Portal:Current events/2010 August 6

Current events of August 6, 2010 (2010-08-06) (Friday)

Armed conflicts and incidents

• The United Arab Emirates says the incident in which a Japanese tanker was damaged in the Strait of Hormuz near Oman last week was a terrorist attack. (BBC) (Emirates News Agency) (AFP)
• Hiroshima marks the 65th anniversary of the the world's first atomic bomb attack, carried out on the city by the United States; the US sends a representative, having never previously done so. (BBC) (The Age) (The New Zealand Herald) (China Post)
• NATO admits responsibility for the deaths of at least 32 Afghan civilians in Nangarhar Province as a result of an airstrike on August 5. (New York Times) (The Sydney Morning Herald)
• Former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz tells The Guardian that the United States and UK have left Iraq in a worse state than before their 2003 invasion and that they are now "leaving Iraq to the wolves" by abandoning it. (Aljazeera) (The Guardian)
• An explosion at Zamboanga International Airport in the southern Philippines kills two people and injures 24. (BBC) (Philippine Inquirer)
• The Pentagon "demands" Wikileaks remove its collection of classified military documents from the internet and admits it is aware of what further publications might contain, though does not comment on the possibility of taking legal action against the website. WikiLeaks post a new encrypted file under the title "Insurance". (Aljazeera) (BBC) (Reuters)

Business and economy

• Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister of Russia, bans export of flour and wheat from August 15 to December 31 due to the worst drought in Russian history. (Reuters)

Disasters

• Flash floods in the Ladakh region India's Jammu and Kashmir state kill at least 59 people. (AP via Google)
• Mount Karangetang a volcano on the island of Siau in Indonesia erupts. (AP via Seattle PI)
• Smoke from Russian wildfires delays more than 140 flights at Moscow airports. (Bloomberg)

Science

• A ban on BlackBerry mobile phones comes into effect for security reasons in Saudi Arabia. (BBC)
• According to scientists, one million little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) contracted white nose syndrome (WNS) and died in North America. (BBC)

Politics

• Pál Schmitt takes office as President of Hungary, succeeding outgoing president Laszlo Solyom. (Politics.hu)
• Bronisław Komorowski is officially sworn in as President of Poland, following the death of President Lech Kaczyński in a plane crash in April. (BBC)