PORTAL:CURRENT EVENTS 2016 SEPTEMBER 13

September 13, 2016 (Tuesday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

Syrian civil war, Israel–Syria relations
- Syria reports its air defense shot down an Israeli warplane that attacked a Syrian army position in al-Quneitra, near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The Israel Defense Forces say that missiles were fired at their aircraft but none hit. (Reuters) (AFP via Yahoo! News) (CNN)
Terrorist incidents in Pakistan in 2016
- Two attackers of Eid al-Adha prayers in an Imambargah at Shikapur district, Sindh, injure at least ten people including five policemen. One assailant blew himself up and authorities arrested the other one. (Daily Pakistan) (The Express Tribune)
- A roadside blast in the Balochistan Province kills two policemen and injures eight people. (The News International) (First Post)

Disasters and accidents

2016 Pacific typhoon season
- Taiwan issues land and sea warnings for Typhoon Meranti which is expected to hit tomorrow the southern part of the island. (Focus Taiwan)
2016 North Korean floods
- The Red Cross warns that North Korea faces a "major, complex disaster" after recent floods kill scores of people and leave more than 100,000 homeless. (AFP via ABC News Australia)
A 6.0 magnitude earthquake hits near the Colombian city of Medellin. (The Daily Express)
One crew member of the MS Harmony of the Seas, the world's largest cruise ship, is killed and four other crew members are injured after a lifeboat fell on them during a training exercise on the ship that was docked in Marseille, France. (CNN) (The Independent)

Health

2015–16 Zika virus epidemic
- The Department of Health of the Philippines discover an additional two cases of Zika virus infections bringing the total to eight. (Straits Times)

International relations

Law and crime

Proceedings begin in the trial of Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, former chairman of the giant insurance company AIG, on charges of accounting fraud. The 2005 indictment accuses Greenberg and AIG's former CFO of setting up bogus reinsurance transactions to conceal the insurer's financial difficulties in 2000 and 2001. (Reuters) (The New York Times)
Imprisoned former American Army intelligence analyst and transgender person Chelsea Manning, who is serving a 35-year sentence at Fort Leavenworth, will have the military provide the costs of gender reassignment surgery. She was convicted by court-martial in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses, after disclosing to WikiLeaks nearly three-quarters of a million classified or unclassified but sensitive military and diplomatic documents. (CNN)
The Cuban-born American arsonist who torched 87 people in March 1990 at The Bronx Happy Land fire, Julio González, dies in prison at the age of 61. (The New York Daily News)

Politics and elections

Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte accuses the Liberal Party of former president Benigno Aquino III and their allies of orchestrating an impeachment complaint against him regarding his anti-drug campaign. (Interaksyon)

Science and technology

Proto-Human language and language acquisition
- Researchers from the Americas and Europe discover that sounds in 40–100 basic vocabulary words in around 3,700 languages are similar. (The Telegraph)

Sports

The World Anti-Doping Agency reveals that Russian hackers broke into one of its databases and published confidential medical information on several prominent American female athletes who competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics, among them, gymnast Simone Biles, tennis players Venus and Serena Williams, and basketball player Elena Delle Donne. The named individuals all received "therapeutic use exemptions" from WADA allowing them to use otherwise banned substances to treat documented medical conditions. (ESPN)

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