Armed conflicts and attacks

• Insurgency in Balochistan
  • Six soldiers are killed and 17 civilians are injured during a series of nine attacks in Balochistan, Pakistan. (ABC News)
• Piracy off the coast of Somalia
  • Fourteen Iranian fishermen are returned to Iran after eight years of captivity in Somalia. The men were found in Somalia by police last month and freed from al-Shabaab jihadists after negotiations between the captors, tribal chiefs and Somali elders. (AFP via Al Arabiya)

Disasters and accidents

• 2022 Northern Mindanao floods
  • At least eight people are killed, and 19 others are missing from monsoon floods in the Visayas and Mindanao regions of the Philippines. (Reuters via ABC News)
• At least four people are injured, one of them seriously, when an avalanche hits the ski resort Zürs/Lech in Vorarlberg, Austria. Emergency services rescue all of the ten people who had been buried alive. (RTL News in German)

Health and environment

• Catalonia in Spain registers the highest December temperature ever for the autonomous community in Anglès, which reached 26.3 °C (79.3 °F). Several other stations, including in the regional capital of Barcelona, also break records. (Catalan News)

Law and crime

• Pierce County substation attack
  • An attack on an electrical substation in Pierce County, Washington, United States, cuts off power to 14,000 people. The perpetrators and motive of the attack are unknown. (Seattle Times)
• A court in the Maldives sentences former president Abdulla Yameen to 11 years in prison on money laundering and bribery charges. (ABC News)