Portal:Current events/2017 October 16

October 16, 2017 (Monday)

Armed conflicts and attacks

War in Somalia
- 14 October 2017 Mogadishu bombings
  - Somalis march to demonstrate their anger at the presence of al-Shabaab, the group believed to be responsible for a recent bombing attack. (BBC)
- Battle of Kirkuk (2017)
  - Iraqi government forces have captured key installations outside the disputed city of Kirkuk from Kurdish fighters. (BBC)
  - Concern over oil supplies from Iraq has pushed crude prices higher as the country's government continues its move against Kurdish forces. (BBC)
Moro conflict
- Battle of Marawi
  - Filipino ISIL leaders Isnilon Hapilon and Omar Maute are reportedly killed during the siege of Marawi. (ABS-CBN)
Spillover of the Syrian Civil War
- The Israeli Air Force (IAF) destroys a Syrian S-200 anti-aircraft battery near Damascus after it fired on its aircraft patrolling in Lebanese air space on a reconnaissance mission. (The Guardian)

Disasters and accidents

2017 Atlantic hurricane season
- Hurricane Ophelia (2017)
  - Schools and hospitals are closed in Ireland and Northern Ireland as the extratropical cyclone Ophelia is forecasted to make landfall on the island. (Reuters)
  - At least three people are killed in Ireland as over 360,000 homes lose power due to the remnants of Hurricane Ophelia. (BBC)
October 2017 Iberian wildfires
- Wildfires in Spain and Portugal kill at least 31 people, which were worsened by strong winds brought by Hurricane Ophelia. (BBC)

International relations

Law and crime

Reactions to the Panama Papers and Maltese general election, 2017
- The Maltese blogger and journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, whose corruption allegations against prime minister Joseph Muscat led him to call early elections, is killed by a car bomb near her home. (The Times of Malta) (Politico.eu)

2017 Spanish constitutional crisis
- In the mark of the 2017 Catalan independence referendum, two independentist leaders, Jordi Sànchez i Picanyol (President of ANC) and Jordi Cuixart i Navarro (President of Òmnium Cultural), are in pre-trial detention during the sedition trial. These events outraged the population of the State and the Government of Catalonia, causing a new escalation of tension between both governments. (Independent) (BBC News)

Science and technology

Gravitational-wave astronomy, GW170817
- Scientists announce that the LIGO and VIRGO gravitational wave observatories detected for the first time gravitational waves from the merger of two neutron stars. The event coincided with a short gamma ray burst GRB 170817A detected by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, leading to SSS17a, the immediate follow-up observations by the Hubble Space Telescope and numerous ground-based telescopes. This confirms the theory according to which neutron star mergers are the cause of at least some short gamma-ray bursts. (LIGO press release)(The Verge)
Wireless security, KRACK
- Researchers discover a vulnerability in the WPA2 protocol, leaving devices running Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, iOS, Android, Linux and OpenBSD operating systems vulnerable to attack over wireless connections. (Ars Technica)

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