Globe Trot: Aleppo’s hell

SYRIA: Today, as the UN Security Council meets to consider the dire situation in Aleppo, a lot of bad reporting is afoot as fighting continues in Aleppo, with many Western news outlets suggesting Syrians are fleeing regime bombing, while Middle Eastern outlets report they are fleeing to regime-held areas and away from rebel-held eastern Aleppo.

UNITED STATES: Islamic State yesterday claimed responsibility for Monday’s Ohio State University attack, calling Abdul Razak Ali Artan, the Somali-born assailant who injured 11 people, a “soldier” of the terrorist group. His relationship to ISIS appears to follow a pattern in other attacks in the West (like the July attack in Nice, France), with terror plots “remote-controlled” by ISIS digital warriors, rather than direct training and firsthand recruitment.

Artan was admitted to the United States in 2014 as the child of a refugee with his mother and six siblings. He remained in Dallas only 23 days before moving to Ohio, according to Catholic Charities of Dallas, his resettlement agency.

SOUTH KOREA: President Park Geun-hye says she is willing to resign over charges of influence peddling, but opposition leaders say not so fast.

CUBA: Thousands gathered in Havana in a mass rally to mourn Fidel Castro’s death. Cubans in Cuba, points out columnist Anne Applebaum, lack an institutional memory of his murderous reign:

“Fidel Castro, when he died Nov. 25, left behind him a nation that does not, in any public space, mourn or even acknowledge the 5,600 Cubans who died in front of Castro’s firing squads, or the 1,200 murdered in ‘extrajudicial assassinations,’ or any of those who were jailed, tortured or died escaping his regime. No Cuban has been allowed to publish, in Cuba, a true history of his populist revolution, one that repressed and murdered the existing elite in order to put an even more vicious and more incompetent elite in its place. Because Cubans have limited Internet access, they can’t access the Cuba Archive, an online record of the Cubans murdered by the Castro regime, or any of the books and articles written about the country overseas. There is no hall of memory for the victims, as there is at Ground Zero, and their names are not carved into any stones.”

CHINA: Hangzhou’s local government is piloting a “social credit” system the Communist Party plans to roll out nationwide by 2020, using technology to reprise “Big Brother” social control. A person can incur black marks for infractions like subway fare cheating, jaywalking, and violating family-planning rules—in a point system that could determine a citizen’s ability to take out a loan or travel abroad.

FRANCE: On Sunday, Les Républicains, the conservative party, chose François Fillon to lead its presidential ticket, and the long-time dark horse is now favored to win the presidency. Yesterday, the Socialists upset their apple cart, too, with Prime Minister Manuel Valls hinting he may challenge President François Hollande for his party’s nomination, signaling a party split.

The right’s surprising choice of Fillon has the potential to swipe victory from the grasp of the National Front’s Marine Le Pen. Fillon appeals to social conservatives in France—he is opposed to abortion and has said he will restrict adoption by same-sex couples—yet is seen as an establishment politician.

BELGIUM: A live webcam captures Winter Wonders, the traditional Christmas market set up in Brussels’ Grand Place.

UNITED STATES: Today is Norwegian chess champ Magnus Carlsen’s birthday, and he will spend it facing off with Russian Sergey Karjakin in a tiebreaker after regulation games Monday ended in a draw.