Portal:Current events/2019 August 19

• Syrian Civil War; 2019 Northwestern Syria offensive
  • Syrian Air Force warplanes repeatedly strike a Turkish military convoy driving through the rebel-held region of Idlib, reportedly causing several casualties and forcing it to stop. Turkey claims the convoy was aiming to supply observation posts, while Syria accuses it of carrying weapons and ammunition to rebel groups. (BBC News) (The National)
  • The Syrian Army enters the strategic town of Khan Shaykhun in the Idlib Governorate for the first time since losing control of the town to rebels in 2014, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. (Middle East Monitor)
• War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)
  • 66 people, including children, have been wounded after a series of ten explosions in restaurants and public squares hit the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, as the country marked the 100th anniversary of its independence from British rule. No group claimed responsibility for the bombings. Even if many bombs exploded and several people were injured, no one died in the attacks. (Al Jazeera)
• Insurgency in the Maghreb
  • Suspected Islamist militants launch an attack on a Burkina Faso Armed Forces unit, killing 24 Burkinabé soldiers and wounding 7 others, the heaviest loss for the army in its fight to contain Islamist terrorism. The army said it had launched a land and air operation in response to the attack. (Reuters)

• Deforestation in Brazil, 2019 Brazil wildfires
  • After fifteen days of raging fires in the Amazon Forest in Rondônia, thick smoke clouds cover the Brazilian city of São Paulo in darkness. Street lamps had to be lit in the city around 2PM. The fires, suspected to be intentional, are still burning the forest. (G1)

• 2019 Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protests; Cross-Strait relations
  • China condemns Taiwan after President Tsai Ing-wen offered support and asylum to Hong Kong protesters facing prosecution in Hong Kong courts. (Al Arabiya)
  • Twitter says it has suspended more than 200,000 automated accounts on the social media site that it believes were part of a Chinese government-run campaign to spread misinformation about the protests in Hong Kong. (ABC News)

• 2016–present purges in Turkey
  • Turkey's Ministry of the Interior tweets that 418 people in 29 provinces are detained by police, for suspected links with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The authorities have also announced that they "replaced" the mayors of three major southeastern cities. (Reuters)
• Former President of Sudan Omar al-Bashir appears in court for the first time at a Khartoum court to face corruption charges. (Al Arabiya)
• Women's rights in El Salvador
  • Evelyn Hernández is acquitted of murder after her newly-born child was found deceased in a toilet. The ruling is being held as a landmark case decision for women's rights in El Salvador, which has one of the strongest anti-abortion laws in Central America. (BBC News)

• The Palestinian Authority bans LGBT activities in the West Bank in anticipation of an upcoming Al Qaws event. (Jerusalem Post)

• Astronomers led by a team from McGill University in Montreal announce the detection of eight new repeating fast radio bursts (FRBs) using the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) radio telescope. The astronomers report they also found complex morphologies and downward-drifting sub-bursts in some of the eight new FRBs. (Phys.org)