Portal:Current events/2023 August 31
August 31, 2023 (Thursday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Ecuadorian security crisis
- Fifty-seven police and prison officers are taken hostage in six different prisons in Quito as explosive attacks occur in Ecuador's capital targeting the country's prison authority. (AFP via Malay Mail)
- Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
- Nine soldiers are killed and five more injured during a suicide bombing against a convoy in Bannu District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. (ARY News)
- Israeli–Palestinian conflict
- An Israeli soldier is killed and two others injured during a vehicle-ramming attack at a checkpoint in Beit Sira, in the occupied West Bank. The perpetrator is shot dead. (Al Jazeera)
Disasters and accidents
- 2023 Johannesburg building fire
- At least 73 people are killed by a fire in a government building that had been taken over by gangs who rented it out to squatters in Johannesburg, South Africa. (CNBC)
- Fifteen people are killed in a fire at a clothing factory in Quezon City, Philippines. (AP) (The New York Times)
- Five people are killed and seven others injured when a truck collides with several vehicles in La Guaira, Venezuela. (Xinhua)
- Five people are killed and two others are injured when a passenger train collides with track workers doing maintenance work in Brandizzo, Piedmont, Italy. (BBC News)
International relations
- 2023 Gabonese coup d'état
- The African Union announces the suspension of Gabon's membership after the country's military instigates a coup d'état. (AFP via The Peninsula)
- North Korea–South Korea relations
- The Korean Central News Agency reports that North Korean forces has conducted drills simulating a nuclear missile strike on South Korea, in protest of ROKAF-USAF military drills said to simulate plans for a preemptive nuclear attack. (Reuters)
- Sierra Leone–United States relations
- The United States announces visa restrictions for Sierra Leoneans implicated in undermining recent elections. (AFP via The Manila Times)
Law and crime
- Aftermath of the January 6 United States Capitol attack
- Criminal proceedings in the January 6 United States Capitol attack
- Proud Boys leader Joe Biggs is sentenced to 17 years in federal prison after being convicted of seditious conspiracy in connection with the planning of the January 6 riot at the United States Capitol. (NBC News)
- Criminal proceedings in the January 6 United States Capitol attack
- The Brazilian Federal Police questions former president Jair Bolsonaro in an investigation in which he is accused of smuggling $3 million in diamond jewelry from Saudi Arabia. (AP)