December 15, 2018 (Saturday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Kashmir conflict
- Indian soldiers and counterinsurgency police exchange gunfire with militants in the southern district of Pulwama, resulting in the deaths of one soldier and three militants. The soldiers then opened fire on a crowd of anti-government protesters who gathered after the battle, killing seven civilians and injuring 40 others. (The Independent)
Disasters and accidents
- 20 people died and 14 others are injured when a truck carrying mourners returning from a funeral ritual plunged around 400 metres (1,300 feet) onto a river bank in central Nepal. (Times Now)
International relations
- Australia–Israel relations
- Australia formally recognizes West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state but will not move its embassy from Tel Aviv until a peace settlement is reached with the Palestinians. (Sky News)
- 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference
- Representatives from 196 nations agree on a rulebook to implement the Paris Agreement for climate change mitigation. (Reuters) (BBC)
- Afghanistan–Pakistan relations
- Pakistani, Afghan and Chinese officials hold talks in Kabul aimed at ending the region's conflicts. (Al Jazeera)
Politics and elections
- 2018 Sri Lankan constitutional crisis
- Mahinda Rajapaksa resigns as prime minister, effectively ending the constitutional crisis. (BBC)
- 2018 Moscow–Constantinople schism
- President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko declares the establishment of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, a new branch of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, separate from the Russian Orthodox Church, after Ukrainian clergy elected Metropolitan Epiphanius I as the head of the new church. (BBC) (UNIAN) (TASS)
- Cabinet of Donald Trump
- U.S. President Donald Trump tweets that Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke will quit his post at the end of the year. (Reuters)