Australian-born Julian Assange, the founder of controversial whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, was arrested on 7 December under a Swedish warrant by British authorities less than a week after the organisation began to release its largest cache of confidential documents - 250,000 in total, they have largely been diplomatic cables by US embassies from around the world.
Assange is accused of alleged sexual misconduct, including rape and unlawful coercion of two female WikiLeaks volunteers. He is currently out on bail but US authorities say they will push to charge him with espionage, while the Australian Federal Police say they have not found any local criminal offences to charge him with.
WikiLeaks believes that the allegations is part of a smear campaign, while Assange's lawyer claimed that the accusations are part of a “political stunt”.
Protests in support of Assange were held this week in Australia, Spain and London.
Find out more at
WikiLeaks http://213.251.145.96/
Twitter: twitter.com/WikiLeaks
News.com.au: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange fears he will be extradited to US
In central Stockholm, Sweden, two bombs exploded on 11 December, killing the bomber and injuring two other people.
Reported as the “First Islamic terrorism suicide attack in the Nordic countries” by the Norweigian Broadcasting Association, reports claim that Taimour al-Abdaly, a 28-year-old Iraqi born Sunni Muslim and Swedish citizen, is responsible for the explosion. An Al-Qaeda related website has claimed the attack as their own and Swedish police are treating the incident as a terrorist attack.
Several news organisations received emails about the blasts minutes before they happened, including Swedish news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyra which received attachments of recordings in English, Swedish and Arabic.
Find out more:
RFI: Police launch terror inquiry after Stockholm bombing
ABC: Stockholm bombing branded terrorist attack
The first and second round of elections, 28 November and 5 December respectively, were to create the Ninth Assembly of government in Egypt.
After an unexpected majority for the National Democratic Party (NDP) in the first round of elections, the two largest opposition parties pulled out.
100 people rallied in the streets of Cairo arguing that the NDP majority was the result of a corrupt voting system.
There were no national court or internation monitors allowed at the poll.
Allegations of fraud, vote buying, discarding of votes, violence and intimidation were made against the NDP.
2005 peace prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei at the head of the opposition is calling for a boycott to Egypt's presidential election due to fears of corruption.
The presidential election will be held in early 2011.
Find out more:
Ousted MPs rally to show support for shadow parliament
Lacking Credibility, Egypt Tests American Hegemony
United Nations climate change talks involving over 190 nations ended in Cancun. Nine thousand delegates negotiated over two weeks to produce the Cancun Agreements, which environmental activists say reiterate the decisions from Copenhagen.
They pledged to raise $30 billion over the next two years to help poorer countries, which are particularly vulnerable to climate change disaster. But the question of which countries will bear the responsibility of raising the money is still undecided.
The talks also discussed the chopping and burning of tropical forests, sharing low-carbon technologies and the signing of the Kyoto protocol.
The Union of Concerned Scientists believed that the talks were a small stepping stone, but that a lot more needed to be done, saying “The agreement itself was a mixed bag”.
Find out more:
LA Times: U.N. pacts contain small steps but no broad accord on climate change
CBC: Cancun climate talks end with modest steps
After seven years under house arrest Burmese pro-democracy dissident Aung Saan Suu Kyi was released on November 13 from house arrest following landslide elections in which the country’s military regime regained power.
The 65-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate saw her younger son, Kim Aris for the first time in over a decade. Her release spurred fresh calls from the US, UK and the European Commission for Burma to release all of its other political prisoners.