Portal:Current events/2016 July 18
July 18, 2016 (Monday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Yemeni Civil War
- At least six Yemeni soldiers are killed in suicide bombings near the city of Al Mukalla. (Reuters)
- 2016 shooting of Almaty police officers
- Three policemen and one civilian are killed in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in an attack on a police station by a radical Islamist. One gunman is reportedly still at large. (RT)
- 2016 Würzburg train attack
- Four people have been injured after a man with an axe attacks people on board a train near Würzburg in Germany. The axeman has reportedly been shot by police and is reportedly a 17-year-old Afghan man who pledged allegiance to ISIL before the attack. (BBC), (Indian Express), (Daily Mail)
- Indonesian police kill two militants in a clash in a remote jungle area on Sulawesi island. One may be Abu Wardah Santoso, leader of ISIL-connected Mujahidin Indonesia Timur, and the country's "most wanted man." Forensic tests will be carried out. Three others, including two women, escaped. (AP) (Reuters via Euronews)
- 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt
- General Akın Öztürk, Turkish Air Force chief until August 2015, confesses to planning last week's attempted coup d'état, according to the state-run Anadolu News Agency. (UPI)
Arts and culture
- Netizens launch a satiric contest for apologizing to China on social media after numerous artists apologized online. (BBC) (Channel Newsasia) (Taipei Times) (The New York Times)
Business and economy
- Japanese telecommunications company SoftBank agrees to buy British IT company ARM Holdings for more than $32 billion. (Wall Street Journal) (TechCrunch)
International relations
- North Korea–South Korea relations, North Korea and weapons of mass destruction
- South Korea warns that North Korea could hold another nuclear test at any time. (Yonhap News)
- Turkey–United States relations
- The United States Secretary of State John Kerry warns Turkey it could lose its NATO membership if it fails to uphold the principles of democracy. Around 8,000 police officers have been sacked in the country following the attempted coup, with more than 6,000 people in the army, the judiciary and other state bodies detained as part of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's crackdown. (The Independent)
- Morocco formally announces it wishes to rejoin the African Union 32 years after leaving over its recognition of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in Western Sahara. (BBC)
Politics and elections
- 2016 United States presidential election
- The 2016 Republican National Convention gets underway in Cleveland, Ohio. With the day's theme being national and local security, notable speakers include reality television star Willie Robertson, actor Scott Baio, former Governor of Texas Rick Perry, former Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani, Milwaukee County sheriff David Clarke, retired United States Army lieutenant general Michael T. Flynn and Melania Trump, wife of presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States Donald Trump. (ABC News)
- Opposing protests and rallies in Cleveland on the first day of the convention remain peaceful. (UPI)
- After giving her speech, Melania Trump is accused of plagiarizing parts of Michelle Obama's speech that she gave during the 2008 Democratic National Convention. The Trump campaign quickly responded to the controversy saying that the whole thing was "absurd". (CNN)
Sport
- The World Anti-Doping Agency finds that the Government of Russia was involved in an intensive doping program including at the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi. (ABC News)