Portal:Current events/2016 February 12

February 12, 2016 (Friday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

Northern Mali conflict
- An attack by suspected Islamist militants on a MINUSMA base in the town of Kidal, northern Mali, kills at least five United Nations peacekeepers and injures 30 others. (AFP via Al Arabiya) (Reuters)
Second Libyan Civil War
- A Libyan Air Force MiG-23 is shot down over the city of Benghazi as it conducted airstrikes on Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries positions in the coastal city. A Tobruk-based military source said the pilot survived having parachuted to safety, but his whereabouts were not immediately clear. (AFP via Yahoo! News)
Yemeni Civil War (2015–present)
- At least five policemen are killed in an attack on a police station in Aden. (Daily Times)

Business and economy

Evgeny Lebedev, the owner of the British national newspaper, The Independent, announces that as of March 2016, the 29-year-old paper will only publish online with print editions coming to an end. (Reuters)

Disasters and accidents

2016 Taiwan earthquake
- The death toll from the earthquake rises to 94 with 550 people injured, and at least 30 more missing and believed buried in the apartment complex rubble in Tainan. (CNN)

Health and medicine

University of British Columbia’s Michael Brauer reports new research shows more than 5.5 million people die prematurely every year from air pollution, the world's fourth highest risk factor for death. (The Christian Science Monitor) (University of British Columbia)

International relations

Syrian Civil War
- John Kerry, the United States Secretary of State, says that a meeting of 17 ministers in Munich has agreed to a ceasefire within a week and delivery of humanitarian assistance beginning immediately. (Reuters via ABC News)
East–West Schism
- Pope Francis meets with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow in Havana, Cuba. It is the first time that the heads of the Roman Catholic Church and Russian Orthodox Church have ever met. (CNN)
North Korea–South Korea relations, North Korea and weapons of mass destruction
- The discontinuance of electricity and water into the Kaesong area impacts area residents who lose their steady supply of water. The public received about 60 percent of the 17,000 tons of water South Korea pumped north each day. (AP via Fox News)
- China has announced it will back a United Nations resolution to make North Korea "pay the necessary price" for the recent rocket launch. (Reuters)
- The United States deploys an additional Patriot missile battery to South Korea in response to North Korea's recent rocket launch. (The Japan Times)

Law and crime

Pakistan arrests 97 people allegedly involved in terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi who were allegedly plotting a variety of attacks including a plan to get Daniel Pearl's killer out of prison. (Reuters via Channel NewsAsia)
Two people are killed on the campus of Independence High School in Glendale, Arizona, near Phoenix. The campus is on lockdown, but there is no active shooter situation any longer. (The Arizona Republic)
In Cairo, thousands of doctors protest against police impunity following the assault, allegedly by Egyptian police officers, of two doctors in a hospital last week. Protests here are rare since enactment of a law limiting demonstrations to those with prior police approval. Another protest is planned across all hospitals for February 20. (Reuters)

Politics and elections