December 28, 2019 (Saturday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Somali Civil War (2009–present)
- December 2019 Mogadishu bombing
- A suicide truck bombing at a security checkpoint in Mogadishu kills at least 79 people and injures 149 others. No group has claimed responsibility. (CNN)
- December 2019 Mogadishu bombing
- War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
- A Taliban attack on an Afghan military base in Sangin District, Helmand Province, kills at least 10 Afghan soldiers and injures 4 others. (VOA)
- Monsey Hanukkah stabbing
- Five people are injured in a mass stabbing at the home of a Hasidic rabbi, during Hanukkah celebrations, in Monsey, New York. The suspect was later apprehended by the police. New York governor Andrew Cuomo calls it an "act of domestic terrorism". (The Washington Post)
Disasters and accidents
- A North Korean ghost ship washes up on the shore of Japan's Sado Island, containing the corpses of five people onboard, suspected to be fishermen. The bodies are described by Japanese police as "partially skeletonised", suggesting the boat has been adrift at sea for a long time. (BBC News)
- Five people are killed when a plane crashes near a Walmart supermarket in Lafayette, Louisiana. One occupant survives, while three others on the ground are injured. (BBC News)
- Indonesian palm oil tanker ship MV Namse Bangdzod vanishes in the Java Sea. The ship, with a crew of twelve, is theorised by rescuers to be the victim of piracy, a notion dismissed by the Navy. (The Jakarta Post)
Law and crime
- Corruption in Vietnam
- A court in Vietnam sentences former information minister Nguyen Bac Son to life in prison after finding him guilty of accepting $3 million in kickbacks via an overpriced purchase of Audio Visual Global JSC for nearly 8.9 trillion dong ($383.7 million) in late 2015 by government-owned company MobiFone. (Reuters)
- Prostitution in China
- The National People's Congress abolishes the use of forced labor to punish sex workers, but states that prostitution will remain illegal. (Reuters)
Politics and elections
- 2019 Algerian protests
- Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune appoints former University of Algiers professor Abdelaziz Djerrad to be the new Prime Minister. (Reuters)