Portal:Current events/2019 October 8

October 8, 2019 (Tuesday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

Turkish involvement in the Syrian Civil War, Northern Syria Buffer Zone
- Turkish officials say that Turkish Air Force jets have begun bombing the Syrian-Iraqi border on Monday night, ahead of an imminent invasion of northern Syria. That region is controlled by Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, whom Turkey regards as terrorists. (The Hill)
War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
- A bomb explodes in a classroom at Ghazni University in Afghanistan, wounding at least nineteen students. The same university was targeted last month with a bomb attached to a university minibus. That bomb killed one person and injured five others. (Gulf News)
Two sappers die and four more are wounded trying to defuse World War II shells in Poland. The last such casualties occurred in 1982. (Xinhua) (TVN24)

Health and environment

Pacific Gas and Electric shuts off power to 800,000 customers in Northern California, citing safety concerns over an elevated fire risk caused by weather conditions. (CBS 13 Sacramento)

International relations

Brexit negotiations in 2019
- President of the European Council Donald Tusk tells Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson that "what's at stake is not a stupid blame game," after a UK source said that talks were "close to breaking down" following a reported argument in a phone call between Johnson and German chancellor Angela Merkel about the post-Brexit status of Northern Ireland. (CNN)
China–United States relations, China–United States trade war
- The U.S. State Department imposes visa restrictions on numerous Chinese government officials whom it believes responsible for the detention or abuse of Muslim Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang province. On Monday the Department of Commerce added twenty-eight Chinese firms and bureaus to its "trade blacklist" for similar reasons. (Reuters)

Law and crime

Thirteen men are arrested in the United Kingdom for drug smuggling. The authorities believe that over several years, the suspects imported approximately 50 tonnes of illegal drugs from the Netherlands, valued at several tens of millions of pounds. The National Crime Agency called it “the biggest ever [drug] conspiracy that we've seen in the UK”. (BBC News)

Politics and elections

2019 Ecuadorian protests
- The Government of Ecuador, headed by President Lenín Moreno, moves to Guayaquil as the Carondelet Palace in Quito is taken over by protesters and chaos persists in the capital. (The Guardian)
- As the situation in the country worsens, Moreno denounces a "coup attempt" by incumbent President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa. (Chicago Tribune)
Politics of Italy
- Italian lawmakers vote to reduce the number of seats in the Chamber of Deputies from 630 to 400, and the number of seats in the Senate of the Republic from 315 to 200, at the next Italian general election. (Reuters)
Politics of Azerbaijan
- Prime Minister Novruz Mammadov presents his resignation as President appoints Ali Asadov to the office. (Al Jazeera) (Eurasianet)

Science and technology

The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to Jim Peebles for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology, and to Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz for the discovery of 51 Pegasi b, an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star. (BBC News)