After several biohazardous screw-ups, the CDC is hiring a safety chief →

The bit about ebola isn't meant to be alarmist, any more than the rest of these failures. As with everything, there needs to be a careful cost/benefit analysis, and we, as a society, guided by experts, need to figure out where to draw the line.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will hire a chief of laboratory safety, according to a Reuters report. Because apparently there wasn't one before; creating the position was a major recommendation of a lengthy internal investigation into mishandling of anthrax and bird flu in the agency's labs, according to a memo Reuters obtained.

The announcement comes a week after another lab mix-up — one involving Ebola.Last week, a wrong transfer of a sample containing the Ebola virus exposed at least one lab technician to the disease. The technician wore gloves and a gown, standard gear for inactivated viruses, but not all of the protective gear — like a face mask — recommended for working with the live virus. The worker was showing no symptoms as of December 29th; that person is being monitored for the standard 21 days. The CDC said Tuesday the worker's risk of being sickened by Ebola is "low, but not zero."

China May Have Committed A Tiananmen Square-Scale Massacre This Year — And Totally Covered It Up →

In early August, the president of the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress claimed that at least 2,000 members of China's Uyghur minority had been killed the previous month in and around Elishku, a town in China's far west. China's 12 million Uyghurs are Muslims who speak a language related to Turkish and who enjoy few civil, national, political, or religious rights under China's nationalistic and authoritarian system.

Beijing eventually admitted to killing 96 people in the incident, but did not allow any international or independent media or human rights monitors into the area. The incident took place in a very remote area; the violence likely involved police opening fire on demonstrators, rather than tanks or heavy vehicles.

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Which is a reminder of just how unique an event the Hong Kong protests have been.

In a cosmopolitan center of international finance, Beijing has had to carefully tread around its handling of mass dissent. It wants to impose its will on a restive population without having to resort to measures that could tarnish China's image or risk a further escalation.

The Afghan war that didn't really end yesterday ended in defeat →

As the author summarizes on Twitter:

While most of America's NATO allies that hadn't already washed their hands of combat will now do so, American fighting and dying will continue, with 11,000 US troops remaining in the country. There will be talk of "advising," and "training" and "non-combat" presence. But for the most part that can be safely ignored.
Over 4,000 Afghan soldiers and cops were killed fighting in 2014 alone, compared to 2,224 US soldiers killed fighting there since 2001. Civilian deaths had soared to 3,188 by the end of November, making this year the bloodiest for civilians since at least 2009, when the UN began tracking civilian deaths. The civilian death toll is at least a 20 percent increase over last year.
If Afghan history is anything to go by, it's due to get worse as America's longest war war winds down to its inevitable conclusion. For the Afghans, who have been embroiled in a civil war with heavy foreign meddling since 1979, the prospect of peace seems slim.

As Syria’s Revolution Sputters, a Chaotic Stalemate →

Being able to send weapons and dollars to "moderate" anti-Assad groups may impossible:

The assault this month was led by the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s arm in Syria, which claimed the spoils. By contrast, many of the first Syrians to rise up against Mr. Assad in 2011 — civilian demonstrators and army defectors alike — followed the battle from the sidelines here, unable to enter Syria under threat of death from the extremists of Nusra and its rival group, the Islamic State.

As Syria’s war heads toward its fourth year, the complex battleground is increasingly divided between the government and the extremists, leaving many Syrians feeling that the revolution on which they gambled their lives and livelihoods has failed.

The Assad Regime Is Running Low On Soldiers →

The efforts come at a low point in the Syrian military's overall manpower: Its ranks have fallen from more than 300,000 servicemen at the start of the uprising in 2011 to just half that figure, according to a report by the Institute for the Study of War.

Big money breaks out →

The 100 biggest campaign donors gave $323 million in 2014 — almost as much as the $356 million given by the estimated 4.75 million people who gave $200 or less, a POLITICO analysis of campaign finance filings found.

And the balance almost certainly would tip far in favor of the mega-donors were the analysis to include nonprofit groups that spent at least $219 million — and likely much more — but aren’t required to reveal their donors’ identities.

We fabricated drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas, former detective testifies →

A former NYPD narcotics detective snared in a corruption scandal testified it was common practice to fabricate drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas.

The bombshell testimony from Stephen Anderson is the first public account of the twisted culture behind the false arrests in the Brooklyn South and Queens narc squads, which led to the arrests of eight cops and a massive shakeup.

‘A Ground Invasion of the Capital Is Imminent’ →

They are just a handful of the more than 400,000 people who are currently displaced inside Libya, which is witnessing its worst crisis since the 2011 NATO-backed revolt that toppled dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

For three years, Libya has been without a functioning government, police force, or army. The country has been ripped apart by warring fiefdoms of ex-rebels who helped oust Qaddafi but have since directed politics with AK-47s and anti-aircraft guns. This summer, as the battle lines began to harden, two rival factions emerged to vie for control of Libya: On one side is the newly elected parliament that has been banished to the eastern city of Tobruk — supported by the fractured remains of Qaddafi soldiers who defected during the uprising, as well as regional powers like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. On the other side is Libya Dawn, a self-described revolutionary coalition of militiamen and Islamist-leaning politicians that originated in the western city of Misrata, allegedly backed by Turkey and Qatar.