Portal:Current events/2023 August 11

August 11, 2023 (Friday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

2023 Nigerien crisis
- The West African bloc ECOWAS announces an emergency summit after Niger's government rejected an ultimatum to restore the previous president. (AFP via The Manila Times)
Russian invasion of Ukraine
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announces the dismissal of all heads of regional military recruitment centres due to corruption. (NOS) (CNN)
- Russia temporarily closes its airspace above Moscow due to detection of drones. A drone is later shot down. (NOS)

Business and economy

Disasters and accidents

2023 heat waves
- 2023 European heat waves
  - Valencia, Spain, sets a new temperature record of 46.8 °C (116.2 °F) recorded at the Valencia Airport. (AFP via The Manila Times)
- 2023 Western North America heat wave
  - Governor Katie Hobbs declares a state of emergency in Arizona amidst the heat waves in the state. (Axios)
2023 Hawaii wildfires
- Authorities in Hawaii, United States, call the Lahaina fire the "worst natural disaster in the state's history", as the death toll increases to 80 people, and 11,000 homes and businesses continue to be without electricity. (Reuters)
- The Maria Lanakila Catholic Church is reportedly still standing despite the wildfires. The banyan tree is also standing, but is damaged by the wildfire and it is unknown if it will survive. (Asbury Park Press) (The New York Times)
- President Joe Biden orders the provision of federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts. (AFP via The Manila Times)
Twenty-one people are killed and six others are missing after a mudflow caused by heavy rains occurs near Xi'an, Shaanxi, China. Thousands of people have been evacuated. (AP)
Seven people are killed when a mosque collapses in Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria. (Reuters)
Five people are killed and approximately 40,000 are evacuated due to floods and landslides from monsoon rains in Myanmar. (AFP via The Jakarta Post)
A freight train derails in the Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland, causing the tunnel to be closed for at least six days. (NOS)

Health and environment

The United States CDC reports that the country recorded its highest number of suicides in 2022, with 49,449 people taking their own lives. (Al Jazeera)
Nearly 14,000 residents of Lublin, Poland, are ordered to evacuate, after an unexploded bomb was found at the site of a pre-World War II factory yesterday. (TVP World)
Due to a long-term structural damage at FSO Safer, a floating oil storage and offloading vessel moored near Al Hudaydah, Yemen, 1.1 million barrels of oil are transferred by Smit International to another ship to prevent a potential environmental disaster. (NOS)

Law and crime

Bankruptcy of FTX
- American judge Lewis A. Kaplan revokes FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried's bail, citing reasonable cause to believe that Bankman-Fried attempted witness tampering while on bail. (The Guardian)
Weiss special counsel investigation
- U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announces the appointment of Delaware attorney David Weiss as special counsel for the investigations into the financial dealings of presidential son Hunter Biden. (CNN)
A man kills three people, including his ex-wife, and wounds three more, before killing himself, during a spree shooting in Gradačac, Bosnia and Herzegovina. (AP)

Politics and elections

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ministry survives a motion of no confidence in parliament over their response to the Manipur violence. (AFP via France 24)
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa pardons his predecessor Jacob Zuma, who was convicted last year for refusing to testify in his corruption trial, alongside other non-violent offenders as part of an attempt to reduce overcrowding in the country's prisons. (Al Jazeera)

Science and technology

Russia launches the Luna 25 lunar lander at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, which will touch down near the Moon's south pole. The mission will investigate the composition of the moon's polar soil as well as the plasma and dust contained in the lunar exosphere. (CNN)