December 29, 2014 Edition

Indonesia resumed at dawn Monday, December 29, the search for an AirAsia plane that went missing in the Java Sea with 162 people on board, a search and rescue official said. The Airbus A320-200 disappeared en route from Surabaya in Indonesia’s east Java to Singapore after the crew requested a change of flight plan due to stormy weather, in the third crisis for a Malaysian carrier this year.

Read the full story on Rappler.

 

State weather service PAGASA announced Monday, December 29, that Tropical storm Seniang was estimated to be in the vicinity of Hinatuan, Surigao del Sur, carrying maximum winds of 65 kilometers per hour (km/h) near the center, as well as gustiness of up to 80 km/h. Tropical storm Seniang is forecast to move west northwest at 11 km/h.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Rescuers battled in the dark Sunday, December 28, to save nearly 300 passengers trapped on a burning Italian ferry as coastguards reported the first death in the high-seas drama. By late evening Italian Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi said the flames were under control while the Italian navy said 190 people of the 478 on board had been evacuated. The blaze, which sent huge clouds of smoke into the air, was said to have started on the ferry’s car deck in the early hours when the vessel was some 44 nautical miles northwest of the Greek island of Corfu.

Read the full story on Rappler.

NATO formally ended its war in Afghanistan on Sunday, holding a low-key ceremony in Kabul after 13 years of conflict that have left the country in the grip of worsening insurgent violence. The event was arranged in secret due to the threat of Taliban strikes in the Afghan capital, which has been hit by repeated suicide bombings and gun attacks over recent years.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Bayan Muna Representative Neri Colmenares on Sunday, December 28, admonished his colleagues in the House of Representatives for failing to immediately act on an earlier motion to launch a congressional probe into the supposedly excessive fares, delays, and dismal services of local airline Cebu Pacific. Following its disastrous flight cancellations during the peak Christmas season, the House senior deputy minority leader said there’s no reason to delay the probe any further. Colmenares wants punishment not only for Cebu Pacific, but also for the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), the government agency regulating the airlines.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Taiwan’s former vice-president started a hunger strike Sunday, December 28, as part of a growing campaign for the release from prison of ailing ex-leader Chen Shui-bian. Chen, now 63, who led the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to power in 2000 after 50 years of Kuomintang rule, is serving a 20-year sentence for corruption. He was convicted of money-laundering and bribery related to his eight-year presidency and was sentenced to life in prison in 2009, a term reduced after appeals. Chen was transferred to a prison hospital in April last year after being diagnosed with severe depression, suspected Parkinson’s disease and other conditions.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Some 41 million British wills dating back to 1858, including those of Winston Churchill and Princess Diana, were made available in an online database Saturday, December 28. The government’s full archive of wills from England and Wales, stretching back more than 150 years, has been put on the probatesearch.service.gov.uk website. It includes the wills of World War II prime minister Churchill; novelist Charles Dickens; Diana, princess of Wales; children’s writer A. A. Milne; code-breaker Alan Turing; writer George Orwell and author Beatrix Potter. The digital copies of the wills cost £10 ($15.50, 12.75 euros) but basic details for some of them are available online.

Read the full story on Rappler.

Snow and ice in the French Alps have stranded thousands of vehicles for a second day, snarling up holiday traffic to and from ski resorts. The authorities in the Savoy region said up to 15,000 people spent Saturday night in emergency accommodation. Meanwhile, hundreds of air passengers were stranded at an airport in Chambery with some reporting a lack of facilities. The French government had earlier urged drivers to “exercise the utmost caution” and avoid travel if possible.

Read the full story on the BBC.

Twitter on Sunday, December 28, experienced a partial outage, the nature of which was not immediately clear, the company said. “Something is technically wrong,” the microblogging service’s welcome page said. “Thanks for noticing – we’re going to fix it up and have things back to normal soon.”

Read the full story on Rappler.

YouTube continues to be an impactful platform thanks to video equipment and editing software that get easier and more accessible over time. An ordinary smartphone these days has the capacity to not only take quality videos, but also to edit them, score them, and broadcast them to the whole world in a heartbeat. With YouTube, users can see other people’s lives in motion, and as with previous years, it was hard to look away.

Read the full story on Rappler.