Portal:Current events/2023 July 7

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Russian invasion of Ukraine
  • Military aid to Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian War
    • The United States announces an $800 million aid package for Ukraine that includes cluster munitions for the first time. While the weapons are outlawed by over 100 countries under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, the United States, Ukraine, and Russia are not signatories. (CNN)
    • The U.S. package also includes M777 howitzers, munitions for MIM-104 Patriot and M142 HIMARS missile systems, anti-tank weapons, UAVs, and additional Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Stryker armoured personnel carriers. (Reuters)
• Spillover of the Somali Civil War
  • Six Kenyan soldiers and 23 Al-Shabaab members are killed during a shootout in Orgene village, Mandera County, Kenya. Eight other soldiers are injured. (VOA)
• Jihadist insurgency in Burkina Faso
  • Jihadists kill at least 22 civilians in two separate attacks in Namentenga Province, Burkina Faso. (AFP via Al Arabiya)
• Rohingya genocide
  • Six Rohingya refugees are killed at the Kutupalong camp in Ukhia, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, amidst clashes between rival insurgent groups, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army and Rohingya Solidarity Organisation. (AFP via The Manila Times)
• Israeli–Palestinian conflict
  • Israeli soldiers shoot dead two Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine militants during a raid at a house in Nablus in the occupied West Bank. (BBC News)

Business and economy

• Land reform in the Philippines
  • President Bongbong Marcos signs into law the New Agrarian Emancipation Act, canceling over ₱57.56 billion (US$1.04bn) in agricultural debt for more than 500,000 farmers. (AFP via CNA)
• 2021–present United Kingdom cost-of-living crisis
  • British cinema chain Empire Cinemas collapses into administration with the immediate loss of 150 jobs. (BBC News)
• The China Securities Regulatory Commission imposes fines of nearly US$1 billion and $415 million on technology companies Ant Group and Tencent, respectively, for violating financial regulations and anti-money laundering obligations. (AFP via France 24)

Disasters and accidents

• 2023 Pakistan floods
  • At least 55 people, including eight children, are killed by floods caused by monsoon rains in Pakistan. (AP)
• Six people are killed and 81 others are injured in a fire at a nursing home in Milan, Lombardy, Italy. (AP)
• At least 128 people are hospitalized in Sistan and Baluchestan province, Iran, due to dust storms. (Xinhua)
• Fourteen people are killed, six are missing, and three are injured after an apartment building collapsed in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil. (BBC News)
• Six people are killed in an explosion at a chemical factory in Chapayevsk, Samara Oblast, Russia. (TASS)
• Two people are killed and another is missing due to a fire at an oil platform owned by Mexican state-owned company Pemex in the southern edge of Gulf of Mexico. (Reuters)
• Seventy-five tourists become stranded overnight in Quito, Ecuador, when a glitch halts the TelefériQo gondola lift, requiring a ten-hour rescue operation. (The Economic Times)

International relations

• China–Japan relations
  • China's General Administration of Customs announces a ban on food imports from ten Japanese prefectures, citing safety concerns over Japan's plan to discharge treated radioactive waste water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean. (AFP via Le Monde)
• U.S. President Joe Biden declares the complete destruction of the country's chemical weapons stockpile, making the U.S. the last signatory of the Chemical Weapons Convention to destroy declared stockpiles and marking the elimination of all known global reserves of chemical weapons. (AFP via RTÉ)

Law and crime

• 2023 Odisha train collision
  • India's Central Bureau of Investigation arrests two signal engineers and a technician on charges of culpable homicide and evidence tampering over last month's deadly train collision in Balasore, Odisha. (AP)
• 2019 El Paso shooting
  • Perpetrator Patrick Crusius is sentenced to 90 consecutive life terms in a federal prison after pleading guilty to hate crimes related to the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, United States. (AFP via The Manila Times)
• 2019 Whakaari / White Island eruption
  • Three tour operators plead guilty to failing to ensure the health and safety of workers and tourists under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 during the deadly eruption of White Island in New Zealand in 2019. They each face a maximum fine of $1.5 million (US$927,000). (AP)

Politics and elections

• In the Netherlands, the fourth Rutte cabinet collapses amid disagreements over asylum applications. Prime Minister Mark Rutte announces that he will submit his resignation on Saturday. (BBC News)