Portal:Current events/2025 January 16

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Gaza war
  • Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip
    • Israeli airstrikes kill at least 82 people across the Gaza Strip, including 30 in Gaza City, hours after the announcement of a ceasefire agreement. (Al Jazeera)
  • 2025 Gaza war ceasefire
    • The Israeli and Hamas negotiating teams sign the hostage release and ceasefire deal in Doha, Qatar. (The Times of Israel)
• Somali Civil War, War against the Islamic State
  • Islamic State insurgency in Puntland
    • The Puntland Security Force claims to have captured a training facility used by ISIL militants, with over forty ISIL fighters killed following heavy fighting. (The Eastleigh Voice)
    • Thousands of families are displaced as the military campaign intensifies, forcing locals to flee their homes in Bari region of Puntland, Somalia. (Idil News) (Horn Observer)
• Red Sea crisis
  • The leader of the Houthis Abdul-Malik al-Houthi announces that the group will monitor the implementation of the Israel–Hamas ceasefire agreement and continue its attacks on vessels and on Israel if the ceasefire is breached. (Middle East Monitor)
• Sudanese civil war
  • The U.S. Treasury Department sanctions the head of the Sudanese Armed Forces Abdel Fattah al-Burhan for "destabilizing Sudan and undermining the goal of a democratic transition" to a civilian-led government. (BBC News)

Disasters and accidents

• 2025 California wildfires
  • January 2025 Southern California wildfires
    • It is reported that the Eaton Fire, which has burned over 14,000 acres and has killed 17 people, is 65% contained. (CBS News)
• Stilfontein mine deaths
  • The bodies of nine illegal miners trapped inside a gold mine in Stilfontein, South Africa, are recovered by police. (CTV News)
• Two deminers are killed in an explosion while attempting to remove a Cambodian Civil War-era anti-tank mine from a rice field in Oddar Meanchey province, Cambodia. (AP)

International relations

• Ukraine–United Kingdom relations
  • British Prime Minister Keir Starmer visits Kyiv, Ukraine, to sign a 100-year agreement with Ukraine that will formalize British economic and military support for Ukraine. (Sky News) (BBC News)

Law and crime

• Capital punishment in Taiwan
  • Taiwan carries out its first execution in five years on a man who was convicted of the 2013 murder of his former girlfriend and her mother. (Yahoo! News)
• Spišská Stará Ves school stabbing
  • Two women are killed and a third is injured in a mass stabbing at a school in Spišská Stará Ves, Slovakia. The perpetrator is arrested. (BBC News) (Devdiscourse)
• Two homeless people are killed and two others are injured in a mass stabbing attack in Miami, Florida, United States. A 30-year-old suspect is arrested. (NBC News)
• The Government of Cuba releases dissident and human rights activist José Daniel Ferrer from jail. (Reuters)

Politics and elections

• 2021–present Bulgarian political crisis
  • The Parliament of Bulgaria approves a coalition government consisting of the GERB-SDS, BSP – United Left, and There is Such a People parties, with GERB's Rosen Zhelyazkov becoming Prime Minister. (Euronews)
• 2024 French political crisis
  • The government of French Prime Minister François Bayrou survives a no-confidence motion by the opposition New Popular Front electoral alliance. (Euronews)
• 2025 Vanuatuan general election
  • Citizens of Vanuatu vote for the 52 members of Parliament. (RNZ)

Science and technology

• 2025 in spaceflight
  • Blue Origin launches its New Glenn rocket for the first time from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, United States. The rocket's second stage, carrying a prototype Blue Ring spacecraft, successfully reaches a geocentric orbit, but its reusable first stage is lost during landing. (CNN)
  • The twin satellites SDX01 and SDX02 of the SpaDeX mission, launched in December by the Indian Space Research Organisation, successfully conduct India's first spacecraft docking, with India becoming the fourth country to successfully dock a spacecraft after the United States, Russia, and China. (BBC News)
  • SpaceX launches its seventh test flight of the Starship launch vehicle, with an improved second stage, at Starbase in Texas, United States. The first stage is successfully caught by the launch tower but the second stage breaks up shortly before engine shutdown. (CNBC)
• Nintendo officially reveals the Nintendo Switch 2 video game console, the successor to the Nintendo Switch. (Nintendo)

Sports

• 2025 in sumo
  • Shortly after withdrawing from the January 2025 Grand Sumo Tournament due to injuries, the 73rd yokozuna Terunofuji Haruo announces his retirement. If no other wrestler is promoted this tournament, his retirement leaves sumo without a yokozuna for the first time since 1993. Terunofuji also announced his intention to remain in the Japan Sumo Association as an oyakata. (Kyodo News) (Nikkan Sports)