• A fatal attack on a tourist by a "dinosaur-sized" shark off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, prompts the closure of several beaches. (Discovery News) (IOL) (AFP)

• Mercedes-Benz's 2009 sales rise 77% in the People's Republic of China. (Xinhua)
• The United States trade deficit rose 9.7% to 36.4 billion US dollars in November. (Xinhua) (People's Daily) (RTT News)
• The North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) is held in Detroit, Michigan, US. Green vehicles are seen as a response to the late 2000s recession. Automotive News World Congress is held at the Renaissance Center. (Xinhua) (Merinews)
• Shares in Japan Airlines fall by 81%. (BBC) (The Straits Times)

• An Arkefly Boeing 767 flying from Amsterdam to the Netherlands Antilles is grounded at Shannon Airport after a man claims there is a bomb on board. All 242 passengers and crew are evacuated. (RTÉ) (Radio Netherlands Worldwide) (The Australian)

• Guinea's junta chief Moussa Dadis Camara arrives in Burkina Faso after being hospitalised in Morocco. (Times LIVE) (BBC)
• Turkey threatens to recall its ambassador from Israel over a dispute involving Turkey's ambassador to the country. Israel apologized later. (Reuters) (Ha'aretz) (Today's Zaman)
• The Kiev Court of Appeal accuses Joseph Stalin and other leaders of the former Soviet Union and Soviet Ukraine of organizing mass famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933. (Kyiv Post) (RIA Novosti) (RT)

• Pope Benedict XVI meets and forgives the woman who attacked him at Christmas Eve Mass in 2009. (The Times) (Catholic News Agency) (Adnkronos)

• Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni urges the government to reconsider the anti-homosexuality bill being debated due to "foreign policy issues". (The Guardian) (New Vision)

• Computer modelling shows that the Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites Glacier, once described as a major "tipping point" for the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet in the embayment of the Amundsen Sea, has reached their own tipping points for eventual collapse, likely to lead to a sea level rise of up to 52 cm. (New Scientist)
• Venezuela announces an electricity rationing programme in which the entire country will be affected by four-hour blackouts every week. (El Universal) (China Daily)
• The Government of the People's Republic of China responds to Google's refusal to continue censorship of search results. (Xinhua) (BBC)