Informing, engaging & connecting the people of the world. DECEMBER 10, 2019

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In the eight years I spent documenting a campaign of oppression against Myanmar’s ethnic minority Rohingya Muslims, I had heard countless tales from victims who had endured or witnessed atrocities committed by the country’s security forces. Now, I was witnessing it in real time.

ON THIS DAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY On December 10, 1967, soul music legend Otis Redding is among seven killed in a plane crash near Madison, Wisconsin. Redding’s biggest hit, “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay,” was released posthumously weeks after the crash. Redding penned such classics as “Respect,” a song Aretha Franklin took to number one, “These Arms of Mine” and “Try a Little Tenderness.” “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay” was the first ever posthumous number one song.

Turkey Defense Minister Hulusi Akar warned Washington on Monday that Turkey will seek alternatives if Washington doesn’t end its embargo on the sale of the F-35 jet.

Russian and Ukrainian leaders agreed to implement a ceasefire and a prisoner swap by year’s end, following four-way talks in Paris on Monday that also included France and Germany.

A glimmer of hope in an otherwise bruising environment for independent media in Cambodia, VOD is one of multiple outlets whose operations were threatened in the run-up to the 2018 elections, as the incumbent government of Prime Minister Hun Sen sought to smother dissent.

Experts say North Korea appeared to have conducted a fuel engine test on the ground, potentially for a long-range missile, in what Pyongyang claimed as “the test of great significance.”