Portal:Current events/2014 December 13

• Taliban insurgency
  • Gunmen assassinate Atiqullah Rawoofi, the head of the Secretariat of the Supreme Court of Afghanistan, in the outskirts of Kabul. (AP)
  • Twenty-one people die in attacks across Afghanistan including two American soldiers. (AP via Washington Post)
• Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
  • Iraqi officials claim that ISIL have shot down a military helicopter near Samarra, killing both pilots. (AP)

• Germany's most successful television show, Wetten, dass..?, ends after a 33-year-run. (AP)

• Landslides caused by heavy rain in Java, Indonesia, kill at least 17 people with a hundred still unaccounted for. (AP), (AFP via Channel News Asia), (BBC)

• Philippines v. China
  • Vietnam files an intervention in the arbitration case about the South China Sea with Vietnam rejecting China's claims. (Bloomberg)
• India and Russia sign deals on infrastructure, nuclear energy, and defence. (Reuters)

• The wife of Thailand's crown prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, Princess Srirasmi, resigns her royal status following a corruption probe of her relatives. The King of Thailand Bhumibol Adulyadej grants her a divorce. (AFP via ABC News Australia), (AAP via SBS)

• The Geminids meteor shower reaches its peak this weekend. (Boing Boing)

• In American football, Marcus Mariota of the University of Oregon football team wins the 2014 Heisman trophy for the best player in college football. (Fox News)