Portal:Current events/2016 September 9

• War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
  • United States Navy SEALs, by high altitude parachuting, fail in a rescue attempt after the team does not find the American and Australian hostages who were kidnapped in Kabul last month. (CNN)
• Iraqi civil war
  • Twin suicide bombings at the Nakheel Mall in eastern Baghdad kill 12 people and injure more than 40 others. ISIL claims responsibility. (Reuters)

• The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten accuses Facebook of censorship because of the website's decision to remove the iconic Vietnam War–era photo "napalm girl" as child pornography. (USA Today)
• General Motors recalls 4.3 million vehicles after a defect in the software for the airbag led to one fatality. (Fortune)
• An engineer from Volkswagen pleads guilty for his role in the emissions cheating scandal. (The Los Angeles Times)
• Dakota Access Pipeline
  • A U.S. federal judge denies a request to stop construction of a pipeline that runs through the Standing Rock Reservation of the Sioux people. (NBC)
  • Following this ruling, and to head off an immediate confrontation, the Obama administration temporarily suspends further construction of the pipeline on U.S. Army Corps land bordering or under Lake Oahe, and asks the Dakota Access construction company to voluntarily pause all work within 20 miles of the lake. (The Los Angeles Times)
• One or more unnamed authors at the European Commission, in their internal discussion, regards the United Kingdom as having lost direction in its Brexit policy and planning and thinks the UK will eventually 'plead' for a deal. (The Telegraph)

• The alert level for the Mayon Volcano in the Philippines is increased after more than a hundred earthquakes were detected in its vicinity. (Philippine Daily Inquirer)
• Millions of people in Nigeria are at risk of famine. (U.S. News and World Report)
• A train derails at a station in the town of O Porriño in Galicia, Spain, killing at least four people. (BBC)
• More than a hundred tourists in the French Alps spend an evening suspended in midair inside cable cars that ceased to move. (NPR)

• 2015–16 Zika virus epidemic
  • Miami Beach authorities begin spraying for the Zika virus despite protests. (NBC)

• North Korea and weapons of mass destruction
  • A 5.3 magnitude seismic event recorded in North Korea is confirmed to be the result of a nuclear weapons test. (Reuters) (BBC)
• United Ireland
  • Taoiseach Enda Kenny says that Irish unity must be considered in Brexit talks. (The Irish Times)
• Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation
  • Czech President Milos Zeman says in an interview that the Crimean peninsula can never be returned to Ukraine, notwithstanding the fact that it was de facto annexed by Russia. (RT)

• Saudi Arabia–United States relations
  • The United States Congress passes a law allowing families of the victims of the September 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia. U.S. president Barack Obama threatens to veto it. (Fox News)

• Next Malaysian general election
  • Elections in Malaysia are to occur in 2017 as efforts to challenge the legitimacy of Najib Razak mount. (Bloomberg)