Tuesday, June 8, 2021

Armed conflicts and attacks

• War in Afghanistan
  • 2021 Afghanistan attacks
    • Afghanistan's power distributor, Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat, says that 23 electricity pylons have been destroyed or damaged by explosions in the past month, disrupting imported power from Iran and Uzbekistan to numerous provinces and districts. ISIL has claimed responsibility for destroying the towers. (TOLO)

Arts and culture

• A 1933 U.S. double eagle gold coin once owned by King Farouk of Egypt is sold at auction in New York City for US$18.9 million, becoming the most expensive coin ever sold. (BBC News)

Business and economy

• The Iraqi Radioactive Sources Regulatory Authority announces that Iraq is seeking to build eight nuclear reactors capable of producing 11 gigawatts combined to address increasing electricity demand, which is predicted to rise 50% from roughly 28GW today to 42GW by 2030. Average electrical power output currently stands at about 18.4GW, of which 1.2GW is imported. The Authority says that they are in discussions with Korean, Russian, U.S., and French officials on how to implement the plan. (Bloomberg News)
• ProPublica reveals that it received an anonymous leak of personal tax filings for thousands of the wealthiest Americans over multiple years, and publishes a long form analysis of the 25 wealthiest individuals' filings and rates per year. IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said that the IRS is investigating the leak of the tax data to ProPublica and that any violations of law would be prosecuted. (ProPublica) (ABC News)

Disasters and accidents

• 2021 Ghotki rail crash
  • The death toll from yesterday's train crash in Ghotki, Sindh, Pakistan, increases to 65 people, as more bodies are recovered from the scene. (Associated Press)

Health and environment

• COVID-19 pandemic
  • COVID-19 pandemic in Asia
    • COVID-19 pandemic in Kuwait
      • Kuwait approves the usage of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, becoming the fourth vaccine to be approved in the country. (Al Arabiya English)
    • COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea, COVID-19 vaccination in South Korea
      • South Korea reports a new single-day record of 857,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered. (CNA)
  • COVID-19 pandemic in the United States
    • Statistics of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States
      • COVID-19 pandemic in Florida, COVID-19 pandemic in Alabama
        • Florida and Alabama will no longer report COVID-19 data as the two U.S. states will move on to their next phase of the pandemic. (CNBC)
    • COVID-19 pandemic in Vermont
      • Vermont reports their first case of the Delta variant in a Chittenden County traveler. (VTDigger)
  • COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina
    • Argentina surpasses four million cases of COVID-19 and 82,000 deaths from COVID-19 amid a second wave of the pandemic. (Trend News Agency)
  • COVID-19 pandemic in Uganda
    • Uganda suspends their mass vaccination programme against COVID-19 due to a shortage of vaccines. (Asian News International)

International relations

• Saudi Arabia–Syria relations
  • Syrian opposition group Free Officers Movement reports that Saudi Arabia is close to reaching a re-normalization deal with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, seeing it as vital to reducing Iranian influence in the region. (Al Jazeera English)
• India-Pakistan relations, Kashmir conflict
  • Pakistan asked India to reverse its “unlawful and destabilizing actions” in Kashmir as a result of large scale movement of Indian army forces into the disputed region. Tension between the states have been high since Narendra Modi stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its autonomy in August 2019. There is concern that the territory would be further partitioned into the state of Jammu and union territory of Kashmir. (Deccan Herald)

Law and crime

• Death of Sarah Everard
  • Former Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens admits to kidnapping, raping and killing Everard, but not to murder. (BBC News)
• 2021 United States Capitol attack
  • A United States Senate report on the 2021 Capitol attack finds that intelligence was gathered regarding a potential storming of the building in December but was not relayed to the FBI, Homeland Security, the Justice Department or the Defense Department. (Axios)
• LGBT rights in Ghana
  • A court in Ghana denies bail to 21 gay rights activists arrested nearly three weeks ago during an assembly. The 16 women and five men are being prosecuted under the country's laws against homosexuality where gay sex is punishable with up to three years' imprisonment. A local LGBT organization says that the activists were in a meeting discussing human rights of gay people in Ghana, which is not illegal. The court has set June 16 for the next hearing on the case. (Reuters)
• ANOM sting operation
  • A global operation where crime gangs were sold encrypted phones that law enforcement could monitor has led to more than 800 arrests and the seizure of 30 tonnes of drugs, millions of dollars in cash, weapons and luxury cars. The FBI helped to infiltrate 12,000 devices into 300 criminal groups in more than 100 countries, providing the FBI and its partner forces around the world with access to 27 million messages. The operation also revealed that gangs were being tipped off about police actions, which prompted "numerous high-level public corruption cases in several countries", according to an affidavit from an FBI agent. (ABC News)
• Interpol reveals an operation in 92 countries that shut down 113,000 websites and online marketplaces selling counterfeit or illicit medicines and medical products last month, led to the arrests of 227 people worldwide, recovered pharmaceutical products worth $23 million, and led to the seizure of approximately nine million devices and drugs, including large quantities of fake COVID-19 tests and face masks. (The New Indian Express)
• The UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals at The Hague upholds the life sentence of war criminal and Bosnian Serb Army chief Ratko Mladić, who was convicted for his roles in the siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre. The tribunal also rejects attempts by the prosecution to overturn the acquittal of one of Mladić's genocide charges. This was Mladić's final appeal. (Al Jazeera English)
• Two men are arrested for slapping French President Emmanuel Macron and shouting royalist slogans when Macron was greeting people in Tain-l'Hermitage, Drôme, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France. (BBC News)

Politics and elections

• 2021 Peruvian general election
  • Left-wing candidate Pedro Castillo takes a very slim but widening lead ahead of right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori, but the results still remain too close to call as Fujimori warns of "irregularities". (Al Jazeera English)
• South African Health Minister Zweli Mkhize is put on special leave following allegations that he awarded COVID-19-related contracts to a company headed by his former associates. (Al Jazeera English)
• Gracia Shadrack, Vanuatu's speaker, declares that the seats of the prime minister Bob Loughman, the deputy prime minister, and 16 other MPs are vacant after they boycott parliament for three days. (RNZ International)
• Protesters in Faizabad, the capital of Badakhshan Province, Afghanistan have called for the resignation of the governor after five protesters were killed and over 41 wounded in a clash with security forces. The protesters were demonstrating against the lack of regional security, the lack of electricity, and the lack of running water in their homes. The protesters claim the demonstration was non-violent until the arrival of security forces, while the government claims they attacked the governor's compound and the tax office. (TOLO)

Science and technology

• The U.S. Senate votes 68–32 to pass the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, a bill that is aimed to strengthen the U.S. against competition from China. The bill will head to the U.S. House of Representatives for a vote. (Axios)
• A global internet outage caused by an internal issue at content delivery network Fastly causes thousands of websites such as the UK Government's website, BBC, The New York Times, CNN, Financial Times, The Guardian, Pinterest, Reddit, Twitch, Spotify, Bloomberg News, and Amazon to be inaccessible for up to an hour. (CNA) (The New Indian Express) (Reuters)
• One of the largest X-ray surveys using the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton space observatory publishes their initial findings mapping the growth of 12,000 supermassive black holes at the cores of galaxies and galaxy clusters. (Phys)

Sports

• 2020–21 NBA season
  • In basketball, Serbian center Nikola Jokić of the Denver Nuggets wins the Most Valuable Player Award. He is the lowest-ever drafted player to win the award after being picked 41st overall in the 2014 NBA draft. (The Philippine Star)