Portal:Current events/2015 August 29
< Portal:Current events
August 29, 2015 (Saturday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- South Sudanese Civil War
- A ceasefire starts between the forces of President Salva Kiir and rebel forces with claims of breaches already being made. (AFP via The Times Live), (AFP via The Daily Star)
- Syrian Civil War
- Turkey launches its first air strikes against ISIL in Syria. (The Daily Sabah)
- Iraqi Civil War (2014–2017)
- Roadside bombings in Iraq leave at least 10 people killed. (al-Arabiyah)
Disasters and accidents
- A bus traveling between Butterworth and Willovale in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, drives off a cliff killing thirty-five people. (News 24)
- A Pacific Northwest windstorm, with winds of up to 87 miles per hour (140 km/h), leaves two dead and over 450,000 people in the Seattle metropolitan area without power. (The Seattle P-I)
- A man, who fell from the upper deck of Atlanta's Turner Field during Saturday night's Braves-New York Yankees baseball game, dies. (CNN)
- 2015 Atlantic hurricane season
- Five deaths occurred in Haiti as Tropical Storm Erika dumped heavy rains there, on the Dominican Republic, and on Puerto Rico. The storm weakened to a Tropical Depression before it hit Cuba (max winds 56 kph (35 mph), heading to the southeastern Gulf of Mexico. (WTSP), (Relief Web), (Deutsche Welle), (NHC)
International relations
- 2015 Thalys train attack
- European migrant crisis
- The Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon calls for a "collective political response" to the crisis as the death toll from the latest boat to sink in the Mediterranean Sea rises to 171. (BBC), (CTV News)
Law and crime
- 2013-15 detention of Al-Jazeera journalists by Egypt
- An Egyptian court sentences Al Jazeera journalists Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy, and Baher Mohamed each to three years jail for "aiding a terrorist organization" and falsifying news. Greste, who earlier was deported to Australia, was tried in absentia. Mohamed, an Egyptian, was sentenced to an additional six months for possession of a spent bullet casing; Fahmy is a Canadian national. (ABC Australia), (Al Jazeera)
- 2015 Bangkok bombing
- Thai police report a man with a fake passport has been arrested in a Bangkok suburb in connection with the Erawan Shrine bombing. The man was allegedly in possession of bomb making material and dozens of passports. (AP), (The Banjkok Post), (BBC)
- U.S. police in Harris County, Texas, arrest Shannon Miles for the alleged murder of Sheriff Deputy Darren Goforth on Friday. (ABC 13)
Politics and elections
- Bersih 4 rally, 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal
- Tens of thousands of Malaysians rally in the capital Kuala Lumpur calling for Prime Minister Najib Razak to step down over a financial scandal where a MYR 2.672 billion (USD 700 million) payment was made to his bank account from unnamed foreign donors. (BBC News)
- A legislative commission urges the Congress of Guatemala to remove President Otto Pérez Molina's immunity from prosecution over a corruption scandal that has caused former Vice President Roxana Baldetti to be jailed and much of the Cabinet to resign. (ABC News)
- Climax of the 2015-16 Lebanese protests: Around 150 000 protest against the Garbage Crisis, sectarianism, corruption and police brutality.
Sports
- 2015 World Championships in Athletics
- American athlete Ashton Eaton sets a new world record in the decathlon on the penultimate night of competition at Beijing. (ABC Australia)