Portal:Current events/2016 October 17

October 17, 2016 (Monday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

Iraqi Civil War
- Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announces the start of the Battle of Mosul, backed by the U.S.-led coalition, to retake ISIL-held Mosul, the self-declared caliphate's capital in Iraq. (Reuters), (Reuters²)
War in Afghanistan
- The Vice President of Afghanistan, Abdul Rashid Dostum, survives yet another assassination attempt. (Reuters)
Clashes between rival gangs in at least two prisons in Brazil, leave at least 18 people killed. (Reuters)
South Sudanese Civil War
- Clashes between government troops and rebels in South Sudan, leave at least 56 people killed. (The Chicago Tribune), (The Wire)

Disasters and accidents

2016 Pacific typhoon season
- Floods in Central Vietnam, triggered by Typhoon Sarika's heavy rains, kill at least 24 people with 4 others missing. Sarika has killed at least two people and displaced more than 150,000 in the Philippines. (AP)
Two buses collide near the city of Rahim Yar Khan, Pakistan, killing at least 30 people and injuring 69 others. (ITV News)
An explosion and fire in Ludwigshafen, at the largest production site of BASF in Germany, kills at least two people and injures six more with two people still missing. BASF is the world's biggest chemical producer. (Reuters)
A fire breaks out at a hospital in the East Indian city of Bhubaneswar, Odisha, killing at least 20 people. (BBC)

International relations

Yemeni Civil War
- The United Nations announces that the warring parties in Yemen have agreed to a 72-hour ceasefire starting October 19 at 23:59 AST (4:59 EDT). (AP), (Reuters)
Syrian Civil War
- The European Union condemns Russia's air campaign in Syria, saying it may be guilty of war crimes, and it vowed to impose more sanctions on President Bashar al-Assad's government. The bloc's 28 foreign ministers sought to show their anger at the Russian-backed campaign, which has killed several hundred people including dozens of children since the collapse of a truce brokered by Russia and the United States. (Reuters)

Law and crime

Circuit Court Judge Debra Nelson in Seminole County, Florida, sentences Matthew Apperson, convicted by a jury last month of second-degree attempted murder, to 20 years in prison for shooting at George Zimmerman, who had shot and killed unarmed Trayvon Martin in February 2012. (Reuters)

Politics and elections

American conservative undercover video producer James O'Keefe releases a series of videos allegedly showing conversations with, among others, Scott Foval, the former national field director of Americans United for Change, speaking about his hiring of people to sabotage rallies for Donald Trump by staging fights in them in a process Foval called "bird dogging". (Salon)

Science and technology

Shenzhou program
- China launches Shenzhou 11, the country's sixth manned spaceflight mission and the first one to the Tiangong-2 space laboratory, with two taikonauts on a 30-day mission. (Reuters), (AP)
NASA's Commercial Resupply Services
- Orbital ATK Antares 230 rocket launches carrying an unmanned resupply spacecraft, the Cygnus CRS OA-5 cargo ship, to the International Space Station from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The mission returns the Antares rocket to flight after an anomaly on October 28, 2014, caused an Antares-series rocket to explode seconds after liftoff. (Space.com), (NASA via You Tube)