Portal:Current events/2024 June 21

June 21, 2024 (Friday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

Business and economy

France–Niger relations
- Niger's military junta revokes the operating license of French nuclear fuel producer Orano at the Imouraren uranium mine amid tensions between the two countries. (BBC News)

Disasters and accidents

2024 Hajj disaster
- At least 1,119 pilgrims, more than half of whom are from Egypt, are now confirmed to have died from heat-related causes during the Hajj in Saudi Arabia. (Barron's)
- President of Tunisia Kais Saied dismisses the Minister of Religious Affairs after 49 Tunisians are reported to have died in this year's Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. (Al Arabiya)
2024 North America heat waves
- At least six people die due to heat-related illness in the Phoenix metropolitan area in Arizona, United States, as temperatures reach 115 °F (46 °C). (AP)
2024 West African floods
- At least 21 people are killed by floods in Niger's Maradi region and the suburbs of Niamey after unusually heavy rainfall in the region. (AP)
The death toll from the floods and landslides in Meizhou, Guangdong, China, increases to 47 people. (Al Jazeera)
At least 11 people are killed in wildfires in southeast Turkey. (ABC News)
Eight workers are critically injured in an explosion at an aluminium processing plant in Bolzano, Italy. (Corriere del Trentino)
France reports nearly 200 cases of cholera in Mayotte. (Le Monde)
Most of Montenegro and parts of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia experience blackouts as a result of a heavy load on the electrical grid caused by an unexpected increase in power consumption due to high temperatures. (DW)
The death toll from torrential rains in El Salvador increases to 19 people, including at least 2 children. (AP)

International relations

Law and crime

Cross-Strait relations
- China officially defines Taiwanese separatist behavior as a criminal act, threatening the death penalty for "diehard" Taiwanese separatists involved in "plotting independence with the help of external forces". (Financial Times)
LGBT rights in Namibia
- The High court in Namibia rules that two colonial-era laws criminalizing gay sex between men are unconstitutional. (DW)
2024 Fordyce shooting
- Three people are killed and 10 others are wounded in a shooting at a grocery store in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States. The suspect is shot and arrested by Arkansas State Police. (AP)
A court in Geneva, Switzerland, sentences billionaire Prakash Hinduja and three of his family members to four years in prison for exploiting domestic workers at their villa in Cologny. (AP)