Portal:Current events/2021 October 19

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Yemeni Civil War
  • UNICEF says that 10,000 children have been either killed or injured in Yemen since Saudi Arabia started bombing the country in 2015 in reaction to the Islamist Houthis' ousting of the government. This equates to an average of four children killed or injured every day since the start of the conflict. (Reuters)
• Mali War
  • Defence minister Sadio Camara asks Mali's main Islamic body, the High Islamic Council, to mediate peace talks between the government and the local branch of al-Qaeda, Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin. The move is strongly opposed by France. (Al Jazeera)

Health and environment

• COVID-19 pandemic
  • COVID-19 pandemic in Europe
    • COVID-19 pandemic in Bulgaria
      • Bulgaria launches its COVID-19 Green Certificate which indicates that a person is either vaccinated, has tested negative, or has recovered from COVID-19. The certificate will be mandatory for all indoor activities beginning on October 21. (Novinite)
    • COVID-19 pandemic in Russia
      • Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announces a stay-at-home order for unvaccinated or unrecovered people age 60 years and older for four months and ordering businesses to shift 30% of their workers to remote work beginning from October 25 due to record 1,015 deaths in Russia over the past 24 hours. (CBC)
    • COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom
      • United Kingdom reports 233 deaths from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, which is the highest single-day total of daily deaths since March 3. (Inews.co.uk)
  • COVID-19 pandemic in Asia
    • COVID-19 pandemic in Israel
      • Israel reports its first case of the Delta subvariant "AY4.2" in a boy who travelled from Moldova. (The Times of Israel)
    • COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore
      • Singapore reports a record 3,994 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, thereby bringing the nationwide total of confirmed cases to 154,725. (Today)
  • COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand
    • New Zealand reports a record 94 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours. (The Guardian)
  • COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa, COVID-19 vaccination in South Africa
    • The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority rejects the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine due to some safety concerns the manufacturer wasn’t able to answer such as failed HIV vaccines that use Adenovirus Type 5 that are similar to the Russian-made vaccine. (AP)

International relations

• International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi says that he plans to visit Iran by the end of November in an effort to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. (Newsweek)

Law and crime

• National responses to the COVID-19 pandemic
  • COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil
    • The Brazilian Senate releases a report recommending that President Jair Bolsonaro should face criminal charges for homicide regarding his response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the country. (Reuters)
• 2021 Leverkusen explosion
  • Three people are charged in Germany for killing and causing an explosion by recklessness at a chemical park in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia, in July. Seven people were killed and 31 others were injured. (Reuters)
• The Federal Bureau of Investigation announces that it has raided the Washington, D.C. house of Russian oligarch and Vladimir Putin ally Oleg Deripaska, who was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2018. (The Moscow Times)
• Global investment bank Credit Suisse agrees to pay a US$475 million fine to U.S. and British authorities after pleading guilty to conspiring wire fraud towards investors, which violated the anti-corruption law of Mozambique regarding bond offerings. (AFP via RFI)