Portal:Current events/2019 October 8
October 8, 2019 (Tuesday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Turkish involvement in the Syrian Civil War, Northern Syria Buffer Zone
- Turkish officials say that Turkish Air Force jets have begun bombing the Syrian-Iraqi border on Monday night ahead of an imminent ground invasion of northern Syria that is controlled by Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, whom Turkey regards as terrorists. (The Hill)
- War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
- A bomb explodes in a classroom at Ghazni University in Afghanistan, wounding at least nineteen students. The same university was targeted last month with a bomb attached to a university minibus that killed one and injured five. (Gulf News)
- Two sappers die and four more are wounded trying to defuse World War II shells in Poland. The last such casualties occurred in 1982. (Xinhua) (TVN24)
Arts and culture
- Pacific Gas and Electric shuts off power to 800,000 customers in Northern California citing safety concerns from an elevated fire risk due to the weather conditions. (CBS 13 Sacramento)
International relations
- Brexit negotiations in 2019
- President of the European Council Donald Tusk tells Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson that "what's at stake is not a stupid blame game", after a UK source said talks were "close to breaking down" following a reported argument in a phone call between Johnson and German chancellor Angela Merkel on the subject of the post-Brexit status of Northern Ireland. (CNN)
- China–United States relations, China–United States trade war
- The U.S. State Department announces it imposed visa restrictions on numerous Chinese government officials it believes responsible for the detention or abuse of Muslim Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang province. The move follows the Department of Commerce adding twenty-eight Chinese firms and bureaus to their "trade blacklist" on Monday for similar reasons. (Reuters)
Law and crime
- Thirteen men are arrested in the United Kingdom for a drug smuggling conspiracy which over several years moved 50 tonnes of illegal drugs from the Netherlands, valuing over tens of millions of pounds. The National Crime Agency called it “the biggest ever [drug] conspiracy that we've seen in the UK”. (BBC)
Politics and elections
- 2019 Ecuadorian protests
- The Government of Ecuador, headed by President Lenín Moreno, moves to Guayaquil as the Carondelet Palace in Quito is overtaken by protesters and chaos persists in the capital. (The Guardian)
- As the situation in the country worsens, incumbent President Lenín Moreno denounces a "coup attempt" by Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa. (Chicago Tribune)
- Politics of Italy
- Italian lawmakers vote to reduce the number of seats in the Chamber of Deputies from 630 to 400, and 315 seats to 200 in the Senate of the Republic at the next Italian general election. (Reuters)
Science and technology
- The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to Jim Peebles for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology and Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz for the discovery of 51 Pegasi b, an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star. (BBC)