News Headlines - 11 December 2018

▽Former Canadian Diplomat Detained in China, Adding to Tensions - The New York Times

A former Canadian diplomat has been detained in China, according to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, less than a week after Canada announced the arrest of a senior Chinese tech executive, angering the government in Beijing... The former diplomat, Michael Kovrig, has worked since early 2017 for the International Crisis Group, an independent nongovernmental organization that tries to defuse international conflict.

▽Strasbourg Christmas market shooting: suspect on the run after three killed | The Guardian

France has upgraded its security threat level as hundreds of police hunted a gunman who shot three people dead and injured 12 others in a terror attack on Strasbourg’s celebrated Christmas market on Tuesday evening.
Six hours after the gunman disappeared after firing at passers-by in the busy city centre, the interior minister, Christophe Castaner, said the government had raised the risk level to the highest category.

▽Scientist Honjo receives Nobel Prize in Sweden - NHK WORLD

Japanese molecular immunologist Tasuku Honjo has jointly received this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Honjo and American scientist James Allison were awarded the prize for their work that led to a revolutionary cancer therapy.
The 2 scientists and other Nobel laureates attended a ceremony at a concert hall in the Swedish capital Stockholm on Monday.

▽Vast, zombie-like microbial life lurks beneath seabed | AFP.com

Scientists have drilled a mile and a half (2.5 kilometers) beneath the seabed and found vast underground forests of "deep life," including microbes that persist for thousands, maybe millions of years, researchers said Monday.
Feeding on nothing but the energy from rocks, and existing in a slow-motion, even zombie-like state, previously unknown forms of life are abundant beneath the Earth despite extreme temperatures and pressure.

▽Belgian museum on Africa reopens after 10-year effort to exorcise the ghosts of colonialism

For more than a century, Belgium’s Royal Museum for Central Africa has stood as a monument to the worst excesses of colonial plunder.
After a ten-year “decolonisation” project, the renovated museum will open to visitors for the first time in five years on Sunday and Belgium will finally take a step towards confronting its brutal history in the Congo.