Portal:Current events/2021 May 14

May 14, 2021 (Friday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

War in Afghanistan
- 2021 Afghanistan attacks
  - 2021 Kabul mosque bombing
    - Twelve people, including an imam, are killed and 15 more are wounded as a bomb explodes inside a mosque in Shakardara District on the outskirts of Kabul. The Taliban condemns the attack, for which nobody claims responsibility. (Reuters)
2021 Israel–Palestine crisis
- The toll from the Israeli airstrikes in Gaza rises to 122 people killed and more than 900 others wounded, as shellings and bombardments are increasing in Gaza's districts. The International Criminal Court says that individuals involved in the conflict may be targeted by an investigation into war crimes. Violence also continues in the West Bank, with Israeli settlers attacking Palestinian homes in the city of Hebron, while two protestors in Salfit, one in Ramallah and another in Yabad are shot dead by soldiers, bringing the number of Palestinian protestors killed there to nine. (Al Jazeera)
- American official Hady Amr arrives in Tel Aviv as an effort by the Biden administration to defuse tensions between Israel and Palestine. (Haaretz)

Health and environment

COVID-19 pandemic
- COVID-19 pandemic in Asia
  - COVID-19 pandemic in Japan
    - Due to the rising number of COVID-19 cases in Japan, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga extends the state of emergency to Hokkaido, Okayama and Hiroshima prefectures effective from May 16 until the end of this month and declare a quasi-state of emergency in Gunma, Ishikawa and Kumamoto prefectures from May 16 until June 13. (The Japan Times)
  - COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore
    - The Singaporean Health Ministry announces that it will imposes strictest curbs since the circuit breaker last year, including limiting social gatherings to two people, making work from home default, and bans dining in at restaurants. The new restrictions will be in effect from May 16 until June 13. (The Straits Times) (Forbes)
  - COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan
    - The Taipei City Government announces the indefinite closure of entertainment venues and multiple public facilities such as libraries and sports centres beginning tomorrow after Taiwan reports a record 29 new locally transmitted cases in the past 24 hours. (France 24)

Law and crime

Protests against the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis
- Jordan police disperses protesters who were trying to reach the Allenby Bridge near the border. Additionally, protesters from Lebanon also reach the border. (Al Arabiya) (Times of Israel)
- Pro-Palestinian protesters storm the Queensway tunnel in United Kingdom, disrupting traffic. (Birmingham Mail)
- Over 600 people, including Uyghurs, gather at the Turkish Mosque (Japan) to protest Israel's occupation of the Gaza Strip. (ANI)
Health Service Executive cyberattack
- The Irish Health Service Executive shuts down its IT systems nationwide after a cyberattack involving ransomware. (RTÉ)
Two men are arrested and charged with theft of government property after allegedly obtaining and selling 1,875 stolen technical orders, including documents detailing operations, maintenance and schematics of equipment, from the United States Air Force between 2015 and 2020 in exchange for at least $132,280. The seller worked for Summit Aerospace, while the buyer operated a private company, LTC Products, listed only for aircraft rental services, and were discovered because of sales to a third company, Newport Aeronautical Sales. (Military.com)
A Toshiba European subsidiary has revealed that it has also been affected by a cyberattack in its division for self-checkout technology and point-of-sale systems. They said the attack seems to have been carried out using the same DarkSide ransomware. A ransom was demanded, but nothing was paid and a “minimal” amount of work data was stolen. (CNBC)
Darksupp, the operator of the Darkside ransomware, announced that the group itself has lost access to the public part of their infrastructure including blogging, payment, CDN servers. Cryptocurrency funds were also withdrawn from the payment server and transferred to an unknown wallet. (The Record)

Politics and elections

Taiwan's Central Election Commission approves three referendums in late August. The referendums will allow the public to decide on banning pork containing ractopamine, on holding referendums on the same day as general elections, and whether to change the location of a planned new liquefied natural gas terminal to protect the maritime environment. (Reuters)

Sports

2021 Formula One World Championship, Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on motorsport
- The Turkish Grand Prix, originally scheduled for June, is postponed due to the recent upgrading by the British government of pandemic-related travel restrictions on Turkey. (Daily Sabah)