Portal:Current events/2018 February 12
< Portal:Current events
February 12, 2018 (Monday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Drone strikes in Pakistan
- Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) confirms its deputy leader Khalid Mehsud has been killed in a U.S. drone strike in North Waziristan, near the border with Afghanistan. (BBC)
Arts and culture
- Egypt bans Saturday Night Live Arabia for using "sexual expressions that are inappropriate for viewers". (The Guardian)
Business and economy
- All flights to and from London City Airport are cancelled after an unexploded World War II bomb is discovered in the River Thames at King George V Dock. (BBC)
Disasters and accidents
- 2017–18 South Pacific cyclone season
- Tonga is directly hit by Cyclone Gita, causing heavy damage to the country. Gita is the strongest storm to hit Tonga in its history. (1 News)
- Tonga's 100 year old Parliament building is destroyed by Cyclone Gita. (BBC News)
- Saratov Airlines Flight 703
- Emergency teams comb snowy fields outside Moscow Monday for debris from a crashed Russian airliner and the remains of the 71 people who died. Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov says that emergency teams have already found the plane's flight data recorder, which will help them determine the crash's cause, but notes that the search for the victims' remains will take at least a week. (AP via Daily Mail)
International relations
- Cyprus–Turkey maritime zones dispute
- The European Union urges calm and restraint after Turkish Navy warships obstruct a Cypriot offshore drilling vessel in the Eastern Mediterranean, which was approaching an area to explore for natural gas. (Reuters)
Law and crime
- Mass shootings in the United States, Crime in Detroit
- A gunman kills three civilians and wounds three police officers and another civilian, then kills himself, in a standoff in Detroit. (The Detroit News)
Politics and elections
- Ukrainian crisis
- Mikheil Saakashvili, leader of the opposition Movement of New Forces party, who has been stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship by Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko on 26 July 2017, is detained by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kiev and deported from Ukraine to Poland. (U.S. News and World Report) (Kyiv Post) (Sputnik News)
- Politics of the Netherlands
- Foreign Minister of the Netherlands Halbe Zijlstra admits to lying about having attended a meeting with Vladimir Putin in 2006. Zijlstra had said that Putin mentioned plans to expand Russia to include Belarus, Ukraine, and the Baltic states but now says that he was not present and borrowed the story from a source. (Politico) (De Telegraaf)
- Politics of New Zealand
- Former Prime Minister Bill English resigns as National Party leader. (Newshub)
- Presidency of Donald Trump, United States federal budget
- U.S. President Donald Trump sends his US$4.4 trillion 2019 budget proposal to Congress. (The New York Times)
- President Trump also introduces his US$1.5 trillion federal infrastructure plan to several governors and mayors at the White House. (The Hill)
- Presidency of Rodrigo Duterte
- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte calls for female communist rebels to be shot in the genitals. Duterte's comments are described as "a funny joke" by his spokesman, while drawing heavy criticism from others. (Al Jazeera)