RationalWiki:What is going on in the world?/December 2021

December 2021
French car maker Citroën pulls an Egyptian TV commercial acccused of normalizing sexual harassment. Austria's former chancellor conservative Sebastian Kurz, who currently is under investigation for allegations of corruption during his chancellery, is to be a “global strategist” for Thiel Capital. Russian court shuts down human rights group Memorial International. Ghislaine Maxwell has been found guilty in five of the six accounts of sex trafficking. Legal experts are pointing to the possibly of a sentence of 65 years. NASA's $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope launches on epic mission to study early universe The Norwegian postal service marks 50 years since the decriminalization of same-sex relationships in the country by putting out a TV commercial with a gay Santa Claus that has become a hit. North Korea bans laughing for 11 days during mourning for anniversary of Kim Jong-il's death. Dutch scientists have found that anti-5G "quantum pendants" emit dangerous levels of ionizing radiation - in other words they're radioactive. The Swedish city of Gävle's famous Christmas Goat, which had managed to survive unscathed every year since 2016, has gone up in flames once again. Malta’s parliament has voted by 36 to 27 to legalize possession of up to 7g of cannabis. This makes the island-nation the first European nation to legalize the narcotic. Denmark’s former Immigration Minister Inger Støjberg has been sentenced to prison for 60 days, after a court found that she violated local human rights laws by separating refugee couples where the bride was under 18. [https://www.npr.org/2021/12/13/1063923911/supreme-court-again-leaves-state-vaccine-mandate-in-place-for-healthcare-workers On a 6-3 vote, SCOTUS refused to block New York's vaccine mandate, despite the fact that the mandate includes no religious exemption. Conservative justices Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Chief Justice John Roberts joined the liberals in forming the majority]. Peter Thiel has been funding a network of anti-liberal Christians at Cambridge University, many of whom have links to racist and authoritarian ideas and figures such as Toby Young and Charles Murray. Ratings agency Fitch has said two large Chinese construction companies Evergrade and Kaisa have defaulted due to missed payments deadlines. 19 Kids and Counting star Josh Duggar found guilty of possession of child pornography. New Zealand plans to ban all cigarettes for future generations. Canada's Senate passes bill to ban conversion therapy Liberal MP Jaime Battiste, who once tweeted "Why do I assume every skinny aboriginal girl is on crystal meth or pills?" has been named as the Parliamentary Secretary for Crown-Indigenous relations. The Greens have finally endorsed the traffic light coalition agreement, meaning that Olaf Scholz could be invested as Chancellor by Wednesday and fully end the chancellorship of Angela Merkel. Proposals of the agreement include; legalising cannabis, raising the minimum wage to €12 per hour, 80% renewable energy by 2030 and lowering the voting age to 16. Bob Dole, U.S. Senator and challenger to Bill Clinton in the 1996 U.S. presidential election, dies at 98. Chris Cuomo, who was recently suspended by CNN for helping brother Andrew Cuomo, has now been fired. Locals in the Canadian Arctic city of Iqaluit are fed up that they are unable to drink tap water for nearly 2 months, as the territorial government would not remove the do-not-drink order due to a fuel leak. Updated rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau now allow debt collectors to text, email, DM, and attempt to follow debtors on social media. Leaked papers reveal the link between the Uighur genocide and Chinese leadership, including dictator Xi Jinping In response to concerns over the safety of Chinese professional tennis player, who early in November 2021 (in a blog post) accused a retired Chinese Communist Party vice premier of sexually assaulting her, and subsequently all but disappeared from the public eye in a similar manner to other recent celebrities and business magnates who have irked Chinese leadership, the announced the immediate suspension of all WTA tournaments in China, as well as Hong Kong. A German court issues a first-ever genocide conviction related to the DAESH-perpetrated atrocities against Iraqi Yazidis, against a man who had purchased a 5 year-old Yazidi girl as a slave and chained her in the sun to die. CNN indefinitely suspends anchor Chris Cuomo as documents released by the New York AG appear to show that he used media contacts to help his brother, former governor Andrew Cuomo, deal with the fallout from his sexual misconduct scandal by strategizing public responses and trying to dig up dirt on the accusers. CNN knew since May that Chris had been coordinating with his brother but declined to discipline him until the recent documents came out. The secretive prisons that keep migrants out of Europe