a victory for civilized language and negotiation, and a total rejection of extremist forces in Israel," Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters.
Israel's U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, said he had no doubt the incoming Trump administration and Ban's successor as U.N. chief, former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres, "will usher in a new era in terms of the U.N.'s relationship with Israel."
After the vote, Netanyahu instructed Israel's ambassadors in New Zealand and Senegal to return to Israel for consultations. He also ordered the cancellation of a planned visit to Israel by Senegal's foreign minister and the cancellation of all aid programs to Senegal.

FBI warns of possible Islamic State-inspired attacks in U.S.

U.S. federal authorities cautioned local law enforcement on Friday to be aware that supporters of Islamic State have been calling for their sympathizers to attack holiday gatherings in the United States, including churches, a law enforcement official said.
The warning, issued in a bulletin to local law enforcement, said there were no known specific, credible threats.
The notice from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security was issued out of an abundance of caution after a publicly available list of U.S. churches was published on pro-Islamic State websites.

"The FBI is aware of the recent link published online that urges attacks against U.S. churches. As with similar threats, the FBI is tracking this matter while we investigate its credibility," the FBI said in a statement.
Islamic State sympathizers "continue aspirational calls for attacks on holiday gatherings, including targeting churches," CNN quoted the bulletin as saying. The notice describes different signs of suspicious activity for which police should be alert, it said.

Malta hijack ends peacefully as Gaddafi loyalists surrender

Hijackers armed with what were probably replica weapons forced an airliner to land in Malta on Friday before freeing all their hostages unharmed and surrendering, having declared loyalty to Libya's late leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Television pictures showed two men being led from the aircraft in handcuffs. The prime minister of the tiny Mediterranean island, Joseph Muscat, tweeted: "Hijackers surrendered, searched and taken in custody".
The Airbus A320 had been on an internal flight in Libya on Friday morning when it was diverted to Malta, 500 km (300 miles) north of the Libyan coast, after a man told the crew he had a hand grenade.

Muscat said the grenade and two pistols the hijackers were also carrying appeared to be replicas, according to an initial forensic examination.
A Libyan television channel reported it had spoken by phone with a hijacker who described himself as head of a pro-Gaddafi party. Gaddafi was killed in an uprising in 2011, and Libya has been racked by factional violence since.
With troops positioned a few hundred meters (yards) away, buses were driven onto the tarmac at Malta International Airport to carry away 109 passengers, as well as some of the crew. Television footage showed no signs of struggle or alarm.
After the passengers had left the plane, a man briefly appeared at the top of the steps with a plain green flag resembling that of Gaddafi's now-defunct state.

Libya's Channel TV station said one hijacker, who gave his name as Moussa Shaha, had said by phone he was the head of Al-Fateh Al-Jadid, or The New Al-Fateh. Al-Fateh is the name that Gaddafi gave to September, the month he staged a coup in 1969, and the word came to signify his coming to power.
In a tweet, the TV station later quoted the hijacker as saying: "We took this measure to declare and promote our new party."
STANDOFF ON TARMAC
Lawmaker Hadi al-Saghir told Reuters that Abdusalem Mrabit, a fellow member of Libya's House of Representatives on the plane, had told him the two hijackers were in their mid-20s and were from the Tebu ethnic group in southern Libya.
After the standoff ended peacefully, Muscat told a news conference there had been talks between Maltese authorities and the Libyan hijackers.
The men had asked for two Maltese negotiators to board the aircraft, but this was rejected.

"We were not willing to negotiate until there was a surrender," he said, adding that the hijackers had not requested asylum.
A senior Libyan security official told Reuters the first news of the hijack came in a call from the pilot to the control tower at Tripoli's Mitiga airport.
"Then they lost communication with him," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The pilot tried very hard to have them land at the correct destination but they refused."
The aircraft, operated by state-owned Afriqiyah Airways, had been flying from Sebha in southwest Libya to Tripoli, a trip that would usually take a little over two hours.
The last major hijacking on Malta was in 1985, when Palestinians took over an Egyptair plane. Egyptian commandos stormed the aircraft and dozens of people were killed.

Italy says Berlin market attack suspect killed in shootout in Italy

The suspect in the Berlin Christmas market truck attack was killed in a shoot-out in a suburb of the northern Italian city of Milan on Friday, Italy's interior minister said.
Marco Minniti told a news conference that "without any shadow of a doubt" the man was 24-year-old Tunisian Anis Amri, wanted for the attack in Berlin.
A police source said earlier Amri was identified by fingerprints.
Minniti said a routine police patrol stopped Amri in a Milan suburb in the early hours of Friday morning. The man took out a pistol and opened fire, injuring one of the police officers.
The officer is now recovering.
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, in which the truck mowed through a crowd of people and bulldozed wooden huts selling Christmas gifts and snacks beside a famous church in west Berlin.
One of the 12 dead was the Polish driver from whom the truck had been hijacked. His body, stabbed and shot, was found in the cab.
Police across Europe have been searching for the assailant since the attack on Monday.
Amri was caught on camera by German police on a regular stake-out at a mosque in Berlin's Moabit district early on Tuesday, Germany's rbb public broadcaster reported.
Danish police had also said a man matching his description was seen in Aalborg in northern Denmark.
The Berlin attack has put Europe on high alert over the Christmas period.
In the early hours of Friday morning, German special forces arrested two men suspected of planning an attack on a shopping mall in the city of OberhausenIn in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The men - two brothers from Kosovo, aged 28 and 31 - were arrested in the city of Duisburg on information from security sources, police said.
A police spokesman said there was no connection between the Duisburg arrests and the Amri case.
Amri had been identified by security agencies as a potential threat and had had his application for asylum rejected, but authorities had not managed to deport him because of missing identity documents.

Hijacked Libyan plane lands in Malta with 118 people aboard

An airliner on an internal flight in Libya was hijacked and diverted to Malta where it landed on Friday, Maltese media reported.The Airbus A320 was flying inside Libya for state-owned airline Afriqiyah Airways with 118 people aboard, the reports said. The two hijackers had threatened to blow the plane up, outlets including the Times of Malta reported.
Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat tweeted: "Informed of potential hijack situation of a #Libya internal flight diverted to #Malta. Security and emergency operations standing by -JM".

ISIS burns alive two Turkish soldiers in eastern Aleppo

(ISIS) released a video on Thursday showing two Turkish soldiers being burnt alive in eastern Aleppo.
The two Turkish soldiers appeared in the video inside of a cage while still wearing their battle fatigues; they would then answer questions from their captors before being burnt alive minutes later.
This video was shared on a number of Islamic State accounts on Thursday as a way to propagate the group's battle against the Turkish Army in eastern Aleppo.

ISIS has released similar videos before in Al-Raqqa and Iraq; however, this is the first execution video of Turkish soldiers that has been publicly released by them.

2016 was bad. 2017 could be worse

The killing of Russia’s ambassador to Turkey on Monday evening might have prompted knee-jerk comparisons to the 1914 assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, but it almost certainly won’t spark a World War One-type conflict. The lethal truck attack that killed 12 in Berlin a few hours later, however, could ratchet up the prospect of yet another political shock in Europe.
2016 looks set to keep throwing out unexpected, often brutal surprises right to its end. If 1989 – the year the Berlin wall fell – was the point at which globalization, liberal democracy and the Western view of modernity was seen to triumph, the year now concluding might yet be seen as when the wheels came off.
That may be a dramatic overstatement. However, the electoral surprises of the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump – as well as dozens of other examples across the globe – are stark reminders of just how much consensus has unraveled. The next year could see a step back towards moderation. But it could equally see things spiral further out of control.
The assault on a Christmas market in the German capital has made the return of the far right to power in Germany more plausible – even if it still looks unlikely to happen in next year’s national vote. The Berlin deaths could also boost the chances of far-right National Front leader Marine LePen in France’s 2017 presidential election.
 It is possible, of course, that the forces of moderation might stage something of a recovery next year – as we saw in Austria’s presidential election, even this year extremists have not always won.
What 2016 has demonstrated most, however, is that nothing is truly unthinkable anymore – or at least, that a host of options previously judged unthinkable are much more likely than anyone previously thought.
What is also clear is that we have yet to see the true implications of much that happened in 2016. President-elect Trump is not yet in the White House, but he – and particularly his Twitter feed – is already having a dramatic effect.
It’s hard to predict exactly what that might mean, but the indication so far is that this will be a very different presidency. It may well, of course, mean temporarily better relations with Russia – Trump’s comments in the aftermath of Monday’s attacks explicitly tied the Ankara attack to that in Berlin and suggested he intends to follow through on talk of much closer collaboration with Russia, particularly on fighting Islamist militancy. That may also imply some kind of grand bargain on Syria, particularly with the fall of Aleppo making any opposition victory even more implausible.
A Trump administration, however, may well swiftly find itself much more greatly at odds with China. Last week’s spat over the Chinese seizure of a U.S. underwater drone in the South China Sea may be a sign of things to come on that front.
The one thing that has cemented Beijing into the international system over the last 25 years, after all, has been that it has benefited greatly from being part of an increasingly free international trading system – something Trump clearly intends to push back against, if not dismantle entirely.
If British Prime Minister Theresa May is to be taken at her word, then in 2017 Brexit will really begin to mean Brexit insofar as the UK will move to trigger Article 50 to quit the European Union. No one really knows what that will mean.
In part, that is because no one has any concept of what the European continent will look like politically by the end of next year. The Berlin attack, whether the perpetrator is eventually found or not, will almost certainly ramp up political pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel for her policies on migrants, just as attacks in France have boosted LePen's National Front.
It seems less likely for now, that Alternative for Deutschland – the far right party that has taken up to a third of the vote in several key German states this year – could itself topple Merkel. But the party could perform well enough that she is replaced by another more moderate figure, either from her own party or elsewhere in the political mainstream.
A European move to the far right is not inevitable – the failure of the Austrian far right to gain the presidency demonstrates that. Still, even the prospect that France, Germany and potentially other states might see the far right take a dominant if not controlling role makes the continent a very different place.

If nothing else, 2017 looks set to see a major push back against the European – and to an extent much broader – liberal ideal of open borders and trade. The EU itself may not survive that.
Nor, for that matter, can the ongoing endurance of the always troubled single currency. The Italian referendum earlier this month has left its government in a state of crisis, with the real prospect that the anti-euro “Five Star” movement might take control. An Italian exit might well spell the end for the euro – at the very least, it would make Brexit seem relatively small fry.
On Europe’s eastern flank, meanwhile, Russia waits – sometimes interfering to try to exacerbate political chaos and tilt things its way. Following the Trump victory, the long-term future of NATO is also murky.
For all the worries of inadvertent conflict after Monday’s assassination in Ankara, it’s particularly striking that Turkey, Russia and Iran made it clear they were making common cause and continuing with the meeting in Moscow to discuss Syria. Turkey might still be a NATO member, but under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan may also be moving closer to Vladimir Putin.

Bomber kills at least 16 at Russian train station

An attacker set off a bomb in the entrance hall of a Russian train station on Sunday, investigators said, killing at least 16 people in the second deadly attack within three days as Russia prepares to host the Winter Olympics.Authorities said the attacker detonated a shrapnel-filled bomb in front of a metal detector just inside the main entrance of the station in Volgograd, a busy hub north of the violence-plagued North Caucasus region on Russia's southern fringe.
Islamist militants in the North Caucasus have carried out a long string of attacks since President Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000. They now confront him with his biggest security challenge, threatening to disrupt the Olympics that start in the Black Sea resort of Sochi in 40 days.
Footage shown on TV captured the moment of the blast, as a massive orange fireball filled the hall of the stately, colonnaded station and clouds of grey smoke poured out of shattered windows.
The station - a Stalinesque architectural monument with a clocktower and spire topped by a Soviet-style star - was busier than usual, with people travelling home for the New Year, one of the main holidays in Russia.
"People were lying on the ground, screaming and calling for help," a witness, Alexander Koblyakov, told Rossiya-24 TV. "I helped carry out a police officer whose head and face were covered in blood. He couldn't speak."
The city once bore the name Stalingrad in honor of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, a figure held in opprobrium by many in the North Caucasus.
In the 1940s, Stalin ordered the deportation of tens of thousands of people from the region, including Chechens, to Central Asia on suspicion of harboring sympathies for Nazi Germany. Many thousands died in exile and transport.
The federal Investigative Committee and other officials initially said a female suicide bomber had blown herself up after a police officer started to approach her near the metal detector because she looked suspicious.
A Russian website with ties to security agencies, Life News, posted a picture of what it said was the suspect's head.
It said authorities had identified her as a resident of Dagestan, the province adjacent to Chechnya and now the center of a long-running Islamist insurgency, and the widow of two militants who were both killed by Russian security forces.
Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin later said a man could have set off the blast, Russian news agencies reported.

Interfax cited law enforcement sources as saying authorities believed the attacker was a man who brought a bomb into the station with a rucksack. Some bombs carried by female suicide bombers have been set off remotely by male accomplices.
So-called 'black widows', seeking to avenge fallen husbands, were involved in a deadly Moscow theatre siege in 2002 and have been behind several bombings including twin suicide attacks that killed 40 on the Moscow subway in 2010.
"We can expect more such attacks," said Alexei Filatov, deputy head of the veterans' association of the elite Alfa anti-terrorism unit.
"The threat is greatest now because it is when terrorists can make the biggest impression," he told Reuters. "The security measures were beefed up long ago around Sochi, so terrorists will strike instead in these nearby cities like Volgograd."
The insurgency is rooted in two post-Soviet separatist wars in Chechnya, the second of which was launched by Putin as Prime Minister and succeeded in driving separatists from power.
Markin said 16 people were killed in the attack, including two who died in hospital. A regional government official also put the toll at 16 and said that did not include the attacker.
TIGHTER SECURITY
Putin ordered law enforcement agencies to take all necessary precautions to ensure security, his spokesman said. Police said security would be tightened at stations and airports, with more officers on duty and stricter passenger checks.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the U.N. Security Council both condemned the attack on Sunday and called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.
The attack, just over two months after a female suicide bomber killed six people on a bus in the same city, raised questions about the effectiveness of security measures which the Kremlin routinely orders increased after bombings.
It could add to concerns about the government's ability to safeguard the Sochi Olympics, which open on February 7. Putin has staked much of his prestige on staging safe and successful Games, a chance to show how far Russia has come since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Volgograd, which as Stalingrad was scene of a decisive World War Two battle - much of the fighting centered on the railway station - is a city of around 1 million and a transport hub in southern Russia, about 430 miles northeast of Sochi.

Putin visited in February to mark the 70th anniversary of the battle, which has made the city a symbol of strength in the face of adversity.
It lies north of the North Caucasus, a string of mostly Muslim provinces that includes Chechnya and is beset by near-daily violence linked to the insurgency. Militants claim the area as a separate Islamic "emirate".

CAR BOMB
Insurgent leader Doku Umarov, a Chechen warlord, urged militants in a video posted online in July to use "maximum force" to prevent Putin staging the Olympics. On Friday, a car bomb killed three people in Pyatigorsk, close to the North Caucasus and 270 km (170 miles) east of Sochi.
Volgograd is one of the venues for the 2018 soccer World Cup, another high-profile sports event Putin has helped Russia win the right to stage, and which will bring thousands of foreign fans to cities around Russia.
Sunday's attack was the deadliest to strike Russia's heartland since January 2011, when a male suicide bomber from the North Caucasus killed 37 people in the arrivals hall of a busy Moscow airport.
Thirty-seven people were hospitalized, including 15 in grave condition, Health Ministry spokesman Oleg Salagai said.
The committee said the toll could have been much higher if the attacker had made it into the station waiting hall.
But Filatov said that the widespread practice of placing metal detectors at the entrance of airports and stations risked causing more casualties: "We are creating this danger ourselves by allowing a place for a crowd to gather."
The Investigative Committee said the bomb detonated with a force equivalent to at least 10 kg (22 lb) of TNT.

YouTube star Adam Saleh removed from Delta plane

Airline launches review after YouTube celebrity says he was forced off New York-bound plane after speaking Arabic.

 

An American social media celebrity says he was removed from a New York-bound plane in London after speaking Arabic on the aircraft.
Adam Saleh posted video of the incident on Wednesday to his Twitter feed.
"Delta airlines kicked us out for speaking Arabic to my mom on a plane," Saleh tweeted.
By the time of publishing, a recorded clip he posted had been shared more than 300,000 times.
"We're getting kicked out because we spoke a different language," Adam Saleh says in the clip. "This is 2016. Delta airlines are kicking us out because we spoke a different language."
Addressing one his fellow passengers, he can seen saying: "I spoke a word [of Arabic], and you said you feel uncomfortable?"
Saleh had been due to fly from London to New York with his friend Slim Albaher, who was also removed.
Saleh said that they were later placed on another flight, having been re-checked by security.
Saleh is a YouTube star, with more than 1.5 million subscribers. Many of his videos feature him carrying out practical jokes.

Delta takes allegations 'seriously'

A statement from Delta Air Lines, posted to its website, read: "Two customers were removed from this flight and later rebooked after a disturbance in the cabin resulted in more than 20 customers expressing their discomfort."
The airline has launched a review "to understand what happened".
"We are taking allegations of discrimination very seriously; our culture requires treating others with respect," the statement continued.
In a final message before taking off, Saleh told his 257,000 Twitter followers that he would be visiting his lawyer when he arrives in New York, apparently over the incident that had just taken place.
Several people have been removed from planes over the past two years.

In August, Delta removed a Muslim couple travelling from Paris to Cincinnati after a member of staff complained of feeling uncomfortable with them on board.
Also in August, British Muslim siblings were removed from an Easyjet plane travelling from London to Naples after fellow passengers accused them of being members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.
In November 2015, an American Muslim cited Islamophobia after being  removed from a Lufthansa plane from Newark Liberty International Airport to Istanbul for further questioning.

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American Relations (CAIR), told Al Jazeera that the civil rights group was "reaching out to all parties" to investigate Wednesday's incident involving Saleh.
"We're very concerned about reports of this kind. If the allegations are true, they fit a pattern of these kinds of incidents over the years," he said.
He said "everybody just needs to use their common sense" when it comes to security.
"Despite world events, the world is a diverse place where people speak different languages, wear different attire and look different. That's not justification for removing someone from a plane."

First Day of Seasons: 2016

When Do the Seasons of the Year Begin?

 

Listed below are the equinox and solstice dates and times, based on the Eastern Time Zone (ET). Adjust to your time zone. Note that an almanac is an astronomical “calendar of the heavens;” these dates are not based on local meteorology.
For readers of The Old Farmer’s Almanac, these dates mark the start of the spring, summer, autumn, and winter seasons in the Northern Hemisphere.

Seasons of 2016:
SPRING EQUINOX	March 20, 12:30 AM EDT
SUMMER SOLSTICE	June 20, 6:34 P.M. EDT
FALL EQUINOX	September 22, 10:21 A.M. EDT
WINTER SOLSTICE	December 21, 5:44 A.M. EST

Seasons of 2017:
SPRING EQUINOX	March 20, 6:29 A.M. EDT
SUMMER SOLSTICE	June 21, 12:24 A.M. EDT
FALL EQUINOX	September 22, 4:02 P.M. EDT
WINTER SOLSTICE	December 21, 11:28 A.M. EST

Why Do the Seasons Change?

The four seasons are determined by shifting sunlight (not heat!)—which is determined by how our planet orbits the Sun and the tilt of its axis.

Photo Credit: NASA

• On the vernal equinox, day and night are each approximately 12 hours long (with the actual time of equal day and night, in the Northern Hemisphere, occurring a few days before the vernal equinox). The Sun crosses the celestial equator going northward; it rises exactly due east and sets exactly due west.
  
• On the summer solstice, we enjoy the most daylight of the calendar year. The Sun reaches its most northern point in the sky at local noon. After this date, the days start getting “shorter,” i.e., the length of daylight starts to decrease.
  
• On the autumnal equinox, day and night are each about 12 hours long (with the actual time of equal day and night, in the Northern Hemisphere, occurring a few days after the autumnal equinox). The Sun crosses the celestial equator going southward; it rises exactly due east and sets exactly due west.
  
• The winter solstice is the “shortest day” of the year, meaning the least amount of sunlight. The Sun reaches its most southern point in the sky at local noon. After this date, the days start getting “longer,” i.e., the amount of daylight begins to increase.
  

Berlin's Christmas Market truck attack

Monday night a truck drove directly into crowds at Berlin's Breitscheidplatz Christmas market. Police have said they are treating the incident as a "presumed terrorist attack."

Last night, at around 8:15 PM GMT, a truck drove directly into crowds at Berlin's Breitscheidplatz Christmas market. Twelve people are confirmed dead and 48 more have been hospitalized with injuries, some of which are serious. Police have said they are treating the incident as a "presumed terrorist attack," and have confirmed that a Polish man found dead inside the truck was not the driver.

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Right-wing politicians in Europe have already seized on the news, with Nigel Farage tweeting: "Terrible news from Berlin but no surprise. Events like these will be the Merkel legacy." In a statement, Chancellor Angela Merkel said "we must assume it was a terrorist attack," and described it as a "terrible deed." She will visit Breitscheidplatz on Tuesday after meeting with her cabinet, she said.
Last night, VICE Germany's staff photographer Grey Hutton visited the scene of the crash.

Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov shot dead in Ankara

Andrey Karlov was speaking at a photo exhibition event in the capital when he was shot by a Turkish off-duty policeman.

 

Russia's ambassador to Ankara has been killed in a gun attack in the Turkish capital, Ankara, Russia's foreign ministry said.
Police later killed the assailant, Turkish station NTV reported.
Andrey Karlov, 62, was several minutes into a speech at an embassy-sponsored photo exhibition when a man in a suit shot the diplomat in the back from close range multiple times on Monday evening.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova made the announcement of Karlov's death in a live televised statement.
The assailant was a 22-year-old off-duty police officer who worked in the Turkish capital, said Ankara's mayor Melih Gokcek.
After the initial shot, the attacker approached Karlov as he lay on the ground and shot him at least one more time at close range, according to an AP photographer at the scene.
He also smashed several of the framed photos hung for the exhibition but later let the stunned guests out of the venue, according to local media.

Several media outlets reported that a gun fight ensued after Karlov was shot.
Local broadcaster NTV television said at least three people were wounded and were taken to the hospital.
Mayor Gokcek told reporters outside the exhibition centre that the "heinous" attack was aimed at disrupting newly-re-established relations between Turkey and Russia.
Relations between Russia and Turkey were badly strained by the downing of a Russian warplane at the Syrian border in November 2015, but Turkey's apology earlier this year helped overcome the rift.
The leaders of the two countries, Presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have held several meetings in recent months and spoken frequently over the phone. The two leaders have already spoken by phone regarding Monday's attack.
Russia and Turkey have co-sponsored the evacuation of civilians and rebels from Aleppo and discussed the prospect of organising a new round of peace talks in Kazakhstan's capital, Astana.

'Don't forget Aleppo'

The assailant referenced the situation in Aleppo after he shot the ambassador in the back.
"Don't forget Aleppo, don't forget Syria," the attacker said in Turkish after gunning down the ambassador, as seen on a video shared by Turkish media from the scene.
"Whoever took part in this cruelty will pay the price, one by one ... Only death will take me from here," the man said, while carrying a handgun.
He then continued in Arabic, saying: "We are the descendants of those who supported the Prophet Muhammad, for jihad."
Diego Cupolo, a photojournalist in Ankara, told Al Jazeera that there were around a hundred armed soldiers in camouflage and police officers at the scene, along with armoured fighting vehicles.
The attack came a day before a meeting of Russian, Turkish and Iranian foreign and defence ministers in Moscow to discuss Syria.
Those talks will go ahead on Tuesday despite the murder of Karlov, the Interfax news agency said, citing Leonid Slutsky, a senior parliamentarian.

The Russian ambassador to Turkey was a career diplomat.
Karlov joined the diplomatic service in 1976. He served as Russia's ambassador to Pyongyang in 2001-2006, and later worked as the chief of the Foreign Ministry's consular department.
He had served as the ambassador to Turkey since 2013.

Donald Trump Is Vladimir Putin's Christmas Gift in 'SNL' Sketch

Saturday Night Live called out Donald Trump's refusal to recognize Russia's tampering of the election in a cold open that saw Alec Baldwin reprise the role of the President-elect as well as John Goodman appear as Secretary of State pick Rex Tillerson.

The Christmas-timed sketch opens with "Trump" discussing his final cabinet choices before asking in regards to the role of president, "Can I just do it three days a week like Howard Stern does?"
The sketch also mocked Trump's "unpresidented" Twitter gaffe Saturday morning.

Soon after, a shirtless Vladimir Putin (SNL's Beck Bennett) comes down the Trump Tower chimney, hauling a bag of presents like Santa Claus.
"Vladimir, come in, it's so great to finally meet in person," Trump says. "I composed an email to you but I haven't even sent it yet."
"I know," Putin smirks before buttering up Trump by calling him "the best candidate… the smartest candidate… the Manchurian candidate," a nod to the 1962 thriller about brainwashed soldiers.
"I don't know what that means but it sounds tremendous," the president-elect says.
Putin gifts Trump with an Elf on the Shelf, or a surveillance camera stuffed in a doll. When the mogul tells Putin he doesn't have a Christmas present for him, Putin snarls, "Please, Mr. Trump, you are the gift."
John Goodman's Rex Tillerson, the Exxon exec and noted Putin pal, then drops in to talk business with the Russian president.
While Putin and Tillerson discuss pipelines and manufactured wars, Trump asks aloud, "And then we destroy Vanity Fair, right?"; the magazine called the mogul's Trump Grill the worst restaurant in America earlier in the week.
On the subject of black crude oil, Trump says, "Speaking of black and crude, I know Kanye. He came here. He's using my colorist now. He says whatever he feels. He's like me, but a black."
Unlike previously Saturday Night Live sketches featuring Baldwin, this cold open did not draw the late-night ire of Trump himself, who at press time had not yet tweeted about the "unwatchable" show or how Baldwin's impression "can't get any worse."

Hamas blames Israel for assassination of drone chief

Palestinian group says Zawari was part of its military wing for 10 years and vowed revenge against "the Zionist enemy".

 

Hamas blamed Israel for the killing of its "commander" Mohammed al-Zawari, an aviation engineer who worked on the development of unmanned aerial vehicles, and vowed to take revenge.
Zawari, 49, had been in Tunisia only a few days when he was shot dead outside his home by multiple gunshots while in his car near Sfax, 270km southeast of Tunis, on Thursday.
Television footage aired on local media showed a black Volkswagen with its windows shot out.
Four rental cars were used in the killing and two handguns and suppressors were seized, Tunisia's interior ministry said.
A judicial spokesman from Sfax, Mourad Tourki, told Tunisian radio Shems FM that eight Tunisian nationals had been arrested in connection with the killing.

One of the suspects is a Tunisian journalist based in Hungary, arrested along with a cameraman. Two other suspects, one of them a Belgian of Moroccan origin, are still at large, Tourki said.
Authorities have not commented on who is suspected of being behind the murder.
Hamas, the Palestinian group that governs the Gaza Strip, confirmed that Zawari had been a member of its military wing for the past 10 years, and spearheaded its drone programme.
A statement said Zawari's work "contributed to the victories" by Hamas during the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza.
The group accused Israel of killing the aviation engineer through its network of spies.
"The assassination of the commander Mohammed al-Zawari in Tunisia is a reminder for all Arab and Muslim nations that the Zionist enemy and its agents are roaming free in the region, playing their dirty roles, and it is time for this cowardly treacherous hand to be cut,"  Hamas' Qassam Brigades said in a statement.

It published a poster on Twitter showing Zawari with an unmanned drone. The poster bore the logo of Hamas' armed wing and referred to Zawari as a commander.
"The assassination is an aggression against the group and the enemy should know that the blood of this great commander will not be wasted," it said.
Comment from Israel was not immediately available.
Israeli forces were responsible for the 1988 killing of senior Palestinian commander Abu Jihad, whose real name was Khalil al-Wazir, at his home in Tunis, Tunisia.
Wazir was the deputy of then Palestinian chief Yasser Arafat.