• At least three people are killed in an attack on a United Nations peacekeeping base in Kidal, northern Mali. The jihadist group Ansar Dine claims responsibility. (Euronews), (AFP via Yahoo! News)
• Terrorism in Egypt
  • At least four Egyptian police officers are killed in a drive-by shooting in Saqqara, south of Cairo. An Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant affiliate claims responsibility. (BBC), (AP via Fox News)
• Turkey–PKK conflict
  • Tahir Elçi, a pro-Kurdish lawyer, is shot dead at a press conference in the city of Diyarbakir as clashes break out between Turkish security forces and PKK militants. (Bloomberg via Washington Today)
• Syrian Civil War, Military intervention against ISIL
  • U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, despite deep uncertainty over how many Labour MPs will back him, is planning to stage a parliamentary vote on British military action against ISIL in Syria this week. (The Guardian)

• Egyptologists announce that radar scans indicate an empty space behind King Tutankhamun's tomb. British archaeologist Dr. Nicholas Reeves speculates if a second chamber exists, it could be Queen Nefertiti's long-lost burial place. Antiquities Minister Mamdouh Eldamaty says work inside the tomb will not begin until all the data from the radar and infrared devices are carefully analyzed by Japanese experts. (Sky News) (CNN)

• A slow moving wintry storm system is responsible for more than a dozen deaths in the U.S. states of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. (AP)

• 2015 Russian Sukhoi Su-24 shootdown, Russia–Turkey relations
  • A day after Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had harsh words for Russia, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, in an essay in the London Times, says the downing of the Russian jet, "was not -- and is not -- an act against a specific country. ... While the measures to defend our territory will remain in place, Turkey will work with Russia and our allies to calm tensions." (CNN) (Times of London)
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin signs a decree imposing economic sanctions on Turkey. The sanctions include a ban on charter flights from Russia to Turkey, that Russian tour operators should stop selling trips to Turkey, and that imports of some Turkish products are to be halted. All work visas for Turkish citizens are cancelled.(Irish Times)
• South Korea's Yonhap news agency reports North Korea appears to conduct a submarine-launched ballistic missile test that ended in failure with no indication that the missile successfully ejected from the vessel and took off. (Reuters)
• European migrant crisis, Macedonian border crisis
  • Macedonia's Army begins erecting a metal fence on its southern border with Greece. Around 250 migrants later clash with Macedonian police on the border. (CNBC), (AP)
• Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2015
  • The Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Malta calls for an ambitious and legally binding outcome at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
  • The United Kingdom will host the next CHOGM meeting in 2018 as Vanuatu, which was to host the meeting, had its infrastructure damaged by Cyclone Pam earlier in the year. (AFP via Yahoo! News)

• Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting
  • Colorado Springs Police Chief Peter Carey says all nine of the injured – five police officers and four civilians – are listed in good condition at area hospitals. (Reuters)
• Whaling in Japan
  • Japan advises the International Whaling Commission that it plans to resume hunting minke whales for scientific research in the Antarctic Ocean by the end of March 2016. The United Nations' International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in March 2014 that Japan's decades-old whale hunt in the Antarctic should stop, prompting Tokyo to cancel the bulk of its whaling for the 2014/2015 season. ICJ decisions were binding and cannot be appealed. (Reuters via The Daily Telegraph), (UPI)

• The United Kingdom's Minister of State for International Development, Grant Shapps, resigns amid claims he failed to act on allegations of in-party bullying of a young Conservative Party activist who committed suicide in September. (BBC)

• Tyson Fury of the United Kingdom defeats Ukrainian boxer Wladimir Klitschko in a title fight in Düsseldorf winning the WBA Super, IBF and WBO heavyweight titles. (BBC)
• 2015–16 Premier League
  • Leicester City's Jamie Vardy scores in a record eleven consecutive Premier League matches after scoring against Manchester United in a 1-1 draw at the King Power Stadium, breaking former Manchester United player Ruud van Nistelrooy's record. (BBC)