Portal:Current events/2014 August 19
August 19, 2014 (Tuesday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- War in Donbass:
- An American volunteer in the Donbas Battalion, identified only under his nom de guerre of "Franko", becomes the first officially acknowledged foreign casualty on the Ukrainian side of the military conflict against pro-Russian insurgents in eastern Ukraine. (Kyiv Post)
- Ukrainian government forces enter the center of Stanytsia-Luhanska after having recaptured full control of a strategically important section of the M-04 highway near Luhansk from pro-Russian insurgents. (Interfax)
- 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict
- 2014 American intervention in Iraq and Syrian civil war:
- American journalist James Wright Foley, kidnapped in 2012, has reportedly been beheaded by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. (News Limited via Daily Telegraph)
Arts and culture
- Iranian poet and one of the most prominent figures of modern Persian literature, Simin Behbahani dies at the age of 87. (IBNA)
Disasters
- Four Italian Air Force crew members are missing after two Tornado jets collide in central Italy. (Euro News)
Politics and elections
- Pakistan protests
- The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, the third largest party in Pakistan, announces that it will resign its seats in the National Assembly in order to force Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to resign. (Reuters via Radio Australia)
- Imran Khan and cleric Tahir ul-Qadri lead protest rallies containing tens of thousands in Islamabad as 150 supporters are arrested in towns in Punjab province. (LBC)