Portal:Current events/2013 November 13
November 13, 2013 (Wednesday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Syria civil war:
- Syrian army retakes strategically important Damascus suburb of Hujaira from the rebels. (Reuters)
- Four Palestinians are killed in a bombing attack at the Yarmouk refugee camp. (Maan News)
- Syrian Kurds announce transitional autonomous authority amidst fighting with rebels. (BBC)
- Iraqi insurgency (post-U.S. withdrawal):
- Bombs across Iraq detonate, killing 18 people. (Voice of America)
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
- Israel cancels proposed plans to build new settlements in the West Bank after US and Palestinian opposition. (AP via Fox News)
Arts and culture
- Francis Bacon's painting of his friend Lucian Freud, Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969), is sold for $142.4 million. (BBC)
- A 14.82-carat orange diamond sets a world record after it is sold at a Christie's auction in Geneva for $35.5 million. (Forbes)
- At the same auction, a pink diamond is sold for US$83.2 million, setting a new world record. (BBC)
- One World Trade Center becomes the tallest building in the United States. (CNN)
Business and economics
- Poppy farmers in Afghanistan report record yields for their opium crops. (The Guardian)
- Starbucks is ordered to pay Kraft Foods $2.76 billion in damages over a dispute about packaged coffee. (BBC)
Disasters and accidents
- Typhoon Haiyan:
- The official death toll in the Philippines is actually reported that 2,500 people were killed. (Newsinfo)
- The total international aid for the typhoon victims reaches over $140 million. (CNN)
- Four members of the United States Marine Corps are killed after ordnance accidentally explodes after a training exercise at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in Southern California. (NBC News)
Politics and elections
- The United States State Department designates Boko Haram as a "terrorist" group. (Reuters)
- China, Russia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, and Algeria are elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council. (The Washington Post)
- Kevin Rudd announces his retirement from Australian politics. (Herald Sun)
- Wikileaks publishes a secret draft chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. (The Guardian)
- The United States Government announces that 106,185 people signed up for health insurance through the Health Insurance Marketplace as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act during its first month of release on October. (The New York Times)
Science and technology
- A gigantic iceberg is floating in the Southern Ocean after breaking off the Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica. (The Australian)
- Scientists discover Panthera blytheae in Tibet, the oldest big cat fossil ever discovered. (Los Angeles Times)
- WWF releases a photo, taken by a camera trap in a forest in central Vietnam in September, of one of Earth's rarest mammals, the saola, which hadn’t been seen in 15 years. (The Washington Post)