Portal:Current events/2016 December 9

• Syrian Civil War
  • Battle of Aleppo, Aleppo offensive (November–December 2016)
    • Russia and the United States will continue talks on Aleppo after talks between the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. (AlJazeera)
• Six policemen are killed in a bomb explosion at a checkpoint in Cairo, Egypt. The Hasm Movement claims responsibility for the attack. (The Independent) (Reuters)
• Boko Haram insurgency
  • Madagali suicide bombings
    • At least 56 are killed and 70 wounded in a twin suicide attack in northeastern Nigeria. (NAIJ), (BBC), (The New York Times), (Newsweek), (FOX News)

• American film actor and producer Kirk Douglas, one of the last living movie stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood, celebrates his 100th birthday. (CBS News)

• Iranian government approved a bill to switch country's currency from rial to the more commonly used toman. The bill must be approved by the parliament. (PressTV) (Euronews)
• Japan ratifies the Trans-Pacific Partnership. (ABC News)

• A 7.8 magnitude earthquake strikes off the coast of Makira in the Solomon Islands, causing infrastructure damage, yet no casualties have been reported in the hours following the quake. (ABC News)

• The European Union grants visa-free travel for Georgia and Ukraine. (Reuters)

• Sam Rainsy, the Cambodian opposition leader, is tried yet again in absentia. (Fox News)
• Dutch populist politician Geert Wilders is convicted for hate speech. (The Guardian)

• Impeachment process against Park Geun-hye
  • South Korean lawmakers impeach President Park Geun-hye by a 234–56 vote. Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, a staunch defender of Ms. Park, will serve as acting president. South Korea's Constitutional Court has up to 180 days to render a final decision. (The New York Times) (New York Daily News)
• Ghanaian general election, 2016
  • Opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo wins the presidency. (Al-Jazeera)
• Pro-Beijing Hong Kong leader CY Leung says he will quit after his term ends. (BBC)
• Presidential transition of Donald Trump
  • Donald Trump requests Gary Cohn, chief operating officer of investment bank Goldman Sachs, to join his administration as chair of the White House National Economic Council. (Reuters)
  • Cathy McMorris Rogers is selected as United States Secretary of Interior. (USA Today)
• Gambian presidential election, 2016
  • The President of Gambia Yahya Jammeh states he will not accept the result of the recent defeat a week after conceding defeat to Adama Barrow. (AP via Daily Mail)
• 2016 United States presidential election
  • The CIA has concluded that Russia actively tried to help Donald Trump win the 2016 U.S. presidential election. (Washington Post)

• University of Washington researchers report, in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association Oncology, the discovery of an odontoma — a benign tumor — in the fossil of a 255-million-year old Tanzanian mammal-like saber-toothed gorgonopsia. This is one of the oldest-known tumors ever found. (Reuters) (UPI) (JAMA)
• JAXA launches the unmanned cargo spacecraft Kounotori 6, also known as HTV-6, from the Tanegashima Space Center to resupply the International Space Station. (Space.com)

• Doping in Russia
  • Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren issues a report claiming that 1,000 Russian athletes have been involved in or the beneficiaries of "manipulations to conceal Positive testing". Germany and the United States have called for Russia to be banned from international competition. (Yahoo! News)