1. Brazil names panel to impeach Rousseff

    The lower house of Brazil’s Congress voted on December 8 to appoint a committee stacked* with opponents of President Dilma Rousseff to study whether to impeach* her for breaking budget rules, in a blow to the leftist leader battling for political survival.

    By secret ballot, lawmakers voted 272-199 for a list of committee members drawn up by the opposition and pro-impeachment members of the centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, the biggest party in Rousseff’s governing coalition.

    2. Taliban attack kills at least 50

    At least 50 have died in a 27-hour Taliban siege of Kandahar airport, Afghan officials said on Thursday as a conference in Pakistan shored up international support for reviving peace talks.

    Eleven suicide attackers on December 8 breached the high-security complex, which also houses a joint NATO-Afghan base, taking families hostage and triggering pitched* firefights* with soldiers.

    The raid, which saw militants blowing themselves up among civilians before the area was secured, is the most serious attack in 14 years of war on the complex, the largest military installation in the south of the country.

    3. Landmark climate deal signed

    The global climate summit in Paris forged* a landmark agreement on Saturday, setting the course for a historic transformation of the world’s fossil fuel-driven economy within decades in a bid to arrest* global warming.

    After four years of fraught* U.N. talks often pitting* the interests of rich nations against poor, imperiled* island states against rising economic powerhouses*, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius declared the pact adopted, to the standing applause and whistles* of delegates from almost 200 nations.

    “With a small hammer* you can achieve great things,” Fabius said as he gaveled* the agreement, capping two weeks of tense negotiations at the summit.

    4. Russian warship fires on Turkish boat

    A Russian destroyer in the Aegean Sea on Sunday opened fire to avoid a collision* with a Turkish fishing boat, the defense ministry said, as a bitter dispute over the shooting down of a Russian warplane raged on.

    “The crew of the Russian patrol ship Smetlivy which was located 22 kilometers from the Greek island of Lemnos in the northern part of the Aegean Sea avoided collision with a Turkish seiner,” the ministry said, adding that the crew had fired small arms to warn the boat. The incident happened after Turkey last month downed a Russian bomber at the Syrian border.

    5. Merkel Time’s Person of the Year

    Time magazine on December 9 named German Chancellor Angela Merkel as its “Person of the Year 2015,” hailing* her leadership for navigating* debt and refugee crises that threatened to tear the European Union (EU) apart.

    “For asking more of her country than most politicians would dare, for standing firm against tyranny* as well as expedience* and for providing steadfast* moral leadership in a world where it is in short supply, Angela Merkel is Time’s Person of the Year,” wrote editor Nancy Gibbs.

    Time described her as the de facto leader of the EU who this year steered the zone through two existential crises — Greek bankruptcy and the migrant crisis.

    6. Woman wins seat in historic Saudi polls

    A Saudi woman won a municipal council seat in the country’s first ever election open to female voters and candidates, an official said on Sunday, in a milestone* result for the ultra-conservative kingdom.

    Salma bint Hizab al-Oteibi was elected to the council of Madrakah, in the holy city of Mecca, the official SPA news agency reported, citing election commission president Osama al-Bar.

    She was running against seven men and two women, he added. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy with some of the world’s tightest restrictions on women, including a ban on driving. (SD-Agencies)