Portal:Current events/2019 September 12
September 12, 2019 (Thursday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Kulp bombing
- Seven civilians are killed and ten are injured in a roadside attack by the PKK in Kulp, Diyarbakir Province, Turkey. (Anadolu Agency)
Business and economy
- The European Central Bank announces new monetary stimulus, with a second round of quantitative easing "for as long as it deems necessary" and lowering its already-negative main deposit rate. (CNBC)
Disasters and accidents
- A train derails in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Tanganyika Province, killing about 15 people and injuring many others. (The Independent)
Law and crime
- The French National Assembly says its president, Richard Ferrand, is put under formal investigation in a "financial impropriety" case. Ferrand stepped down as a minister in President Emmanuel Macron's government in 2017 over the case related to property deals, eight years ago, by a health insurance fund he managed in Brittany. Prosecutors in Lille say he is charged with a conflict of interest. (Reuters via France 24) (AFP via The Straits Times)
- Death of Sahar Khodayari
- Iran's judiciary issues a warrant to arrest actress Saba Kamali after she posted a text in her Instagram sympathizing with Sahar Khodayari, which was reported to be found "insulting" to the third Shiite Imam, Hussain ibn Ali. (Radio Farda)
Politics and elections
- Tongan Prime Minister ʻAkilisi Pōhiva, age 78, dies one day after being taken to a New Zealand hospital from his native country. (RNZ)
- 2020 U.S. Democratic Party presidential debates and forums
- The third major Democratic Party televised debate takes place at the Health and Physical Education Arena in Houston, Texas, with a focus on health care in the United States. (BBC News)
Science and technology
- Interstellar objects
- C/2019 Q4 (Borisov), a second interstellar comet after ʻOumuamua in 2017, is discovered by an amateur astronomer. (BBC News)
- Social media use in politics
- Twitter suspends several Cuban government and state media accounts, including First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Raúl Castro and his daughter Mariela Castro. The pro-government Union of Journalists of Cuba denounces the suspensions as "massive censorship". (The Guardian) (BBC News)
- Facebook suspends a chatbot on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's official page for violating its hate speech policy. Netanyahu says the mistake was made by a volunteer employee. (The Guardian)