Portal:Current events/2015 November 10

November 10, 2015 (Tuesday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

Sinai insurgency
- Egypt's Interior Ministry announces the death of a senior figure in the Islamic State’s “Sinai province.” Ashraf Ali Hassanein al Gharabli, killed in a Cairo shootout with police, was also linked to other extremist groups and terrorist activities. (The Long War Journal) (ARAnews)
Syrian Civil War
- Aleppo offensive (October–November 2015)
  - Syrian Army troops break an Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant siege of the Kweires airbase in the Aleppo Governorate. (Reuters via Times of Oman)
- A mortar attack on the coastal city of Latakia kills at least 23 and injures 65. (UPI)

Business and economics

Technology news website Re/code reports Dell Incorporated's $67 billion offer to buy data storage company EMC Corporation could be derailed by a tax bill of up to $9 billion if key aspects of the deal do not qualify for the sort of tax treatment the companies consider essential for the transaction. (Reuters) (Economic Times) (Re/code)

Disasters and accidents

All nine people aboard a Hawker H25 business jet are killed after the plane crashes into an apartment complex in the American city of Akron, Ohio. (Fox News) (WOIO via WNEW) [1] The NTSB in October 2016 concluded First Officer Renato Marchese improperly set the aircraft's flaps and failed to maintain a proper speed ABC News

Health and medicine

Pollution in China
- Chinese state news agency Xinhua joins critics of Shenyang's handling of serious pollution problems. "The city of Shenyang has failed to apply emergency measures that could have reduced smog, and didn't provide advisories to residents to stay indoors," Xinhua wrote. The BBC reported pollution readings in the northeastern Chinese city have been 50 times higher than levels considered safe by the World Health Organization (WHO). (UPI)

International relations

British Prime Minister David Cameron sets out his four-point EU re-negotiation agenda, including a demand to end Britain's obligations to EU's "ever closer union". (Guardian)
Myanmar tops the 2015 Charities Aid Foundation's World Giving Index which measures each country's charitable behavior. Individuals indicate whether they have donated money, volunteered, or helped a stranger in the past month. The United States, which tied with Myanmar last year, is second, followed by New Zealand, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sri Lanka, Ireland, and Malaysia. (Market Watch) (The Guardian) (CAF 2015 Report)
Syria peace talks in Vienna, Syrian Civil War
- Reuters reports Russia's eight-point proposal, drafted prior to this week's international talks on Syria, wants the Syrian government and the opposition to agree on launching a constitutional reform process of up to 18 months, followed by early presidential elections. (Reuters)
Iran, P5+1 & European Union Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
- Iran stops dismantling decommissioned centrifuges in two uranium enrichment plants, according to state media reports. This comes days after Iran's conservative lawmakers complained to President Hassan Rouhani that the process was too rushed. (Reuters)
French media reports that a planned lunch for November 17 between Iranian president Hassan Rouhani and French president François Hollande is scrapped after Rouhani asked that all wine be pulled from the menu. (Fox News)

Law and crime

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sends cease and desist letters to DraftKings and FanDuel ordering them to stop operating in the state because they violate New York laws against illegal gambling. (NBC News) (New York Daily News)
The United States FBI foils an alleged plot by white supremacists in Virginia who were planning a reign of terror — shooting or bombing religious institutions, robbing jewelers and armored cars, purchasing land, stockpiling weapons, and training for the "coming race war." (Washington Post) (WTVR)
Kenyan police arrest Daily Nation senior reporter John Ngirachu who wrote about corruption at the Interior Ministry. Reports alleging outrageous spending by civil servants has raised pressure on President Uhuru Kenyatta. (Reuters)
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia suspends district court judge Richard Leon's ruling yesterday that found the U.S. National Security Agency's phone data collection program is unconstitutional. Leon's decision barred the agency from further collection of data on the plaintiffs in the case -- California attorney J.J. Little and his law firm -- but did not have sufficient authority to outlaw the practice against all Americans. The government plea for the injunction said it will take "at least several weeks" for the NSA to implement a technical change that would prevent collection of Little's data and therefore the entire program would have to shut down early based on Leon's order. (UPI)
The Obama administration will ask the Supreme Court to overturn yesterday's ruling by the New Orleans, Louisiana, federal Court of Appeals that blocks the deferred deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants who entered the United States as children. (UPI)

Politics and elections

Former West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt (1974 to 1982) dies at the age of 96. (The Guardian)

Sport

Lamine Diack, who is provisionally suspended as an honorary member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in connection with suspected involvement in the Russian doping scandal cited in yesterday's World Anti-Doping Agency report, resigns as president of the Monaco-based International Athletics Foundation (IAF), according to the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAFF). Diack stepped down as president of the IAAF in August. The 82-year-old native of Senegal is under investigation in France on suspicion of corruption and money-laundering. (Reuters) (BBC)