1. Palestinian statehood resolution fails

    The U.N. Security Council on December 30 rejected a Palestinian resolution* calling for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and the establishment of a Palestinian state by late 2017.

    The resolution called for negotiations to be based on territorial lines that existed before Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war. It also called for a peace deal within 12 months.

    2. U.S. toddler accidentally kills mom

    A 2-year-old boy accidentally shot dead his mother at a Walmart store in the United States after a gun fired when he reached in her purse.

    The shooting in Hayden, Idaho, about 64 kilometers northeast of Spokane, Washington, took place in the back of the store near the electronics department.

    3. Man kills 8 before taking own life

    A Canadian man with a lengthy* criminal record killed six adults and two young children before taking his own life in Edmonton, Alberta, in what the police chief on December 30 called the city’s worst mass murder.

    Edmonton Police Chief Rod Knecht told a news conference that the motive for the “senseless mass murder” appears to have been “planned and deliberate” domestic* violence.

    4. IS kills 14 Libyan soldiers

    Members of Islamic State (IS), the militant group that has overrun parts of Iraq and Syria, have killed 14 Libyan soldiers in the south of the country, the government said on Saturday.

    In separate violence, forces loyal to the internationally recognized government staged airstrikes* on the port of Misrata, a western city allied to a group that holds the capital Tripoli.

    Both sides also fought with ground troops near the country’s biggest oil port, part of a struggle between forces loyal to two rival governments allied to* former rebel groups that helped oust* Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

    5. DPRK slams sanctions over Sony hack

    The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Sunday slammed* the United States for its new sanctions against Pyongyang over a recent hack on Sony Pictures and said the sanctions “did not weaken” the country.

    “Now is the time for the United States to know that its sanctions did not weaken the DPRK but proved counter-productive* as shown by the DPRK’s measures to further sharpen the treasured sword of Songun* (military-first),” a foreign ministry spokesman was quoted as saying in a report released by the official KCNA news agency.

    6. Ice may have caused AirAsia crash

    Weather was the “triggering factor” in the crash of AirAsia Flight 8501, with icing likely causing engine damage, Indonesia’s meteorological agency said.

    The Airbus A320-200 crashed into the Java Sea two weeks ago carrying 162 people from Indonesia’s second city Surabaya to Singapore, and relief workers* are hunting for the “black box” flight data recorders to determine the cause of the crash.

    An initial report on the website of BMKG, Indonesia’s meteorological agency, suggested the weather at the time the plane went down sparked the disaster after it appeared to fly into storm clouds.

    7. India to track toilet use with tablets

    Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is launching a nationwide online program to check whether people are using toilets as part of his cleanliness drive.

    From next month, officials will head out with mobile phones, tablets and iPads to report on whether toilets are being used in rural India, with results uploaded onto a website in real time.

    India’s shortage of toilets costs the country more than US$50 billion a year, mostly through premature deaths* and hygiene-related diseases, according to a World Bank study. About 626 million Indians defecate* in the open compared with 14 million in China, the World Health Organization said in a 2012 report.(SD-Agencies)