Portal:Current events/2018 November 29

November 29, 2018 (Thursday)

Disaster and accidents

Vietjet Air flight VJ 356 crashed upon landing at Buon Ma Thuot International Airport while carrying 207 passenger and crew. Six people were injured but all survived. (VnExpress)

Arts and culture

Reggae music is added to the UNESCO Representative list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. (NPR) (UNESCO)

Business and economy

The German chemical and pharmaceutical company Bayer is to cut 12,000 jobs by the end of 2021 as part of an overhaul following its acquisition of Monsanto earlier in 2018. (CNN)
CNN announces it has severed ties with liberal commentator Marc Lamont Hill after he gives a U.N. speech advocating for Palestinian rights in which he used the phrase, "free Palestine from the river to the sea". (CNN) (The Washington Post)

International relations

Russia–Ukraine relations
- Ukraine's Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan says the ports of Berdiansk and Mariupol are effectively under blockade as Russia refuses to let any Ukrainian vessels leave or enter the Sea of Azov. President Petro Poroshenko calls on NATO to send warships to patrol the Sea of Azov. (Reuters) (The Guardian)
Russia–NATO relations
- The Belgian Air Component informs on Twitter that yesterday, Belgian F-16s operating in the Baltic region for NATO's Baltic Air Policing mission, "intercepted" Russian Flanker jets, allegedly because they had no flight plan. (Belga via Het Laatste Nieuws)
2018 G20 Buenos Aires summit
- An emergency landing delays German chancellor Angela Merkel's arrival at the summit due to a complete shutdown of the onboard-ground communication system aboard the official Airbus A340-313 Konrad Adenauer. (Der Spiegel) (BBC News)
- Russia–United States relations
  - After Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday the meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin during the summit is still on, while flying to Argentina, President Trump tweets that, after conferring with his top National Security advisers, he decided to cancel the meeting, adding that it was not a good time since Russia has not returned the ships and sailors to Ukraine. Less than an hour earlier, Trump said that he would "probably" meet Putin and that he believed it was "a good time to have the meeting." (USA Today) (Reuters) (USA Today²)

Law and crime

Mueller special counsel investigation
- Michael Cohen, former personal lawyer for U.S. President Donald Trump and The Trump Organization, pleads guilty to lying to Congress about Trump's Russian business contacts. (ABC News)
German police raid Deutsche Bank's offices in Frankfurt in connection with money laundering allegations that two staff members helped clients set up off-shore businesses as tax havens. Police officers, prosecutors and tax inspectors search six of the bank's offices and seize numerous written and electronic business documents. Deutsche Bank says the investigation stems from the 2016 Panama Papers leak. (CNBC)
Convicted murderer Samuel Little confesses to murdering 90 women between 1970 and 2005, making him one of the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has confirmed 34 of his confessions and are now working to confirm the others. (BBC) (FBI)

Politics and elections

Former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui is rushed to Taipei Veterans General Hospital after falling and hitting his head. (Taiwan News)
2018 Georgian presidential election
- Voters in Georgia elect Salome Zurabishvili as president. She will be the first woman elected to hold the position when she assumes office on 16 December 2018. (BBC)
2017–18 United States political sexual scandals
- Eric C. Bauman resigns as California Democratic Party chairman after accusations of sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior toward party staff members and activists. (Los Angeles Times)