< Portal:Current events

Portal:Current events/2020 December 21

December 21, 2020 (2020-12-21) (Monday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

  • Central African Republic Civil War
    • Rwanda deploys what it calls a "protection force" to the Central African Republic after its peacekeepers were attacked by advancing rebel forces on the capital Bangui. The Rwandan and Central African Republic governments accuse former President François Bozizé of backing the rebels and plotting a coup, which he denies. Russia also sends troops and heavy weaponry to support the government. (BBC News)
  • War in Afghanistan
    • December 2020 Afghanistan attacks
      • Rahmatullah Nikzad, head of the journalists’ union in Ghazni, dies after being shot three times in the chest by unknown assailants. Nikazd is the fifth journalist to have been killed in Afghanistan in the last two months, and the seventh this year. (Voice of America)

Arts and culture

  • Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials

Business and economy

Disasters and accidents

  • The Kīlauea volcano on Hawaii erupts, prompting the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency to urge residents to stay indoors. The eruption followed a series of small earthquakes. A previous eruption in May 2018 destroyed hundreds of homes. (CNN)

Health and environment

International relations

  • Sudan–United States relations
    • The United States Congress formally reinstates Sudan's sovereign immunity. Sudan had paid the U.S. a $335 million settlement to victims of al-Qaeda attacks. The U.S. will partially pay off Sudanese bilateral debt, and its debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), while making another US$700 million available until September 2022 for assistance to the country. (Reuters)

Law and crime

  • Essex lorry deaths
    • Two men are found guilty at London's Old Bailey of the manslaughter of 39 Vietnamese people whom they were smuggling into the UK. The 39 people suffocated in a lorry during the journey across the North Sea, from Zeebrugge to Purfleet, in October 2019. (BBC News)
  • Halle synagogue shooting
  • 2020 Belarusian protests
  • Outgoing United States Attorney General William Barr announces charges against a bomb maker for his role in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 near Lockerbie, Scotland. (BBC News)

Politics and elections

  • Poisoning of Alexei Navalny
    • A report surfaces that a Federal Security Service agent allegedly involved in the plot to poison the Russian opposition leader was "duped" by Navalny into admitting that the poison was planted in Navalny's underpants. (CNN)
  • 2020 United States anti-lockdown protests
    • About 300 demonstrators attempt to storm the Oregon State Capitol during a special legislative session closed to the public, but they are warded off by the Oregon State Police. The group, which called for reopening Oregon in the wake of COVID-19 mitigation measures, included members of groups such as Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer. (The Daily Beast) (Statesman Journal)
  • The Constitutional Court of Kosovo nullifies the parliamentary vote that elected Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti in June, after discovering that one of the members who voted was ineligible due to a prison sentence. The ruling mandates that Acting President Vjosa Osmani must call a new election to be held no longer than 40 days from the announcement. (RFE/RL)

Science and technology

  • Great conjunction
    • The planets Jupiter and Saturn appear at their closest in the sky since 1623, in an event known as a great conjunction. The closest approach will occur at 18:22 UTC, when the two planets will be one-tenth of a degree apart; they will appear to be a binary object to the naked eye. (Euronews)
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