Portal:Current events/2016 December 25

• Pope Francis pleads for peace in a Christmas Mass in the Vatican. (Voice of America)

• Bezeq, an Israeli telecoms company, says that it has received word from the country's telecoms regulator that it will be allowed to end the "structural separation" of its business operations by product (i.e. mobile phone, internet, land lines). (Reuters)

• 2016 Chiloé earthquake
  • A magnitude 7.7 earthquake in Chile spurs tsunami warnings. (BBC)
• 2016 Russian Defence Ministry Tupolev Tu-154 crash
  • A Russian Tu-154 military passenger airplane carrying 92 people including the Alexandrov Ensemble crashes into the Black Sea shortly after takeoff from Sochi. The airplane was headed towards Khmeimim, Syria. The Russian Armed Forces are actively involved in the Syrian Civil War. (The Telegraph) (Al Jazeera) (FOX News)
• 2016 Pacific typhoon season
  • Typhoon Nock-ten (Nina) strikes the Philippines. (BBC)
• The German city of Augsburg is evacuated after a World War II-era explosive is discovered in the town. Explosive experts later defused the bomb. (The New York Times)

• Medical research reveals shrinkage in women’s brains as a result of pregnancy. Loss of gray matter in certain regions of the brain may make the brain more efficient and specialized for child-rearing. There is also evidence of links to long-term changes in brain. (ScienceNews) (Nature)

• Afghanistan's first female Air Force pilot Niloofar Rahmani files for asylum in the United States. (Reuters)
• Pakistan releases Indian fishermen caught in its territory as a gesture of goodwill. (Deutsche Welle)

• 2016 Turkish purges
  • Turkey probes around 10,000 social media users for allegedly insulting government officials or supporting "terror-related activity." (BBC)
• A producer of Al Jazeera is arrested in Egypt. (Reuters)