News Headlines - 26 December 2014

▽Labour faces wipe-out in Scotland despite change of leader - poll | Reuters

The Labour Party could suffer a wipe-out in Scotland in a UK-wide parliamentary election in May, scuppering its overall chances of supplanting Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives, a poll suggested on Friday.

▽Shoppers losing interest in the Boxing Day sales | The Times

While queues of bargain hunters formed in Britain’s most popular city shopping centres and retail parks, the turnout was a relative disappointment compared with predictions in the run-up to the Christmas break.
Experts blamed a rash of early online-only sales, as well as staged shopping events such as Cyber Monday and Black Friday, for changing the nation’s behaviour and steering interest away from the high street.

▽S. Korea Ups Security After Cyberattack on Nuclear Plants

South Korea has increased security around power plants after hackers penetrated their computer network and released sensitive documents online. Investigators cannot yet say if Pyongyang was involved in this hacking incident, but given the recent alleged North Korean cyberattack on the Sony movie studio, they cannot rule it out either.

▽Ukraine and Separatists Swap Prisoners as Peace Talks Falter - NYTimes.com

The Ukrainian government and separatists from the country’s southeast on Friday began swapping hundreds of prisoners of war in a rare sign of cooperation between the two sides.
The prisoner exchange, which was reported by the Interfax news service late Friday afternoon, came during a period of diplomatic stagnation, as peace talks between Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe broke down in Minsk, Belarus.

▽Photos: A look back at the Indian Ocean tsunami on the 10 year anniversary | OregonLive.com

December 26th, 2014 marks the 10th anniversary of one of the deadliest natural disasters in world history: a tsunami, triggered by a massive earthquake off the Indonesian coast, leaving more than 230,000 people dead in 14 countries and causing about $10 billion in damage.