Portal:Current events/2020 August 27

August 27, 2020 (Thursday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

Mali War
- Mopti attacks
  - Four Malian troops are killed and 12 others wounded when their anti-poaching convoy is ambushed in Mopti. Islamist insurgents are suspected to be behind the attack and reinforcements are sent to the area from Konna. (Reuters)
War in Afghanistan
- Four civilians in flooded Parwan are killed in clashes between the Afghan military and the Taliban. The group did not comment on the killings ahead of peace talks to start soon between the group and the government. (ABC Australia)
Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen
- The Saudi Arabian-led coalition says it has intercepted a ballistic missile fired at the Saudi city of Najran from Yemen. (Reuters)

Business and economy

Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea, economy of South Korea
- The Bank of Korea cuts its growth forecast and expects the country's GDP to shrink 1.3% this year. It would be South Korea's worst performance since the height of the Asian financial crisis in 1998. (Marketwatch)
China–United States trade war
- American retailer Walmart announces its partnership with Microsoft for a bid to acquire the Chinese-based video sharing service TikTok, which faces a ban in the United States through President Donald Trump's executive order if its parent company ByteDance fails to sell the app's operations to an American corporation. (AFP via Bangkok Post)

Disasters and accidents

2020 Atlantic hurricane season
- Hurricane Laura downgrades from a Category 4 to Category 2 hurricane but remains "extremely dangerous" after lashing the coasts of Texas and Louisiana early Thursday. It has killed 30 people thus far. (AP)
- A shelter-in-place is issued after a chemical fire breaks out in Lake Charles, Louisiana. (CBS News)
- The South's Defenders Monument, a Confederate monument located in Lake Charles, is damaged by Laura. (The Hill)
Ten teenagers in Arua, Uganda, are killed after being struck by lightning while playing football. (BBC News) (Soft Power News)

Health and environment

COVID-19 pandemic
- COVID-19 pandemic in Asia
  - COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea
    - South Korea reports 441 new cases in the last 24 hours, the highest single-day increase of confirmed cases since early March, as sporadic cluster infections across the country, mainly in the Seoul Capital Area, continue to pile up, fueling calls for tougher antivirus restrictions. (AP via detikNews) (South China Morning Post)
    - The National Assembly temporarily closes and a group of more than ten Democratic Party officials, including the party chairman Lee Hae-chan and parliamentary leader Kim Tae-nyeon, undergo screening tests and are placed in self-quarantine after a photojournalist covering a meeting of the ruling party tested positive for COVID-19. (Euronews)
  - COVID-19 pandemic in India
    - The number of deaths in India surpasses 60,000 as the country reports its highest single day record of more than 75,000 new cases in the last 24 hours. (Hindustan Times)
  - COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia
    - Indonesia reports 2,719 new cases in the last 24 hours, bringing the nationwide total to 162,884. This is the highest single-day rise since the beginning of the outbreak. Additionally, the total death toll surpasses 7,000. (Jakarta Globe)
- COVID-19 pandemic in Europe
  - COVID-19 pandemic in France
    - Prime Minister Jean Castex announces the mandatory wearing of face masks throughout Paris after officials released statistics indicating a resurgence of cases throughout the country. (AFP via RTL Today)
    - France records its highest number of new daily infections since the end of the lockdown in early May, with an additional 6,111 cases reported over the past 24 hours, making it the second highest ever, after 7,578 new cases set on March 30. (BBC News) (France 24)
  - COVID-19 pandemic in Italy
    - Italy records its highest number of new cases since early May, when the country was still in lockdown, with 1,411 new cases reported in the last 24 hours. (The Telegraph)
- COVID-19 pandemic in the United States
  - COVID-19 pandemic in Alabama
    - Alabama Governor Kay Ivey extends the state's mask mandate and safer-at-home order to October 2. (Bizjournals.com) (Patch.com)
Fiji's opposition parties condemn the government over the handling of the dengue fever and leptospirosis outbreaks, saying that the government has not informed the public of the seriousness of the diseases. Vice-president of the National Federation Party (NFP) Lenora Qereqeretabua says that the government needs to urgently develop a plan and also condemns what she considers is a mishandling of COVID-19. (RNZ)

International relations

Travel restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic
- COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, COVID-19 pandemic in Czech Republic, COVID-19 pandemic in Jamaica, COVID-19 pandemic in Switzerland
  - The British government removes Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and Jamaica from the travel corridor list due to rising COVID-19 infection rates. It means that arrivals from those countries will have to self-quarantine for two weeks, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps confirmed. The change will come into effect on Saturday at 4:00 a.m. BST. (The Guardian)
Colombia–United States relations
- Colombian Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo permits a U.S. Army unit to resume its advisory mission in the country after the Colombian Senate found that it did not constitute a deployment of foreign troops. A court had suspended the mission in early July after the opposition argued it did count as foreign troop movement, and thus needed Senate authorization. (Reuters)
Egypt–Greece relations
- The Hellenic Parliament formally ratifies a maritime agreement with Egypt, that defines maritime boundaries and an exclusive economic zone between the two countries in the Mediterranean Sea. (Reuters)

Law and crime

Poisoning of Alexei Navalny
- Russian police launch a preliminary investigation into the suspected poisoning of opposition figure Alexei Navalny on August 20 to determine whether to open a criminal investigation. (AFP via The Times of India)
Christchurch mosque shootings
- Australian Brenton Harrison Tarrant is sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole, a first in New Zealand history, for killing 51 people in last year's mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch. (The Guardian)
2020 Malian coup d'état
- Ousted Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta is freed by military authorities, a military junta spokesman informs. "He was freed this morning, [and] he has returned to his home", said the spokesman without elaborating. (Reuters)
2020 Belarusian protests
- Police in Belarus arrest 20 journalists who were planning to cover a protest in Minsk and confiscated their telephones and identity documents. The interior ministry later said that the journalists had been driven to the police station to check they had valid accreditation allowing them to work as journalists. (Al Jazeera)
Travel restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic
- Delta Air Lines has banned 240 passengers for refusing to wear masks since a policy requiring them went into effect in June. (CNN)
At least three people are killed when a feud between Hezbollah supporters and a local clan of Sunni Arabs ends with gunfight in south Beirut, Lebanon. The army arrives at the scene and arrests four people. (Al Arabiya English)
Dutch police report that Two Laughing Boys with a Mug of Beer, a painting by Dutch golden age painter Frans Hals, was stolen from the Hofje van Mevrouw van Aerden in Leerdam. This is the third time the painting had been stolen. (Reuters)
The FBI arrests Yaser Abdel Said, who had been on their Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list since 2014 for allegedly murdering his two daughters in an honor killing in 2008. His son and brother were also arrested for harboring a fugitive. (BBC News)

Politics and elections

Afghan peace process
- Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation, says that peace talks between the Taliban and the government will start in September with the support of the Trump administration, which pushes both sides to set differences aside. (Al Arabiya)
Kurdish human rights lawyer Ebru Timtik dies in hospital after spending 238-days on hunger strike in protest of her imprisonment after being found guilty of being a member of the outlawed Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front. At the time of her death, she was reported to only weigh 65 pounds. (New York Post)