1) Zuckerberg vows to donate 99% of his shares for charity
- Mark Zuckerberg, The CEO of Facebook, announced on 1st December that he and his wife would give 99 percent of their Facebook shares "during our lives" - holdings currently worth more than $45 billion - to charitable purposes.
- According to the reports, the pledge was made in an open letter to their newborn daughter, Max, who was born about a week ago. Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr Priscilla Chan, said they were forming a new organization, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, to manage the money, through an unusual limited liability corporate structure.
- Zuckerberg`s charitable plans are the latest indication of a growing interest in philanthropy among Silicon Valley`s young billionaires, who, unlike previous generations of business tycoons, appear eager to spread their wealth while they are still young.
- Earlier this week, Zuckerberg was also one of the billionaires who signed on to the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, a group organized by the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to contribute toward a multibillion-dollar clean energy fund. The announcement coincided with a Paris summit meeting intended to forge a global accord to cut planet-warming emissions. Zuckerberg and Chan had previously pledged about $1.6 billion to charitable endeavors.
20 Iran worked on developing nuclear weapons: UN
- United Nations nuclear watchdog has said that Iran took limited steps towards developing a nuclear bomb in the past. But the report from the IAEA said the efforts did not go beyond planning and testing of basic components. In its report, the IAEA said most of the co-ordinated work by Iran took place before 2003, with some activities continuing up to 2009. The report was a condition of this year`s landmark deal between Iran and six world powers. Iran`s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said the findings confirmed that Tehran`s nuclear programme was peaceful.
3) Oscar Pistorius convicted of murder on appeal
- Olympic athlete, Oscar Pistorius, has been found guilty of murder after a South African appeals court overturned an earlier manslaughter verdict. The court announced its ruling today in the case against the double amputee athlete, who was convicted last year of the 2013 shooting death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
- He is currently under house arrest after spending one year of his original five-year sentence in jail. Pistorius will have to return to court to be re-sentenced, for murder. The minimum sentence for murder is 15 years but judges can apply some discretion. South African law does not make provision for someone to be placed under house arrest for more than five years; hence Pistorius will be going back to prison.
4) US authorities begin probe into California shootings
- US authorities are investigating the motives of a shooting spree that left 14 people dead and another 17 wounded at a centre for people with learning disabilities in Southern California.
- A man and a woman suspected of taking part in yesterday`s attack in San Bernardino died in a shootout with police hours later. The slain suspects were identified by police as Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik.
- San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said Farook was a US-born county employee who had attended a holiday party at the Inland Regional Center, a social services agency, and later returned to open fire on the celebration. San Bernardino police said a possible third suspect had been detained over the shooting.
- The attackers were dressed in military-style gear and carried assault weapons as they burst into the auditorium where the shooting took place. The FBI is not ruling out the possibility of terrorism but the situation is still being investigated. Authorities found three possible explosive devices at the Inland Regional Center, where the shooting took place. No details have yet been released on the victims` identities.
5) Australia passes anti-terrorism law to strip citizenship
- Australia`s parliament has passed laws to strip dual nationals of their citizenship if they are convicted of terrorism offences or found to have fought with banned groups overseas, despite concerns about deporting known militants. Those who fight for a declared terrorist group also automatically lose their citizenship. Attorney-General George Brandis said in Sydney today that the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill, passed.
- Canberra has been increasingly concerned about the flow of fighters to Iraq and Syria to join extremist groups such as Islamic State, with some 110 Australians currently fighting in the region.