Graphic News Planner (news) 14/12/2018 17:54:13

December 31, 2018 -- Graphic shows some of the top archaeological discoveries in 2018.

YEAR END: Archaeological discoveries of 2018 (Graphic DUE Dec 17, 13:37GMT)
GN38615 Graphic shows top archaeological discoveries in 2018.
(219mm wide by mm deep)

December 14, 2018 -- Yemen’s warring sides have agreed to a ceasefire in the strategic port city of Hodeidah, marking a key breakthrough in a stalemated conflict that has killed thousands of people and left millions more in misery.

YEMEN: Hodeidah ceasefire deal (Graphic)
GN38621 Graphic shows details of UN-brokered peace deal and areas of control and conflict in Yemen as of November 2018.
(107mm by 138mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 28, 2018 -- 2019 is looking like an excellent year for films with a box office bonanza of movies from directors including James Cameron, Quentin Tarantino, M. Night Shyamalan, Tim Burton, Jordan Peele, F. Gary Gray, and J. J. Abrams.

1. Greyhound. Directed by Aaron Schneider, starring Tom Hanks, Elisabeth Shue, Stephen Graham, Lee Norris. Hanks commands the naval ship Greyhound, which was pursued by German U-boats across the Atlantic Ocean along with 36 other Allied ships during World War II.
Released by Sony Pictures Releasing from March 22

2. Star Wars: Episode IX. Directed by J. J. Abrams, starring Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, Lupita Nyong’o. Plot details are scarce for this sequel trilogy finale. Abrams, who was behind the camera for The Force Awakens and was executive producer of The Last Jedi, takes the helm.
Released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures from December 20

3. Toy Story 4. Directed by Josh Cooley, starring Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Annie Potts, Laurie Metcalf. Ten years after Pixar’s Toy Story 3 was released, TS4 picks up in the hands of a toddler named Bonnie, who adds a new toy named Forky to her collection.
Released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures from June 21

4. Ford v. Ferrari. Directed by James Mangold, starring Christian Bale, Matt Damon, Jon Bernthal, Caitriona Balfe. Based on true events sports drama about American motor company Ford’s efforts to build a raceworthy car to rival — and hopefully defeat — the Ferrari team at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans race.
Released by Twentieth Century Fox from June 28

5. Once Upon a Time In Hollywood. Directed by Quentin Tarantino, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Al Pacino, Dakota Fanning, James Marsden. DiCaprio and Pitt play an aspiring actor and his stunt double in Tinseltown in 1969, just as the Manson Family murders are taking place.
Released by Columbia Pictures from July 26

6. Dumbo. Directed by Tim Burton, starring Colin Farrell, Eva Green, Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito. Live-action remake of the 1941 animated classic about a circus elephant with big ears and the ability to fly.
Released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures from March 29

7. Glass Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, starring Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, James McAvoy, Sarah Paulson, Anya Taylor-Joy. Sequel to Shyamalan’s previous films Unbreakable and Split, sees security guard David Dunn (Willis) using his superhuman abilities to counter Kevin Wendell Crumb (McAvoy). Jackson reprises his role as supervillain Elijah Price, also known as Mr. Glass.
Released by Universal Pictures Pictures from January 18

8. Spider-Man: Far From Home. Directed by Jon Watts, starring: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jake Gyllenhaal, Marisa Tomei, Michael Keaton. Tom Holland’s Spidey faces off against Jake Gyllenhaal’s villainous Mysterio.
Released by Sony Pictures Releasing from July 5

9. Captain Marvel. Directed by Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck, starring Brie Larson, Lee Pace, Samuel L. Jackson. Captain Marvel becomes Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first female superhero to get her own solo movie. Set in the 1990s and introduces the world to Carol Danvers (Larson), an Air Force pilot with superpowers.
Released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures from March 8

10. Men In Black International. Directed by F. Gary Gray, starring: Kumail Nanjiani, Emma Thompson, Chris Hemsworth, Liam Neeson. In the fourth film of the franchise, the secret agents’ work in a murder mystery has them traveling around the world.
Released by Columbia Pictures from June 14

11. Shazam! Directed by David F. Sandberg, starring Zachary Levi, Mark Strong, Asher Angel. Fourteen-year-old Billy Batson (Angel) turns into Shazam (Levi) at the sound of his super name, with the powers of super-strength, flight, and more.
Released by Warner Bros. from April 5

12. Us. Directed by Jordan Peele, starring Lupita Nyong’o, Elizabeth Moss, Winston Duke, Tim Heidecker, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Yahya Abdul-Mateen. Peele’s follow-up to his 2017 smash hit Get Out sees a couple take their kids to their beach house expecting to unwind with friends. But as night descends, shocking uninvited visitors arrive.
Released by Universal Pictures from March 15

13. Avengers: Endgame. Directed by Joe Russo, Anthony Russo, starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Paul Rudd, Mark Ruffalo. This follow-up to Infinity War promises to bring resolution to the conflict between Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and Thanos, the Mad Titan.
Released by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures from May 3

14. Alita: Battle Angel. Directed by Robert Rodriguez, starring Rosa Salazar, Jennifer Connelly, Christoph Waltz, Ed Skrein, Michelle Rodriguez. James Cameron and company bring the beloved Yukito Kishiro manga Battle Angel to life with Salazar as the titular heroine.
Released by Twentieth Century Fox from February 14

15. What Men Want. Directed by Adam Shankman, starring: Taraji P. Henson, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Max Greenfield. Gender-swapped take on the Mel Gibson comedy What Women Want sees Henson playing a sports agent who can hear what the men in her industry are thinking.
Released by Paramount Pictures from January 10

16. Reagan. Director Sean McNamara, starring Dennis Quaid, Jon Voight, Robert Davi, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. Biopic based on the life of Ronald Reagan, from his childhood to his time at the White House.
Released by Sun Distribution from mid-summer

/ENDS

YEAR END: Film releases in 2019 interactive (Interactive)
GN38622 Photomontage shows 16 selected movie releases in 2019.
(800px wide by 568px deep)

December 14, 2018 -- A new, richer form of mobile phone messaging is being slowly rolled out by network providers. Called RCS (Rich Communication Services), it has been in development for 10 years and is intended to replace the SMS (Short Message Service) system which has been in use since 1992.

RCS is a new online protocol that was selected for adoption by the GSM Association in 2008 – a wide body of organisations in the mobile industry, including device, software and internet companies. Because of the number of powerful players involved, it took until 2016 to reach agreement on what makes an acceptable standard.

RCS will add a lot more multimedia capabilities to messaging, ranging from the usual simple texts to longer messages with large attachments, like GIFs and high-resolution images and videos – already features of Apple’s iMessage app, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

Google’s Android platform has been without a default messaging application capable of such sophistication, which explains why the tech giant is such a strong supporter of RCS and so keen to see it implemented industry-wide.

Other major backers include Microsoft, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Samsung, Lenovo, and LG – but not yet Apple.

TECH: RCS to replace SMS messaging (Graphic)
GN38619 Graphic shows how RCS will supersede SMS messaging with a sweeping set of improvements.
(107mm by 130mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 31, 2018 -- A review of major news stories in 2018 includes the Russian spy poisoning in Britain, the Facebook privacy scandal, the extraordinary cave rescue in Thailand and the ongoing fallout from the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Intractable conflicts continued in Syria and Yemen, while Russia’s seizure of three Ukrainian naval ships saw relations between them deteriorate further.

Elections or other power handovers saw new leaders in South Africa, Cuba, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan and Brazil, while the U.S. midterm elections saw Democrat gains in the House of Representatives but the Republicans extend their hold on the Senate.

U.S. President Donald Trump rattled the world order by quitting the Iran nuclear deal and starting a trade war with China. But a thaw on the Korean Peninsula saw North Korea’s Kim Jong-un holding historic summits with both South Korea’s Moon Jae-in and Trump, while Korean delegates marched together at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

Major disasters included the eruption of Guatemala’s Volcán de Fuego, a deadly heatwave in Japan, wildfires in Greece and California, drought in Australia, two earthquakes in Indonesia, the Genoa bridge collapse, and Rio de Janeiro’s museum fire. Many Venezuelans fled to neighbouring countries to escape an economic collapse, and an ever-growing migrant caravan headed from Central America to the U.S.

Public protests included anti-government demonstrations in Iran, mass protests across the U.S. for tighter gun control after a school shooting in Florida, and “Yellow vest” protests in France. In Ireland, public opinion swung overwhelmingly in favour of legalising abortion.

In the business world Apple became the first public company valued at $1 trillion, while scientific achievements included a successful maiden flight for the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, and NASA’s InSight probe’s perfect landing on Mars.

Other stories attracting attention were Britain’s royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, women in Saudi Arabia finally winning the right to drive, and the death of the world’s last male northern white rhinoceros.

YEAR END: Year in review 2018 interactive (Interactive)
GN38598 Graphic shows a selection of key events that took place during 2018 and people in the public eye. Alternative events can be found in the GN On This Day in History database (link below).
(800px wide by 568px deep)

December 14, 2018 -- Virgin Galactic has taken its first trip to the edge of space, a major step toward the long-awaited dream of commercial space tourism.

The latest test of the company’s space plane is scheduled to take it to a height of more than 80 kilometres — the altitude at which space begins, according to the U.S. military and NASA. However, it will still fall short of the 100km — or 62 mile — Karman line, the notional point that many others see as the limit of earth’s atmosphere.

Reaching the threshold of space would demonstrate significant progress toward the start of commercial flights that were promised more than a decade ago. Virgin Galactic’s development of its spaceship took far longer than expected and endured a setback when the first experimental craft broke apart during a 2014 test flight, killing the co-pilot.

More than 600 people have committed up to $250,000 for rides in the six-passenger rocket, which is about the size of an executive jet. They have been waiting years to feel the kick of the rocket’s ignition, a near-vertical high-speed ascent into the blackness of space and several minutes of weightlessness with a view of the Earth far below.

The spaceship isn’t launched from the ground but is carried beneath a mothership named White Knight Two. It then detaches from the plane, ignites its rocket engine and climbs. The rocket is shut down and the craft coasts to the top of its climb — and then begins a descent slowed and stabilized by unique “feathering” technology. The twin tails temporarily rotate upward to increase drag, then return to a normal flying configuration before the craft glides to a landing on a runway.

Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is in a race with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, whose Blue Origin is also hoping to launch the first space tourism service, and Elon Musk, whose SpaceX hopes to become the first private company to put a human into space.

SPACE: Virgin Galactic space shot (Graphic UPDATED Dec 14)
GN38618 Graphic shows details of the mission.
(107mm wide by mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 13, 2018 -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is threatening to launch a new offensive against U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria, a move likely to further strain ties between NATO allies Turkey and the United States.

MIDDLE EAST: Turkey threatens new Syria offensive (Graphic)
GN38616 Graphic shows territorial control and details of previous Turkish military operations in Syria.
(107mm by 140mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

January 1 - December 31, 2019 -- Graphic gives a preview of events scheduled for 2019.

JANUARY
1. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi aims to lead the challenge to President Donald Trump’s political and legislative agendas when the new U.S. Congress convenes
2. Brazil’s far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro is sworn in as president of Latin America’s biggest country
3. NASA’s New Horizons probe makes its closest pass of the Kuiper Belt object MU69. At 6.5bn km from Earth, it is the farthest exploration in the history of humankind

FEBRUARY
4. China marks the Year of the Pig. People born in pig years are said to be honest, sincere and genuine
5. Nigerians head to the polls with President Muhammadu Buhari seeking a second term in office despite poor health
6. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards the Oscars in Los Angeles

MARCH
7. Barring a late change of heart, Britain will exit the EU on Mar 29 after 46 years in the club
8. Barbie, unveiled at a New York toy fair in 1959, turns 60, but still doesn’t look a day over 20
9. Ukraine is due to hold a presidential election

APRIL
10. Around 900 million people head to the polls in India, the world’s biggest democracy
11. Indonesia holds presidential and parliamentary elections
12. Emperor Akihito of Japan steps down after three decades as ruler of the world’s oldest hereditary monarchy. Crown Prince Naruhito succeeds to the Chrysanthemum Throne

MAY
13. 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci – master painter, architect, engineer and inventor whose genius epitomised the brilliance of the Renaissance
14. Australia is due to hold a general election
15. Sixteen teams contest the four-yearly Cricket World Cup, hosted by England and Wales

JUNE
16. Commemorations mark the 75th anniversary of the 1944 D-Day landings – the biggest seaborne invasion in history
17. World leaders head to Osaka as Japan hosts its first G20 Summit
18. France hosts FIFA’s Women’s World Cup

JULY
19. One giant leap for mankind – Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon 50 years ago
20. Disney releases its live-action remake of The Lion King, starring Beyonce, Donald Glover, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Seth Rogan
21. The Great South American Eclipse will be best viewed from Chile and Argentina

AUGUST
22. Germany’s 30th Wacken Open Air, an annual heavy metal festival, will attract 75,000 music fans
23. The world’s first daily international scheduled flight took off from London 100 years ago, bound for Paris
24. The FIBA Basketball World Cup, expanded from 24 to 32 teams, begins in China

SEPTEMBER
25. Japan is the first Asian country to host the Rugby World Cup, the world’s third-largest sporting event behind the Olympics and the soccer World Cup
26. The UN General Assembly’s 74th session opens in New York
27. Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan set sail 500 years ago on the expedition that resulted in the first circumnavigation of the Earth.

OCTOBER
28. Canada must hold its general election by the end of this month
29. Argentina elects a new president and members of congress
30. The EU appoints new presidents of the European Commission and European Central Bank when the terms of Jean-Claude Juncker and Mario Draghi end. Donald Tusk’s term as European Council president ends in November

NOVEMBER
31. Gun lovers mark the birth centenary of Mikhail Kalashnikov, Russian designer of the world’s most famous rifle
32. The tiny planet Mercury makes a transit across the sun – a rare event not seen again until 2032
33. Leaders of 21 Pacific Rim countries meet in Chile for the APEC Summit

DECEMBER
34. Russia hopes to start gas supplies to China via Gazprom’s 4,000km Power of Siberia pipeline
35. An annular solar eclipse will dazzle sky watchers from Saudi Arabia to Guam
36. Disney releases Star Wars: Episode IX, the conclusion to the
immensely popular series

YEAR END: Preview 2019 (Graphic)
GN38614 Graphic shows a selection of events scheduled during 2019.
()

December 12, 2018 -- The population of wild reindeer in the Arctic has crashed by more than half, according to a new report released at the American Geophysical Research Union meeting in Washington D.C..

The report into the effects of climate change in the Arctic revealed that the population of caribou (the name given to reindeer in North America) has fallen from 4.7 million to around 2.1 million animals in the last two decades.

Changing weather patterns and vegetation are making the Arctic tundra a much less hospitable place for caribou, with some herds having shrunk by more than 90% – a drastic decline that makes recovery unlikely.

Increased drought due to warming climate is causing the change in vegetation, with taller plants becoming dominant and out-competing the ground level lichen that caribou like to eat.

Large, oppressive numbers of insects are plaguing the animals, causing them to spend most of their energy and time either getting the insects off of themselves or finding places where they can hide from them.

Rain is also a major concern, often falling on snowy ground and leading to hard, frozen icy layers covering the grazing tundra. The Caribou simply cannot push their noses through the ice in order to reach their food supply.

ENVIRONMENT: Arctic reindeer numbers halved (Graphic)
GN38601 Graphic shows declining numbers of reindeer and where their populations reside around the Arctic Circle.
(107mm by 160mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 12, 2018 -- India’s ruling party has suffered a setback in elections to five state assemblies, handing Prime Minister Narendra Modi his biggest loss since taking office in 2014, and just months before national elections.

INDIA: Assembly election results (Graphic)
GN38610 Graphic shows results of India’s 2018 assembly elections.
(107mm by 140mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 12, 2018 -- British Prime Minister Theresa May will face a vote of confidence in her leadership after Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the Conservative Party’s so-called 1922 committee, said the threshold of 15 percent of the parliamentary party seeking a vote had been exceeded.


A ballot will be held between 18:00 and 20:00GMT on Wednesday at the House of Commons and an announcement made as soon as possible afterwards. May could be toppled if 158 of her 315 lawmakers vote against her.

UK: Conservative leadership contest (Graphic)
GN38612 Grapahic shows stages in a Tory Party leadership contest.
(107mm by 131mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 12, 2018 -- A massive manhunt is under way for a gunman who killed three people and wounded a dozen others at a Christmas market in Strasbourg.

France raised its security threat to the highest alert level, strengthened border controls and asked people around Strasbourg to stay put as police searched for the suspect. German police also tightened border controls across the Rhine river, officials said.

Police identified the suspect as Strasbourg-born Cherif Chekatt, 29, who was known to the intelligence services as a potential security risk.

The attack unfolded at around 20:00 local time (19:00 GMT) on Tuesday close to Strasbourg's famed Christmas market near one of the central squares, Place Kléber, which attracts thousands of visitors at this time of year.

TERROR: Strasbourg Christmas market shooting (Graphic)
GN38611 Graphic shows location of the attack.
(107mm wide by 129mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 11, 2018 -- Technology-driven toys continue to propel festive sales at the end of 2018, as they have done in recent years.

Harry Potter is back in fashion this holiday season, as are technological gifts – with games consoles, artificially intelligent robots and digital accessories among the top picks for shoppers this year.

FurReal Star Wars Ultimate Co-pilot Chewie
Artificially intelligent Wookie: $130

Anki Cozmo
Interactive, programmable robot: $140

Lego Harry Potter Hogwarts Great Hall
Brick building toy: $100

Kano Harry Potter Coding Kit
Build a wand and learn to code: $80

KeySmart Pro Compact Key Holder
Track lost keys via smartphone app: $50

Sesame Street Let’s Dance Elmo
Encourages children to dance and sing: $40

Nerf N-Strike Elite Strongarm Blaster
Foam dart automatic six-shooter: $28

L.O.L. Surprise! Bigger Surprise
More than 60 surprise toys, including dolls and accessories: $80

Nintendo Switch
Hybrid games console (can be hand-held or played through TV): $300
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate game: $60

YEAR END: Top toys and tech for 2018 (Graphic)
GN38602 Graphic shows popular toys and gadgets for the 2018 holiday season.
(163mm by 200mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 11, 2018 -- Russia has surpassed the UK to become the world’s second largest arms producer, with Russian companies now ranking just behind U.S. manufacturers in global weapons sales.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said in its annual report on the world's 100 biggest armaments groups that the combined arms sales of Russian companies amounted to $37.7 billion in 2017, an 8.5 percent rise from a year earlier. Russia's sales accounted for 9.5 percent of a worldwide total of $398.2 billion.

The report includes both domestic and foreign sales around the globe, but doesn't include Chinese companies because of unreliable statistics, the institute said.

For the first time in the report's history, a Russian company — the Moscow-based and state-owned Almaz-Antey that makes advanced air defence systems among other things — was listed among the world's top 10 weapons companies.

The report noted Russia started an initiative to consolidate its arms industry in 2007, a process that is expected to be completed soon.

Overall, the U.S. continued to dominate the list with 42 companies accounting for 57 percent of total sales, including the world's largest arms producer, Lockheed Martin Corp.

As a notable development, the report highlighted a 24 percent rise in sales by Turkish arms companies in 2017 from the preceding year.

MILITARY: World’s largest arms producers (Graphic)
GN38608 Graphic shows top arms producers in 2017.
(107mm wide by 168mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 31, 2018 -- This year saw astronomers discover the brightest object in our universe, while the oceans revealed the first warm-blooded fish. Steroid molecules in an ancient fossil showed that the earliest animal in the geological record lived on Earth 558 million years ago.

• Astronomers using the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) system of 10 radio telescopes in New Mexico discover the brightest object in our universe. The quasar, named P352-15, is 13 billion light-years away from Earth and started when the cosmos was less than a billion years old – just seven per cent of its age today.

“This quasar’s brightness and its great distance make it a unique tool to study the conditions and processes that prevailed in the first galaxies in the Universe,” Chris Carilli of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory said.

Distant quasar providing clues to early-universe conditions (EurekAlert)

• Fisheries biologist Nick Wegner from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration discovers that the common opah (Lampris guttatus) is warm-blooded, enabling it to be a vigorous predator in frigid ocean depths.

Scientists discovered a warm-blooded fish (Science)

• Scientists from the Australian National University, Russia and Germany identify steroid molecules in an ancient fossil, revealing the earliest animal in the geological record lived on Earth 558 million years ago.

Dickinsonia was a flat, oval-shaped creature that ranged in size from some two centimetres to 1.4 metres wide, and is characterised by a series of raised bands -- known as modules -- on its surface. These animals are of interest to palaeontologists because they are the first to become large and complex, to move around, and form communities. The study suggests that animals evolved millions of years before the so-called Cambrian Explosion of animal life.

Ancient steroids establish the Ediacaran fossil Dickinsonia as one of the earliest animals (Science)

• Researchers at Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands develop a wearable biosensor which measures beat-to-beat variation in heart rate to detect hypoglycemia -- low blood sugar -- in type 1 diabetes.

Endocrinology fellow Olde Bekkink and her colleagues tested the feasibility of detecting hypoglycemia using a commercially available biosensor called the HealthPatch from California-based VitalConnect. Wireless technology transmitted heart rate data to a mobile device. The researchers detected more than 70 percent of low blood sugar events, using an algorithm they developed themselves. The team will now refine the algorithm to increase its accuracy and precision.

Wearable heart rate monitor could signal low blood sugar in type 1 diabetes (EurekAlert)

• Paleogeneticists of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, discover that a woman who died 90,000 years ago was parented by two different species of human.

According to genome analysis of a bone fragment found in Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of Russia, the woman was half Neanderthal, half Denisovan.

Scientists already knew that Denisovans and Neanderthals must have bred with each other -- and with Homo sapiens -- but no one had previously found the first-generation offspring from such pairings.

Mum’s a Neanderthal, Dad’s a Denisovan: First discovery of an ancient-human hybrid (Nature)

• Researchers from Arizona State University and China’s National Centre for Nanoscience and Technology inject tiny, nanometre-sized robots made from folded sheets of DNA into the bloodstream of mice with human breast cancer tumours.

Within 48 hours, the bots had successfully grabbed onto vascular cells at the tumour sites, causing blood clots in the tumour’s vessels and cutting off their blood supply, leading to tumour’s death.

Curing cancer: New DNA nanorobots can kill cancer tumors (CIO Bulletin)



YEAR END: Scientific achievements of 2018 (Graphic)
GN38609 Graphic shows key scientific achievements in 2018.
(163mm wide by 255mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 31, 2018 -- A review of major news stories in 2018 includes the Russian spy poisoning in Britain, the Facebook privacy scandal, the extraordinary cave rescue in Thailand and the ongoing fallout from the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Intractable conflicts continued in Syria and Yemen, while Russia’s seizure of three Ukrainian naval ships saw relations between them deteriorate further.

Elections or other power handovers saw new leaders in South Africa, Cuba, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan and Brazil, while the U.S. midterm elections saw Democrat gains in the House of Representatives but the Republicans extend their hold on the Senate.

U.S. President Donald Trump rattled the world order by quitting the Iran nuclear deal and starting a trade war with China. But a thaw on the Korean Peninsula saw North Korea’s Kim Jong-un holding historic summits with both South Korea’s Moon Jae-in and Trump, while Korean delegates marched together at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

Major disasters included the eruption of Guatemala’s Volcán de Fuego, a deadly heatwave in Japan, wildfires in Greece and California, drought in Australia, two earthquakes in Indonesia, the Genoa bridge collapse, and Rio de Janeiro’s museum fire. Many Venezuelans fled to neighbouring countries to escape an economic collapse, and an ever-growing migrant caravan headed from Central America to the U.S.

Public protests included anti-government demonstrations in Iran, mass protests across the U.S. for tighter gun control after a school shooting in Florida, and “Yellow vest” protests in France.

In the business world Apple became the first public company valued at $1 trillion, while scientific achievements included a successful maiden flight for the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, and NASA’s InSight probe’s perfect landing on Mars.

Other stories attracting attention were Britain’s royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, women in Saudi Arabia finally winning the right to drive, and the death of the world’s last male northern white rhinoceros.

YEAR END: Year in review 2018 (2) (Graphic UPDATED Dec 11)
GN38593 Graphic shows a selection of key events that took place during 2018 and people in the public eye. Alternative events can be found in the GN On This Day in History database (link below).
(246mm wide by 356mm deep)

December 10, 2018 -- Measles is on the rise in Europe, with 30 countries together reporting more than 13,400 cases in the year to September 2018 – a fourfold rise over the same period two years ago.

HEALTH: Rise in measles cases across Europe (Graphic)
GN38603 Graphic shows number of measles cases in Europe for the year to September 30, 2018, compared with two years ago.
(107mm by 130mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 10, 2018 -- Pressure has mounted on French President Emmanuel Macron to announce concrete measures to calm protests marked by violence when he addresses the nation Monday evening, and breaks a long silence widely seen as aggravating a crisis that has shaken the government and the whole country.


Macron will speak from the presidential Elysee Palace at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT), an Elysee official said. The official wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity.

France deployed around 89,000 police but still failed to deter the determined protesters. More than 125,000 “yellow vests” took to the streets Saturday around France with a bevy of demands related to high living costs and a sense that Macron favours the elite and is trying to modernize the French economy too fast.

The capital Paris was particularly badly hit, with windows smashed, cars burned and shops looted, as 10,000 people took part in demonstrations.

Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire described the situation as a “catastrophe for businesses” and the economy.

FRANCE: “Gilets jaunes” protests in numbers (Graphic)
GN38604 Graphic shows timeline and describes the unrest in numbers.
(107mm wide by 95mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 10, 2018 -- The arrest of Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou has plunged the world’s biggest supplier of telecoms equipment and second biggest smartphone seller into the trade war between Washington and Beijing.

Huawei’s rise to global dominance has presented the Chinese company with many challenges -- including persuading consumers to pronounce its name “wah-way”, not “who-are-we.” Now the arrest in Canada of Meng Wanzhou, the company’s chief financial officer, is seen by many in China as a personal attack on Ren Zhengfei, the company’s founder and Ms Meng’s father.

If she is extradited to the United States, the charges Meng faces includes allegations that Huawei used the Tehran office of Skycom Tech Co. Ltd. to provide embargoed mobile network equipment to Iranian telecommunications companies.

U.S. officials allege that Meng misled multinational banks about Huawei’s control of Skycom, clearing more than $100 million worth of transactions through the U.S. between 2010 and 2014.

While the basis for the arrest is national security, it could give the Trump administration an upper hand in trade talks with China. A U.S. ban on Huawei would cut off access to hardware and critical software -- Android from Google and Qualcomm’s patents in radio access technology -- needed for next year’s rollout of revolutionary 5G.

President Trump could use the threat of a ban to force China to make significant trade concessions.

BUSINESS: Huawei factbox (Graphic)
GN38605 Graphic shows key events in the rise of China tech giant Huawei Technologies.
(107mm by mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 10, 2018 -- Swedish autonomous vehicle start-up Einride and German logistics group DB Schenker are set to gain regulatory approval, allowing an all-electric, driverless truck to carry freight on a public road.

The two groups said the permit would be a world first, enabling the commercial operation of a battery-powered truck to operate without a driver, following a pilot phase in operation since early November.

Einride and DB Schenker each said they expected to gain the permit by January.

The battery-electric T-pod can provide emission-free transportation at a cost that’s competitive with conventional diesel trucks, Einride claims.

The T-pod, designed to carry up to 15 standard European pallets, is about 7 metres long and weighs 20 tonnes at full capacity. Its battery capacity is 200 kilowatt hours, enabling a range of about 200km on a single charge.

In Sweden, Einride is developing a T-pod route with charging infrastructure between Gothenburg and Helsingborg, cities separated by about 200km. Einride aims to have 200 T-pods operating on that route by 2020.

The Stockholm-based company described the T-pod’s self-driving capabilities as Level 4 autonomy, meaning the vehicle can handle all aspects of driving under certain conditions without the need for a driver to intervene. The T-pod uses lidar and radar sensors and a machine vision system to track its surroundings.

Einride plans to begin operating with one remote driver per vehicle on the road, but over time, the company aims to expand that ratio until each remote driver is overseeing about 10 vehicles. (Story: Neil Winton)

TRANSPORT: T-pod electric driverless truck interactive (Interactive)
GN38594 Interactive graphic shows details of T-pod truck.
(800px wide by 568px deep)

January 1 - December 15, 2018 -- Graphic shows anniversaries and events on this day in history. Updated now to include the data for weeks 51-52 i.e. to December 29 The events and images are the same as on the GN On This Day print graphics GN38561 and GN38562. If you are hosting GN36036 on your own servers (rather than using the embed code supplied by Graphic News), the data in the hypersources folder can be topped up with the data for the separate weeks. These can be downloaded separately in the ZIP.clip file.

The graphic is “audo-updating” so if you look at the graphic tomorrow, it will show a different picture and selection of events to those shown today. This is because the graphic is constructed like an “interactive” graphic, but is not “interactive” in the sense that the viewer can change the events displayed; instead it “interacts” with the clock on your computer or mobile and this determines the selection shown.

The graphic is also responsive so if you view on a mobile phone it will look as good, but different, from the version seen if you view on your larger tablet or computer screen.

If you host the graphic yourself you may wish to substitute some of the events or images to give a more national or local interest. This is easy to do as there are separate files for the images and words for each day in the hyper sources folder. (Instructions available - See below).

HISTORY: ON THIS DAY “interactive” (Weeks 51-52) (Interactive UPDATED Dec 10)
GN36036 Responsive graphic showing anniversaries and events from today’s date in history, changes automatically each day. Come back tomorrow to see anniversaries and events for that date.
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December 23-29, 2018 -- Graphics show birthdays and anniversaries for each day of the week. This week features the Tokyo Tower, the first picture of the earth from space, the carol Silent Night, the citadel of Bam, Princess Leia of Star Wars, Kim Il-sung, and the coelacanth.

December 23, 1958: The Tokyo Tower, the world’s tallest free-standing steel tower, was dedicated in Japan. The 333m comms tower was inspired by the 301m Eiffel Tower in Paris

December 24, 1968: The three astronauts on board Apollo 8 became the first humans to orbit the moon, during which Bill Anders captured his iconic “Earthrise” photograph

December 25, 1818: The popular carol Silent Night was sung for the first time at a church in Oberndorf, Austria. It has since been translated into around 140 languages

December 26, 2003: A devastating earthquake in the Iranian city of Bam killed over 26,000 people and destroyed the 2,000-year-old citadel, the world’s largest mud-brick structure

December 27, 2016: Carrie Fisher, best known as Princess Leia in Star Wars, died aged 60. Her mother, Singin’ in the Rain star Debbie Reynolds, died one day later, aged 84

December 28, 1972: Kim Il-sung was elevated to the newly-created post of President of North Korea. Despite his death in 1994 he remains the country’s “Eternal President”

December 29, 1938: A coelacanth, a prehistoric fish previously believed to have been extinct for 65 million years, was caught off the Indian Ocean coast of South Africa

HISTORY: On this day December 23-29, 2018 (week 52) (Graphic)
GN38562 Graphics show birthdays and anniversaries on each day for the week.
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December 16-22, 2018 -- Graphics show birthdays and anniversaries for each day of the week. This week features the Boston Tea Party, the first powered aircraft, the rock star Keith Richards, the Williamsburg suspension bridge in New York, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the Lockerbie disaster, and SpaceX.

December 16, 1773: American colonists protesting against taxes boarded a British ship and dumped over 300 chests of tea overboard in what became known as the Boston Tea Party

December 17, 1903: Bicycle manufacturers Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first successful controlled flight in a powered aircraft on the beach at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

December 18, 1943: Keith Richards, co-founder of British rock band the Rolling Stones, was born. With singer Mick Jagger he is responsible for writing most of the band’s songs

December 19, 1903: The Williamsburg suspension bridge, connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan, opened in New York. Until 1924 it was the world’s longest suspension bridge

December 20, 1933: The dance partnership of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers was born in the movie Flying Down To Rio. They made 10 films, including Roberta (above) from 1933-49

December 21, 1988: A bomb exploded on Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground

December 22, 2015: Aerospace company SpaceX made history by sending the first orbital rocket into space and successfully landing the first stage back on the ground

HISTORY: On this day December 16-22, 2018 (week 51) (Graphic)
GN38561 Graphics show birthdays and anniversaries on each day for the week.
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December 7, 2018 -- Video gamers are on the verge of a seismic transformation that could see once-dominant consoles renedered obsolete by streaming services.

For over four decades home entertainment has been a brutal fight between competing games consoles, now Microsoft’s Project xCloud, Google’s Project Stream and experiments by Nintendo are allowing gamers to play blockbuster games over the internet using cloud technology.

In the near future, gamers using cloud technology could theoretically stream, rather than download, high-end games and play them in real time over the web on any device, just as they might watch a Netflix drama series.

The implications of cloud gaming are enormous. The console model is based on control of the medium through which the principal revenue stream, games, are channelled. If the medium is rendered irrelevant by cloud gaming, AAA games studios like Ubisoft, Electronic Arts and Activision may decide to cut-out the middleman.

Sony and Nintendo are both games makers and may find a profitable cloud model, and Microsoft has been buying up games studios to give itself a stronger in-house portfolio.

Upcoming 5G broadband could speed up the process too, and diminish the need for a costly high-powered box sitting under the television – but in so doing pose a major threat to a global consoles market worth $34bn a year in hardware and software sales.

After eight cycles of consoles, the industry may now be readying the last generation of devices that can realistically use that name.

GAMING: Cloud computing threat to Xbox and PlayStation (Graphic)
GN38600 Graphic shows how cloud computing could see blockbuster games playable on many formats, negating the need for expensive home consoles.
(107mm by 153mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 7, 2018 -- French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Édouard Philippe’s approval ratings have hit new lows as “yellow vest” activists prepare for further anti-government demonstrations across France.

FRANCE: Government approval ratings (Graphic)
GN38599 Graphic shows opinion poll ratings.
(107mm by 136mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 6, 2018 -- Dozens of suspected members of Italy’s ‘Ndrangheta organised crime syndicate have been arrested in a series of carefully coordinated police raids across Europe and in Latin America.

ITALY: Crime syndicate arrests (Graphic)
GN38596 Graphic shows Italian organised crime groups and details of police raids.
(107mm by 139mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 11, 2018 -- Britain’s House of Commons is to vote on the Withdrawal Agreement -- the terms on which the UK will leave the European Union -- with Prime Minister Theresa May needing support from Labour rebels to win parliamentary approval.

The minority government of the Conservative Party and the main opposition party, Labour, are internally divided on how Brexit should proceed.

The deal stipulates that following Britain’s exit from the union on March 29 there will be a 21-month transition period, during which the UK will remain in the EU single market.

Hardliners, wanting a clean break with Brussels, have warned that failure to keep the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland open will trap Britain in a customs union from which it cannot withdraw.

Supporters of a “soft Brexit” reject the deal, saying it fails to secure the closest possible political and trade ties with the EU.

Some MP’s from both parties think that the country should hold a second referendum on Brexit.

The House of Commons will vote on May’s deal on December 11.

UK POLITICS: Historic Brexit vote (Graphic)
GN38597 Graphic shows how the House of Commons is divided on the vote.
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December 6, 2018 -- Global carbon emissions will jump to a record high in 2018, dashing hopes a plateau seen in recent years would be maintained. Emissions’ growth in China, India and the U.S. is largely to blame.

CO2 missions are estimated to have risen 2.7 percent from 2017 to 2018, according to three studies released Wednesday from the Global Carbon Project , an international scientific collaboration of academics, governments and industry that tracks greenhouse gas emissions. The calculations, announced during negotiations to put the 2015 Paris climate accord into effect, puts some of the landmark agreement's goals nearly out of reach, scientists said.

The studies concluded that this year the world would spew 37.1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, up from 39.8 billion tonnes last year. The margin of error is about one percentage point on either side.

The Global Carbon Project uses government and industry reports to come up with final emission figures for 2017 and projections for 2018 based on the four biggest polluters: China, the United States, India and the European Union.

The U.S., which had been steadily decreasing its carbon pollution, showed a significant rise in emissions — up 2.5 percent — for the first time since 2013. China, the globe's biggest carbon emitter, saw its largest increase since 2011: 4.6 percent.

For the U.S., it was a combination of a hot summer and cold winter that required more electricity use for heating and cooling. For China, it was an economic stimulus that pushed coal-powered manufacturing.

Scientists say global emissions must start to fall by 2020 if the world is to meet the temperature goals of the Paris agreement.

CLIMATE: CO2 emissions set to hit record high (Graphic)
GN38595 Graphic shows CO2 emissions between 2000 and 2018, and breakdown of worst polluters in 2018.
(107mm wide by 141mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

April 23, 2019 -- Odysseus, a massive solar-powered unmanned aircraft designed to fly continuously for up to three months at high altitudes, will be used to perform climate and atmospheric research.

SCIENCE: Boeing’s solar-powered drone interactive (1) (Interactive UPDATED Dec 5)
GN38590 Interactive graphic shows key features of the Odysseus aircraft.
(800px wide by 568px deep)

December 5, 2018 -- Swedish autonomous vehicle start-up Einride and German logistics group DB Schenker are set to gain regulatory approval, allowing an all-electric, driverless truck to carry freight on a public road.

The two groups said the permit would be a world first, enabling the commercial operation of a battery-powered truck to operate without a driver, following a pilot phase in operation since early November.

Einride and DB Schenker each said they expected to gain the permit by January.

The battery-electric T-pod can provide emission-free transportation at a cost that’s competitive with conventional diesel trucks, Einride claims.

The T-pod, designed to carry up to 15 standard European pallets, is about 7 metres long and weighs 20 tonnes at full capacity. Its battery capacity is 200 kilowatt hours, enabling a range of about 200km on a single charge.

In Sweden, Einride is developing a T-pod route with charging infrastructure between Gothenburg and Helsingborg, cities separated by about 200km. Einride aims to have 200 T-pods operating on that route by 2020.

The Stockholm-based company described the T-pod’s self-driving capabilities as Level 4 autonomy, meaning the vehicle can handle all aspects of driving under certain conditions without the need for a driver to intervene. The T-pod uses lidar and radar sensors and a machine vision system to track its surroundings.

Einride plans to begin operating with one remote driver per vehicle on the road, but over time, the company aims to expand that ratio until each remote driver is overseeing about 10 vehicles.

TRANSPORT: T-pod electric driverless truck (Graphic)
GN38589 Graphic shows details of T-pod truck.
(107mm wide by 180mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 5, 2018 -- The Israeli military is demolishing border tunnels built by Hezbollah that cross into Israel from Lebanon. Israel is also constructing a 130-km-long border wall from the Mediterranean Sea to Mount Hermon in the east.

In a pre-dawn operation on December 4 the army discovered a 200-metre tunnel that stretched from the Lebanese village of Kafr Kela across the border and exited in farmland southwest of the Israeli border town of Metula. The shaft, cut through solid rock some 24 metres below ground level, was outfitted with electricity, ventilation pipes and communications, and extended 40 metres into Israel.

Metula residents told Israeli media they had been hearing digging noises and voices from beneath their homes for years and had reported their suspicions to the military.

The construction of the tunnels is a violation of UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

MIDDLE EAST: Hezbollah tunnels into Israel (Graphic)
GN38592 Graphic shows location of the tunnel and sections of the border wall completed to date.
(107mm by 139mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 4, 2018 -- Israeli police have recommended indicting Benjamin Netanyahu on bribery charges, adding to a catalogue of legal troubles that have clouded the Israeli Prime Minister’s prospects for re-election in 2019.

Netanyahu’s fate now lies in the hands of his attorney general, who will decide in the coming months whether the prime minister should stand trial on a host of corruption allegations that could play a central role in next year’s election campaign.

The latest allegations follow a lengthy investigation into a case involving Netanyahu’s relationship with Shaul Elovitch, the controlling shareholder of Israel’s telecom giant Bezeq. Netanyahu is suspected of granting regulatory favours to Bezeq in return for positive press coverage of him and his wife Sara on the company’s popular news site Walla.

Police said they believed there was sufficient evidence to charge Netanyahu and his wife with accepting bribes, fraud and breach of trust. They also recommended charges be brought against Elovitch, members of his family and members of his Bezeq management team.

Police have already recommended indicting Netanyahu on corruption charges in two other cases. One involves accepting gifts from billionaire friends, and the second revolves around alleged offers of advantageous legislation for a major newspaper in return for favourable coverage.

The prime minister has denied any wrongdoing.

ISRAEL: Netanyahu corruption cases (Graphic)
GN38588 Graphic shows corruption allegations facing Benjamin Netanyahu.
(107mm by 142mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 7, 2018 -- China’s Chang’e-4 will be the first spacecraft ever to land on the far side of the Moon. The mission will test plant growth and listen for radio emissions normally blocked by Earth’s atmosphere.

Named after the mythical moon goddess Chang’e, the mission is due to land in the Aitken Basin of the south pole in early January. The region is a vast impact region measuring some 2,500km in diameter and 13km deep, and it is the single-largest impact basin on the Moon and one of the largest in the Solar System.

Because the Moon rotates around its axis at the same speed as it orbits the Earth, we never see the far side from the ground. The lack of direct sight means the mission requires a relay satellite to enable communications between Earth-based mission control and the spacecraft. A relay satellite, named Queqiao, was launched in May to transmit signals.

The Chang’e-4 lander carries three scientific payloads, respectively, developed by the Netherlands, Sweden and Germany.

Dutch-Chinese low-frequency radio spectrometers on the lander and relay satellite will observe 21-cm hydrogen line radiation and study how the universe emerged after the Big Bang. Radio and television signals blight earth-based attempts to see these faint 21-cm signs from the Cosmic Dawn -- the far side of the Moon offers shelter from these transmissions.

Chang’e-4’s rover carries a small advanced analyser for neutrals, developed in Sweden, to study the interaction between solar winds and the moon surface.

A German-developed neutron and radiation dose detector on the lander will measure radiation levels -- crucial for long-term human occupation of the Moon. China ultimately hopes its efforts will lead to a crewed lunar landing, the first since NASA’s Apollo programme ended in 1972.

SPACE: China Chang’e-4 moon mission (Graphic)
GN38581 Graphic shows features of mission due to launch on December 7.
(107mm by 160mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 3, 2018 -- Germany’s Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has responded to Russia’s seizure of three Ukrainian ships and their crew off the coast of Crimea by calling for Berlin to cut gas flows through the planned Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Kramp-Karrenbauer – frontrunner to replace Angela Merkel as leader of Germany’s biggest political party – has also said the EU and United States should consider barring entry to Russian ships originating from the Sea of Azov in response to the incident, according to a Reuters report.

The $11billion Nord Stream 2 project, led by Russia’s Gazprom, aims to double capacity of the existing Nord Stream pipeline from late 2019, bypassing traditional routes through Ukraine.

ENERGY: Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline (Graphic)
GN38583 Graphic shows Nord Stream 2 pipeline and other major Russian gas pipelines to Europe.
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December 7-8, 2018 -- Two frontrunners with opposing visions are vying to succeed Angela Merkel as leader of Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in a crucial vote for the future of the EU’s dominant country.

One is Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a Merkel protege seen as the candidate of continuity. The other is Friedrich Merz, a long-time Merkel rival who promises more radical change.

Jens Spahn, the federal health minister, is also in the running.

The outcome of the vote for a new leader at a party congress is crucial not only for the CDU, which governs in a three-party coalition, but also for the future of the European Union’s dominant country and biggest economy. Merkel remains chancellor but whoever takes over the CDU is likely to be its candidate in the next federal election, due by October 2021.

POLITICS: Battle for Merkel’s throne intensifies (Graphic)
GN38582 Graphic shows possible candidates for CDU party chair.
(107mm wide by 141mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

November 30, 2018 -- Former president of the United States, George H. W. Bush, has died at the age of 94 at his home in Houston, Texas. His death comes seven months after that of his wife, former first lady Barbara Bush.

The nation's 41st president served from 1989 to 1993, and eight years later watched his son George W Bush became the 43rd president.

FACTFILE: George H W Bush life and times (1) (Graphic UPDATED Dec 1)
GN35026 Graphic shows the life and times of the 41st President of the United States.
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November 30, 2018 -- Former president of the United States, George H. W. Bush, has died at the age of 94 at his home in Houston, Texas. His death comes seven months after that of his wife, former first lady Barbara Bush.

U.S.: George H W Bush life and times interactive (2) (Interactive UPDATED Dec 1)
GN35032 Responsive interactive graphic shows the life and times of the 41st President of the United States.
(640px wide by 600px deep )

November 30, 2018 -- A South Korean train has crossed into North Korea for the first time in a decade as the two countries conduct joint surveys of northern railway sections they hope someday to connect with the South.

TRANSPORT: Joint Korea rail survey (Graphic)
GN38580 Graphic shows details of North Korean rail surveys.
(107mm by 140mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 18, 2018 -- A 3km test tunnel for Elon Musk’s Hyperloop, an electric travel system running under a Los Angeles freeway, is set to open to the public.

The route, beginning on the site of Musk’s SpaceX company in Hawthorne, Los Angeles and running for three kilometres under West 120th Street, will carry test vehicles at speeds of up to 250km/h.

To celebrate the completion of the Hyperloop test track, a night of festivities is planned for December 18, followed the next day by free rides for the public.

Musk’s Boring Company is also working on another Hyperloop trial in LA, linking to Dodger Stadium, as well as further proposals for Washington D.C. and Chicago.

TECH: Elon Musk’s Hyperloop opens to public (Graphic)
GN38574 Graphic shows the principle behind the Hyperloop system, with details on the Hawthorne route and Musk’s other plans.
(107mm by 160mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

November 29, 2018 -- Japan is looking to introduce its first aircraft carriers since World War II, in a move seen as a major departure from the country’s defence-oriented policy amid growing concerns over China’s naval expansion.

MILITARY: Japan plans first aircraft carriers since WWII (Graphic)
GN38577 Graphic shows features of Japan’s Izumo-class helicopter destroyer.
(107mm by 140mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

November 30 - December 1, 2018 -- Argentina’s capital is under a total security shutdown as the heads of state of the world’s 20 biggest economies meet for the G20 summit.

Security failures that marred a football championship and deeper unrest over an economic austerity programme have raised concerns about the country’s ability to ensure safety.

Argentina is the first South American country to host the G-20 summit, and around 3,000 soldiers, and 22,000 police and security agents will guard G20 leaders during the two-day meeting. At least another eight U.S. aircraft and up to 400 American military personnel and civilians will provide additional security.

Train and subway systems in Buenos Aires will be closed during the meeting, and authorities will cordon off a wide area near the summit venue.

The challenge of welcoming the leaders and about 15,000 other people has also prompted the Argentine government to stock up on bulletproof vehicles, high-powered motorcycles and bomb scanners.

In addition, the security ministry has established ways to monitor radiological and nuclear activity, track explosives and reinforce border controls.

Argentines have taken to the streets en masse in recent weeks to demand solutions to the country's economic crisis and reject austerity measures implemented in response to currency and inflation problems.

The crisis has forced President Mauricio Macri's government to seek a $56 billion credit line with the IMF and has revived bad memories of the 2001 crisis when banks froze deposits and people were prohibited from withdrawing their savings.

POLITICS: Argentina’s G20 summit security (Graphic)
GN38576 Graphic shows security measures in place in Buenos Aires during the G20 summit.
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November 28, 2018 -- Russia is planning to deploy more S-400 surface-to-air missiles to the occupied Crimean peninsula. The move comes amid rising tensions over Moscow’s seizure of three Ukrainian ships and their crews.

MILITARY: Russia to deploy new S-400 missiles to Crimea (Graphic)
GN38575 Graphic shows disputed areas and S-400 deployments.
(107mm by 140mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

April 23, 2019 -- Odysseus, a massive solar-powered unmanned aircraft designed to fly continuously for up to three months at high altitudes, will be used to perform climate and atmospheric research.

Designed by Aurora Flight Sciences, a subsidiary of Boeing that specializes in unmanned aerial vehicles, Odysseus has a wingspan of 74 metres, and can offer 250 watts of continuous power to a 25kg payload such as a satellite.

The aircraft will fly in the stratosphere, well above weather conditions and other aircraft and can cover a massive geographic area while maintaining contact with a station on the ground.

Odysseus can fly continuously for up to three months at a time, giving it a distinct advantage over UAVs that need to land and recharge. Because it's solar powered, the craft produces zero emissions.

Aurora will operate Odysseus from Puerto Rico, selected because it is at about 20 degrees latitude and on the East Coast, but it will be remotely operated from the company’s headquarters in Manassas, Virginia.

The drone will be shipped to Puerto Rico in late February 2019 and it is scheduled to make its first flight on April 23, 2019.

SCIENCE: Boeing’s solar-powered drone (Graphic)
GN38571 Graphic shows key features of the Odysseus aircraft.
(107mm wide by 166mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 24, 2018 -- Silent Night, one of the best loved Christmas carols, was first performed two centuries ago. Now sung in 300 languages around the world, it is a key part of Yuletide festivities.

Composed in 1818 by school teacher and organist Franz Xaver Gruber to lyrics by a young priest, Joseph Mohr, Stille Nacht was heard for the first time on Christmas Eve at St Nicolas’ Church in the small town of Oberndorf near Salzburg, Austria.

In 1832 the song was sung in public in Leipzig by a family of Tyrolean folk singers, and its popularity soon spread around Europe. It was first performed in the United States in 1839, and by the end of the 19th century it had become familiar around the world after Christian missionaries took the Christmas carol to East Africa, New Zealand and South America.

On December 24, 1914, soldiers on opposing sides in World War I sang Silent Night together across the trenches of the Western Front, and in 2011 the song was declared an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO.

It has been recorded by a large number of singers from every music genre – the version by Bing Crosby remains the third best-selling single of all-time.

The church of St Nicolas no longer exists, but the Silent Night Chapel, standing on the same site, will be the centre of the 200th anniversary celebrations in Austria.

YEAR END: Silent Night 200th anniversary (Graphic)
GN38569
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November 27, 2018 -- A spinal cord stimulator is a device designed to help patients who are trying to combat chronic pain. A small pulse generator sends signals to the spinal cord, masking the pain messages travelling to the brain.

The American Chronic Pain Association found that one in three Americans suffers from chronic pain, pain that persists for months and sometimes years. Chronic pain costs as much as $635 billion yearly, more than the cost of cancer, heart disease or diabetes. Opioid painkillers prescribed for chronic pain are highly addictive and result in 115 overdose deaths in the U.S. every day. Chronic pain also affects one in five Europeans -- some 100 million people.

Spinal cord stimulation (SCS), a U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved (FDA), drug-free treatment option has helped patients manage their chronic pain without addictive medication for over four decades.

However, an Associated Press report on spinal stimulators -- part of a nearly year-long joint investigation of the US$5.9 billion global medical devices industry -- found that that the FDA had 78,172 injury reports between 2008 and 2017, equating to a 13 per cent chance of injury.

MEDICAL: Spinal cord stimulators (Graphic)
GN38573 Graphic shows how a spinal cord stimulator works.
(107mm by 160mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

January 1, 2019 -- Holographic virtual avatars representing Swedish pop legends ABBA – dubbed “Abbatars” – are to be revealed in a global TV special in 2019, to be followed by a world tour.

Virtual avatars representing all four ABBA members will be revealed for the first time in a two-hour TV special being put together by NBC in the U.S. and the BBC in the UK.

The bandmates have been 3D scanned and digitally reproduced by graphic artists to look exactly as they did in their 1970s heyday. During the TV event, famous acts will perform ABBA tributes before the Abbatars take to the stage to sing a new song, “I Still Have Faith in You”. An Abbatar world tour is planned for 2019-20, which could rake in millions of dollars for the ageing pop quartet.

To recreate a live stage presence, state-of-the-art computer graphics will project the digital bandmates into the auditorium using an effective update of a Victorian stage trick called Pepper’s Ghost. The technique was popular in the 1800s for creating ghostly apparitions, but has been used more recently at Disney’s Haunted Mansion theme park attraction.

Perhaps the best known digital avatar stage performance to date was Michael Jackson’s appearance at the 2014 Billboard Music awards, five years after his death. ABBA’s return is said to use a more advanced update of that technology.

ENTERTAINMENT: ABBA’s mysterious “Abbatars” revealed (1) (Graphic UPDATED Nov 27)
GN38425 Graphic shows how the technology works.
(107mm by 188mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

November 26, 2018 -- NASA’s robotic Mars lander, InSight, will study the interior structure of the Red Planet to answer questions about the early formation of the inner planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars – 4.5 billion years ago.

InSight -- Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport -- is the first mission ever dedicated to the Red Planet’s deep interior and will use its trio of instruments to enable scientists to understand how different its crust, mantle and core are from their counterparts on Earth.

InSight’s Rotation and Interior Structure Experiment, RISE, uses the same technology that a smartphone uses to find its location. RISE will precisely track the location of the lander to determine just how much the North Pole wobbles as Mars orbits the Sun.

These observations will provide detailed information on the size of Mars’ iron-rich core and help determine whether the centre is liquid or solid.

The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Probe, HP3 for short, will be placed on the planet’s surface by InSight’s robot arm.

Developed by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt), HP3 will burrow down to almost five metres to take Mars’ temperature, reveal how much heat is flowing out of the planet, and what the source of that heat is. HP3 will help determine whether Mars formed from the same stuff as Earth and the Moon.

The third instrument, developed by France's Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES), is an ultra-sensitive seismometer.

SEIS, the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure, is also placed on the Martian surface to take the “pulse” of Mars -- seismic waves created by quakes, meteorite impacts, and even surface vibrations generated by activity such as dust storms.

These seismic events, heat flows and wobbles will give a “snapshot” of the planet’s interior and could inform scientists how the Earth formed and evolved.

SPACE: InSight spacecraft to study interior of Mars interactive (Interactive)
GN38559 Interactive graphic shows instruments of the Mars InSight lander.
(800px wide by 568px deep)

December 9-15, 2018 -- Graphics show birthdays and anniversaries for each day of the week. This week features the skeleton of a human ancestor that lived around 3.6 million years old, the Spanish-American War, the admission of China to the World Trade Organisation, the first elections in Saudi Arabia allowing women to take office, the destruction of the world’s coral reefs, the prophet Nostredame and the Leaning Tower of Pisa

December 9, 1998: The oldest complete skeleton of a human ancestor yet identified, estimated to be around 3.6 million years old, was found in a cave in South Africa

December 10, 1898: The Spanish-American War ended. The Treaty of Paris guaranteed Cuba’s independence and ceded Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines to the U.S.

December 11, 2001: China was finally admitted to the World Trade Organisation over 15 years after its first application, opening up its market of almost 1.3bn consumers

December 12, 2015: Saudi Arabia held its first municipal elections in which women were allowed to vote and stand for office, with 20 female candidates elected

December 13, 2000: Maritime experts predicted that up to 70% of the world’s coral reefs could be destroyed by 2050 due to global warming, pollution, fishing and coastal development


December 14, 1503: French astrologer and prophet Michel de Nostredame, also known as Nostradamus, was born. He published his celebrated book of prophecies, Centuries, in 1555

December 15, 2001: The Leaning Tower of Pisa reopened to visitors after 11 years of delicate engineering work to reduce its tilt and prevent it from toppling over

HISTORY: On this day December 9-15, 2018 (week 50) (Graphic)
GN38553 Graphics show birthdays and anniversaries on each day for the week.
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November 23, 2018 -- A team of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have successfully flown the first aircraft with no moving parts. The model plane uses “ionic wind” propulsion that creates no emissions.

SCIENCE: Ion drive aircraft flight (Graphic)
GN38565 Graphic shows details of how prototype plane flies.
(107mm by 140mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

November 25, 2018 -- As EU leaders meet in Brussels to sign off a draft Brexit agreement between the UK and EU, the Spanish prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is threatening to veto a draft deal on Britain’s exit from the European Union, unless a clarification of the text on future talks on the status of Gibraltar is made.

Spain wants the future of the tiny territory at the tip of the Iberian Peninsula — ceded to Britain in 1713 but still claimed by Spain — to be a bilateral issue between Madrid and London.

Last year's EU guidelines on the Brexit negotiations effectively gave Spain veto powers over future relations between the bloc and the British overseas territory, but Spanish officials are concerned that a key clause in the agreement referring to U.K.-EU negotiations on their future relationship makes no mention of Gibraltar.

Spanish government spokeswoman Isabel Celaa said Friday that Spain requires an "absolute guarantee" that any future agreement between the EU and the U.K. in matters regarding Gibraltar "will require the prior agreement of Spain."

Spain doesn't have a veto on the withdrawal agreement, which doesn't have to be approved unanimously. But it could hold up a future free-trade deal between Britain and the EU, which would require the approval of all 27 EU nations.

If EU leaders rubber-stamp the deal, it needs to be approved by the European and British Parliaments — a tough task for British Prime Minister Theresa May, whose Conservatives lack a majority in the House of Commons.

POLITICS: Gibraltar risks derailing Brexit deal (Graphic)
GN38564 Graphic outlines issues related to Brexit and Gibraltar.
(107mm wide by 148mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

November 20, 2018 -- A flying motorcycle developed by California-based startup Hoversurf is being used to train police officers in Dubai, with the aim of helping first responder units to access hard-to-reach areas.

The Hoverbike, dubbed Scorpion 3, is an electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicle, consisting of a carbon fibre frame supporting four propellers. The pilot, assisted by a flight computer, controls the machine using two joysticks which allow for changes in direction and altitude.

According to Hoversurf, the vehicle has a top speed of more than 90km/h and can fly for up to 25 minutes with a pilot, or 40 minutes in drone mode. Battery recharge time is 2.5 hours.

Other features include an emergency landing capability and laser all-weather LiDAR for navigating obstacles.

The Scorpion 3 qualifies as an ultralight under U.S. FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) rules, which means it can be flown without a pilot’s license.

TECH: Hoversurf Scorpion interactive (Interactive)
GN38548 Interactive graphic shows details of Hoverbike S3.
(800px wide by 568px deep)

December 1-31, 2018 -- The World Agenda gives a preview of world events scheduled for December, including the inauguration of Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador as president of Mexico, elections to choose the new leader of Germany’s Christian Democrats following Angela Merkel’s decision not to stand again, and the opening of a test section of Elon Musk’s envisioned hyper-fast loop system under Los Angeles.

Dec 1, Mexico: Andrés Manuel López Obrador begins a 6-year term in office as the country’s 58th president. He vows to scorn the expensive trappings of the job as he bids to boost the struggling economy, and to create a national guard to tackle the scourge of spiralling crime

Dec 3, Kazakhstan: The Soyuz launch to the ISS promises to be fraught, as the last attempt failed. Apart from the risk to the crew, a second failure could ground Soyuz and put the orbiting laboratory beyond reach

Dec 7, Germany: Jens Spahn, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbaue and Friedrich Merz are seen as the front-runners to replace Angela Merkel as leader of the Christian Democrats. After dismal election showings in Bavaria and Hesse, Chancellor Merkel announced that she would not stand again for the CDU party leadership

Dec 10-11, U.S.: A test section of Elon Musk’s envisioned hyper-fast loop system under Los Angeles opens to the public. Passengers will be whisked on an electric-powered platform at 240km/h along three kilometres of tunnel

Dec 13-14, European Union: EU leaders meet to deal with the outcome of November’s special summit to finalize the draft Brexit agreement struck by the bloc with Britain

Dec 19, U.S.: More than 50 years after the original Mary Poppins descended via umbrella, Disney’s musical reboot promises to put a skip in your step. Emily Blunt steps into the formidable shoes of Julie Andrews as the magical nanny

Dec 23, D.R. Congo: The vast resource-rich nation goes to the polls. After President Joseph Kabila accepted he could not run for a third term, his choice of former interior minister and Kabila loyalist Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary (above) in his stead signalled that little will change in the conflict-torn country

Dec 31, France: The U.S. and Israel depart from UNESCO in protest, accusing the agency of bias against Israel. Washington wins financially from leaving but loses its voice on the important World Heritage Committee

WORLD AGENDA: December 2018 interactive (Interactive)
GN38555 Responsive interactive graphic shows news events in December 2018.
(640px wide by 568px deep)

December 1-31, 2018 -- The World Agenda gives a preview of world events scheduled for December, including the inauguration of Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador as president of Mexico, elections to choose the new leader of Germany’s Christian Democrats following Angela Merkel’s decision not to stand again, and the opening of a test section of Elon Musk’s envisioned hyper-fast loop system under Los Angeles.

Dec 1, Mexico: Andrés Manuel López Obrador begins a 6-year term in office as the country’s 58th president. He vows to scorn the expensive trappings of the job as he bids to boost the struggling economy, and to create a national guard to tackle the scourge of spiralling crime

Dec 3, Kazakhstan: The Soyuz launch to the ISS promises to be fraught, as the last attempt failed. Apart from the risk to the crew, a second failure could ground Soyuz and put the orbiting laboratory beyond reach

Dec 7, Germany: Jens Spahn, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbaue and Friedrich Merz are seen as the front-runners to replace Angela Merkel as leader of the Christian Democrats. After dismal election showings in Bavaria and Hesse, Chancellor Merkel announced that she would not stand again for the CDU party leadership

Dec 10-11, U.S.: A test section of Elon Musk’s envisioned hyper-fast loop system under Los Angeles opens to the public. Passengers will be whisked on an electric-powered platform at 240km/h along three kilometres of tunnel

Dec 13-14, European Union: EU leaders meet to deal with the outcome of November’s special summit to finalize the draft Brexit agreement struck by the bloc with Britain

Dec 19, U.S.: More than 50 years after the original Mary Poppins descended via umbrella, Disney’s musical reboot promises to put a skip in your step. Emily Blunt steps into the formidable shoes of Julie Andrews as the magical nanny

Dec 23, D.R. Congo: The vast resource-rich nation goes to the polls. After President Joseph Kabila accepted he could not run for a third term, his choice of former interior minister and Kabila loyalist Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary (above) in his stead signalled that little will change in the conflict-torn country

Dec 31, France: The U.S. and Israel depart from UNESCO in protest, accusing the agency of bias against Israel. Washington wins financially from leaving but loses its voice on the important World Heritage Committee

WORLD AGENDA: December 2018 (Graphic)
GN38554 Graphic shows news events in December 2018. An interactive version of this graphic is also produced each month.
(163mm wide by 210mm deep)

November 20, 2018 -- Amid outrage over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, some members of Saudi Arabia’s ruling family are looking to prevent Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from becoming king.

SAUDI ARABIA: Prince Ahmed Abdulaziz profile (Graphic)
GN38549 Graphic shows profile of Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
(107mm by 140mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

November 20, 2018 -- An international survey finds that six in 10 people around the world think their country is on the wrong track, with financial and political corruption topping their concerns.

The Ipsos survey is conducted monthly in 28 countries around the world, including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, France, United Kingdom, Germany, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States.

An international sample of 20,787 adults aged 18-64 in Canada, Israel and the US, and aged 16-64 in all other countries, were interviewed between August 24 and September 7, 2018.

POLITICS: World worries poll (Graphic)
GN38551 Graphic compares citizens who believe their country is going in the right direction to those who feel theirs to be on the wrong track.
(107mm by 153mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

November 20, 2018 -- In a bid to clean up the world’s shipping industry, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has ruled that the amount of sulphur allowed in bunker fuel must be reduced from 3.5% to 0.5% by 2020.

Fuel costs are shipowners’ single most significant expense and shipping accounts for 90 per cent of world trade. The shift to cleaner fuel is expected to add US$13-$15 billion a year to the industry’s fuel bill -- costs which the industry will pass along to its customers.

The average price of bunker fuel has risen steadily this year, climbing by 32 per cent since April, from $370 to $490 per tonne in mid-October. IMO-compliant fuel is expected to add $150-$200 per tonne.

How carriers recoup the rising cost of fuel will be crucial to their profitability. Carriers have little option but to pass it on to shippers as a “Bunker Adjustment Factor” (BAF).

From 2020, Danish shipping giant A.P. Moller Maersk will be paying an extra $2 billion a year for low-sulphur fuel, hiking its annual fuel bill to around $5.4 billion. Maersk, the world’s largest carrier, estimates its BAF will add between $45 to $1,025 to the cost per twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) shipping container. Hapag-Lloyd, the world’s fifth largest container carrier, estimates increased costs of $115 to $333 per TEU.

Shipowners have limited ways to comply with the rule change. They can buy IMO-compliant fuels, or they can install expensive sulphur-reducing scrubbers. A third option is to slow down -- container vessels can cut fuel consumption by as much as 37 per cent by slowing by 1.5 knots (2.8km/h).

Whatever happens, the impact will affect trade in everything from commodities like oil, soybeans and steel, to items that move on container ships, like TVs, smartphones, furniture and clothes.

ENVIRONMENT: Cutting marine pollution (Graphic)
GN38536 Graphic shows ways that shipping lines can cut pollution.
(163mm wide by 219mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))

December 3, 2018 -- Three popular retired video games consoles are set to return in the form of miniature units that work with modern HD televisions.

With the PlayStation Classic, Sony is officially jumping on the retro console bandwagon that Nintendo sparked with its NES and SNES Classic Mini systems.

Like those consoles, the PlayStation Classic will be a miniature replica of the iconic 1994 system, complete with faithful throwback controllers and a slew of games that will usher in the first 32-bit retro console.

TECH: Retro games consoles on the rise (Graphic)
GN38454 Graphic compares three miniature retro gaming consoles set to be big sellers in during the holiday season.
(107mm by 160mm deep (print) and 2-screen responsive graphic (digital))