December 23, 2017
(Saturday)
Disasters and accidents
- 2017 Pacific typhoon season
- Tropical Storm Tembin
- More than 200 people are dead in the southern Philippines as a result of floods and mudslides caused by Severe Tropical Storm Vinta. (Reuters)
- Tropical Storm Tembin
- London Zoo fire
- A fire breaks out at a café and shop at the London Zoo. An aardvark is killed and four meerkats are missing. (Sky) (Reuters)
- December 2017 Southern California wildfires
- The Thomas Fire becomes the largest in Californian state history. (BBC)
- 2017 Davao City mall fire
- Thirty-seven people, mostly call centre workers, are missing and presumed dead in a fire in the Davao City Mall in the Philippines. (The Express) (The Free Press Journal)
- Thirty-three people are killed and 15 injured as a bus falls 65 feet into the river in Rajasthan, Western India. (Sky News)
International relations
- Foreign relations of France
- French President Emmanuel Macron says he will help strengthen the military forces of the G5 Sahel fighting Islamist militants in the Northern Mali conflict. (Reuters)
Law and crime
- A mail carrier from Dublin, Ohio, (told that he would lose his job) allegedly kills 2 of his supervisors. (AP via ABC News) (The Columbus Dispatch)
Politics and elections
- Previously secret documents from Alan Ewen Donald, the United Kingdom's ambassador to China between 1988 and 1991, regarding the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, are released after being declassified in October, putting the death toll from the protests at 10,000 people. (BBC)
- Former Peru president Alberto Fujimori is taken, from prison, to a local hospital for treatment for abnormally low blood pressure. (Reuters)
Sports
- 2017–18 La Liga
- For a record third time in a row, FC Barcelona wins the El Clásico away match versus Real Madrid C.F.. With a 3–0 score, they extend their lead over Real Madrid at the top of La Liga to 14 points. (The Guardian)