Portal:Current events/2019 October 16

October 16, 2019 (2019-10-16) (Wednesday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

• War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
  • A Taliban truck bomb in eastern Afghanistan kills three police officers and injures 36 other people, including twenty children. (Al Jazeera)
• Syrian Civil War, 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria
  • Following the withdrawal of troops, U.S. F-15s bomb a CJTF–OIR ammunition depot bunker at the Lafarge cement factory in Aleppo Governorate, Syria, to prevent the munitions and other equipment from being used by Turkish-led forces or Syrian government forces. (CNN) (The Independent)

Business and economy

• General Motors and the United Auto Workers announce that they have reached a tentative deal to end a month-long strike that cost the company US$2 billion. It will be sent to union members tomorrow for final approval. If approved, workers will receive a pay raise and temporary workers will be granted a more simplified path to full-time employment. (Reuters)

Disasters and accidents

• 2019 Mindanao earthquake
  • A magnitude 6.3 earthquake strikes the province of Cotabato, Philippines, at 19:37 local time (11:37 UTC), killing at least 5 people and injuring 53 others. (GMA News)

Law and crime

• 2019 Hong Kong protests
  • Jimmy Sham, a leader of the Hong Kong protests, is attacked by a group of hammer-wielding men in the Mong Kok District of the Kowloon Peninsula, and is taken to hospital with severe head injuries. (BBC News)
• Trial of Catalonia independence leaders, 2019–2020 Catalan protests
  • The nine pro-Catalonia independence politicians jailed earlier this week issue a joint plea for an end to violent protests across the region. Meanwhile, the Spanish government says it will meet protestors with a "firm, proportional and united" response. (The Guardian)
  • The violence of the protests in Tarragona, Girona, Lleida and Barcelona increases, while there are clashes with Mossos d'Esquadra in Reus. Four protesters and one policeman are injured in a pro-independence protest in Madrid. (El Mundo) (El País)
  • The Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez advises in a press conference that the Government will act with moderation but not concrete exceptional measures yet. (El País)
• Around 337 people in a dozen countries are arrested for participating in a child pornography network that hosted up to 250,000 videos depicting child sexual abuse. Officials in the United States, United Kingdom, and South Korea called it one of the largest child pornography operations to date. (Reuters)

International relations

• Japan–South Korea relations, 2019 Japan–South Korea trade dispute
  • Foreign ministry officials from Japan and South Korea meet in Seoul to discuss wartime forced labor and trade dispute (NHK World)

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October 2019

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