Bashar al-Assad steps up raids against Islamic State
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stepped up air raids in the north of the country on Friday in an effort to crack down on the Islamic State militants holed up there. Residents of the city said 45 civilians had been killed in one raid, with over 175 others wounded. Over Friday and overnight, helicopters and warplanes dropped steel drums packed with shrapnel and explosives over the city of al Bab, northeast of Aleppo. The city's residents said there were no reports of militants in their neighbourhoods, adding that they were confused about al-Assad's intentions.

Flash floods wreck havoc in Sri Lanka, kill 14
Sri Lankan news agencies reported on Friday that heavy rains over the country's North Central, Central and Eastern provinces had triggered floods, wrecking havoc that had killed 14 and displaced more than six lakh people in the regions. There have been incessant rains in the last week, with several highways and key access roads going across the country being cut off. A similar incident in October in the Central province had also triggered landslides that destroyed over 60 homes and buried more than 100 people alive.

Pyongyang blames US for triggering Internet blackouts
North Korea accused the United States on Friday of engineering the internet blackouts that the east Asian country suffered over Thursday and Friday. Experts had suggested that the intermittent outages that North Korean websites have been experiencing could be due to technical glitches arising from a cyber-attack. "The United States, with its large physical size and oblivious to the shame of playing hide and seek as children with runny noses would, has begun disrupting the Internet operations of the main media outlets of our republic," the North's National Defense Commission said, adding that such actions were laughable. Such accusations have been common in the past between the two countries, especially in the midst of rising tensions.

Kiev enforces transportation blockade to and from Crimea
Ukraine on Friday decided to enforce a transportation blockade to and from the Crimean region. The announcement was accompanied by a massive swap of prisoners of war between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists. The exchange of 125 Ukrainian servicemen for 225 rebels was brokered by envoys of Ukraine, Russia and by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Wednesday. Authorities argued the blockade was decided to be enforced after they perceived the security situation in the Black Sea peninsula, annexed by Russia earlier this year, to be deteriorating.

The Interview rakes in more than $1 million on limited release
The Sony Pictures film that has been at the eye of the storm brewing between the United States and North Korea, has raked in more than $1 million after a limited Christmas Day release. The solid showing is indicative of The Interview's success, Sony said, adding that it expected the film to be a big success upon wider release. Following threats from hackers opposed to screening the film, movie theatre chains around the US had removed the film from their rosters, prompting Sony to cancel the release. However, after President Barack Obama wished Sony hadn't done that, the production house took a U-turn and released the film.